Litquake 2024

Greg Sarris—tribal leader, scholar, teacher, and activist—has always kept stories, and storytelling, at the center of his ambitious life’s work. In his latest book, The Forgetters, he goes to the root of storytelling, in a loosely interwoven collection told by two “crow sisters” and inspired by creation myths of the Southern Pomo and Coast Miwok peoples of Northern California. Called “incandescent” by Publishers Weekly, these are stories that feel both timeless and firmly grounded, both enduring and urgent. Joining Sarris in conversation is author, journalist, and professor Leslie Carol Roberts, founder of the ECOPOESIS Project. The public program will be preceded at 5:30 by a reception for Book Club of California members and their guests. FREE; pre-registration required for either the in-person event or the livestream on Zoom
Book sales for this event coordinated by Medicine for Nightmares Booksstore.

Apocrypha is a poetry magazine and book publisher based out of North Beach wine bar and poetry bookstore Golden Sardine. Apocrypha’s mission is to honor poets and writers of the past while shining a spotlight on the current generation of poets. 2024 marks their first full-length book releases, How to Draw a Guillotine and 22 Madrigals. Lauren Elizabeth Parker will be joined by Apocrypha editors Brandon Loberg, Andrew Paul Nelson, Caitlin Skye Wild, and Scott M. Bird to discuss building an art community in the face of a grand legacy in an ever changing city, followed by a reading. FREE, $10-15 suggested donation

Part of Litquake’s Words Around the World
Co-presented with Museum of the African Diaspora

Join MoAD and Litquake for a conversation with Nigerian author Samuel Kọláwọlé as he discusses his debut novel, The Road to the Salt Sea, a searing exploration of the global migration crisis that moves from Nigeria to Libya to Italy, from an exciting new literary voice. This program is presented as part of MoAD's African Book Club series, dedicated to reading and promoting 21st-century literature by and about Africans. Kọláwọlé will be in conversation with author, professor, host, and co-founder of African Book Club, Faith Adiele. FREE, $10-15 suggested donation
Book sales for this event coordinated by The Museum of African Diaspora.

Co-presented with City Lights Booksellers & Publishers


In this latest novel-poem, Pulitzer Prize winner Forrest Gander takes us between his birthplace in the Mojave Desert and his current Northern California home, where tumultuous memories coalesce with the present. Gander, trained as a geologist, walked along much of the 800-mile San Andreas Fault toward the desolate town of his birth and found himself crossing permeable dimensions of time and space, correlating his emotions and the stricken landscape with other divisions: the fractures and folds underlying not only our country, but any self in its relationship with others. Join Forrest  in conversation with fellow poet Jane Hirshfield. FREE, $10-15 suggested donation
Book sales for this event coordinated by City Lights.

Part of Litquake’s Words Around the WorldCo-presented with Center for the Art of Translation/Two Lines Press

Translator Sophie Hughes describes translation as “a playful pursuit of equilibrium across an entire work, an exhilarating and, yes, joyful balancing act of loyalties: to sense, to significance, and to style.” Writer and translator May Huang who translates from Chinese; Sabrina Jaszi, a writer and translator working from Russian, Uzbek, and Ukrainian languages; and Japanese translator and professor Andrew Way Leong talk about their own “playful pursuits” and “balancing acts” in their translation practices and offer insight into their methods and projects. Moderated by Giovanna Lomanto. FREE, $10-15 suggested donation
Book sales for this event coordinated by Telegraph Hill Books.