Litquake 2024

Co-presented with Mechanics' Institute Library

Join Henry Hsu in conversation with Viola Buitoni, Maria Finn, Soleil Ho, Tu David Phu, and Linda Shiue for World Food Day as they delve into the profound connections between food, culture, justice, and healing. Panelists discuss how food writing advances food justice, sustainability, and equitable access to nutrition, and how narratives can drive change. They’ll also uncover the therapeutic aspects of food, considering how storytelling fosters healing and well-being. This event offers insight into the meaning that food adds to our lives, and the impact it has on our identities, societies, and health. Reception at 6:00PM, discussion at 6:30PM. $7.18 for MI members / $17.85 for nonmembers
Book sales for this event coordinated by Book Passage.

Co-presented with SF Sketchfest and SF IndieFest

Called “a sharp, surprising, and most welcome achievement” (Common Sense Media), the film Shortcomings—adapted by Adrian Tomine from his own graphic novel, directed by Randall Park, and filmed in part in Berkeley—is, among other things, a love letter to the movies. So where better to welcome Tomine back to the Bay than at the New Parkway, one of the East Bay’s best remaining movie theaters? In honor of the newly published screenplay, we’ll enjoy a screening of Shortcomings, followed by a conversation between Tomine and Andrew Farago, curator of the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco, and a book signing. Whether you’re a film buff, a comics fan, or both, grab some popcorn and join Litquake for a night at the movies! Doors at 6:00PM. $15–20 suggested donation
Book sales for this event coordinated by Pegasus Bookstore.

In Percival Everett’s novel Erasure and its film adaptation American Fiction, the character Monk hopes to write novels that represent the human experience, but he is advised by his publisher to “write something ‘Blacker.’” For Monk, the push and pull of artist and audience results in a rueful depiction of familial and professional lives, but at its heart, his story asks the question: what is a writer of color permitted to write about? In this panel, Pia Chatterjee, Vanessa Hua, Dominic Lim, and Yalitza Ferreras explore the question of writing beyond race in traditional publishing. FREE, $10–15 suggested donation
Book sales for this event coordinated by Clio's.

Co-presented with City Lights Booksellers & Publishers and 48 Hills

Home to the Beats, the modern environmental movement, the Hollywood dream machine, and a population of immense cultural diversity, California has—unsurprisingly—given rise to a literary culture defined by a distinctive Left Coast sensibility. This rich writerly ferment is sustained by an array of fiercely independent literary organizations devoted to the flourishing ecosystem of ideas and art. In this panel, leading voices from the Golden State's literary landscape—Heyday publisher Steve Wasserman, City Lights chief buyer Paul Yamazaki, Alta Journal’s digital editor Beth Spotswood, and Litquake co-founder Jack Boulware—explore and celebrate the cultural work that booksellers, publishers, literary journals, book clubs, and festivals do in service of California's community of readers, writers, and thinkers. Nastia Voynovskaya of KQED will lead the conversation. FREE, $10-15 suggested donation

Book sales for this event coordinated by City Lights Bookstore.

Part of Litquake’s Words Around the World
Sponsored by the Italian Cultural Institute of San Francisco and Center for the Art of Translation/Two Lines Press

Join Stefania Auci and Sara Marinelli as they discuss Stefania’s latest book, Fall of the Florios, the magnificent conclusion of the bestselling Florios trilogy—an international sensation based on a real-life family, published in 40 countries and adapted into the TV series Lions of Sicily for Disney+ and Hulu. In Fall of the Florios, Auci chronicles the decline of Italy’s most powerful and notorious family against the ever-shifting social landscape of 1890s-1930s Sicily. For more than 60 years, the Florios have reigned supreme, establishing the city of Palermo as a European beacon of commerce, and making Sicily one of Italy’s most powerful regions. But now fate has taken a turn. Join the author in bilingual conversation with USF writing professor Sara Marinelli! FREE, $10-15 suggested donation
Book sales for this event coordinated by Telegraph Hill Books. 

Part of Litquake’s Words Around the World
Sponsored by the Government of Ireland: Emigrant Support Programme, Culture Ireland, and Center for the Art of Translation/Two Lines Press
Co-presented with Irish Culture Bay Area

Join old friends Roddy Doyle and Dave Eggers as they discuss Doyle’s newest novel, a powerful, moving mother-daughter story filled with struggle and redemption by the Booker Prize winner. A follow up to 1997’s standout The Woman Who Walked into Doors, Doyle’s latest, The Women Behind the Door, finds Paula Spencer—mother, grandmother, widow, addict, survivor at sixty-six—finally starting to live her life. That is until her eldest, Nicola, turns up on her doorstep one day. Nicola is everything Paula wasn’t—independent, affluent, a loving wife and mother, a “success”—but now she is suddenly determined to leave it all behind. As Nicola gradually confides in Paula the secret that unleashed this moment of crisis, mother and daughter must untangle past memory, trauma, and revelations to confront what they mean to each other—and who they want to be. Doors at 6:30PM. $17 adv (book bundle avail.) / $20 door
Book sales for this event coordinated by Inkspell Books.

Co-presented with KQED Live! and KQED's Forum

Music is one of humanity’s oldest medicines. From ancient East Asia to the Ottoman Empire, from Europe to Africa and the pre-colonial Americas, many cultures have developed their own rich traditions for using sound and rhythm to ease suffering, promote healing, and calm the mind. In his latest work, not-so-typical neuroscientist and New York Times bestselling author Daniel J. Levitin (This Is Your Brain on Music) explores music’s curative powers through lively interviews with some of today’s most celebrated musicians, from Sting to Kent Nagano and Mari Kodama, interweaved with scientific case studies, music theory, and music history. Moderated by KQED Forum’s Alexis Madrigal and featuring a special live musical guest. Doors at 6:30PM. $25 (book bundle avail.)