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Thursday, October 10
 

10:15am PDT

Kidquake: Upper Elementary
Thursday October 10, 2024 10:15am - 12:15pm PDT
Sponsored by Mary A. Crocker Trust and the Sam Mazza Foundation
Book donations sponsored by Candlewick Press
Co-presented with San Francisco Public Library

Our acclaimed Kidquake programs for children’s books; authors, illustrators, poets, and bookmakers provide readings, discussions, and workshops designed to fuel kids’ imagination. This morning’s two sessions, for kids in 3rd to 5th grades, begin at 10:15AM and 11:15AM. Featuring authors Nidhi Chanani and Mae Respicio, plus an exciting draw-off between Chanani and illustrator Bo Lu, with workshops (by lottery) from Bettina Pauly, Jason Shiga, and 826 Valencia. Advance sign-up required, for in-person student groups at litquake.org/kidquake. FREE
Authors and Participants
avatar for Bo Lu

Bo Lu

Bo Lu moved from Taipei to Kansas at 7, knowing just three English words: "Apple," "Banana," and "so-so." Before she could speak, pictures were her friends. Now, as an author and illustrator, Bo creates stories where everyone can explore big feelings and feel less alone, even without... Read More →
avatar for Bettina Pauly

Bettina Pauly

Bettina Pauly studied at the Academy of Art University San Francisco in the Book Arts and Letterpress program and took many classes at SF Center for the Book before she became an instructor. Most of the time she is still the student, even when she teaches.
avatar for Jason Shiga

Jason Shiga

Jason Shiga was born and raised in Oakland. He has been drawing comics since 1996. His comics have a geeky side and often feature exciting uses of mathematics. Many are interactive, requiring the reader to make choices to move the story along. He has created many graphic novels, comic... Read More →
avatar for 826 Valencia

826 Valencia

826 Valencia is dedicated to supporting under-resourced students with their writing skills. In a podcasting field trip to 826 Valencia’s Tenderloin Center, kids visit King Carl’s Emporium for a one-of-a-kind experience. Staff and tutors guide students in writing and recording... Read More →
avatar for Nidhi Chanani

Nidhi Chanani

Nidhi Chanani is an award-winning author and illustrator. Her graphic novels include Pashmina, Jukebox the Shark Princess series and the Super Boba Cafe series. She also has a number of picture books including I will be fierce, Strong, Binny’s Diwali, What Will My Story Be and Quiet... Read More →
avatar for Mae Respicio

Mae Respicio

Mae Respicio is an award-winning author of middle grade novels including The House That Lou Built, which won the Asian/Pacific American Libraries Association Honor Award and was an NPR Best Book. Her titles have been on many “best books” and state reading lists and her most recent... Read More →
Thursday October 10, 2024 10:15am - 12:15pm PDT
San Francisco Public Library Koret Auditorium

7:00pm PDT

Booksellers Ball
Thursday October 10, 2024 7:00pm - 10:00pm PDT

Thank you to our generous Opening Night sponsors!
Bestsellers - Center for the Art of Translation/Two Lines Press, Club Fugazi
Staff Favorites - Alta Journal
Sidelines - Arion Press, Chronicle Books, UC Press, She Writes Press, Ten Speed Press
Beverages sponsored by Lunar Hard Seltzer and Saintsbury Wines

Our 2024 festival will kick off with the Booksellers Ball, a big opening night bash at historic Club Fugazi in North Beach. Here, the Litquake community will come together to fête San Francisco’s independent bookstores at a catered event with abundant libations and a sizzling lineup of literature-themed drag performances hosted by Joe Wadlington of Happy Endings, a.k.a Jubilee! With festive grooves from Bff.fm DJ Lead Teddy and a reading nook curated by 17 of San Francisco’s best independent booksellers, we invite you to kick up your heels with local literati and celebrate 25 years of Litquake! $75 / $100 to sponsor a bookseller

Participating booksellers include:
Adobe Books
Bird and Beckett
Black Bird Books
Book Castle
Books Inc.
Book Passage
The Booksmith
City Lights
Comix Experience
Dog Eared Books
Et al.
Fabulosa Books
Green Apple Books
Isotope Comics
Medicine for Nightmares
Silver Sprocket
Telegraph Hill Books
Authors and Participants
avatar for Vera Hannush

Vera Hannush

VERA! is the Bay Area drag grandpa, the father of the House of Pack with 33 children and a dozen grandchildren and great grandchildren, and a proud Armenian American king and cohost of the Rebel Kings of Oakland, longest running drag king show on the West Coast. They are also Creative... Read More →
avatar for Elsa Touche

Elsa Touche

Beloved San Francisco drag queen Elsa Touche was the winner of the 2019 California Gold pageant and was voted Favorite Drag Queen by the readers of the "SF Weekly" in 2020. She is currently a co-hostess of "The Monster Show," the Castro District's longest-running drag show. In addition... Read More →
avatar for Lead Teddy

Lead Teddy

Lead Teddy is DJ, Radio Host of Yours, Teddy BFF.fm in the Mission neighborhood and recovering conceptual artist living and working in San Francisco.
avatar for Joe Wadlington

Joe Wadlington

Joe Wadlington is a San Francisco writer, events producer, and drag queen. His writing has been published in the New Yorker, Vox, The San Francisco Chronicle, and the recent collection The Dreams I Dream: Letters to San Francisco. As his drag persona, Jubilee, he hosts the monthly... Read More →
Thursday October 10, 2024 7:00pm - 10:00pm PDT
Club Fugazi Experiences
  Performance
  • Age Limit 21+
 
Friday, October 11
 

10:15am PDT

Kidquake: Lower Elementary
Friday October 11, 2024 10:15am - 12:15pm PDT
Sponsored by Mary A. Crocker Trust and the Sam Mazza Foundation
Book donations sponsored by Candlewick Press
Co-presented with San Francisco Public Library

Our acclaimed Kidquake programs for children’s books; authors, illustrators, poets, and bookmakers provide readings, discussions, and workshops designed to fuel kids’ imagination. This morning’s two sessions, for kids in K to 2nd grades, begin at 10:15AM and 11:15AM. Featuring authors Minnie Phan and JaNay Brown-Wood, plus a hands-on drumming activity led by DRUMMM to get kids on their feet and making music, with workshops (by lottery) from Stephanie Lucianovic and Jamey Williams. Advance sign-up required, for in-person student groups at litquake.org/kidquake. FREE
Authors and Participants
avatar for Jeni Swerdlow / DRUMMM

Jeni Swerdlow / DRUMMM

Jeni Swerdlow is a renowned drum circle facilitator and art therapist, known for her transformative work in building connections through the power of rhythm. As the founder and “chief rhythm activator” of DRUMMM Rhythmic Events, she has dedicated her career to creating inclusive... Read More →
avatar for Stephanie Lucianovic

Stephanie Lucianovic

"Stephanie V.W. Lucianovic writes books in the San Francisco Bay Area surrounded by a few kids, a few cats, and one husband.She is the author of SUFFERING SUCCOTASH: A PICKY EATER'S QUEST TO UNDERSTAND WHY WE HATE THE FOODS WE HATE; THE END OF SOMETHING WONDERFUL; HELLO, STAR; THE... Read More →
avatar for Jamey Williams

Jamey Williams

Jamey Williams (He/Him) has been teaching spoken word poetry workshops in K–12 schools since 2016, which is why most people know him as an educator. However, Jamey is also a community organizer and internationally recognized performer. In 2017, after winning the Compliment Death... Read More →
avatar for JaNay Brown-Wood

JaNay Brown-Wood

JaNay Brown-Wood, PhD, is an award-winning and New York Times Best-selling children’s author, poet, and educator. She is the author of over twenty books including Imani’s Moon, the Where in the Garden books, the Simone Biles Little Golden Book, Jam, Too and the Scholastic chapter... Read More →
avatar for Minnie Phan

Minnie Phan

Minnie Phan is an illustrator and writer based in Oakland, CA. Her work has been featured by Google, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the San Francisco Public Library, for which she illustrated a citywide reading campaign in 2022. She is the illustrator of several picture... Read More →
Friday October 11, 2024 10:15am - 12:15pm PDT
San Francisco Public Library Koret Auditorium

6:00pm PDT

The Literature of War and Peace: A Symposium, Part One
Friday October 11, 2024 6:00pm - 8:00pm PDT

Co-presented with Feldman's Books

Feldman’s Books hosts veteran and author Joe Lamb along with members of "Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace," a community led by writer Maxine Hong Kingston. This event, the first part of Feldman’s symposium on the Literature of War and Peace, will feature readings from volume II of their collection of creative works by veterans. Readers include Maddie Aliah, Bonnie Bonner, Sean McLain Brown, Bob Golling, Geneffa Jahan, Martin Lesinski, and Zoe Sameth.This event will feature readings from their collection of creative works by veterans, which reflect on war’s impact and explore literature's role in the healing process. Their readings will be accompanied by a series of musical performances from artists of Redtone Records. Join us to engage with powerful narratives, support our veterans, and witness the transformative power of creative expression! FREE, $20 suggested donation
Book sales for this event coordinated by Feldman's Books
Authors and Participants
avatar for Martin Lesinski

Martin Lesinski

Returning from Vietnam permanently disabled, I began using poetry and photography to explore my identity as a disabled veteran. However, believing I needed to choose between photography and writing, photography became my livelihood for most of my adult life. Several years ago, I returned... Read More →
avatar for Joe Lamb

Joe Lamb

Joe Lamb, founder of the Borneo Project, is a writer, activist, and arborist living in Berkeley, California. His poetry and essays have appeared in Earth Island Journal, The Sun, Caliban, Wind, Orion, Nostos, and other magazines. His work is also included in the anthologies The Rag... Read More →
avatar for Bonnie Bonner

Bonnie Bonner

Eighteen years ago, for our first anthology, Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace, I wrote the afterword.It’s time to start at the beginning. A cautionary tale, this is not a record of the past, simply a recollection of incidents and events during a challenging era. Like war stories... Read More →
avatar for Madeline Aliah

Madeline Aliah

Madeline Aliah is an 18-year-old trans-fem. She is a writer and an orator, who seeks to bring minoritized people together and educate people on our daily struggles. Her debut chapbook, “This is My Body: Poems by a Teen Transfem” was published when she was seventeen. She has since... Read More →
avatar for Geneffa Jahan

Geneffa Jahan

Geneffa Jahan is a woman of South Asian Muslim descent whose diasporic journey has taken her family from North India to East Africa, London (where she was born), Canada (where she was raised), and California (where she has resided since 1998). She has taught English at Cabrillo College... Read More →
avatar for Bob Golling

Bob Golling

Born in Oakland, Bob Golling is a third generation Californian. His grandfather served in the U.S. Navy during WW1, his father served in the U.S. Navy during WW2, and he is a U.S. Navy veteran of the American War in Vietnam.A retired telephone engineer, he resides with hisdear wife... Read More →
avatar for Zoe Sameth

Zoe Sameth

Zoe Sheli Sameth, writer, poet, playwright and songwriter discovered at an early age her love of writing, winning awards for her fiction short stories starting in junior high. Her one-woman play, “Taste of Enlightenment”, about her experiences living in Sri Lanka during the start... Read More →
avatar for Sean Mclain Brown

Sean Mclain Brown

Sean Mclain Brown is a disabled Marine Corps veteran. He taught writing at De Anza College and Western Connecticut State University. His poetry and fiction has appeared in more than 50 journals, including San Francisco Magazine, The San Francisco Chronicle, EM, First Intensity, Fourteen... Read More →
Friday October 11, 2024 6:00pm - 8:00pm PDT
Feldman's Books

7:00pm PDT

Paola Ramos on Defectors: The Rise of the Latino Far Right
Friday October 11, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT

Co-presented with 48 Hills and KALW

On the eve of this year’s hugely consequential presidential election, award-winning journalist Paola Ramos sheds light on a misunderstood and underestimated electorate: the growing number of Latino voters supporting conservative candidates and policies. Using a combination of deep reporting, effective storytelling, and probing yet compassionate questions, Ramos unpacks the combination of race, identity, and political trauma that has shaped this rightward shift—and urges politicians and activists alike not to ignore the power of this group to shape American politics. Noted Bay Area journalist and interviewer Angie Coiro will join Ramos for this critical conversation. FREE, $10–15 suggested donation.

Book sales for this event coordinated by Bookshop West Portal
Moderators
avatar for Angie Coiro

Angie Coiro

Angie Coiro is an award-winning radio journalist and on-stage interviewer. Her decades of experience have established her as a top-tier media personality and moderator. After fifteen years at KQED Radio and Television, she hosted the syndicated show, In Deep with Angie Coiro, until... Read More →
Authors and Participants
avatar for Paola Ramos

Paola Ramos

Paola Ramos is an author and Emmy-Award-winning journalist. She is a contributor for Telemundo News and MSNBC, where she is the host of “Field Report.” Ramos is a former Correspondent for Vice News.Prior to her career in journalism, Ramos was the Deputy Director of Hispanic Media... Read More →
Friday October 11, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT
KALW

7:00pm PDT

Foglifter Issue Launch Party
Friday October 11, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT

Foglifter—created by and for LGBTQ+ writers and readers—continues the San Francisco Bay Area’s tradition of groundbreaking queer and trans writing, with an emphasis on publishing those multi-marginalized (BIPOC, youth, elders, and people with disabilities). Join us for the launch of Foglifter’s Fall 2024 issue, celebrating our vibrant 9.2 edition with a dazzling night of literary readings. Explore new voices as our featured writers bring their work to life. Limited print copies of the issue will be available for purchase. Featuring Amal Amer, Amalee Beattie, sienna fereshteh, Eden Nobile, and more! Doors at 6:45PM. FREE, $10–15 suggested donation

Authors and Participants
avatar for sienna fereshteh

sienna fereshteh

sienna fereshteh (they/them) is a multiracial, Iranian-American artist based in the South Bay Area. They believe that their fundamental role as a poet is to RESIST the insidious violence of erasure, to pay witness to humanity in its struggle for collective liberation—such that our... Read More →
avatar for Amal Amer

Amal Amer

Amal Amer (they/them) is a transdisciplinary artist, writer, and facilitator of SWANA descent currently based in California. Through visual media, performance, and collective storytelling, they explore the tension between rootedness and movement in diaspora. Amer’s work reinterprets... Read More →
avatar for Amalee Bea

Amalee Bea

Amalee Bea (she/they) is a Blackqueer writer, artist, and curator of warm communal spaces based in Oakland, California (Ohlone Land). Their written work spans experimental poetry, nonfiction, science fiction, and prose. Her practice also includes painting, installation, and conceptual... Read More →
avatar for Eden Nobile

Eden Nobile

Eden Nobile (he/they) is a trans writer originally from the Connecticut river valley, pursuing an MFA in poetry at St. Mary's College of California. Their writing life is highly influenced by ecology, possibly the long-term effects of watching Animal Planet as a youth. Nobile is a... Read More →
Friday October 11, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT
Strut

7:00pm PDT

An Evening with Booker Prize Winner Paul Lynch
Friday October 11, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT

Sponsored by the Government of Ireland: Emigrant Support Programme, Culture Ireland, and Center for the Art of Translation
Co-presented with Irish Culture Bay Area

If the accolades for Irish writer Paul Lynch’s Prophet Song are any indication, the novel is no less than required reading for our turbulent times. Awarded the 2023 Booker Prize, Lynch’s fifth novel recounts in exacting, all-too-plausible detail the inexorable descent of Ireland’s liberal democracy into authoritarian rule. Booker Prize chair Esi Edugyan called the novel “soul-shattering and true,” and noted that readers “will not soon forget its warnings.” Join us for one of Lynch’s few North American events in honor of the paperback release of Prophet Song; he will be in conversation with Irish writer Ethel Rohan, author most recently of the novel Sing, I. FREE, $10–15 suggested donation.
Book sales for this event coordinated by Mrs.Dalloway's Bookstore of Literary and Garden Arts

This event will also be live-streamed and videorecorded for those unable to attend in person. Mrs. Dalloway's Books in Berkeley will have extra signed copies of Prophet Song available for purchase after the event.
Moderators
avatar for Ethel Rohan

Ethel Rohan

San Francisco–based Irish author Ethel Rohan is an award-winning essayist, novelist, and short story writer. Most recently, her short story collection In the Event of Contact won the Dzanc Prize, the Eric Hoffer Prize, and a Gold Independent Publisher Book Award for Best European... Read More →
Authors and Participants
avatar for Paul Lynch

Paul Lynch

Paul Lynch is the award-winning author of five novels — Prophet Song, Beyond the Sea, Grace, The Black Snow, and Red Sky in Morning. His most recent novel, Prophet Song, won the 2023 Booker Prize and was shortlisted for the Strega European Award and the A Post Irish Novel of the... Read More →
Friday October 11, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT
Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley

7:30pm PDT

Sweet and Lowdown: Poets at the Bar
Friday October 11, 2024 7:30pm - 9:00pm PDT

Sponsored by St. Mary’s College of California’s MFA Program

This celebration of poetry collates a half-dozen poets’ stylings, live on our darkest, dankest stage. Featuring multi-hyphenate award winners Kim Addonizio, Sarah Ghazal Ali, Charif Shanahan, Zeina Hashem Beck, and Danusha Lamérisfor a lurid evening of ebullient verse. Doors at 6:30PM. $12 adv / $15 door.
Book sales for this event coordinated by Dog Eared Books
Authors and Participants
avatar for Kim Addonizio

Kim Addonizio

Kim Addonizio is the author of over a dozen books of prose and poetry. Her latest poetry collection is Exit Opera. Her memoir-in-essays, Bukowski in a Sundress, was published by Penguin. Addonizio’s work has been translated into several languages and honored with fellowships from... Read More →
avatar for Danusha Laméris

Danusha Laméris

Danusha Laméris is the author of three poetry collections including Blade by Blade (2024, Copper Canyon Press). Winner of the 2021 Northern California Book Award in Poetry, she is on the faculty of Pacific University’s Low-Residency MFA program.
avatar for Sarah Ghazal Ali

Sarah Ghazal Ali

Sarah Ghazal Ali is the author of Theophanies, which was selected as the Editors' Choice for the 2022 Alice James Award. She holds an MFA in poetry from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and is an Assistant Professor of English at Macalester College. Winner of The Sewanee Review... Read More →
avatar for Zeina Hashem Beck

Zeina Hashem Beck

Zeina Hashem Beck is a Lebanese poet. Her third poetry collection, O, won the 2023 Arab American Book Award for Poetry and was named a Best Book of the Year by Literary Hub and The New York Public Library. Her previous full-length collections are Louder than Hearts, winner of the... Read More →
avatar for Charif Shanahan

Charif Shanahan

Charif Shanahan is the author of two collections of poetry: Trace Evidence, which won the Lambda Literary Award for Gay Poetry, the Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry, and a Whiting Award, and was Longlisted for the National Book Award for Poetry, the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, and... Read More →
Friday October 11, 2024 7:30pm - 9:00pm PDT
Make-Out Room
  Poetry
  • Age Limit 21+
 
Saturday, October 12
 

12:30pm PDT

Behind the Veil: Ghostwriting 101
Saturday October 12, 2024 12:30pm - 1:30pm PDT

It’s time to take an art form that’s secretive by design (it’s right there in the name!) out from the shadows. A trio of professional ghosts—Felice Laverne, Hilary Swanson, and Annie Tucker—will share the challenges and rewards of their craft, as well as tips for breaking into the biz. Is the work glamorous, thankless, or both? What kinds of ethical questions do ghostwriters encounter? How can a ghostwriter park their ego—and preserve their composure—when assuming the voice of a public (and sometimes very famous) persona? This freewheeling yet practical conversation will be moderated by Brooke Warner, publisher of SheWrites Press. FREE, $10-15 suggested donation


Moderators
avatar for Brooke Warner

Brooke Warner

Brooke Warner is publisher of She Writes Press and SparkPress, president of Warner Coaching Inc., and author of Write On, Sisters!, Green-light Your Book, What's Your Book?, as well as three books on memoir. Warner teaches memoir intensives online and in person, and publishes around... Read More →
Authors and Participants
avatar for Felice Laverne

Felice Laverne

Felice Laverne is a ghostwriter who helps high-profile celebrities, leaders, healers, influencers, political figures and doers turn their messages into powerful brand assets and engagingly moving narratives. A seasoned storyteller with a deeply involved career in the publishing industry... Read More →
avatar for Hilary Swanson

Hilary Swanson

Hilary Swanson is a multiple New York Times bestselling ghostwriter and former Senior Editor at HarperCollins. She has collaborated on acclaimed memoirs, narrative nonfiction and personal development books including Over the Top by Jonathan Van Ness, BRAVE by Rose McGowan, and One... Read More →
avatar for Annie Tucker

Annie Tucker

Annie Tucker is the founder of the Understory Writers' Conference and has written and edited more than eight hundred books. She currently specializes in ghostwriting memoirs and other works of nonfiction for clients all over the world. Previously, she was the managing editor of Juxtapoz... Read More →
Saturday October 12, 2024 12:30pm - 1:30pm PDT
San Francisco Public Library Saroyan Gallery

2:00pm PDT

Radical Creative Womanist Workshopping and Reflection in Community
Saturday October 12, 2024 2:00pm - 3:00pm PDT

A panel featuring Ellen Barry, Andrea Canaan, Lisa Clapper, Natalie Devora, Juli C. Lasselle, Jessica Millett and Suma Nagaraj will discuss and engage the audience in a brief writing exercise through the workshopping model Radical Creative Womanist Workshopping and Reflection in Community (RCWWRC). An antidote to competitive traditional workshopping models, the spirit of RCWWRC is for writers to bring a writing work to life with the support of a writing community. FREE, $10-15 suggested donation
Authors and Participants
avatar for Ellen Barry

Ellen Barry

Ellen Barry is a social justice activist who is deeply committed to racial justice and the end of mass incarceration. In 1978, she founded Legal Services for Prisoners with Children (LSPC), a non-profit organization which has advocated on behalf of incarcerated parents, their children... Read More →
avatar for Andrea Canaan

Andrea Canaan

Andrea Ruth Ransom Canaan, MSW, MFA, is a contributor to This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by Radical Women of Color, edited by Cherrie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldua with her lauded essay, “Brownness.”Canaan is the founder of A Writer’s Life (AWL), providing skills and support... Read More →
avatar for Lisa Clapper

Lisa Clapper

The Lisa Clapper is a poet, spoken word artiste, author, brand maven, and positive energy Yay advocate with over 3 decades of storytelling and brand strategy experience. By heart and soul, she is a writer and storyteller who loves the written word and comes alive voicing the spoken... Read More →
avatar for Natalie Devora

Natalie Devora

Natalie Devora is an activist on issues related to albinism. Devora is the author of Black Girl, White Skin: A Life in Stories. She was senior editor for Aché: A Journal for Lesbians of African Descent. She has been featured on NPR’s Code Switch and The Top Of Mind podcast. Devora... Read More →
avatar for Juli C. Lasselle

Juli C. Lasselle

Originally from Berkeley, CA, Juli C. Lasselle holds an MFA from the University of  San Francisco and has been published in The Brooklyn Review, The Sun, Flash Fiction Magazine, and forthcoming in 2025 in the Cimarron Review. You can find her in the garden, hiking with her dog, or... Read More →
avatar for Jessica Millett

Jessica Millett

Jessica Millett is a fearless writer, creative thinker, and collector of words. When she is not navigating the minutiae of corporate life, she writes children’s books and dreams about the illustrations that will bring them to life. Millett has written four children’s books including... Read More →
avatar for Suma Nagaraj

Suma Nagaraj

Suma Nagaraj is a writer, editor, website designer, and content consultant with an MFA in creative writing from USFCA. She offers manuscript editing, content writing, web design, and social media strategy/consultancy services. Nagaraj is currently working on a book of short stories... Read More →
Saturday October 12, 2024 2:00pm - 3:00pm PDT
San Francisco Public Library Saroyan Gallery

3:30pm PDT

Black Poetics, Black Worldbuilding
Saturday October 12, 2024 3:30pm - 4:30pm PDT

Co-presented with Sistah Sci-fi

Co-moderated by Lyn Patterson and Vincente Perez, this session considers Black poetics as a world-building phenomenon. In the lineage of Black poets like Henry Dumas and June Jordan, panelists Ashia Ajani, Darius Simpson and Nefertiti Asanti write against the Human, write towards Black eco-poetics, and write as political education to form critical practices of viewing, listening, and being. Hear how they use poetry to dissect and analyze the worlds of white supremacy, settler colonialism, and heteropatriarchy, charting a path toward alternative worlds and possibilities. FREE, $10-15 suggested donation
Moderators
avatar for Lyn Patterson

Lyn Patterson

Lyn Patterson is a storyteller and visual artist who lives in Oakland, CA. She is a deeply invigorated poet, specifically inspired to write about Black diaspora and those who have been systematically marginalized in society as a means of empowering future generations with their stories... Read More →
avatar for Vincente Perez

Vincente Perez

Vincente Perez is a poet and scholar working at the intersection of poetry, Hip-Hop, and digital culture. He is a PhD Candidate in the Performance Studies program and a Poetry and the Senses Fellow at UC Berkeley. His debut poetry chapbook, Other Stories to Tell Ourselves, won an... Read More →
Authors and Participants
avatar for Ashia Ajani

Ashia Ajani

Ashia Ajani is a sunshower, a glass bead, an overripe nectarine from Denver, CO, Queen City of the Plains and the unceded territory of Cheyenne, Ute and Arapaho peoples now living on unceded Ohlone land. They are an African American Studies lecturer at UC Berkeley and a Climate Resilient... Read More →
avatar for Darius Simpson

Darius Simpson

Darius Simpson is a New Afrikan writer, educator, performer, and skilled living room dancer from Akron, Ohio. Much like the means of production, he believes poetry must be used for the positive social, political, and economic development of the majority of society. He aims to inspire... Read More →
avatar for Nefertiti Asanti

Nefertiti Asanti

Nefertiti Asanti is a poet and cultural worker from the Bronx. Asanti is a recipient of fellowships and residencies from the Watering Hole, Lambda Literary, Anaphora Arts, Winter Tangerine, Museum of the African Diaspora, PEN America, and VONA. Asanti’s debut chapbook fist of wind... Read More →
Saturday October 12, 2024 3:30pm - 4:30pm PDT
San Francisco Public Library Saroyan Gallery

7:30pm PDT

Irregular Feedback: Writers on Music
Saturday October 12, 2024 7:30pm - 9:00pm PDT

"Music is a refuge for those who cannot find solace in the world around them." Join cultural critic and essayist Micheal Foulk (Queer Film Theory 101) for an evening of writers writing about music! Inspired by the music criticism and archival work of writer Hanif Abdurraqib, Irregular Feedback is a literary deep dive into our favorite albums, genres, and musical artists of the past 60 years. Featuring Hieu Minh Nguyen, Phoebe Cakes, Safia Elhillo, José Vadi, and Anna Held. Doors at 6:30PM. $12 adv / $15 door.
Book sales for this event coordinated by Dog Eared Books
Authors and Participants
avatar for Micheal Foulk

Micheal Foulk

Micheal Foulk is a non-binary queer comedian, writer, and programmer thriving in Oakland, California. They host a weekly podcast called I'm Not Busy where they discuss anything and everything except what's currently going on with their comedy partner Vanessa Gonzalez. Foulk has been... Read More →
avatar for Hieu Minh Nguyen

Hieu Minh Nguyen

HIEU MINH NGUYEN is a queer Vietnamese American poet from the Twin Cities, he is the author of two collections of poetry,This Way to the Sugar (Write Bloody Publishing, 2014) and Not Here (Coffee House Press, 2018), which went on to win the Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry from the... Read More →
avatar for Anna Held

Anna Held

Anna Held is a writer and editor based in San Francisco. Her personal essays and journalism have been featured in The Cut, Buzzfeed, Runner’s World, Bustle, Romper, and Vox, among other publications. She has edited for Wirecutter and is a features editor at The Rumpus. A prolific... Read More →
avatar for José Vadi

José Vadi

José Vadi is the author of Chipped: Writing from a Skateboarder’s Lens and Inter State: Essays from California. His work has been featured by the Paris Review, The Atlantic, Free Skate Magazine, Alta Journal of California, and the Yale Review.
avatar for Phoebe Cakes

Phoebe Cakes

Phoebe Cakes (She/Her in drag, indifferent out of Drag) is an award-winning dilettante, polyamorous renaissance woman, and misunderstood interdisciplinary storyteller. A poet at heart, hallmarks of her style include referentiality, irreverence, sex-positivity, and melodrama. Phoebe... Read More →
avatar for Safia Elhillo

Safia Elhillo

Sudanese by way of D.C., Safia Elhillo is the author of Girls That Never Die, The January Children, Home Is Not a Country, and Bright Red Fruit, and co-editor of the anthology Halal If You Hear Me. Winner of the Sillerman First Book Prize for African Poets, the California Book Award... Read More →
Saturday October 12, 2024 7:30pm - 9:00pm PDT
Make-Out Room
  Storytelling
  • Age Limit 21+

8:00pm PDT

Poetry Nap: The Enchanting Secret of the Opalescent Moon
Saturday October 12, 2024 8:00pm - 9:30pm PDT
Float away on a brand new Poetry Nap voyage—The Enchanting Secret of the Opalescent Moon—with poetry and music woven into an immersive tale of whimsy, curiosity, and adoration guided by Lady and Lord Dosis, time voyagers of the dream world. Delight in a cozy, celestial indoors “nap” under the visual marvels of the Chabot Space & Science Center’s full-dome Planetarium. Unlike other naps of the past, experience “Peek Moments” by opening your eyes on occasion to Chabot Planetarium’s visual wonders. We promise you are in for an otherworldly treat! If you like, bring a pillow, blanket, and dress in pajamas or robes. Poetry Nap is a WYALD.art. $30 early bird / $35 adv / $40 door ($5 off online w code: LITQUAKE)
Authors and Participants
avatar for Robert and Jodie Wyald

Robert and Jodie Wyald

WYALD Arts and Ritual Theatre is a Bay Area multimedia theater and arts production company dedicated to pushing the boundaries of storytelling through innovative performances that combine elements of theater, music, and visual arts. Led by Robert and Jodie Wyald, the company seeks... Read More →
Saturday October 12, 2024 8:00pm - 9:30pm PDT
Chabot Space & Science Center Planetarium

9:00pm PDT

SF Neo-Futurists Present: The Infinite Wrench, Litquake Edition
Saturday October 12, 2024 9:00pm - 10:00pm PDT

The critically-acclaimed SF Neo-Futurists will perform a special one-night Litquake edition of their flagship show The Infinite Wrench, named one of “22 San Francisco things everyone must do” by the SF Chronicle! The show features 30 original short plays in 60 minutes written by a diverse ensemble of local Bay Area artists, featuring personal storytelling, poetry, dance, audience participation, and more. Doors at 8:45PM. $16 adv / $13 (+ roll of a die) door
Authors and Participants
avatar for Krys Seli

Krys Seli

Krys Seli is an artist and will continue to be.
avatar for Sam Bertken

Sam Bertken

Sam Bertken is a cartoonist and visual designer based in the Bay Area. He has performed with the San Francisco Neo-Futurists since 2019. You can find his comics, illustrations and other work at his website.
Saturday October 12, 2024 9:00pm - 10:00pm PDT
447 Minna St
 
Sunday, October 13
 

12:30pm PDT

FilBookFest Keynote with Elaine Castillo
Sunday October 13, 2024 12:30pm - 12:45pm PDT
Co-presented with Philippine American Writers and Artists, Inc. (PAWA) and San Francisco Public Library

In her latest book, How to Read Now: Essays, Elaine Castillo explores the "politics and ethics of reading, and insists that we are capable of something better: a more engaged relationship not just with our fiction and our art, but with our buried and entangled histories." In this year’s FilBookFest keynote, Castillo will discuss her ambitious hopes for our reading culture.

The Filipino American International Book Festival is the largest and only international book festival in the US featuring Filipinx and Filipinix American authors and books. This year's theme is Kaisá't Kasama: Celebrating Our Diverse Voices and Solidarity. FREE
Authors and Participants
avatar for Elaine Castillo

Elaine Castillo

Elaine Castillo, named one of “30 of the Planet’s Most Exciting Young People” by the Financial Times, was born and raised in the Bay Area. Her debut novel, America Is Not the Heart, was a finalist for numerous prizes including the Elle Big Book Award, the Center for Fiction... Read More →
Sunday October 13, 2024 12:30pm - 12:45pm PDT
San Francisco Public Library Koret Auditorium

12:30pm PDT

ZYZZYVA Movie Matinee with Ingrid Rojas Contreras and Kaveh Akbar
Sunday October 13, 2024 12:30pm - 2:30pm PDT
Co-presented with The Roxie , ZYZZYVA, and SF IndieFest

The next edition of ZYZZYVA Movie Night—the new San Francisco film series featuring a noted writer presenting a favorite film—marks its first matinee. At the beloved Roxie Theatre in the Mission District, poet and novelist Kaveh Akbar (Martyr!) will discuss Abbas Kiarostami's 1987 film Where Is the Friend's House? in conversation with Ahmad Kiarostami, Roxie board member and the director’s son. Co-hosted by acclaimed author Ingrid Rojas Contreras and ZYZZYVA editor Oscar Villalon. Doors at 12:00PM for book sales/signing. $16

Book sales for this event coordinated by Dog Eared Books
Moderators
avatar for Ahmad Kiarostami

Ahmad Kiarostami

Ahmad Kiarostami is the president of the Kiarostami Foundation, a nonprofit based in San Francisco. Before the Kiarostami Foundation, he co-founded Koantum, a platform to teach science to elementary school students in the United States, and founded Fotomoto (acquired in 2012) where... Read More →
avatar for Oscar Villalon

Oscar Villalon

Oscar Villalon is the editor of ZYZZYVA, winner of a Whiting Literary Magazine Prize in 2022. His writing has been published in Stranger’s Guide, Freeman’s, The Believer, Virginia Quarterly Review, Lit Hub, and elsewhere. He has served as a juror for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction... Read More →
Authors and Participants
avatar for Ingrid Rojas Contreras

Ingrid Rojas Contreras

 INGRID ROJAS CONTRERAS was born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia. Her memoir The Man Who Could Move Clouds was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award, and National Book Critics Circle Award, and her debut novel Fruit of the Drunken Tree was the silver medal winner... Read More →
avatar for Kaveh Akbar

Kaveh Akbar

Kaveh Akbar's first novel, Martyr!, was published in 2024. His poems have appear in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Paris Review, Best American Poetry, and elsewhere. He is the author of two poetry collections—Pilgrim Bell and Calling a Wolf a Wolf—in addition to a chapbook... Read More →
Sunday October 13, 2024 12:30pm - 2:30pm PDT
Roxie Theater

1:00pm PDT

How Mighty Is the Small, Independent Press?
Sunday October 13, 2024 1:00pm - 2:00pm PDT

Co-presented with 48 Hills

Moderator Tania Malik and panelists Nina Schuyler, Grace Loh Prasad, and Carol LaHines will share a frank discussion about their experiences being traditionally published by small, independent presses. Following a reading, they will delve into the ins and outs of the small press publication process, as well as the cultural impact of smaller presses taking chances on voices that bigger presses find too risky or hard to classify. FREE, $10-15 suggested donation
Moderators
avatar for Tania Malik

Tania Malik

Tania Malik is the author of the novel Hope You Are Satisfied which was recommended by NPR and named one of the best espionage novels of 2023 by CrimeReads. Her previous novel Three Bargains received a Publishers Weekly Starred review and a Booklist Starred review. Her work has... Read More →
Authors and Participants
avatar for Carol LaHines

Carol LaHines

Carol LaHines’s debut novel, Someday Everything Will All Make Sense, was a finalist for the Nilsen Prize for a First Novel and an American Fiction Award. Her second novel, The Vixen Amber Halloway, was published in June 2024. Her fiction has appeared in journals including Fence... Read More →
avatar for Grace Loh Prasad

Grace Loh Prasad

Grace Loh Prasad is the author of The Translator’s Daughter, a debut memoir about living between languages, navigating loss, and the search for belonging. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Literary Hub, Longreads, Guernica, Brevity, The Offing, Oldster Magazine, KHÔRA... Read More →
avatar for Nina Schuyler

Nina Schuyler

Nina Schuyler's collection, In This Ravishing World, won the W.S. Porter Prize and the Prism Prize for Climate Literature. Her novel, Afterword, won the Foreword INDIES Book of the Year for Literary and Science Fiction and the PenCraft Seasonal Book Award for Fiction-Science Fiction... Read More →
Sunday October 13, 2024 1:00pm - 2:00pm PDT
San Francisco Public Library Saroyan Gallery

2:00pm PDT

Mayor of the Tenderloin: Del Seymour's Fight to End Homelessness in San Francisco
Sunday October 13, 2024 2:00pm - 3:30pm PDT

Co-presented with 48 Hills and KALW

Join journalist Alison Owings and Del Seymour, who overcame 18 years of homelessness and addiction to become one of the most respected advocates in San Francisco, as they slip behind the cold statistics and sensationalism. Mayor of Tenderloin reveals a harrowing and life-affirming portrait of Seymour, who, once housed and sober, started Tenderloin Walking Tours and later Code Tenderloin, the remarkable organization teaching homeless, recovering addicts, sex workers, dealers, ex-felons, and other marginalized people how to get and keep a job. Special performance inspired by Del’s advocacy and life by Skywatchers, the multi-disciplinary, mixed-ability ensemble that creates work amplifying the Tenderloin neighborhood’s stories. FREE, $10-15 suggested donation

Book sales for this event coordinated by Medicine for Nightmares.
Authors and Participants
avatar for Del Seymour

Del Seymour

A veteran and compassionate neighbor, Del Seymour has been a member of the Tenderloin community for the past 30 years. He is a leader in the neighborhood, working closely with Glide Memorial Church, St. Antony’s, and Swords to Plowshares. He is also co-chair of San Francisco's Local... Read More →
avatar for Alison Owings

Alison Owings

Alison Owings, trained as a journalist, wrote for network and logal television news before pursuing oral histories of stereotyped people. Her first book Frauen / German Women Recall the Third Reich, was a NYTimes Notable Book of the Year. It was followed by Hey, Waitress! The USA... Read More →
avatar for Skywatchers

Skywatchers

Founded in 2011, Skywatchers is a radical cross-cultural, intergenerational, and mixed-ability community arts collaboration in San Francisco's Tenderloin district (TL). In the streets, in urban plazas, and on the stages of theaters large and small, we co-create rigorous works of art... Read More →
Sunday October 13, 2024 2:00pm - 3:30pm PDT
KALW

2:30pm PDT

Is Nonfiction Literature? Exploring the Intersection of Fact and Art
Sunday October 13, 2024 2:30pm - 3:30pm PDT

Although memoir and narrative nonfiction continue to thrive as genres, the writers of such works tend to be seen as something other than artists—reporters, survivors, historians, and social thinkers, yes, but not artists. Can works driven by facts aspire to true artistry, or does the burden of representing reality inherently place it in a different category? Together, writers Tom Barbash, Lindsey Crittenden, Glen David Gold, and Rachel Howard, along with moderator Jason Roberts, explore these worthwhile questions. FREE, $10-15 suggested donation
Moderators
avatar for Jason Roberts

Jason Roberts

Jason Roberts is a writer of fiction and nonfiction. His newest book, Every Living Thing: The Great and Deadly Race to Know All Life, came out in April. His previous book, A Sense of the World, was a national bestseller and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. A... Read More →
Authors and Participants
avatar for Tom Barbash

Tom Barbash

Tom Barbash is the author of four books as well as reviews, essays, and articles for publications such as Men’s Journal, ESPN The Magazine, McSweeney’s, Tin House, the Believer, Narrative Magazine, ZYZZYVA, and The New York Times. His non-Fiction book, On Top of the World, was... Read More →
avatar for Lindsey Crittenden

Lindsey Crittenden

Lindsey Crittenden is the author of The View From Below: Stories and The Water Will Hold You, a memoir ("exquisitely written," Publishers Weekly starred review). Her personal essays have appeared in Cimarron Review, the Washington Post, the New York Times, Best American Spiritual... Read More →
avatar for Glen David Gold

Glen David Gold

Glen David Gold is the author of the international best-selling novels Carter Beats the Devil and Sunnyside, and the memoir I Will Be Complete. He's written comic books for Marvel, DC and Dark Horse, and composed essays and short stories for Playboy, McSweeney's, Wired, Zyzzyva, and... Read More →
avatar for Rachel Howard

Rachel Howard

Rachel Howard is the author of The Risk of Us, a novel, and The Lost Night, a memoir about her father's unsolved murder. A 2024 National Endowment for the Arts literature fellow, she has published fiction and nonfiction in ZYZZYVA, StoryQuarterly, the Los Angeles Review of Books... Read More →
Sunday October 13, 2024 2:30pm - 3:30pm PDT
San Francisco Public Library Saroyan Gallery

3:30pm PDT

Double Feature: Film Noir/Comics Noir
Sunday October 13, 2024 3:30pm - 9:30pm PDT
Co-presented with SF IndieFest

The October dusk falls early . . . which makes this the perfect time to explore that duskiest genre, noir, through the lens of both film and comics. In this double feature movie and literature extravaganza, Robert Mailer Anderson (My Fairy Godfather) and Peter Hoey (In Perpetuity) will discuss their latest graphic novels, both of which have their roots in the world of film. In Anderson’s case, the inspiration is SF’s beloved Castro Theatre; for Hoey, it’s the seedy Hollywood of classic noir. Their conversation, moderated by CCA's Justin Hall, will be bookended by two of Anderson’s films: Windows on the World (which directly inspired Anderson’s first graphic novel) and Pig Hunt. $20
 
3:30pm Screening of Windows on the World
5:45pm Conversation with Robert Mailer Anderson and Peter Hoey moderated by Justin Hall, followed by book signing
7:15 pm Screening of Pig Hunt

Book sales for this event coordinated by Books Inc.
Moderators
avatar for Justin Hall

Justin Hall

Justin Hall is a cartoonist and the creator of the comics series Hard to Swallow (with Dave Davenport), True Travel Tales, and Glamazonia. He has stories in Best American Comics, QU33R, Best Erotic Comics, and the SF Weekly, among others, and has exhibited his art in galleries and... Read More →
Authors and Participants
avatar for Robert Mailer Anderson

Robert Mailer Anderson

Robert Mailer Anderson is a writer, producer, activist, and 9th generation Californio. He is the author of the graphic novel My Fairy Godfather, the best-selling novel Boonville, co-writer/producer of the films Pig Hunt and Windows on the World – which was also a graphic novel... Read More →
avatar for Peter Hoey

Peter Hoey

Peter Hoey is an illustrator and cartoonist living in Northern California. He writes and draws his own comics along with his sister Maria. In Perpetuity is the pair’s third graphic novel.
Sunday October 13, 2024 3:30pm - 9:30pm PDT
4 Star Theater

4:00pm PDT

Subterfuge and Secrets: Memoirists Who Go Undercover to Learn the Truth
Sunday October 13, 2024 4:00pm - 5:00pm PDT

How do memoirists fill in the gaps when there are missing pieces in their research—for example, when the person with needed information died long ago or when gender, culture, language, or other barriers thwart the process? These obstacles require memoirists to get crafty. This might mean using creative nonfiction to write imagined scenes or even require lying, eavesdropping, and/or employing subterfuge to gain access to something off-limits. Susan Kiyo Ito, Margaret Juhae Lee, Grace Loh Prasad, and Leslie Absher will present how they used “unofficial” means to get at the truth, and, in essence, became spies in their own stories. FREE
Authors and Participants
avatar for Susan Ito

Susan Ito

Susan Ito is the author of the memoir, I Would Meet You Anywhere, published by the Ohio State University Press, and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. She co-edited the literary anthology A Ghost At Heart’s Edge: Stories & Poems of Adoption. Her work has appeared... Read More →
avatar for Grace Loh Prasad

Grace Loh Prasad

Grace Loh Prasad is the author of The Translator’s Daughter, a debut memoir about living between languages, navigating loss, and the search for belonging. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, Literary Hub, Longreads, Guernica, Brevity, The Offing, Oldster Magazine, KHÔRA... Read More →
avatar for Margaret Juhae Lee

Margaret Juhae Lee

Margaret Juhae Lee is the author of Starry Field: A Memoir of Lost History. A former editor at The Nation magazine, she received a Bunting Fellowship from Harvard University and a Korean Studies Fellowship from the Korea Foundation. She attended the Tin House and Writer’s Hotel... Read More →
avatar for Leslie Absher

Leslie Absher

Leslie Absher is a journalist and essayist. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Salon, Ms., and other periodicals. She is the author of Spy Daughter, Queer Girl: In Search of Truth and Acceptance in a Family of Secrets. Her father joined the CIA before... Read More →
Sunday October 13, 2024 4:00pm - 5:00pm PDT
San Francisco Public Library Saroyan Gallery

7:00pm PDT

Celebrating Defiance, Resisting Silence
Sunday October 13, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT

Co-presented with 48 Hills

This dynamic event showcases writers driven by urgency, addressing pressing issues with narratives that explore the ignored, overlooked, and under-represented. Eirinie Carson, Christopher D. Cook, Sabina Khan-Ibarra, Jesus Francisco Sierra, and Rowena Leong Singerwill share stories of resilience and resistance and delve deep into identity, activism, and the pursuit of justice, offering powerful insights into how American culture and politics impact their daily lives as members of under-represented communities. Celebrating Defiance promises an afternoon of powerful storytelling, inclusivity, and the amplification of voices that challenge the status quo. FREE, $10–15 suggested donation

Book sales for this event coordinated by Sagrada.
Authors and Participants
avatar for Eirinie Carson

Eirinie Carson

Eirinie Carson is a Black British writer living in California. She is a mother of two children, Luka and Selah. A member of the Writers Grotto in San Francisco, Carson is a frequent contributor to Mother magazine, and her work has also appeared in LitHub, Mortal Mag, Electric Literature... Read More →
avatar for Sabina Khan-Ibarra

Sabina Khan-Ibarra

Sabina Khan-Ibarra is a writer, poet, and teacher currently focused on completing her chapbook, New Vocabulary, and her novel, The Poppy Flower. Her work has been featured in various journals and anthologies, including Non-White and Women, Taboos and Transgressions. She is a member... Read More →
avatar for Christopher Cook

Christopher Cook

Christopher D. Cook is an author and award-winning journalist based in San Francisco. He has reported and written on social and economic justice issues for many national publications, including Harper's, the Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic, The Economist, The Guardian, Mother Jones... Read More →
avatar for Rowena Leong Singer

Rowena Leong Singer

Rowena Leong Singer is a Chinese-Filipino writer who is published in The New York Times, Black Warrior Review, Narrative Magazine, and KQED’s Perspectives. She is the grand prize winner in literary fiction for the Book Pipeline Unpublished Contest, a semifinalist for the James Jones... Read More →
avatar for Jesus Francisco Sierra

Jesus Francisco Sierra

Jesus Francisco Sierra is a Cuban writer who settled in San Francisco and grew up in the Mission District. His work has appeared in Zyzzyva, Los Angeles Review of Books, Gulf Stream Literary Journal, The Bare Life Review, Solstice Literary Magazine, The Caribbean Writer, The Acentos... Read More →
Sunday October 13, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT
SAGRADA

8:15pm PDT

Modern Magic with Michelle Tea
Sunday October 13, 2024 8:15pm - 10:00pm PDT
Sponsored by HarperOne
Co-presented with 48 Hills

The Lost Church is a fitting setting for an enchanting evening of stories and spells, featuring literary icon and self-described “DIY witch” Michelle Tea, whose new book Modern Magic is a companion to her classic Modern Tarot. Michelle will be joined in conversation by Diana Helmuth, author of The Witching Year, and during a special interactive intermission, we’ll also be treated to a glimpse of author Rana Tahir’s “Choose Your Own Adventure”–inspired tarot deck, as well as a taste of the bewitching beverages in Julia Halina Hadas’s WitchCraft Cocktails. The conversation will be guided by writer, educator, and multidisciplinary artist MK Chavez. Doors at 7:30PM. $18 / $15 early bird through 10/6

Book sales for this event coordinated by Telegraph Hill Books.
Moderators
avatar for MK Chavez

MK Chavez

MK Chavez is an art monster, siguanaba, writer, and educator. Chavez’s writing explores mixed-race identity, social justice, environmental resilience, horror cinema, magic, ritual, and the creative process. Chavez’s work has been recognized with the Pen Josephine Miles Award... Read More →
Authors and Participants
avatar for Julia Halina Hadas

Julia Halina Hadas

Bestselling author of WitchCraft Cocktails and Moon, Magic, Mixology, Julia Halina Hadas is the leading magical mixologist in the witchcraft and spiritual spheres. She combines her expert knowledge in witchcraft, mixology, and astrology with the power of herbs to conjure delicious... Read More →
avatar for Diana Helmuth

Diana Helmuth

Diana Helmuth writes about urges: to travel, to be in nature, and to feel understood. Her first book, How to Suffer Outside, was a National Outdoor Book Award winner. Her most recent book The Witching Year was released in 2023. Helmuth’s freelance work can be found in various anthologies... Read More →
avatar for Rana Tahir

Rana Tahir

Rana Tahir is a poet and author. She is a member of RAWI (Radius of Arab American Writers). Tahir’s Choose Your Own Adventure Tarot Deck was released in August. In addition to her Choose Your Own Adventure novels, her work can be found in BAHR Magazine, Quarterly West, and Salt... Read More →
avatar for Michelle Tea

Michelle Tea

Michelle Tea is the author of over a dozen books, including the cult-classic Valencia, the essay collection Against Memoir, and the speculative memoir Black Wave. She is the recipient of awards from the Guggenheim, Lambda Literary, and Rona Jaffe Foundations, PEN/America, and other... Read More →
Sunday October 13, 2024 8:15pm - 10:00pm PDT
The Lost Church
 
Tuesday, October 15
 

7:00pm PDT

New Encounters of the Weird Kind: Fresh Voices in Sci-Fi and Fantasy
Tuesday October 15, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT

Join moderator and author of Dead Collections Isaac Fellman in conversation with science fiction and fantasy writers who have created worlds featuring ancient family magic, a dystopian San Francisco, and the far reaches of imagined universes. Kemi Ashing-Giwa’s This World is Not Yours, Evette Davis’s The Others, Hana Lee’s Road to Ruin, and Julia Vee’s Blood Jade are prime examples of contemporary science fiction and fantasy writing. This is an exciting opportunity to hear from several new voices in the world of genre fiction. FREE, $10-15 suggested donation
Book sales for this event coordinated by Telegraph Hill Books.
Moderators
avatar for Isaac Fellman

Isaac Fellman

Isaac Fellman is a writer and archivist from San Francisco. He is the Lambda Literary Award-winning author of Notes from a Regicide, forthcoming in 2025, as well as Dead Collections, The Two Doctors Górski, and The Breath of the Sun. 
Authors and Participants
avatar for Julia Vee

Julia Vee

Julia Vee is the author of the Seattle Slayers series and the Phoenix Hoard series. Julia attended U.C Berkeley and majored in Asian Studies. She is a graduate of Viable Paradise. She often writes with co-author Ken Bebelle. Their debut novel Ebony Gate, an Asian-inspired urban fantasy... Read More →
avatar for Evette Davis

Evette Davis

Evette Davis is a science-fiction and fantasy writer. Davis is the author of The Others, the first installment of The Council Trilogy, which was released in September. She is also the author of 48 States, which was named by Kirkus as one of the Best Indie Books of 2022, was a quarter-finalist... Read More →
avatar for Kemi Ashing-Giwa

Kemi Ashing-Giwa

Kemi Ashing-Giwa is the USA Today–bestselling, Compton Crook Award–winning author of the novel The Splinter in the Sky and the novel The King Must Die. Her newest book, the novella This World Is Not Yours, came out this year. She studied organismic and evolutionary biology and... Read More →
avatar for Hana Lee

Hana Lee

Hana Lee is a biracial Korean-American writer who also builds software for a living. She has an undying love for fantastical stories in all their forms, especially video games, and a habit of writing to moody indie rock playlists. Her short writing has appeared in Fantasy Magazine... Read More →
Tuesday October 15, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT
Telegraph Hill Books

7:00pm PDT

Portrait of the Artist: Midlife Edition
Tuesday October 15, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT

Sponsored by Club Fugazi
Co-presented with SF Sketchfest

This star-studded evening brings together three brilliant creatives whose new books meld memoir with advice on their respective crafts. Inveterate showman Daniel Handler takes an introspective (but inevitably hilarious) approach in And Then? And Then? What Else? Author, illustrator, and Decemberists album artist Carson Ellis’s One Week in January is a beautifully illustrated chronicle of a formative moment in her journey toward becoming an artist. And cartoonist and frequent New Yorker cover artist Adrian Tomine is, perhaps, fatigued of answering audience questions; in Q&A, he addresses some of the most frequently asked—and in the process offers real insights into his life and work. This unforgettable glimpse into the creative life is hosted by writer and critic Tom Barbash. Doors at 6:30PM. $15 adv / $20 door

Book sales for this event coordinated by Bookshop West Portal.
Moderators
avatar for Tom Barbash

Tom Barbash

Tom Barbash is the author of four books as well as reviews, essays, and articles for publications such as Men’s Journal, ESPN The Magazine, McSweeney’s, Tin House, the Believer, Narrative Magazine, ZYZZYVA, and The New York Times. His non-Fiction book, On Top of the World, was... Read More →
Authors and Participants
avatar for Daniel Handler

Daniel Handler

Daniel Handler is the author of seven novels, including Why We Broke Up, All The Dirty Parts, and Bottle Grove, and most recently a memoir, And Then? And Then? What Else?. As Lemony Snicket, he is the author of far too many books for children, including Poison for Breakfast, the... Read More →
avatar for Adrian Tomine

Adrian Tomine

Adrian Tomine was born in 1974 in Sacramento, California. He began self-publishing his comic book series Optic Nerve when he was sixteen, and in 1994 he received an offer to publish from Drawn & Quarterly. His comics have been anthologized in publications such as McSweeney’s, Best... Read More →
avatar for Carson Ellis

Carson Ellis

Carson Ellis is the author and illustrator of bestselling picture books Home and Du Iz Tak? (a Caldecott Honor book) and the illustrator of a number of books for children, including the Wildwood Chronicles series by her husband, Colin Meloy. Ellis’s newest book One Week in January... Read More →
Tuesday October 15, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT
Club Fugazi Experiences

7:30pm PDT

Queering Myths: Caro De Robertis and Navid Sinaki
Tuesday October 15, 2024 7:30pm - 9:00pm PDT

Acclaimed video artist Navid Sinaki’s debut novel, Medusa of the Roses, is a queer love story set amid the repressive policies of modern-day Iran. Informed by Hollywood noir, Persian folktales, and Greek myth, it’s been called “stunning” by Publishers Weekly. Caro De Robertis’s latest novel, The Palace of Eros, is about another pair of lovers, under threat not from the government but from the gods. Join these two accomplished novelists for a conversation about myth-inflected fiction, the queer love story as a vehicle for interrogating society, the intersections of desire and freedom, and much more. Moderated by novelist Jasmin Darznik. FREE, $10-15 suggested donation
Book sales for this event coordinated by City Lights.
Moderators
avatar for Jasmin Darznik

Jasmin Darznik

Jasmin Darznik is the New York Times bestselling author of three books, most recently The Bohemians. She is a professor and chair of the MFA program in creative writing at California College of the Arts in San Francisco.
Authors and Participants
avatar for Caro De Robertis

Caro De Robertis

Caro De Robertis is the award-winning and bestselling author of several books, including The Palace of Eros, The President and the Frog, Cantoras, and more. Their work has been translated into eighteen languages and has garnered numerous honors including a fellowship from the National... Read More →
avatar for Navid Sinaki

Navid Sinaki

Navid Sinaki is an artist and writer from Tehran who currently lives in Los Angeles. His works have been exhibited at museums and art houses around the world, including the Lincoln Center, British Film Institute, Cineteca Nacional in Mexico, and the Modern Museum in Stockholm. His... Read More →
Tuesday October 15, 2024 7:30pm - 9:00pm PDT
City Lights Booksellers & Publishers

7:30pm PDT

Porchlight Storytelling: Touched by an Angel
Tuesday October 15, 2024 7:30pm - 9:30pm PDT
Co-presented with 48 Hills and SF Sketchfest

The Bay Area’s long-running Porchlight storytelling series returns to Litquake for this special edition, featuring tales on the theme of Touched by an Angel: Stories of Mentors, Teachers, Guardians, and Influencers. Featuring stories by Litquake co-founder Jack Boulware and authors Nico Lang (American Teenager), Adam Nimoy (The Most Human: Reconciling with My Father), Eugene Rodriguez (Bird of Four Hundred Voices), Dawn Silva (The Funk Queen), and Christina Vo (My Vietnam, Your Vietnam). Co-hosted by Arline Klatte and Beth Lisick. Music by Marc Capelle. Doors at 6:30PM. $20 adv / $25 door

Book sales for this event coordinated by Fabulosa Books.
Moderators
avatar for Arline Klatte

Arline Klatte

Arline Klatte founded the Porchlight Storytelling Series with her former SF Gate cubicle-mate writer Beth Lisick 22 years ago. A San Francisco native, she knows a lot of characters and is happy to coax them into sharing their stories on stage. 
avatar for Beth Lisick

Beth Lisick

Beth Lisick is a writer and actor from the San Francisco Bay Area, currently living in the Hudson Valley. She is the author of six books, including the New York Times bestseller Everybody Into the Pool, and co-founder of the Porchlight Storytelling Series. Beth has also worked as... Read More →
Authors and Participants
avatar for Jack Boulware

Jack Boulware

Jack Boulware was a co-founder and executive director of San Francisco's Litquake literary festival. He runs the newsletter "What Jack Boulware Fails to Realize." Boulware works on book projects, contributes freelance articles, and performs readings. He lives in West Marin.
avatar for Nico Lang

Nico Lang

Nico Lang is a journalist, editor, culture critic, and essayist. Lang is the founder of Queer News Daily and has previously worked as the deputy editor of Out magazine, an LGBTQ+ correspondent for VICE, the news editor at Them, and a contributing editor at Xtra Magazine. Their work... Read More →
avatar for Adam Nimoy

Adam Nimoy

Adam Nimoy is a graduate of UC Berkeley and Loyola Law School. He practiced entertainment law for seven years before changing careers to become a television director. Adam Nimoy directed over forty-five hours of network television including episodes of Ally McBeal, NYPD Blue, and... Read More →
avatar for Eugene Rodriguez

Eugene Rodriguez

Eugene Rodriguez is founder and executive director of Los Cenzontles Cultural Arts Academy, a nonprofit based in San Pablo, California, that he began as a youth group in 1989. Rodriguez has produced over thirty albums and numerous films for Los Cenzontles, and he has collaborated... Read More →
avatar for Dawn Silva

Dawn Silva

The Funk Queen: An Autobiography by Dawn Silva is one of the most unusual books ever written. The arc of history is long, but bends towards justice. Hailed by scholars, music critics, fans and educators alike as an “academic masterpiece” with enough  music, history, and culture... Read More →
avatar for Christina Vo

Christina Vo

Christina Vo is a Santa Fe-based author whose work delves into themes such as loss, intergenerational trauma, healing, identity, and the notions of home and reconciliation. Her second book, My Vietnam, Your Vietnam, is an intergenerational memoir co-written with her father. Vo is... Read More →
Tuesday October 15, 2024 7:30pm - 9:30pm PDT
Swedish American Hall
  Storytelling
  • Age Limit 21+
 
Wednesday, October 16
 

6:00pm PDT

World Food Day: Savoring Stories
Wednesday October 16, 2024 6:00pm - 8:00pm PDT
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.
Moderators
avatar for Henry Hsu

Henry Hsu

Oakland dumpling maker Henry Hsu's titles have included public health advocate, architect, and designer. He immersed himself in the local Bay Area food scene working at Oakland tofu maker, Hodo Foods for over a decade and most recently spent the past year working at Dumpling Club... Read More →
Authors and Participants
avatar for Viola Buitoni

Viola Buitoni

Viola Buitoni, a San Francisco-based chef instructor and food writer, was born in Rome and raised in Perugia, Italy. With stories and knowledge from six generations, her recipes cross the best of local agriculture with Italian artisanal foods. By sourcing raw ingredients directly... Read More →
avatar for Maria Finn

Maria Finn

Maria Finn is an author, chef and storyteller who creates food & art experiences inspired by wild places. She’s the author of several books, articles, essays and short stories. Her cookbook, Forage. Gather. Feast. launched in April 2024. She was the Chef-In-Residence at Stochastic... Read More →
avatar for Soleil Ho

Soleil Ho

Soleil Ho is an opinion columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle, where they write about food culture, politics, and gender. Ho's new book, The Memory of Taste, was released in September.
avatar for Tu David Phu

Tu David Phu

Tu David Phu is an honored San Francisco Chronicle Rising Star Chef, two-time TEDx speaker, Top Chef alumnus, acclaimed cookbook author, and storyteller. Originating from Oakland, his journey from nurturing his mother's apartment garden to renowned restaurant kitchens culminated... Read More →
avatar for Linda Shiue

Linda Shiue

Linda Shiue is an internal medicine physician, chef, and Director of Culinary and Lifestyle Medicine at Kaiser Permanente San Francisco, where she founded Thrive Kitchen, a teaching kitchen for patients. She believes that the best medicine is prevention. Her cooking classes showcase... Read More →
Wednesday October 16, 2024 6:00pm - 8:00pm PDT
Mechanics' Institute

6:30pm PDT

Shortcomings Screening and Q&A with Adrian Tomine
Wednesday October 16, 2024 6:30pm - 9:00pm PDT

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.

Moderators
avatar for Andrew Farago

Andrew Farago

Andrew Farago is the Curator of San Francisco's Cartoon Art Museum and is the author of several books on comics, cartoons, and popular culture including Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Ultimate Visual History, The Complete Peanuts Family Album, and The Art of Harley Quinn. His newest... Read More →
Authors and Participants
avatar for Adrian Tomine

Adrian Tomine

Adrian Tomine was born in 1974 in Sacramento, California. He began self-publishing his comic book series Optic Nerve when he was sixteen, and in 1994 he received an offer to publish from Drawn & Quarterly. His comics have been anthologized in publications such as McSweeney’s, Best... Read More →
Wednesday October 16, 2024 6:30pm - 9:00pm PDT
The New Parkway Theater

7:00pm PDT

Are Writers of Color Allowed to Not Write about Race?
Wednesday October 16, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT

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.
Authors and Participants
avatar for Pia Chatterjee

Pia Chatterjee

Pia Chatterjee is a writer, essayist, and a member of the SF Writers Grotto. Pia's novel in progress, ALL THE HAPPY FAMILIES was a finalist for Tin House's 2023 submissions for debut novels. Pia has won the Ledge Prize for fiction, was named the Emerging Fellow at San Francisco Writers... Read More →
avatar for Yalitza Ferreras

Yalitza Ferreras

Yalitza Ferreras is a recent Fiction Fellow at the University of Wisconsin’s Institute for Creative Writing. She has received a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award and a Steinbeck Fellowship at San Jose State University. Her stories have appeared in Best American Short Stories... Read More →
avatar for Vanessa Hua

Vanessa Hua

Vanessa Hua is the author of the national bestsellers A River of Stars and Forbidden City, as well as Deceit and Other Possibilities, a New York Times Editors Pick. A National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellow, she has also received a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award... Read More →
avatar for Dominic Lim

Dominic Lim

Dominic Lim’s debut novel, All the Right Notes, has been named a 2023 best book by over 20 publications, including USA Today, Library Journal, Goodreads, and Entertainment Weekly, who called it “a swoony, joyful rom-com to take readers into a love story worthy of a Broadway stage... Read More →
Wednesday October 16, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT
Clio's

7:00pm PDT

California's Fiercely Independent Literary Culture
Wednesday October 16, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT

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.
Moderators
avatar for Nastia Voynovskaya

Nastia Voynovskaya

Nastia Voynovskaya is a Russian-born journalist raised in the Bay Area and Tampa, Florida. She's the associate editor at KQED Arts & Culture. She's the recipient of the 2018 Society of Professional Journalists-Northern California award for arts & culture reporting. In 2021, a retrospective... Read More →
Authors and Participants
avatar for Paul Yamazaki

Paul Yamazaki

Paul Yamazaki has been a bookseller at City Lights Booksellers & Publishers since 1970. He has been the principal buyer at City Lights Booksellers for more than 50 years. Yamazaki has served on the board of directors of several literary and community arts organizations, among them... Read More →
avatar for Steve Wasserman

Steve Wasserman

Steve Wasserman has been Publisher of Heyday since 2016 and is a former editorial director of Times Books/Random House; a past publisher and editorial director of Hill & Wang at Farrar, Straus & Giroux; and editor at large at Yale University Press. He is also a former editor of the... Read More →
avatar for Jack Boulware

Jack Boulware

Jack Boulware was a co-founder and executive director of San Francisco's Litquake literary festival. He runs the newsletter "What Jack Boulware Fails to Realize." Boulware works on book projects, contributes freelance articles, and performs readings. He lives in West Marin.
avatar for Beth Spotswood

Beth Spotswood

Beth Spotswood is Alta's founding digital editor. In addition to her work for Alta, Beth has contributed to 7x7 Magazine, San Francisco Magazine, Discovery Channel, KGO Radio, SFist, and the San Francisco Chronicle, where she penned a weekly column in the Thursday edition of the newspaper... Read More →
Wednesday October 16, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT
City Lights Booksellers & Publishers

7:00pm PDT

Fall of the Florios: Stefania Auci with Sara Marinelli
Wednesday October 16, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT

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. 
Moderators
avatar for Sara Marinelli

Sara Marinelli

Sara Marinelli is a San Francisco based writer who grew up in Naples, Italy. She is a 2024-2025 Brown Handler Fellow at the San Francisco Public Library and a Teaching Artist at the San Francisco Opera. Her writing in English is published in New American Writing, Blue Mesa Review, and... Read More →
Authors and Participants
avatar for Stefania Auci

Stefania Auci

Stefania Auci, a Trapani-born, Palermo-adopted teacher, is author of The Florios of Sicily, a literary sensation that went on to sell over 1,500,000 copies in Italy alone before being published in over 40 countries and forming the basis of The Lions of Sicily, a successful series... Read More →
Wednesday October 16, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT
Telegraph Hill Books

7:00pm PDT

The Women Behind the Door: Roddy Doyle with Dave Eggers
Wednesday October 16, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT

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.
Authors and Participants
avatar for Roddy Doyle

Roddy Doyle

Roddy Doyle is the author of eleven novels, a collection of stories, and Rory & Ita, a memoir of his parents. He has written five books for children and contributed to a variety of publications including The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, Metro Eireann and several anthologies. He won... Read More →
avatar for Dave Eggers

Dave Eggers

Dave Eggers is the author of many books, among them The Eyes and the Impossible, The Circle, The Monk of Mokha, Heroes of the Frontier, A Hologram for the King, and What Is the What. He is the founder of McSweeney’s, an independent publishing company, and co-founder of 826 Valencia... Read More →
Wednesday October 16, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT
BATS Improv Theatre

7:00pm PDT

KQED Forum presents I Heard There Was a Secret Chord: Music as Medicine
Wednesday October 16, 2024 7:00pm - 8:45pm PDT
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.)
Moderators
avatar for Alexis Madrigal

Alexis Madrigal

Alexis Madrigal is the co-host of Forum on KQED and a contributing writer at The Atlantic. He is the author of the forthcoming book, The Pacific Circuit, and the proprietor of the Oakland Garden Club.
Authors and Participants
avatar for Daniel J. Levitin

Daniel J. Levitin

Daniel J. Levitin is an award-winning neuroscientist, musician, and best-selling author. His research encompasses music, the brain, health, productivity and creativity.Levitin has published more than 300 articles, in journals including Science, Nature, PNAS, The New Yorker, The Atlantic... Read More →
Wednesday October 16, 2024 7:00pm - 8:45pm PDT
KQED
 
Thursday, October 17
 

6:30pm PDT

Left Margin Lit(quake)
Thursday October 17, 2024 6:30pm - 8:00pm PDT

Co-presented with Left Margin LIT

Left Margin LIT is a creative writing workspace offering classes, camaraderie, and mentorship to East Bay writers of all backgrounds and experience levels. They see storytelling and poetry as vital elements of a healthy city: enriching dialogue, building community, and supporting a culture of creativity. They also have some of the best writing instructors in the biz, three of whom have new books that we’ll celebrate at this event: poet Brynn Saito’s Under A Future Sky, novelist Tomas Moniz’s All Friends Are Necessary, and poet Maw Shein Win’s Percussing the Thinking Jar. Doors at 6:00PM. FREE, $10-15 suggested donation
Book sales for this event coordinated by Pegasus Books.
Authors and Participants
avatar for Maw Shein Win

Maw Shein Win

Maw Shein Win's most recent poetry collection is Percussing the Thinking Jar. Her prior collection, Storage Unit for the Spirit House, was nominated for the Northern California Book Award in Poetry, longlisted for the PEN America Open Book Award, and shortlisted for CALIBA's Golden... Read More →
avatar for Brynn Saito

Brynn Saito

Brynn Saito is the author of three collections of poetry and two chapbooks. She is the recipient of the Benjamin Saltman Award and was a finalist for the Northern California Book Award, the Milt Kessler Poetry Book Award, and the Paterson Poetry Prize. Saito’s writing has appeared... Read More →
avatar for Tomas Moniz

Tomas Moniz

Tomas Moniz is a Latinx writer living in East Oakland, CA. His debut novel, Big Familia, was a finalist for the 2020 PEN/Hemingway and the LAMBDA. His new novel, All Friends Are Necessary, was published June 2024. He teaches at Berkeley City College and the Antioch MFA program.
Thursday October 17, 2024 6:30pm - 8:00pm PDT
Left Margin LIT

6:30pm PDT

Read for Filth: Queer Erotica
Thursday October 17, 2024 6:30pm - 10:30pm PDT
Read for Filth: Queer Erotica is a celebration of - yes - queer erotica. The event will feature the reading of queer erotic passages and drag performances to queer sexy songs. There will be cocktails! There will be snacks! There will be a DJ to help get your mood on! And don't forget all your fellow cute bookish queers (and people who love cute queers). Featuring the talents of Baruch Porras-Hernandez, DJ Lead Teddy, Polly Amber Ross and other drag superstars. FREE, $20-40 suggested donation 
Book sales for this event coordinated by Fabulosa Books.
Authors and Participants
avatar for Lead Teddy

Lead Teddy

Lead Teddy is DJ, Radio Host of Yours, Teddy BFF.fm in the Mission neighborhood and recovering conceptual artist living and working in San Francisco.
avatar for Baruch Porras Hernandez

Baruch Porras Hernandez

Baruch Porras Hernandez has been called a Flan come to life, and is a writer-stand up comedian originally from Toluca, Mexico who came here to steal all your jobs and make out with all of the hot dads. He is the author of Lovers of the Deep Fried Circle, I Miss You Delicate, Sluts... Read More →
avatar for Polly Amber Ross

Polly Amber Ross

Polly Amber Ross (she/they) is a transfemme fatale, mother of the House of Ross, horror movie fanatic, and host of multiple monthly shows in San Francisco. She’s a garment designer, producer, activist, and comedienne whose work usually focuses on subverting toxic pop-culture with... Read More →
Thursday October 17, 2024 6:30pm - 10:30pm PDT
Fabulosa Books

7:00pm PDT

In the Distance: Hernan Diaz
Thursday October 17, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT

Co-presented with Gilman Brewing Company and East Bay Booksellers

Pulitzer Prize–winning writer Hernan Diaz partners with East Bay Booksellers, Gilman Brewing Company, and Litquake for the rerelease of his Pulitzer-nominated debut novel In The Distance. Doors at 6:30PM. Bar closes at 9:00PM. $34 with book
Book sales for this event coordinated by East Bay Booksellers.
Authors and Participants
avatar for Hernan Diaz

Hernan Diaz

Hernan Diaz is the Pulitzer Prize-winning and New York Times bestselling author of two novels published in thirty-seven languages. He is the recipient of the John Updike award from the American Academy of Arts & Letters, given to “a writer whose contributions to American literature... Read More →
Thursday October 17, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT
Gilman Brewing Company

7:00pm PDT

Bone-Chilling Nordic Noir: An Interview with Thomas Enger
Thursday October 17, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT

Part of Litquake's Words Around the World
Sponsored by NORLA, Norway House, and Center for the Art of Translation/Two Lines Press

Internationally bestselling crime-writing duo Thomas Enger and Jørn Lier Horst have been called “two of the most distinguished writers of Nordic Noir” (Financial Times). Stigma, their fourth collaboration, finds deeply scarred homicide detective Alexander Blix and his collaborator, journalist Emma Ramm, trying to catch an escaped German prisoner—while Blix himself is behind bars. Whether you’re new to Enger’s work or you’re already a fan of the series critics have called “an international sensation” (Vogue), you’ll want to catch this thrilling conversation with Enger and Randal Brandt, curator of the California Detective Fiction Collection at UC Berkeley’s Bancroft Library. FREE, $10-15 suggested donation
Book sales for this event coordinated by Telegraph Hill Books.
Moderators
avatar for Randal Brandt

Randal Brandt

Randal S. Brandt is a librarian at the University of California, Berkeley, where he catalogs rare books and is the curator of the Bancroft Library’s California Detective Fiction Collection. His book, The Tule Marsh Murder, will be released this coming September.
Authors and Participants
avatar for Thomas Enger

Thomas Enger

Born in 1973, he lives in Oslo, divorced. He has two kids (ages 18 and 23). He has degrees in sports, history, and journalism. He worked as a journalist for about 10 years before making his debut as an author in 2010. Since then he's written 16 novels, published in well over 30 countries... Read More →
Thursday October 17, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT
Telegraph Hill Books

7:00pm PDT

Runway Stories: Litquake Edition
Thursday October 17, 2024 7:00pm - 9:00pm PDT
Co-presented with Radium Presents and SF Sketchfest

Four storytellers of Moth Storyslam and Grandslam fame curated by JP Frary plus four Litquake authors take this beautiful outdoor stage for Runway Stories as we hear tales centered around the theme, "First Love.” Featuring storytellers Don Reed, Dhaya Lakshminarayanan, Beau Ryder Davis, and Kimberli Joy, and authors Sarah Thornton (Tits Up: What Sex Workers, Milk Bankers, Plastic Surgeons, Bra Designers, and Witches Tell Us about Breasts), Tina Horn (Why Are People Into That? A Cultural Investigation of Kink), Dominic Lim (Karaoke Queen), and Mas Masumoto (Secret Harvests: A Hidden Story of Separation and the Resilience of a Family Farm). Doors at 6:00PM. $20 adv / $25 door / $49 VIP (includes premium seating and 2 drink tickets)

Book sales for this event coordinated by Pegasus Books.
Authors and Participants
avatar for Dhaya Lakshminarayanan

Dhaya Lakshminarayanan

Dhaya’s debute album DHAYATRIBE debuted #2 on iTunes.  She received the Liz Carpenter Political Humor Award (previously awarded to Samantha Bee, Wanda Sykes and Mark Russell) for her stand-up. Comedy Central Asia crowned her the Grand Prize Winner of “The Ultimate Comedy Challenge... Read More →
avatar for Mas Masumoto

Mas Masumoto

Mas Masumoto is an organic peach, nectarine, apricot, and grape farmer and a pioneer in organic farming since the 1980s. He is the author of thirteen books including Epitaph for a Peach, Wisdom of the Last Farmer, and a cookbook, The Perfect Peach. A documentary, Changing Season on... Read More →
avatar for Dominic Lim

Dominic Lim

Dominic Lim’s debut novel, All the Right Notes, has been named a 2023 best book by over 20 publications, including USA Today, Library Journal, Goodreads, and Entertainment Weekly, who called it “a swoony, joyful rom-com to take readers into a love story worthy of a Broadway stage... Read More →
avatar for Beau Davis

Beau Davis

Beau Ryder Davis is a comedian and storyteller based in Oakland, California. He is an eight-time Moth Story Slam winner, most recent Bay Area Moth GrandSlam winner, and has appeared on the nationally syndicated Moth Radio Hour. He's currently working on a show about growing up in... Read More →
avatar for Don Reed

Don Reed

Don Reed is the host/producer/curator of Redwood Nights: Storytelling Under the Stars at Deer Park Villa. He was a Theatre Bay Area winner for Outstanding Solo Production East 14th and is currently co-producing filmmaker Robert Townsend‘s solo hit Living the Shuffle. A San Francisco... Read More →
avatar for Tina Horn

Tina Horn

Tina Horn is a writer, educatrix, and media-maker. She is the author of Why Are People Into That?: A Cultural Investigation of Kink, a book based on her long-running indie fetish podcast. Tina is the creator/writer of the sci-fi sex-rebel comic book series Safe Sex / SfSx, and the... Read More →
avatar for Kimberli Joy

Kimberli Joy

Kimberli Joy has been weaving the truth into humorous stories for as long as she can remember. In June 2022, she was thrilled to share a stage with JP at The Moth. She is a familiar face at Redwood Nights Storytelling under the Stars and has entertained audiences at Oakland Story... Read More →
avatar for Sarah Thornton

Sarah Thornton

Sarah Thornton is a sociologist with “a reporter’s nose and a Double D brain.” She is the author of four critically acclaimed non-fiction books, including Tits Up, an exploration of the subcultures of breasts, deemed “required reading” and “a healing journey,” that ensures... Read More →
Thursday October 17, 2024 7:00pm - 9:00pm PDT
Radium Runway

7:30pm PDT

Creation Lake: Rachel Kushner with John Freeman
Thursday October 17, 2024 7:30pm - 9:00pm PDT

From Rachel Kushner, a Booker Prize finalist, two-time National Book Award finalist, and “one of the most gifted authors of her generation” (The New York Times Book Review), comes a new novel about a seductive and cunning American spy of ruthless tactics, bold opinions, and clean beauty who infiltrates an anarchist collective in France—Kushner’s finest achievement yet as a novelist, a work of high art, high comedy, and unforgettable pleasure. Written in short, vaulting sections, Kushner’s rendition of “noir” is taut and dazzling. Moderated by editor and critic John Freeman. Doors at 7:00PM. $17 adv (book bundle avail.) / $20 door
Book sales for this event coordinated by Books Inc.
Moderators
avatar for John Freeman

John Freeman

John Freeman is the editor of Freeman’s, a literary annual of new writing, and executive editor at Alfred A. Knopf. His books include How to Read a Novelist and Dictionary of the Undoing, as well as Tales of Two Americas, an anthology about income inequality in America, and Tales... Read More →
Authors and Participants
avatar for Rachel Kushner

Rachel Kushner

Rachel Kushner is the author of the novels CREATION LAKE, THE MARS ROOM, THE FLAMETHROWERS, and TELEX FROM CUBA, a book of short stories, THE STRANGE CASE OF RACHEL K, and THE HARD CROWD: ESSAYS 2000-2020. She has won the Prix Médicis and been a finalist for the Booker Prize, the... Read More →
Thursday October 17, 2024 7:30pm - 9:00pm PDT
Verdi Club
  Fiction
  • Age Limit 21+
 
Friday, October 18
 

6:00pm PDT

The Literature of War and Peace: A Symposium, Part Two
Friday October 18, 2024 6:00pm - 8:00pm PDT

Co-presented with Feldman's Books

Join renowned writers and scholars including Polina Barskova, Ulia Gosart, Patrick Hunt, Jessica Semaan, and Tobias Wolff in a panel discussion, readings, and Socratic dialogue on the complex topic of war and peace. Featuring musical guests Effie Zilch and others performing original songs and classic 1960s anti-war music. Feldman's is proud to partner with local schools in creating 1,000 paper cranes to send to Hiroshima and Nagasaki as an international gesture of peace. In honor of this partnership, attendees of this event will be sent home with one paper crane as a token of remembrance. FREE, $20 suggested donation
Book sales for this event coordinated by Feldman's Books.
Authors and Participants
avatar for Polina Barskova

Polina Barskova

Polina Barskova is a scholar and a poet, author of thirteen collections of poems and three books of prose in Russian. Her collection of creative nonfiction, Living Pictures, received the Andrey Bely Prize in 2015 and which has been translated into German and English. She edited the... Read More →
avatar for Ulia Gosart

Ulia Gosart

Ulia Gosart (Popova) is a scholar, writer and human rights activist. She grew up in Ukraine, and studies in Kiev University of Culture and Arts, Ukraine; her PhD is from UCLA. She teaches at the School of Information at San Jose State University. Since the start of the full-scale... Read More →
avatar for Patrick Hunt

Patrick Hunt

Patrick Hunt is an award-winning archaeologist, explorer, author, and National Geographic grantee. He earned his Ph.D. in Archaeology from the Institute of Archaeology, University College London (University of London), and has taught at Stanford University for over thirty years. Hunt... Read More →
avatar for Jess Semaan

Jess Semaan

Jess Semaan is a queer Lebanese poet, psychotherapist, group facilitator and speaker. She researches, writes and speaks on subjects of healing from complex trauma, immigration, war and belonging. Her first poetry book Child of the Moon sold over 15,000 copies. Her second book Your... Read More →
avatar for Tobias Wolff

Tobias Wolff

Tobias Wolff’s books include the memoirs This Boy’s Life and In Pharaoh’s Army: Memories of the Lost War; the short novel The Barracks Thief; the novel Old School, and four collections of short stories. He has also edited several anthologies, among them Best American Short Stories... Read More →
Friday October 18, 2024 6:00pm - 8:00pm PDT
Feldman's Books

7:15pm PDT

Unforgettable Sleuths
Friday October 18, 2024 7:15pm - 9:00pm PDT
Part of Litquake's Words Around the World
Sponsored by NORLA, Norway House, and Center for the Art of Translation/Two Lines Press
Co-presented with Mystery Writers of America-NorCal

Clever crimes and tight plotting can only get you so far—when it comes to a mystery novel or series’s staying power, it’s the detective who counts. Four masterful suspense novelists introduce their unforgettable protagonists—from a supernaturally talented forensic photographer to the granddaughter of a serial killer. Nordic Noir master Thomas Enger (Stigma) and National Book Award nominee Ramona Emerson (Exposure) are joined by Michelle Chouinard (The Serial Killer Guide to San Francisco) and Nina Simon (Mother-Daughter Murder Night), whose Bay Area–set mysteries feature home-grown amateur sleuths. Vera Chan moderates this talented lineup, who will also give aspiring writers a few clues about how to create super sleuths of their own. Doors at 6:30PM. $18 / $15 early bird through 10/13
Book sales for this event coordinated by Telegraph Hill Books.
Moderators
avatar for Vera Chan

Vera Chan

Veteran journalist, published author and aspiring novelist Vera HC Chan has worked at the nexus of journalism and technology, from small papers to the world's biggest online destinations (Yahoo! and Microsoft's MSN), and is now as director of news & media at Steelwork, a narrative... Read More →
Authors and Participants
avatar for Ramona Emerson

Ramona Emerson

Ramona Emerson is a Diné writer and filmmaker originally from Tohatchi, New Mexico. Her debut novel, Shutter, was longlisted for the National Book Award and the Bram Stoker Award, nominated for the Edgar for Best First Novel, a finalist for the PEN America Open Book Award, the PEN/Hemingway... Read More →
avatar for Thomas Enger

Thomas Enger

Born in 1973, he lives in Oslo, divorced. He has two kids (ages 18 and 23). He has degrees in sports, history, and journalism. He worked as a journalist for about 10 years before making his debut as an author in 2010. Since then he's written 16 novels, published in well over 30 countries... Read More →
avatar for Nina Simon

Nina Simon

Nina Simon writes crime fiction about strong women. She is the New York Times-bestselling author of Mother-Daughter Murder Night. This big-hearted whodunnit is a Reese's Book Club pick and a "best of 2023" selection for Amazon, Barnes & Noble, CrimeReads, and LibraryJournal. Before... Read More →
avatar for Michelle Chouinard

Michelle Chouinard

Michelle Chouinard (M.M. Chouinard) is the USA Today and Publishers Weekly bestselling author behind The Detective Jo Fournier thrillers and the standalone psychological thriller The Vacation. Also, her amateur-sleuth series, The Serial-Killer Guide to San Francisco, is set to be... Read More →
Friday October 18, 2024 7:15pm - 9:00pm PDT
The Lost Church

7:30pm PDT

Alta Presents the California Book Club
Friday October 18, 2024 7:30pm - 9:00pm PDT

Sponsored by Alta Journal

In its four years of existence, Alta Journal’s California Book Club has celebrated some of the West’s most important literary voices. Join Alta, Litquake, and California Book Club host John Freeman as we welcome past CBC guests Jaime Cortez, Andrew Sean Greer, and Maxine Hong Kingston for a close reading of the new California canon and a celebration of the authors capturing the spirit of the West. This evening is designed for the Bay Area’s most adventurous book lovers—and will include live music, a visit from a late literary legend, book signings, a cash bar, and a giveaway you won’t want to miss! Ticket includes the latest issue of Alta Journal. Doors at 7:00pm. $17 adv  / $20 door

Book sales for this event coordinated by Books Inc.
Moderators
avatar for John Freeman

John Freeman

John Freeman is the editor of Freeman’s, a literary annual of new writing, and executive editor at Alfred A. Knopf. His books include How to Read a Novelist and Dictionary of the Undoing, as well as Tales of Two Americas, an anthology about income inequality in America, and Tales... Read More →
Authors and Participants
avatar for Jaime Cortez

Jaime Cortez

Jaime Cortez is a California writer and artist based in Watsonville and the SF Bay Area. His writing and drawings have appeared in Kindergarten: Experimental Writing For Children, No Straight Lines, Street Art San Francisco, and Infinite Cities. He wrote and illustrated the graphic... Read More →
avatar for Andrew Sean Greer

Andrew Sean Greer

Andrew Sean Greer is the author of seven works of fiction, including the bestsellers The Confessions of Max Tivoli and Less. He is the recipient of a NEA grant, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. He alternates living in both San Francisco and Italy... Read More →
avatar for Maxine Hong Kingston

Maxine Hong Kingston

Maxine Hong Kingston is the author of The Woman Warrior, China Men, and The Fifth Book of Peace, among other works. She is the recipient of numerous awards, including the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American... Read More →
Friday October 18, 2024 7:30pm - 9:00pm PDT
Verdi Club
  Discussion
  • Age Limit 21+

7:30pm PDT

The Ache for Ancestral Healing: The Roadmap Back
Friday October 18, 2024 7:30pm - 9:00pm PDT

Co-presented with 48 Hills

To thrive in the present we must connect to the past, but when that past is fragmented by colonization, oppression, and the pressure to assimilate, how can we tap into the wisdom of the generations that came before us? What did our elders know that we are struggling to rediscover? Using traditions that range from curanderismo to community outreach, Sandhya Rani Jha, Alie Jones, Shanthi Sekaran, and Atava Garcia Swiecicki discuss the path before us and the answers within us. Moderated by SFSU professor of journalism Venise Wagner. This event opens and closes with a healing meditation offered by Sagrada Arts proprietor Rebecca Sanders. $25

Book sales for this event coordinated by Sagrada.
Moderators
avatar for Venise Wagner

Venise Wagner

Venise Wagner has been a professor of journalism at San Francisco State University since 2001. Before her appointment, she worked 12 years as a journalist for a variety of California daily newspapers covering border issues, religion and ethics, education, and the Bay Area’s Black... Read More →
Authors and Participants
avatar for Sandhya Jha

Sandhya Jha

Founder and former director of the Oakland Peace Center, Sandhya Jha (they/them) is a twenty-year resident of Oakland and a decades-long community organizer and activist currently working on a PhD in Philadelphia. Inspired by what they learned about the sustaining power of ancestors... Read More →
avatar for Alie Jones

Alie Jones

Alie Jones is a self-care advocate, writer, artist, and Creole mermaid. She believes that the best writing spaces are generative and embodied. Jones is deeply inspired by scholars like bell hooks, Ntozake Shange, June Jordan, and Gloria Anzaldúa. As an educator, she explores the... Read More →
avatar for Rebecca Sanders

Rebecca Sanders

Rebecca Sanders has been a practicing witch and intuitive healer for over twenty years. She has been a lifelong student of ceremonial and angel magic. Classically trained as a vocalist at The Colburn School, Rebecca loves using sound as a healing modality to transform the energetic... Read More →
avatar for Shanthi Sekaran

Shanthi Sekaran

Shanthi Sekaran is a novelist and television writer whose work has appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Review of Books, and Salon. Her novel Lucky Boy was named an Indie Next Great Read, an Amazon Editor's Pick and a Best Book of 2017 by NPR, Barnes & Noble, Library Journal... Read More →
avatar for Atava Garcia Swiecicki

Atava Garcia Swiecicki

Atava Garcia Swiecicki is dedicated to remembering the healing traditions of her ancestors and supporting others to reconnect with their own ancestral medicine. She loves helping people build relationships with plants, whom she considers some of our greatest teachers and healers... Read More →
Friday October 18, 2024 7:30pm - 9:00pm PDT
SAGRADA
 
Saturday, October 19
 

11:00am PDT

Out Loud: West Coast Prophecies & War Cries
Saturday October 19, 2024 11:00am - 12:15pm PDT

Sponsored by Yerba Buena Gardens Festival
Co-presented with 48 Hills

Uniting north & south of califas, we bring you a brown & black rebel yell! Conjuring. Complaining. Plotting. Politicizing. Punking. Mimi Tempestt presents her favorite generation of feminist musings to the battleground with performances from Tori Gesualdo, soledad con carne, and Lourdes Figueroa. FREE, $10–15 suggested donation
Authors and Participants
avatar for Lourdes Figueroa

Lourdes Figueroa

Lourdes Figueroa is a queer Chicanx oral poet and an award winning poetry filmmaker whose work is a dialogue of her lived experience when her family worked in el azadón—tilling of the soil under the blistering sun. She is the author of the chapbooks yolotl, Ruidos=Learn Speak, and... Read More →
avatar for Mimi Tempestt

Mimi Tempestt

Mimi Tempestt (she/they) is a multidisciplinary artist, writer, and daughter of California. She has a MA in Literature from Mills College, and is currently a doctoral candidate in the Creative/Critical PhD in Literature at UC Santa Cruz. Her first book, the monumental misrememberings... Read More →
avatar for Tori Gesualdo

Tori Gesualdo

Tori Gesualdo is a graduate of Emerson College with a BFA in Writing, Literature and Publishing, and an intern at the Los Angeles Review of Books.
avatar for soledad con carne

soledad con carne

soledad con carne is a casually queer, intergalactic Oakland/Ohlone-based chicanx punk poet, working/poor multiple high school drop-out, analog zinester, co-host of the City Lights First Fridays series, poet laureate of the San Fernando Valley, and blatant smoker sharing-trauma-with-their-mother... Read More →
Saturday October 19, 2024 11:00am - 12:15pm PDT
Yerba Buena Gardens

11:00am PDT

Litquake's Small Press Book Fair
Saturday October 19, 2024 11:00am - 4:00pm PDT
Sponsored by Yerba Buena Gardens Festival
Featuring 2024 festival sponsors Alta Journal, Heyday Books, and Two Lines Press
Co-presented by 48 Hills

Join a curated spread of small presses and literary magazines for the newly revived Litquake Book Fair in Yerba Buena Gardens! Browse the best in local literature set to a day of readings and performances from Litquake Out Loud, with a special section for presses formerly carried by Small Press Distribution. FREE


Participating vendors include:
Alta Journal
Aunt Lute Books
Center for Sex & Culture
City Lights Publishers
Collective Book Studio
Foglifter Press & Journal
Heyday Books
Kelsey Street Press
Last Gasp Press
Mumblers Press
North Atlantic Books
Parapraxis Magazine
Pelekinesis
Philippine American Writers & Artists (PAWA)
PM Press
Sixteen Rivers Press
Somos en escrito Press
Stanford University Press
Transit Books
Two Lines Press
ZYZZYVA
Saturday October 19, 2024 11:00am - 4:00pm PDT
Yerba Buena Gardens

12:45pm PDT

Out Loud: When The Smoke Comes: The Ballot Won’t Save Us
Saturday October 19, 2024 12:45pm - 2:00pm PDT

Sponsored by Yerba Buena Gardens Festival
Co-presented with 48 Hills

Darius Simpson presents María Esqinca, Meilani Clay, and Hernan Ramos—local poets who’ve made explicit political commitments to creating a better world outside of electoral structures with work that incites action, inspiration, curiosity, and the creativity needed for transforming reality. FREE, $10-15 suggested donation
Authors and Participants
avatar for Hernan Ramos

Hernan Ramos

Hernan De La Cruz Ramos (they/them) is a 29 year old emo boi from the unceded Munsee-Lenape lands, currently residing on the unceded Ohlone-Chochenyo lands (Northern New Jersey and Oakland, CA, respectively). They are a writer and educator with an MFA in Poetry from University of... Read More →
avatar for María Esquinca

María Esquinca

María Esquinca is a poet and journalist. A fronteriza, she was born in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua, Mexico and grew up in El Paso, Texas. She’s currently a producer for The Bay podcast, a production of KQED. Prior to that, she was New York Women’s Foundation IGNITE Fellow with... Read More →
avatar for Darius Simpson

Darius Simpson

Darius Simpson is a New Afrikan writer, educator, performer, and skilled living room dancer from Akron, Ohio. Much like the means of production, he believes poetry must be used for the positive social, political, and economic development of the majority of society. He aims to inspire... Read More →
avatar for Meilani Clay

Meilani Clay

Meilani Clay is a writer, mama, and educator from Oakland, CA. Her work has appeared in Nomadic Press’s Patrice Lumumba: An Anthology of Writers on Black Liberation, and online literary journal The Ana. Her debut poetry collection, and the creek don’t rise, was the winner of the... Read More →
Saturday October 19, 2024 12:45pm - 2:00pm PDT
Yerba Buena Gardens

2:30pm PDT

Out Loud: Escape
Saturday October 19, 2024 2:30pm - 3:45pm PDT

Sponsored by Yerba Buena Gardens Festival
Co-presented with 48 Hills

Join RAWdance & Litquake’s Elder Project for a unique, collaborative blend of storytelling, dance, and dialogue. Featuring the personal narratives of former Catskills vacationers, including Elder Project’s 98-year-old Irene Zahler, brought to life by 826 Valencia, and excerpts from RAWdance's evocative dance performance "Escape,” inspired by the history of culturally-specific summer havens. Q&A to follow with the artists and storytellers, exploring the themes of memory, culture, and belonging. FREE, $10-15 suggested donation
Authors and Participants
avatar for RAWdance

RAWdance

Now in its 20th year, RAWdance is an award-winning contemporary dance company known for transforming theaters and public spaces through a mix of performance, curation, collaboration, and film. The company’s charged and nuanced works have been presented by the Joyce Theater, Jacob’s... Read More →
Saturday October 19, 2024 2:30pm - 3:45pm PDT
Yerba Buena Gardens

4:00pm PDT

The Rise of the Book Ban & the Freedom to Read
Saturday October 19, 2024 4:00pm - 4:45pm PDT
Co-presented by KQED Fest

Every year since 2020 the U.S. has seen an exponential rise in the number of book bans—often instigated by a small, vocal group of individuals who wield outsized power to censor books about sexual violence and LGBTQ+ topics (especially trans identities). Join us at KQED Fest, a free, all-day block party and open house at KQED HQ, to learn about the current state of book banning with San Francisco’s City Librarian Michael Lambert, Becka Robbins from Books Not Bans (sponsored by Fabulosa Books), and Authors Against Book Bans members Maggie Tokuda-Hall and Maia Kobabe, award-winning author of Genderqueer, the most banned book in the U.S. in recent years. Moderated by KQED’s Morning News anchor Brian Watt. Book sales benefit the Books Not Bans program that sends LGBTQ+ books to places with active bans of LGBTQ+-affirming content. FREE
Book sales for this event coordinated by Fabulosa Books.
Moderators
avatar for Brian Watt

Brian Watt

Brian Watt is KQED's morning radio news anchor. He joined the KQED News team in April of 2016. Prior to that, he worked as a Reporter for KPCC in Los Angeles and a producer at Marketplace. During eight years at KPCC, Brian covered business and economics, and his work won several awards... Read More →
Authors and Participants
avatar for Maggie Tokuda-Hall

Maggie Tokuda-Hall

Maggie Tokuda-Hall has an MFA in creative writing from USF. She is the author of the 2017 Parent's Choice Gold Medal winning picture book, Also an Octopus, illustrated by Benji Davies. The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea is her debut young adult novel, which was an NPR, Kirkus, School... Read More →
avatar for Maia Kobabe

Maia Kobabe

Maia Kobabe is a nonbinary queer cartoonist, a kpop fan, a voracious reader, and a daydreamer. You can learn an astonishing number of intimate details about em in Gender Queer: A Memoir and in eir short comics and writing published in The Nib, The New Yorker, The Washington Post... Read More →
avatar for Michael Lambert

Michael Lambert

Michael Lambert is the City Librarian for the City and County of San Francisco. He was appointed in March 2019 by Mayor London Breed. He is the first Asian American to lead the San Francisco Public Library. During his tenure, he has championed increased and equitable access to libraries... Read More →
avatar for Becka Robbins

Becka Robbins

Becka Robbins is the founder and director of Books Not Bans, and events manager at Fabulosa Books, San Francisco’s queerest bookstore. A voracious reader, she’s also a former learning specialist and taught dyslexic middle school students for over a decade. She’s also a musician... Read More →
Saturday October 19, 2024 4:00pm - 4:45pm PDT
KQED

7:00pm PDT

Poetry World Series: Litquake Edition
Saturday October 19, 2024 7:00pm - 9:00pm PDT

Co-presented with 48 Hills

Two teams of award-winning poets, including Armen Davoudian, Luiza Flynn-Goodlett, Cindy Ok, Joseph Rios, Mimi Tempestt, and Dashaun Washington, take turns batting at topics pitched to them by the audience. Fastballs, curveballs, knuckleballs: these poets won’t know what’s coming next! Hilarity and brilliance both guaranteed. Daniel Handler returns as emcee, and eminently qualified umpires Andrew Sean Greer and Brynn Saito will score each batter’s reading. The winning team takes the series title. Don’t forget to bring a topic to stump the poets with! Book sales/signing follow the reading. Doors at 6:30PM. $17 adv /  $20 door

Book sales for this event coordinated by Dog Eared Books.
Moderators
avatar for Andrew Sean Greer

Andrew Sean Greer

Andrew Sean Greer is the author of seven works of fiction, including the bestsellers The Confessions of Max Tivoli and Less. He is the recipient of a NEA grant, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. He alternates living in both San Francisco and Italy... Read More →
avatar for Daniel Handler

Daniel Handler

Daniel Handler is the author of seven novels, including Why We Broke Up, All The Dirty Parts, and Bottle Grove, and most recently a memoir, And Then? And Then? What Else?. As Lemony Snicket, he is the author of far too many books for children, including Poison for Breakfast, the... Read More →
avatar for Brynn Saito

Brynn Saito

Brynn Saito is the author of three collections of poetry and two chapbooks. She is the recipient of the Benjamin Saltman Award and was a finalist for the Northern California Book Award, the Milt Kessler Poetry Book Award, and the Paterson Poetry Prize. Saito’s writing has appeared... Read More →
Authors and Participants
avatar for Armen Davoudian

Armen Davoudian

Armen Davoudian is the author of the poetry collection The Palace of Forty Pillars and the translator, from Persian, of Hopscotch by Fatemeh Shams. He grew up in Isfahan, Iran, and is a PhD candidate in English at Stanford University.
avatar for Luiza Flynn-Goodlett

Luiza Flynn-Goodlett

Luiza Flynn-Goodlett is the author of Mud In Our Mouths (forthcoming from Northwestern University Press) and Look Alive (winner of the 2019 Cowles Poetry Book Prize from Southeast Missouri State University Press), along with numerous chapbooks, most recently Familiar (Madhouse Press... Read More →
avatar for Cindy Ok

Cindy Ok

Cindy Juyoung Ok is the author of Ward Toward from the Yale Series of Younger Poets, the translator of The Hell of That Star forthcoming from the Wesleyan Poetry Series, and an assistant professor at UC Davis.
avatar for Joseph Rios

Joseph Rios

Joseph Rios is the poet laureate of Fresno and a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. Rios is the author of Shadowboxing: Poems & Impersonations.
avatar for Mimi Tempestt

Mimi Tempestt

Mimi Tempestt (she/they) is a multidisciplinary artist, writer, and daughter of California. She has a MA in Literature from Mills College, and is currently a doctoral candidate in the Creative/Critical PhD in Literature at UC Santa Cruz. Her first book, the monumental misrememberings... Read More →
avatar for Dāshaun Washington

Dāshaun Washington

Dāshaun Washington is a Wallace Stegner Fellow in Poetry at Stanford University. His work has been supported by Yaddo, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, Lighthouse Works, Ucross Foundation, The Watering Hole, and beyond. His poems have appeared in New England Review, Poetry... Read More →
Saturday October 19, 2024 7:00pm - 9:00pm PDT
Make-Out Room
  Poetry
  • Age Limit 21+

7:30pm PDT

How to Get Free: Healing in the USA
Saturday October 19, 2024 7:30pm - 9:00pm PDT

Co-presented with Museum of the African Diaspora

Three writers, three radical visions of healing in America today. Decorated, award-winning poets and journalists Morgan Parker, Carvell Wallace, and sam sax’s recent transformative works reimagine the conventions of self-love in a world that wasn’t built for you. Whether it's Parker’s investigation of racial consciousness and its effects on mental well-being (You Get What You Pay For), Wallace’s irresistibly made case for life in his excavation of growing up Black and queer and homeless (Another Word for Love), or sax’s kaleidoscopic coming of age novel (Yr Dead)—all these writers present profoundly original meditations on healing, told through the lenses of justice, sex, family, gender, protest, and death. Moderated by The Stacks podcast founder and host, Traci Thomas. Doors at 6:30PM. $17 adv / $20 door
Book sales for this event coordinated by Museum of African Diaspora.
Moderators
avatar for Traci Thomas

Traci Thomas

The Stacks is a podcast about books and the ways they shape our cultural understandings. Hosted by Traci Thomas, a Black millennial woman who is asking the questions that provoke meaningful and thought provoking conversations. Created in 2018, the show has over 1 million downloads... Read More →
Authors and Participants
avatar for Morgan Parker

Morgan Parker

Morgan Parker is a poet, essayist, and novelist. She is the author of the young adult novel Who Put This Song On?; and the poetry collections Other People’s Comfort Keeps Me Up At Night, There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé, and Magical Negro, which won the 2019 National... Read More →
avatar for Carvell Wallace

Carvell Wallace

Carvell Wallace grew up between Southwestern PA, Washington DC, and Los Angeles. He attended Tisch School for the Arts and worked as a stage actor before spending fifteen years in direct service youth non-profits. He has covered arts, entertainment, music, culture, race, sports, and... Read More →
avatar for sam sax

sam sax

Sam Sax is the author of Yr Dead, and the poetry collections Pig, Bury It, and Madness. They've received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and Yaddo and are currently an Italic Lecturer at Stanford University. 
Saturday October 19, 2024 7:30pm - 9:00pm PDT
111 Minna Gallery and Event Space
 
Sunday, October 20
 

12:00pm PDT

Out Loud: A Celebration of Queer Poetics
Sunday October 20, 2024 12:00pm - 1:15pm PDT

Sponsored by Yerba Buena Gardens Festival
Co-presented with 48 Hills

A space in motion that embraces love and tenderness to celebrate queer poetics and recognizes the miraculousness of the queer BIPOCX tongue. From the margins of hxstory, we have continuously broken open lung, redefining the poem and her purpose over and over again, making your larynx in our image. We are thousands upon thousands years old. We are the queer at the tip of your tongue, sculpting the language of each other's bodies. This year, the Pocho Chicanx Poetxs Lourdes Figueroa and Baruch Porras Hernandez team up to bring you a kaleidoscope of voices—MK Chavez, Hilary Cruz Mejia, Jessica Ke'mani, Syd Staiti, Yeva Johnson, and Evelyn Donaji & Camellia Boutros—that have formed and continue to form the Bay Area literary landscape. We seek to tremble your vagus nerve. FREE, $10-15 suggested donation
Authors and Participants
avatar for MK Chavez

MK Chavez

MK Chavez is an art monster, siguanaba, writer, and educator. Chavez’s writing explores mixed-race identity, social justice, environmental resilience, horror cinema, magic, ritual, and the creative process. Chavez’s work has been recognized with the Pen Josephine Miles Award... Read More →
avatar for Jessica Ke’mani

Jessica Ke’mani

Jessica Ke’mani (pronounced Keh-Mani)  is a queer Oakland-born poet. Ke’mani self identifies as a reunified adoptee, meaning they are back in connection with their birth family. Ke’mani is the author of the new poetry chapbook, Power of Our Wombs, released by Nomadic Press... Read More →
avatar for Lourdes Figueroa

Lourdes Figueroa

Lourdes Figueroa is a queer Chicanx oral poet and an award winning poetry filmmaker whose work is a dialogue of her lived experience when her family worked in el azadón—tilling of the soil under the blistering sun. She is the author of the chapbooks yolotl, Ruidos=Learn Speak, and... Read More →
avatar for Hilary Cruz Mejía

Hilary Cruz Mejía

Hilary Cruz Mejía is a poeta and callejera scholar from the coastal waters of Guatemala. Her work is the lineage of her nightmares entangled in the landscapes of fear and resistance. You can find some of their work in the digital mundo as well as the wind mundo. Outside of writing... Read More →
avatar for Baruch Porras Hernandez

Baruch Porras Hernandez

Baruch Porras Hernandez has been called a Flan come to life, and is a writer-stand up comedian originally from Toluca, Mexico who came here to steal all your jobs and make out with all of the hot dads. He is the author of Lovers of the Deep Fried Circle, I Miss You Delicate, Sluts... Read More →
avatar for Syd Staiti

Syd Staiti

Syd Staiti is director of Small Press Traffic since 2019. Staiti's books include The Undying Present (Krupskaya, 2015) and Seldom Approaches (The Elephants, 2023). Staiti is a member of Light Field, a collective that presents an annual film festival of recent and historical moving... Read More →
avatar for Yeva Johnson

Yeva Johnson

Yeva Johnson is a Pushcart Prize-nominated poet, writer, and musician whose work appears or is forthcoming in Bellingham Review, Obsidian, sin cesar, Sinister Wisdom, Yemassee, and elsewhere.  Johnson explores interlocking caste systems and possibilities for human co-existence... Read More →
avatar for Evelyn Donají & Camellia Boutros

Evelyn Donají & Camellia Boutros

Evelyn Donají and Camellia Boutros, folk musicians in the diasporic musical traditions of Veracruz and Palestine respectively, come together to offer a modern and Mission-based interpretation of Son Jarocho. In performing with the Arabic oud and the jarana Jarocha, the duo highlight... Read More →
Sunday October 20, 2024 12:00pm - 1:15pm PDT
Yerba Buena Gardens

1:00pm PDT

Teenquake Write-In
Sunday October 20, 2024 1:00pm - 2:30pm PDT

Every writer starts somewhere—and we’re giving young writers ages 12–18 a space and tools to get started. Spend an afternoon writing together in community at the beautiful, cozy Black Bird Bookstore! Anna Gabrielle Casalme of Novelly, a platform that publishes diverse literature by young people, will facilitate writing prompts and offer advice on what it takes to grow as a writer and maybe even get your work published someday! There’ll be time for sharing work, asking questions, getting to know other young writers, and drinking hot chocolate—your first mug’s on us! FREE
Authors and Participants
avatar for Anna Gabriella Casalme

Anna Gabriella Casalme

Anna Gabriella Casalme is the proud daughter of Filipino immigrants and a kid-lit writer based in San Francisco. She is the founder and Managing Director of Novelly, which is on a mission to publish and celebrate literature by diverse youth authors. Anna received her MSc in Childhood... Read More →
Sunday October 20, 2024 1:00pm - 2:30pm PDT
Black Bird Bookstore and Café
  Teenquake

1:45pm PDT

Out Loud: Finding Home
Sunday October 20, 2024 1:45pm - 3:00pm PDT

Sponsored by Yerba Buena Gardens Festival
Co-presented with 48 Hills

Finding Home follows the journeys of authors who have fought for their sense of belonging, safety, and nourishment by overcoming adversity, reframing their identity, and building community. These poets will be sharing pieces that celebrate the full breadth of the human experience and what "home" means to them. Rhea Joseph presents Lorrie Chang, Papi Grande, Serena Chan, and Denise Masiel. FREE, $10-15 suggested donation
Authors and Participants
avatar for Serena Chan

Serena Chan

A facilitator and experience designer by day, Serena channels her cancer moon for her big feels and poetry. You can often find her daydreaming in a cafe, playing in the ocean, or trail running with her pup.
avatar for Denise Masiel

Denise Masiel

Denise Masiel is a Caribbean-American essayist and poet from Texas. She is a storyteller dedicated to the art of capturing feelings of warmth, passion, and visceral emotions in her work. Her poetry has been published in The Ana and Mujer Manifesto, and she is an active spoken word... Read More →
avatar for Papi Grande

Papi Grande

Pap1Grand3 is a multidisciplinary performance artist from Oakland California. He is known for his spectacular stage presence as well as exploring themes of evolution, love and dedication. Grande has been striding across the community, many stages, more than a few faces. His motto... Read More →
avatar for Lorrie Chang

Lorrie Chang

Lorrie Chang is a truth seeker/speller, spoken word poet, urban planner, professional curiosity pimp (researcher), untamed dancer, and spiritual wanderer. She worked nationally to grow communities with social and cultural fabric as the foundation (“Creative Placeknowing/Placemaking... Read More →
avatar for Rhea Joseph

Rhea Joseph

Rhea Joseph is a poet, curator, and event producer who comes from a family of artists and entrepreneurs. She lives in San Francisco, but writes from a global perspective, intertwining her experience of growing up in India and blooming in Boston. Joseph finds power through community... Read More →
Sunday October 20, 2024 1:45pm - 3:00pm PDT
Yerba Buena Gardens

3:30pm PDT

Out Loud: Nor Do I Wish to Speak: A Storytelling and Poetry Picnic
Sunday October 20, 2024 3:30pm - 4:45pm PDT

Sponsored by Yerba Buena Gardens Festival
Co-presented with 48 Hills

Join a conversation among poets in the lineage of June Jordan's Poetry for the People who write and speak into liberation struggles from America to Palestine. Noor Brody presents Dina Omar, Tehmina Khan, and more. FREE, $10-15 suggested donation
Authors and Participants
avatar for Noor Khashe Brody

Noor Khashe Brody

Noor Khashe Brody has always lived in the California East Bay. They are a graduate of June Jordan’s Poetry for the People. Alongside two friends, they co-founded Tritone, a monthly reading series in Oakland.
avatar for Tehmina Khan

Tehmina Khan

Tehmina Khan is a daughter of Indian immigrant scientists who has spent her adult life writing, teaching, resisting, and mothering. She has taught science to preschoolers, citizenship to octogenarians, and poetry translation to elementary school students; she currently teaches College... Read More →
avatar for Dina Omar

Dina Omar

Dina Omar is a lecturer at UC Berkeley who teaches Palestinian poetry. She is a doctoral candidate at Yale University in Anthropology and Gender and Women’s studies. While studying for her Masters degree at Columbia University, Dina was part of the ad hoc organizing committee that... Read More →
Sunday October 20, 2024 3:30pm - 4:45pm PDT
Yerba Buena Gardens

7:00pm PDT

Mind Games: Dark Arts & the Future of Democracy
Sunday October 20, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT

Co-presented with Gray Area with 48 Hills

Disinformation. Propaganda. Artificial intelligence. PSYOPS. Litquake brings together three thinkers to illuminate how the American mind has been gamified by bad actors, creating an invisible battlefield where our democratic future is at stake. In Stories Are Weapons, bestselling author Annalee Newitz delves into America’s deep-rooted history of PSYOPS, from Benjamin Franklin’s Revolutionary War–era fake newspaper to 21st-century culture warriors, transforming democratic debates into toxic wars over American identity. In Playing With Reality, Kelly Clancy chronicles the riveting and hidden history of games from the Enlightenment to now, where games inform our daily lives: the social media and technology that can warp our preferences, polarize us, and manufacture our desires. MacArthur-winning artist and author Trevor Paglen’s work often delves into state secrecy and mass surveillance through the lens of games, image-making, investigative journalism, and numerous other disciplines. Panel moderated by Mother Jones senior reporter and producer for Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting, Michael Montgomery. $10

Book sales for this event coordinated by Dog Eared Books.
Moderators
avatar for Michael Montgomery

Michael Montgomery

Michael Montgomery is a senior reporter and producer for Reveal who leads major collaborations and reports on America’s penal system, human rights and international trade, and labor exploitation. Previously he held staff positions at American Public Media, CBS News, and the Daily... Read More →
Authors and Participants
avatar for Kelly Clancy

Kelly Clancy

Kelly Clancy is a neuroscientist and physicist who has held research positions at MIT, Berkeley, University College London and the AI company DeepMind. Her research focuses on uncovering the principles of intelligence, and she has invented novel brain-computer interfaces to investigate... Read More →
avatar for Annalee Newitz

Annalee Newitz

Annalee Newitz is a journalist and author of acclaimed science fiction, including the Lambda Literary Award-winning novel Autonomous, and nonfiction, including the national bestseller Four Lost Cities. Their nonfiction book Stories Are Weapons was released in June. Newitz writes... Read More →
avatar for Trevor Paglen

Trevor Paglen

Trevor Paglen lives and works in New York, NY. As an artist, filmmaker, investigator, technologist, and theorist, Paglen asks questions around vision, perception, materiality, and aesthetics. His wide-ranging oeuvre includes work on artificial intelligence and computer vision, aerospace... Read More →
Sunday October 20, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT
Gray Area / Grand Theater
 
Monday, October 21
 

7:00pm PDT

Cellophane Bricks: Jonathan Lethem with Rita Bullwinkel
Monday October 21, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT
Co-presented with City Lights Booksellers & Publishers

With his new book Cellophane Bricks: A Life in Visual Culture, Jonathan Lethem showcases his talents as one of modern literature’s most eclectic critical minds. This rapturous, ravenous celebration of visual art and storytelling gathers a lifetime of Lethem's art-writing, along with stunning, full-color images from the author's own collection and elsewhere. Here we tour Lethem's fictions in response to (and in exchange for) artworks by his friends; his meditations on comics and graffiti art; his collaborations with artists and interventions into visual culture, and his portrait of the museum that was and continues to be his home, untethered from geography. This new book also coincides with the anniversary re-release of Lethem’s award-winning detective novel Motherless Brooklyn. Join the author in conversation with Litquake veteran Rita Bullwinkel, author most recently of Booker Prize–longlisted Headshot! FREE, $10-15 suggested donation
Book sales for this event coordinated by City Lights Bookstore.
Authors and Participants
avatar for Jonathan Lethem

Jonathan Lethem

Jonathan Lethem is a novelist, short story writer, and essayist. His over twenty-five books have been translated into over thirty languages. He lives in Los Angeles and Maine. His most recent novel, Cellophane Bricks: A Life in Visual Culture was released earlier this year. 
avatar for Rita Bullwinkel

Rita Bullwinkel

RITA BULLWINKEL IS THE AUTHOR OF HEADSHOT AND BELLY UP, A STORY COLLECTION THAT WON THE BELIEVER BOOK AWARD. SHE IS A 2022 RECIPIENT OF A WHITING AWARD, THE EDITOR OF MCSWEENEY'S QUARTERLY, A CONTRIBUTING EDITOR AT NOON, THE CREATOR OF ORAL FLORIST, AND A PICADOR GUEST PROFESSOR OF... Read More →
Monday October 21, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT
City Lights Booksellers & Publishers

7:00pm PDT

Atlas Obscura’s Wild Life: An Explorer's Guide to the World's Living Wonders
Monday October 21, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT

Co-presented with Jewish Community Center San Francisco 

From the curious minds of Atlas Obscura, authors of #1 New York Times bestselling Atlas Obscura and Gastro Obscura, comes an unputdownable celebration of the world's living wonders. Join editor Cara Giaimo and Marissa Ortega-Welch, environmental journalist and podcaster of How Wild, as we learn how dung beetles navigate by the stars and trees communicate through their roots. Pay your respects to a 44,000 year old shrub. Hear stories of the wild world’s human protectors: a honey hunter and his avian partners, a scientist working to find the world's only ocean-dwelling insects, and an offshore radio DJ who is at the heart of the local fishing community. Teeming with detail and wildly entertaining, Wild Life reinvigorates our sense of wonder about the incredible creatures with whom we share our plane. Moderated by Oakland Zoo's Amy Gotliffe. Doors at 6:30PM. $17 adv (book bundle avail.) / $20 door

“It makes me want to run upstairs, pack a bag, and bolt away to some far-flung corner of this astounding planet.” —Mary Roach, bestselling author of Stiff and Packing for Mars

Book sales for this event coordinated by Bookshop West Portal. 

Authors and Participants
avatar for Marissa Ortega-Welch

Marissa Ortega-Welch

Marissa Ortega-Welch is an environmental journalist and the creator and executive producer of How Wild, a podcast about wilderness, how it's changing, and what that says about us as humans. It's produced in partnership with KALW Public Media and distributed by NPR. Her freelance... Read More →
avatar for Amy Gotliffe

Amy Gotliffe

Amy Gotliffe has a mission to connect human beings to nature, envisioning a planet where all species live in peaceful co-existence, which makes her position as Vice President of Conservation at Oakland Zoo a perfect fit. With an incredible team, Amy drives massive and enthusiastic... Read More →
avatar for Cara Giaimo

Cara Giaimo

Cara Giaimo lives in Somerville, MA, with her wife, Lilia, two cats, many plants, and uncountable neighborhood rats. A former staff writer at Atlas Obscura, Giaimo has written about our fellow species for the New York Times,The Plant,The Drift, and elsewhere. Her first book, Detector... Read More →
Monday October 21, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT
Jewish Community Center of San Francisco

7:00pm PDT

Word for Word Off the Page: Lauren Groff’s “Annunciation”
Monday October 21, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT
Co-presented with Word for Word

Word for Word is a theater company that brings short stories to life, honoring the author’s intent by using every word of a text. Off the Page staged readings are the first step in the development of pieces they are considering for upcoming productions. Word for Word invites audiences to see their process of bringing a work from the page to the stage in the unique Word for Word style. In this Off the Page reading, award-winning author Lauren Groff brings us a tale of a young woman who moves from New England to Palo Alto, taking her first steps into post-college adulthood. As she tries to discover who she will become, the “god and animal within” fight to define her. Groff was named one of the 100 most influential people by TIME in 2024. FREE; $10–15 suggested donation
Authors and Participants
avatar for Word for Word

Word for Word

Word for Word is a theater company that brings short stories to life, honoring the author’s intent by using every word of a text. Off the Page staged readings are the first step in the development of pieces we are considering for upcoming productions. We invite audiences to see... Read More →
Monday October 21, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT
Z Below

7:00pm PDT

Page Street Presents Golden State: Stories about Life on the Left Coast
Monday October 21, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT

Co-presented with the writers of Page Street

Join Janis Cooke Newman and fifteen talented writers from the Page Street community as they read original under-three-minute pieces, written just for Litquake. In keeping with the evening’s California theme, Saintsbury Winery will be on hand pouring California wine, and Marin French will be serving up California cheese. Don't miss this one—you might even walk away with a hot-off-the press copy of California's own Alta Journal. Doors at 6:30PM. FREE, $10–15 suggested donation
Authors and Participants
avatar for Janis Cooke Newman

Janis Cooke Newman

Janis Cooke Newman is the author of the two novels and a memoir. She is also the founder of LitCamp and Page Street.
Monday October 21, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT
Page Street

7:00pm PDT

SWOLE: The Meaning of Muscle Panel + Party
Monday October 21, 2024 7:00pm - 10:30pm PDT

Co-presented by KEXP

Literature, drag, and dancing at the legendary San Francisco LGBTQ+ venue THE STUD?! Oh my! Writer and cultural critic Michael Brodeur joins personal trainers MetalBob and Katherine Bickford (Bay Strength) for a conversation about his new book SWOLE: The Making of Men and the Meaning of Muscle. Featuring a special "SWOLE-themed" drag show curated by Bay Area favorite HANDS, featuring Vivvyanne ForeverMORE, God's Lil Princess, Piss E. Sissy, and more! Doors at 6:00PM, panel at 7:00PM with drag and dance party to follow. $17 adv / $20 door
Book sales for this event coordinated by Fabulosa Books. 
Authors and Participants
avatar for Gods Lil Princess

Gods Lil Princess

Gods Lil Princess is a cross dressing pinko commie antifa snowflake with a penchant for absurdity and a passion for fashion.  
avatar for Michael Brodeur

Michael Brodeur

Michael Andor Brodeur has been the classical music critic at the Washington Post since 2020. Previously, he held editorial and staff-writer positions at the Boston Globe and Boston’s Weekly Dig. His book Swole: The Making of Men and the Meaning of Muscle was released in May. His... Read More →
avatar for Hands

Hands

Hands is an Oakland born Drag King, first of his name, self-made man.
avatar for Piss E. Sissy

Piss E. Sissy

He’s a limp wristed sissy who will make you drippy. Piss E. is a proud Indigenous performer, māhū, & drag regent. They’ll bring high energy, campy, slutty, slimy, and perversely political to a stage near you. 
avatar for Katherine Bickford

Katherine Bickford

Katherine Bickford is co-owner of Bay Strength, an innovative and inclusive strength training gym in Berkeley, California. Along with her three co-owners, their team of eight coaches help people of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities discover their strength and physical potential... Read More →
avatar for VivvyAnne ForeverMORE

VivvyAnne ForeverMORE

VivvyAnne ForeverMORE is a tornado in a dress who’s awkwardness is surpassed only by her desire to be liked. Daughter of the legendary Glamamore she hosted and co-produced Club SOME THING weekly for 8 years at the legendary Stud Bar. She was described by the New York Times as “…and... Read More →
Monday October 21, 2024 7:00pm - 10:30pm PDT
The Stud
  Performance
  • Age Limit 21+
 
Tuesday, October 22
 

7:00pm PDT

Literary Speakeasy Presents: Dragging Celebrity Autobiographies
Tuesday October 22, 2024 7:00pm - 9:00pm PDT

Literary Speakeasy returns to the OASIS stage for another hysterical evening of “Dragging Celebrity Autobiographies.” A stellar cast of Bay Area drag superstars will be putting on their reading glasses to celebrate the most scandalous, most outrageous, and most ridiculous celebrity memoirs and autobiographies! From “Real Housewives” to Hollywood legends, no book or celebrity is off limits. Come join your hosts James J. Siegel and Elsa Touché for an evening of laughs, queer camp, and prizes! $25 general / $30 premium runway seating 
Moderators
avatar for James Siegel

James Siegel

James J. Siegel is a Pushcart-nominated poet and author of the poetry collections The God of San Francisco and How Ghosts Travel, which was a finalist for an Ohioana Library Award. He is the host and curator of the monthly Literary Speakeasy show at Martuni’s piano bar in San Francisco... Read More →
avatar for Elsa Touche

Elsa Touche

Beloved San Francisco drag queen Elsa Touche was the winner of the 2019 California Gold pageant and was voted Favorite Drag Queen by the readers of the "SF Weekly" in 2020. She is currently a co-hostess of "The Monster Show," the Castro District's longest-running drag show. In addition... Read More →
Authors and Participants
avatar for Vanilla Meringue

Vanilla Meringue

Vanilla Meringue is a fabulously voluptuous drag queen from San Francisco, CA
avatar for Polly Amber Ross

Polly Amber Ross

Polly Amber Ross (she/they) is a transfemme fatale, mother of the House of Ross, horror movie fanatic, and host of multiple monthly shows in San Francisco. She’s a garment designer, producer, activist, and comedienne whose work usually focuses on subverting toxic pop-culture with... Read More →
avatar for SNJV

SNJV

SNJV is a dynamic artist blending dance, drag, and drama to celebrate humanity. Performing since age four, he fuses cultures to create performances for the stage and screen. As the first South-Asian Mr. GAPA, SNJV illuminates spaces of AAPI excellence. Serving as a co-founder, SNJV... Read More →
avatar for Lucinda Puss

Lucinda Puss

Lucinda Puss is a Bay Area drag queen and crazy cat lady, with a penchant for puns and the darker side of life...also cheese. Like, really really loves cheese. 
avatar for Bebe Sweetbriar

Bebe Sweetbriar

San Francisco-based drag star, 2016 Drag Entertainer of the Year & NITEY Awards Most Notable Drag Queen, BeBe Sweetbriar has graced many stages around the World including Hong Kong, China. As award winning performer, Top 10 USA Dance Radio and Top 25 Billboard charting recording artist... Read More →
avatar for J. A. Valentine

J. A. Valentine

J. A. Valentine is an actor/ess and singer who’s sashayed on Bay Area stages for three decades, most recently in “The Legend of Georgia McBride” at Center Rep and in such satirical drag comedies as “BitchSlap”, “Star Trek Live” and “Harry Poofter” at SF Oasis. Other... Read More →
Tuesday October 22, 2024 7:00pm - 9:00pm PDT
OASIS
  Performance
  • Age Limit 21+

7:00pm PDT

Saint The Terrifying: Joshua Mohr with Peter Maravelis
Tuesday October 22, 2024 7:00pm - 9:00pm PDT

Co-presented with City Lights Booksellers & Publishers


Bay Area author Joshua Mohr taps the troubled vein of class warfare and gentrification in Oakland with his latest book Saint The Terrifying, an ambitious tale of love and retribution. An ex-con, Saint was raised in the wilds of Norway, where his father brought him up in the old traditions and taught him the way of the Viking. Now Saint finds himself immersed in the Oakland music scene and, off stage, hunting down criminals no one else cares to find. Saint’s role as hardboiled detective is informed by Mohr’s deft interweaving of recent history, including Oakland’s Ghost Ship warehouse fire—a tragedy that Mohr revisits in a bold act of reclamation. Join the author in conversation with Peter Maravelis of City Lights, followed by a performance from Mohr’s band, Slummy. Doors at 6:30PM. $12 adv / $15 door
Book sales for this event coordinated by City Lights Bookstore.
Authors and Participants
avatar for Joshua Mohr

Joshua Mohr

Joshua Mohr is the author of several novels, including Damascus, which The New York Times called “Beat-poet cool.” He’s also written Some Things That Meant the World to Me, one of O Magazine’s 10 Terrific reads of 2009, and All This Life, winner of the Northern California... Read More →
avatar for ​​​​Peter Maravelis

​​​​Peter Maravelis

​​​​Peter Maravelis is the Event Director at City Lights Booksellers & Publishers. He is a native San Franciscan with a life-long involvement in the art and literary scenes and is the editor of San Francisco Noir and San Francisco Noir 2: The Classics. He produces the noir... Read More →
Tuesday October 22, 2024 7:00pm - 9:00pm PDT
Make-Out Room
  Performance
  • Age Limit 21+
 
Wednesday, October 23
 

7:00pm PDT

A Story of Football, Rivalry, and Revolution: Mike Silver with 49ers Legend Steve Young
Wednesday October 23, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT

Co-presented with Jewish Community Center San Francisco

Bang Bang, Niner Gang! From award-winning SF Chronicle journalist Mike Silver comes the inside story of the brilliant, hypercompetitive young NFL coaches who threw out decades of received wisdom to fundamentally remake America’s most popular sport. When Kyle Shanahan became the NFL’s youngest offensive coordinator in 2008, he had one prevailing rule: Tell me the why. If a colleague couldn’t justify his position by providing the unassailable reasoning behind it, he was told to get the hell out of Shanahan’s office. Shanahan and the members of his coaching tree—Sean McVay, Mike McDaniel, Raheem Morris, and Matt LaFleur—are now NFL stars and coaching revolutionaries. With The Why Is Everything, Silver draws on unmatched access across the league to take us into the key moments of how it all happened, and in the process gives us a timeless account of friendship, rivalry, and the never-ending pursuit of perfection. Silver will be in convo with 49ers legend Steve Young. Doors at 6:30PM. $17 adv (book bundle avail.) / $20 door
Book sales for this event coordinated by Bookshop West Portal.
Authors and Participants
avatar for Michael Silver

Michael Silver

Michael Silver is an award-winning sports journalist and television analyst. Previously a senior writer for Sports Illustrated, a columnist for Yahoo! Sports, and analyst for the NFL Network, he's currently a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. His books include All Things Possible... Read More →
avatar for Steve Young

Steve Young

Steve Young is a Co-Founder and Managing Director of HGGC.Steve is a member of HGGC's Executive Committee, Fund II Investment Committee and Fund I Policy and Investment Committee. Prior to the inception of HGGC, Steve was a Co-Founder and Managing Director of Sorenson Capital, a private... Read More →
Wednesday October 23, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT
Jewish Community Center of San Francisco

7:00pm PDT

Tough Broads
Wednesday October 23, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT

What would you call Amy Appelhans Gubser, who, at age 55, became the first-ever person to swim from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Farallon Islands (that’s 29.6 miles) through shark-infested waters? We’d call her one tough broad. Author Caroline Paul would agree. In her new book Tough Broad: From Boogie Boarding to Wing Walking—How Outdoor Adventure Improves Our Lives as We Age, Paul combines vivid anecdotes with the latest science to relate how and why older women can and should lead healthier, more daring lives. Join these two adventurers for a lively conversation—prepare to be inspired! FREE, $10-15 suggested donation
Book sales for this event coordinated by Clio's.
Authors and Participants
avatar for Amy Appelhans Gubser

Amy Appelhans Gubser

Amy Applehans Gubser is a pediatric nurse, grandmother, and long-distance swimmer. In May 2024 she became the first person in history to complete a treacherous 29.7-mile solo swim through freezing, shark-infested waters without a wetsuit. Gubser completed the grueling feat of endurance... Read More →
avatar for Caroline Paul

Caroline Paul

Caroline Paul is the author of seven books, including the New York Times bestseller The Gutsy Girl and Lost Cat, A True Story of Love, Desperation and GPS Technology, which as been translated into 15 languages. Her latest book is Tough Broad, From Boogie Boarding to Wing Walking... Read More →
Wednesday October 23, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT
Clio's

7:00pm PDT

Love In All Its Forms: Hanne Ørstavik with Kristin Keane
Wednesday October 23, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT

Part of Litquake’s Words Around the WorldSponsored by NORLA Norwegian Literature Abroad and Center for the Art of Translation/Two Lines Press

A single mother forgets her son’s birthday. A theology student excavates the past. A woman reminisces on her marriage, as her cancer-stricken husband enters his final months of life. The work of National Book Award finalist and 2019 PEN Translation Prize winner Hanne Ørstavik explores an ever-evolving theme of complex love, and how it can be intertwined with insecurity, fear, and self-discovery. Ørstavik will revisit her English-translated books Ti Amo, The Pastor, and her literary breakthrough Love, plus a sneak peek of her latest novel—not yet published in the United States—Stay With Me. Join the author in conversation with Stanford doctoral fellow Kristin Keane about the recurrent exploration of love throughout Ørstavik’s 30-year literary career. FREE, $10-15 suggested donation
Book sales for this event coordinated by Telegraph Hill Books.
Authors and Participants
avatar for Kristin Keane

Kristin Keane

Kristin Keane writes about time, memory, and the nature of literacy. She is the author of An Encyclopedia of Bending Time and Luminaries, and her essays have, or will appear in, outlets such as The Believer, The Washington Post, Ploughshares, New England Review, Creative Nonfiction... Read More →
avatar for Hanne Ørstavik

Hanne Ørstavik

Hanne Ørstavik published the novel Cut in 1994 and embarked on a career that would make her one of the most remarkable and admired authors in Norwegian contemporary literature. Her literary breakthrough came three years later with the publication of Love (Kjærlighet), which in 2006... Read More →
Wednesday October 23, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT
Telegraph Hill Books

7:00pm PDT

Greetings, from Queer Mountain: Maybe Today, Satan
Wednesday October 23, 2024 7:00pm - 9:00pm PDT

Co-presented with SF Sketchfest

"Not Today, Satan" is a common refrain uttered when one is rejecting the chaos and distractions life throws our way. But what happens when we embrace the chaos and let the devil take the wheel? For this special Litquake edition of the long-running national LGBTQ+ storytelling show Greetings, from Queer Mountain, host and curator Micheal Foulk (Queer Film Theory 101) invites some of their favorite writers to share work about embracing our inner demons. Featuring R.O. Kwon, Michael Andor Brodeur, Julian Morris, and Amy Estes. Doors at 6:30PM. Bar closes at 9:00PM. $12 adv / $15 door
Authors and Participants
avatar for Julian Morris

Julian Morris

Julian is a teacher and writer from Berkeley who lives in San Francisco.
avatar for Micheal Foulk

Micheal Foulk

Micheal Foulk is a non-binary queer comedian, writer, and programmer thriving in Oakland, California. They host a weekly podcast called I'm Not Busy where they discuss anything and everything except what's currently going on with their comedy partner Vanessa Gonzalez. Foulk has been... Read More →
avatar for Michael Brodeur

Michael Brodeur

Michael Andor Brodeur has been the classical music critic at the Washington Post since 2020. Previously, he held editorial and staff-writer positions at the Boston Globe and Boston’s Weekly Dig. His book Swole: The Making of Men and the Meaning of Muscle was released in May. His... Read More →
avatar for R. O. Kwon

R. O. Kwon

R. O. Kwon is the author of the nationally bestselling Exhibit, a New York Times Editors’ Choice, which was published in 2024. Kwon’s bestselling first novel, The Incendiaries, has been translated into seven languages and was named a best book of the year by over forty publications. The... Read More →
avatar for Amy Estes

Amy Estes

Amy Estes is a writer and educator whose work has been seen in McSweeney’s, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. A participant and fellow for the Kenyon Review & a Lambda Literary Fellow, Estes is currently working on her first book. 
Wednesday October 23, 2024 7:00pm - 9:00pm PDT
Gilman Brewing Company

7:30pm PDT

Grace Notes: Poets at Grace Cathediral
Wednesday October 23, 2024 7:30pm - 9:00pm PDT

Take a midweek pause, find stillness, and bask in the words of four phenomenal poets, whose verses will soar to the vaulted ceiling in magnificent Grace Cathedral. A. Van Jordan (When I Waked, I Cried to Dream Again), Dorianne Laux (Life on Earth), Ruben Quesada (Brutal Companion), and Alice Templeton (The Infinite Field) will read work from their latest collections, in one of Litquake’s most beloved annual events, curated by D.A. Powell and Preeti Vangani. FREE, $10-15 suggested donation
Book sales for this event coordinated by Green Apple Books.
Moderators
avatar for D.A. Powell

D.A. Powell

D. A. Powell is the author of five collections, including Useless Landscape, or A Guide for Boys, which received the National Book Critics Circle Award in poetry. His honors include the Kingsley Tufts Prize in Poetry, the Shelley Memorial Prize from the Poetry Society of America... Read More →
avatar for Preeti Vangani

Preeti Vangani

Preeti Vangani is a poet and writer from Mumbai, living in San Francisco. She is the author of the poetry book Mother Tongue Apologize, winner of the RL India Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared in Poem-a-Day, Threepenny Review, Gulf Coast, Prairie Schooner, The Georgia Review among... Read More →
Authors and Participants
avatar for A. Van Jordan

A. Van Jordan

A. Van Jordan is the author of five collections of poetry: Rise, which won the PEN/Oakland Josephine Miles Award; M-A-C-N-O-L-I-A, which was listed as one the Best Books of 2005 by The London Times; Quantum Lyrics; and The Cineaste. Jordan has been awarded a Whiting Writers Award... Read More →
avatar for Dorianne Laux

Dorianne Laux

Dorianne Laux’s sixth collection, Only As the Day is Long: New and Selected Poems was named a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize for Poetry. Her fifth collection, The Book of Men, was awarded The Paterson Prize. Her fourth book of poems, Facts About the Moon, won The Oregon Book... Read More →
avatar for Ruben Quesada

Ruben Quesada

Ruben Quesada’s latest poetry collection, Brutal Companion, winner of the Barrow Street Press Editors  Prize, was published in October 2024. He edited the anthology Latinx Poetics: Essays on the Art of Poetry, which won an Independent Publisher Book Award in 2023. Quesada’s work... Read More →
avatar for Alice Templeton

Alice Templeton

Alice Templeton’s poetry collection The Infinite Field was published in April 2024. Her chapbook Archaeology won the 2008 New Women’s Voices Prize in Poetry from Finishing Line Press, and her poems have appeared in Asheville Poetry Review, Bellingham Review, Calyx, Nimrod, Poetry... Read More →
Wednesday October 23, 2024 7:30pm - 9:00pm PDT
Grace Cathedral
 
Thursday, October 24
 

6:00pm PDT

The Forgetters: Greg Sarris and Leslie Carol Roberts
Thursday October 24, 2024 6:00pm - 7:00pm PDT
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.
Moderators
avatar for Leslie Carol Roberts

Leslie Carol Roberts

Leslie Carol Roberts is a journalist, author, and essayist who has reported the news from every continent, including four months in Antarctica with Greenpeace. A professor, former Dean of Design, and MFA Writing chair at California College of the Arts, Leslie founded the ECOPOESIS... Read More →
Authors and Participants
avatar for Greg Sarris

Greg Sarris

Greg Sarris is currently serving his sixteenth term as Chairman of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria and his first term as board chair for the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. His publications include Keeping Slug Woman Alive, Grand Avenue, Watermelon... Read More →
Thursday October 24, 2024 6:00pm - 7:00pm PDT
Book Club of California

6:00pm PDT

Locker Room Talk: A Woman's Struggle to Get Inside
Thursday October 24, 2024 6:00pm - 7:30pm PDT
Co-presented with Mechanics’ Institute Library

Sportswriter Melissa Ludtke's debut memoir Locker Room Talk: A Woman's Struggle to Get Inside follows her time reporting for Sports Illustrated, being kicked out of the Yankees’ locker room, and the subsequent Supreme Court case that affirmed her equal rights. The ruling in Ludtke v. Kuhn opened up doors for generations of women in sports media. In conversation with San Francisco Chronicle's sports columnist Ann Killion. $7.18 for MI members / $17.85 for nonmembers
Book sales for this event coordinated by Book Passage.
Authors and Participants
avatar for Melissa Ludtke

Melissa Ludtke

In Locker Room Talk, Melissa Ludtke provides a first-hand account of what it was like to be at the center of a case that set off a media firestorm, with comedy sketches and newspaper cartoons depicting her as a leering intruder seeking to leer at athletes’ naked bodies. She takes... Read More →
avatar for Ann Killion

Ann Killion

Born in San Francisco and raised in Marin County, Ann Killion has covered Bay Area sports for more than a quarter of a century. An award-winning columnist and a veteran of 11 Olympics, several World Cups and the Tour de France, Ann joined The Chronicle in 2012. Ann has worked for... Read More →
Thursday October 24, 2024 6:00pm - 7:30pm PDT
Mechanics' Institute

6:00pm PDT

Apocrypha Press at Golden Sardine
Thursday October 24, 2024 6:00pm - 8:00pm PDT

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
Moderators
avatar for Lauren Parker

Lauren Parker

Lauren Parker is a writer, zinemaker, and visual artist. She’s the author of We Are Now the Thing in the Woods, The Dark Way Down, and a forthcoming deck of spells. She is an editor and overall rabble-rouser for Apocrypha Press. 
Authors and Participants
avatar for Andrew Paul Nelson

Andrew Paul Nelson

Andrew Paul Nelson is a poet living in North Beach San Francisco where he co-owns Golden Sardine Wine & Poetry Bar with his wife Caitlyn. He is the co-founder of Coit Tower Poetry Club and Apocrypha Press & Poetry Magazine. His book of poems How to Draw A Guillotine was released in... Read More →
avatar for Caitlyn Skye Wild

Caitlyn Skye Wild

Caitlyn Skye Wild is half of Golden Sardine, a wine bar and poetry book store in North Beach, just a stone’s throw from their full-time job as a bookseller at City Lights Bookstore. She is also a founding member of Coit Tower Poetry Club, a monthly reading series happening every... Read More →
avatar for Scott Bird

Scott Bird

Scott Bird is a poet, painter, musician and activist in San Francisco, California. He is the youngest member of the Revolutionary Poets Brigade of San Francisco and co-editor of their annual international poetry anthology. He’s also on the editing team for Apocrypha Press and has... Read More →
avatar for Brandon Loberg

Brandon Loberg

Since 2007, Brandon Loberg has published The 16th & Mission Review, a submission-based literary journal featuring writing performed at the 16th & Mission street arts workshop and distributed free of charge. To facilitate production of the Review, Loberg organized seven7h tangent... Read More →
Thursday October 24, 2024 6:00pm - 8:00pm PDT
Golden Sardine

6:00pm PDT

African Book Club: The Road to the Salt Sea with Samuel Kọláwọlé
Thursday October 24, 2024 6:00pm - 8:00pm PDT
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.
Moderators
avatar for Faith Adiele

Faith Adiele

Faith Adiele co-founded and hosts MoAD’s African Book Club, and her monthly column for Detour: Best Stories in Black Travel is syndicated in The Miami Herald. An award-winning memoirist, she contributes to the CALM app, HBO-Max, Alta Magazine, Hyperallergic and others, and her recent... Read More →
Authors and Participants
avatar for Samuel Kọláwọlé

Samuel Kọláwọlé

Samuel Kọláwọlé was born and raised in Ibadan, Nigeria. His work has appeared in AGNI, Georgia Review, The Hopkins Review, Gulf Coast, Washington Square Review, Harvard Review, Image Journal, and other literary publications. He has received numerous residencies and fellowships... Read More →
Thursday October 24, 2024 6:00pm - 8:00pm PDT
Museum of the African Diaspora

7:00pm PDT

Mojave Ghost: Forrest Gander with Jane Hirshfield
Thursday October 24, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT
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.
Authors and Participants
avatar for Forrest Gander

Forrest Gander

Forrest Gander, a writer and translator with degrees in geology and literature, was born in the Mojave Desert and lives in northern California. His books, often concerned with ecology, include Twice Alive: an Ecology of Intimacies; Be With, winner of the Pulitzer Prize; and the desert... Read More →
avatar for Jane Hirshfield

Jane Hirshfield

Writing “some of the most important poetry in the world today” (The New York Times Magazine), JANE HIRSHFIELD is the author of ten collections and is one of American poetry’s central spokespersons for concerns of the biosphere. Hirshfield’s honors include fellowships from... Read More →
Thursday October 24, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT
City Lights Booksellers & Publishers

7:00pm PDT

The Art/Craft/Work of Translation
Thursday October 24, 2024 7:00pm - 9:00pm PDT

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.
Moderators
avatar for Giovanna Lomanto

Giovanna Lomanto

Giovanna Lomanto is a Pushcart Prize-nominated poet and photographer who has published three poetry collections, two chapbooks, and a limited edition art book. Her latest collection, driver’s seat echo, is available now. A recent graduate of the MFA program at New York University... Read More →
Authors and Participants
avatar for Andrew Leong

Andrew Leong

Andrew Way Leong is assistant professor of English at the University of California, Berkeley. He translates Japanese-language literature written by Japanese Americans. His most recent translations include two stories in The Literature of Japanese American Incarceration, edited by... Read More →
avatar for May Huang

May Huang

May Huang is a translator and writer from Hong Kong. Her translation of Derek Chung's A Cha Chaan Teng That Does Not Exist was published in 2023 via Zephyr Press. Her writing and translations have appeared in Words Without Borders, World Literature Today, Circumference, Electric... Read More →
avatar for Sabrina Jaszi

Sabrina Jaszi

Sabrina Jaszi is a translator, editor, and writer in Oakland, CA. Together with Roman Ivashkiv, she translated Andriy Sodomora’s The Tears and Smiles of Things. Other work of hers has been published by the New York Review of Books, the Paris Review, Subtropics, The Dial, and Words... Read More →
Thursday October 24, 2024 7:00pm - 9:00pm PDT
The Writers Grotto
  Words Around the World
  • Free Free
  • about Giovanna Lomanto is a Pushcart Prize-nominated poet and photographer who has published three poetry collections, two chapbooks, and a limited edition art book. Her latest collection, <em>driver’s seat echo</em>, is available now. A recent graduate of the MFA program at New York University, her work has been supported by the SFMOMA, Litquake, KQED, and various reading series around the Bay Area. She currently serves as the co-publisher of the small press <em>Game Over Books</em>, and is dedicated to bringing Queer &amp; BIPOC voices to the forefront of the arts scene.
 
Friday, October 25
 

6:00pm PDT

APAture Literary Showcase: Return
Friday October 25, 2024 6:00pm - 8:30pm PDT

Co-presented with Kearny Street Workshop

Happy 25th anniversary, APAture! Samesies! The only festival to put the focus on emerging Asian Pacific American artists returns from Oct 12th to Nov. 9th. This year’s theme is RETURN, from the Palestinian right to return, the call for Indigenous Land Back, the various migrant histories and struggle for justice in our Pacific Islander and Asian communities, and the returns we face in our own personal lives. 2024's literary showcase features celebrated writer Maw Shein Win, author of Percussing the Thinking Jar, and emerging writers from the APA community, including Noelani Piters, Megan Noble, and many others. $12
Authors and Participants
avatar for Maw Shein Win

Maw Shein Win

Maw Shein Win's most recent poetry collection is Percussing the Thinking Jar. Her prior collection, Storage Unit for the Spirit House, was nominated for the Northern California Book Award in Poetry, longlisted for the PEN America Open Book Award, and shortlisted for CALIBA's Golden... Read More →
avatar for Noelani Piters

Noelani Piters

Noelani Piters is a San Francisco-based writer. She was a 2024 PEN America Emerging Voices Fellow, a 2024 Disquiet Literary Prize Poetry Finalist, and a 2023 Molokai Arts Center Artist in Residence. Her work can be found in or is forthcoming from Poetry, The Offing, Epiphany Magazine... Read More →
avatar for Megan Noble

Megan Noble

Megan Jade Noble is an East Bay-raised writer and instructor who climbs rocks in her free time. 
Friday October 25, 2024 6:00pm - 8:30pm PDT
Arc Studios and Gallery

7:00pm PDT

Where Is Literary Criticism Headed? An Interactive Roundtable Conversation
Friday October 25, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT

Co-presented with LitCamp and National Book Critics Circle
Media sponsorship by Publishers Weekly

In its fiftieth anniversary year, the National Book Critics Circle gathers literary critics who have been defining the future of contemporary cultural criticism in recent years in a wide-ranging interactive roundtable conversation about the future of the form. With Jane Ciabattari, Anita Felicelli, Jonathan Leal, and Oscar Villalon. Moderated by NBCC President Heather Scott Partington. Free reception to follow, 8:30PM on. $21
Moderators
avatar for Heather Scott Partington

Heather Scott Partington

Heather Scott Partington is a writer, teacher, and book critic. She is president of the National Book Critics Circle. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post, USA Today, The Los Angeles Times, The San Francisco Chronicle, and Alta Journal, among... Read More →
Authors and Participants
avatar for Jane Ciabattari

Jane Ciabattari

Jane Ciabattari is the author of the short story collection Stealing the Fire, an Iowa Short Fiction finalist selected for the Dzanc Books rEprint Series. She is a former NBCC president, current NBCC co-vice president/events, a columnist for Lit Hub, and has contributed to BBC Culture... Read More →
avatar for Anita Felicelli

Anita Felicelli

Anita Felicelli is the author of the forthcoming short story collection How We Know Our Time Travelers, as well as Chimerica and Love Songs for a Lost Continent. She is the editor of Alta Journal's California Book Club and has contributed to The Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post... Read More →
avatar for Jonathan Leal

Jonathan Leal

Jonathan Leal is a Latino author, composer, and scholar based in Los Angeles. Originally from the Rio Grande Valley, the South Texas region located at the border of the United States and Mexico, Leal creates writing, music, and integrative arts projects that amplify creative resistances... Read More →
avatar for Oscar Villalon

Oscar Villalon

Oscar Villalon is the editor of ZYZZYVA, winner of a Whiting Literary Magazine Prize in 2022. His writing has been published in Stranger’s Guide, Freeman’s, The Believer, Virginia Quarterly Review, Lit Hub, and elsewhere. He has served as a juror for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction... Read More →
Friday October 25, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT
Page Street

7:00pm PDT

Taboo Autofiction: Christine Angot with Cécile Alduy
Friday October 25, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT

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

Villa Albertine and Litquake present French author Christine Angot in a discussion of her influential novels Incest and The Impossible Love. In Incest, Angot explores her personal turmoil through a fragmented narrative about a woman named Christine, grappling with the end of a relationship and the trauma of her father's incestuous abuse. In contrast, The Impossible Love delves into the passionate yet doomed romance between Angot's parents, Rachel and Pierre, set against the backdrop of 1950s France. Angot's discussion with Stanford professor Cécile Alduy will offer insights into her powerful storytelling and the deep emotional landscapes she navigates in her work. FREE, $10-15 suggested donation
Book sales for this event coordinated by Telegraph Books.
Moderators
avatar for Cecile Alduy

Cecile Alduy

Cecile Alduy is a Professor of French literature and culture at Stanford University and an Associated Scholar at Sciences Po-Paris, France. A native from Paris, Dr. Alduy is a specialist of French literature and cinema, feminist and gender studies, and political discourse analysis... Read More →
Authors and Participants
avatar for Christine Angot

Christine Angot

CHRISTINE ANGOT is one of the most controversial authors writing today in France. Since the 1999 publication of Incest, Angot has remained at the center of public debate and has continued to push the boundaries of what society allows an author to express. Born in 1958 in Châteauroux... Read More →
Friday October 25, 2024 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT
Telegraph Hill Books

7:30pm PDT

Generation Women: Plot Twists
Friday October 25, 2024 7:30pm - 9:00pm PDT

Co-presented with Generation Women

We’re pleased to welcome the San Francisco return of Generation Women, a live multigenerational storytelling series. One woman or non-binary performer in their 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, and 70s+ will share an original true story on the theme of “Plot Twists,” ones they’ve written, encountered, wished for, or regretted. Founded by author Georgia Clark in New York City in 2017, the mission of Generation Women is to amplify underheard voices and create space for intergenerational connection and community. Featuring Eirinie Carson, Susan Kiyo Ito, Giovanna Lomanto, Jenny Pritchett, Rachel Levin. and Jane Smiley. Hosted by writer, editor, and curator Samantha Schoech. Doors at 7:00pm. $20 adv / $25 door
Book sales for this event coordinated by Books Inc.
Moderators
avatar for Samantha Schoech

Samantha Schoech

Samantha Schoech’s writing has appeared in The Sun, Seventeen, The Gettysburg Review, Glimmer Train, Travel & Leisure, the New York Times, and many other publications. Her collection of stories My Mother’s Boyfriends, which Vendela Vida called “witty and utterly enchanting... Read More →
Authors and Participants
avatar for Eirinie Carson

Eirinie Carson

Eirinie Carson is a Black British writer living in California. She is a mother of two children, Luka and Selah. A member of the Writers Grotto in San Francisco, Carson is a frequent contributor to Mother magazine, and her work has also appeared in LitHub, Mortal Mag, Electric Literature... Read More →
avatar for Susan Ito

Susan Ito

Susan Ito is the author of the memoir, I Would Meet You Anywhere, published by the Ohio State University Press, and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. She co-edited the literary anthology A Ghost At Heart’s Edge: Stories & Poems of Adoption. Her work has appeared... Read More →
avatar for Rachel Levin

Rachel Levin

Rachel Levin is a San Francisco journalist who has written for the New Yorker, the New York Times, Outside, Eater, and elsewhere. She is the author of LOOK BIG: And Other Tips for Surviving Animal Encounters of All Kinds and coauthor of two cookbooks: EAT SOMETHING and STEAMED. Her... Read More →
avatar for Giovanna Lomanto

Giovanna Lomanto

Giovanna Lomanto is a Pushcart Prize-nominated poet and photographer who has published three poetry collections, two chapbooks, and a limited edition art book. Her latest collection, driver’s seat echo, is available now. A recent graduate of the MFA program at New York University... Read More →
avatar for Jenny Pritchett

Jenny Pritchett

Jenny True is Jenny Pritchett (and vice versa). Her screed on pregnancy, postpartum-ness, and parenthood, You Look Tired: An Excruciatingly Honest Guide to New Parenthood, came out during the pandemic (not recommended). Then it was translated into Turkish and released in Turkey (highly... Read More →
avatar for Jane Smiley

Jane Smiley

Jane Smiley is the author of thirty-three works of fiction and nonfiction. She has won several awards, including a Pulitzer Prize. She was born in St. Louis, Mo., lived for twenty-five years in Iowa, then moved to California. She is best known for A Thousand Acres, Perestroika in... Read More →
Friday October 25, 2024 7:30pm - 9:00pm PDT
Verdi Club
  Storytelling
  • Age Limit 21+

7:30pm PDT

RAWdance: Escape
Friday October 25, 2024 7:30pm - 9:15pm PDT
Join RAWdance and Litquake for "Escape," an evocative ensemble work inspired by culturally-rooted vacation enclaves such as the Borscht Belt and Provincetown. Set in a world of vintage beachwear, "Escape" offers a cheeky dance romp into resort culture, while also inviting reflection on the power of belonging. Lighting for all works is by long-time collaborator and Bay Area design powerhouse, Del Medoff. The theater lobby will feature storytelling recordings from Litquake’s Elder Project, a community-building writing program in Bay Area senior centers. "Escape" is one of four world premieres as part of RAWdance's, landmark 20th anniversary home season at ODC Theater from October 24-27, 2024. Visit RAWdance.org for more info. Doors at 6:30PM. $30 general / $25 students/teachers/seniors/artists
Friday October 25, 2024 7:30pm - 9:15pm PDT
ODC Theater
 
Saturday, October 26
 

2:00pm PDT

Atlas of Perfumed Botany: Jean-Claude Ellena with John McMurtrie and Jane Marchant
Saturday October 26, 2024 2:00pm - 3:00pm PDT

Part of Litquake’s Words Around the World
Co-presented with Villa Albertine and The Gardens of Golden Gate Park
Sponsored by Center for the Art of Translation/Two Lines Press

Iconic French perfumer Jean-Claude Ellena, known as the creative force and “nose” behind Les Jardins d'Hermès, joins writers (and botany enthusiasts) John McMurtrie and Jane Marchant in conversation. Like his book, Atlas of Perfumed Botany, this discussion is sure to trace the cartography of particular fragrances, examine historical connections, and contemplate cultural exchange.  Scent connoisseurs won’t want to miss master perfumer Ellena for this intimate discussion as he looks back on his influential career and considers the innovative ways perfume can influence a better understanding of our natural environment, and positive outcomes for our ecological futures. FREE with SFBG admission

A previously published version of this event listed the event start time as 1:00pm. The event will open to the public at 2:00pm, following a private reception for Litquake and Villa Albertine donors. We sincerely apologize for any confusion!
Moderators
avatar for Jane Marchant

Jane Marchant

Jane Marchant is an interdisciplinary storyteller working with writing, photography, plants, and collage. Her work has appeared in ZYZZYVA, Guernica, Apogee, Kweli, Catapult, Evergreen Review, and elsewhere. She’s at work on a memoir in the form of an Encyclopedia of Botany of the... Read More →
avatar for John McMurtrie

John McMurtrie

John McMurtrie is an independent book editor. He is senior editor of the literary journal Zyzzyva, a contributing editor of the quarterly literary travel magazine Stranger’s Guide, and an editor for McSweeney’s Publishing. His new book Literary Journeys: Mapping Fictional Travels... Read More →
Authors and Participants
avatar for Jean-Claude Ellena

Jean-Claude Ellena

Jean-Claude Ellena, the “nose” of the luxury brand Hermès for fourteen years, has been the Creative Director of Fragrance at the perfume house Le Couvent since 2019. Karin Doering-Froger, a faculty member at the Atelier de Sèvres, has illustrated many novels and travel guides... Read More →
Saturday October 26, 2024 2:00pm - 3:00pm PDT
San Francisco Botanical Gardens, Fragrance Garden

5:00pm PDT

Lit Crawl San Francisco
Saturday October 26, 2024 5:00pm - 11:00pm PDT
Sponsored by California Humanities

One of the most anticipated literary nights of the year, Lit Crawl SF brings together authors and fans for the world’s largest free pop-up literary event! Our 2024 Lit Crawl San Francisco will see 60+ events sprout up all over the Mission District. Our biggest in 5 years! FREE

FULL LIT CRAWL SF SCHEDULE NOW AVAILABLE! 

Saturday October 26, 2024 5:00pm - 11:00pm PDT
 
Sunday, October 27
 

TBA

Aftershocks Events: October 27–November 17
Sunday October 27, 2024 TBA
Can't get enough Litquake? We've got you covered, with additional events in November! Visit our website for details on the following programs:

Thursday, November 7, Why Trees Stay Outside: Terry Tierney with Sophia Raday
Thursday, November 14, 49 Days: Graphic Novelist Agnes Lee Imagines the Afterlife
Sunday, November17, How They Did It: Writing Climate Activism Across Genres
Authors and Participants
avatar for Amanda Hawkins

Amanda Hawkins

Amanda Hawkins’ first book of poetry, When I Say the Bones I Mean the Bones, is forthcoming on January 1, 2025. They are a Tin House, Bread Loaf, and Melon Public Scholar and winner of the Editor’s Prize for poetry from The Florida Review, the Emerging Writer Award from Key West... Read More →
avatar for Agnes Lee

Agnes Lee

Agnes Lee grew up in the Bay Area and is a graduate of Art Center College of Design. She is a former Chronicle Books fellow and was an Art Director at The New York Times for several years where she began illustrating the Metropolitan Diary column. She now lives in Portland, OR with... Read More →
avatar for Hana Lee

Hana Lee

Hana Lee is a biracial Korean-American writer who also builds software for a living. She has an undying love for fantastical stories in all their forms, especially video games, and a habit of writing to moody indie rock playlists. Her short writing has appeared in Fantasy Magazine... Read More →
avatar for Manjula Martin

Manjula Martin

Manjula Martin’s newest book, The Last Fire Season, came out in January. She is also the coauthor, with her father, Orin Martin, of Fruit Trees for Every Garden, which won the 2020 American Horticultural Society Book Award. Her nonfiction has appeared in The New Yorker, Virginia... Read More →
avatar for Sophia Raday

Sophia Raday

Sophia Raday is at work on a murder mystery featuring women cops going through middlescence in the Bay Area. In the meantime, she celebrates the joy and power of women of experience through her SheFlexx social media accounts on Instagram and Facebook. A proud member of The Writers... Read More →
avatar for Vanessa Saunders

Vanessa Saunders

Vanessa Saunders is a professor of practice at Loyola University New Orleans. Her feminist, experimental novel, The Flat Woman, won the Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Prize from FC2 and the University of Alabama Press. Her hybrid work, fiction, and poetry have appeared in Seneca... Read More →
avatar for Nina Schuyler

Nina Schuyler

Nina Schuyler's collection, In This Ravishing World, won the W.S. Porter Prize and the Prism Prize for Climate Literature. Her novel, Afterword, won the Foreword INDIES Book of the Year for Literary and Science Fiction and the PenCraft Seasonal Book Award for Fiction-Science Fiction... Read More →
avatar for Terry Tierney

Terry Tierney

Terry Tierney is the author of The Poet’s Garage and the novels Lucky Ride and The Bridge on Beer River. His poems and stories recently appeared in The Bellevue Literary Review, Remington Review, Reed Magazine, Ghost Parachute, Flash Fiction Magazine, Rust + Moth, Typishly, Valparaiso... Read More →
Sunday October 27, 2024 TBA

7:00pm PDT

Une Famille (A Family) Screening, Q&A with Christine Angot and Zoë Elton
Sunday October 27, 2024 7:00pm - 9:00pm PDT
Part of Litquake’s Words Around the World

Co-presented with Villa Albertine and Mill Valley Film Festival

Novelist, screenwriter and director Christine Angot joins Zoë Elton, artistic director for the Mill Valley Film Festival, to present a special screening of A Family (dir. Angot, 2024). This radical and powerful documentary examines the rarely discussed topic of incest as it follows Angot, who, unplanned, begins confronting family members and friends about the abuse she endured as a teenager at the hands of her father. This filmic journey explores the unspoken reasons why such acts went unchallenged, examines the role of her father,  and questions the societal and personal implications of openly confronting the truth both then and now. Film audio in French with English subtitles. $15
Moderators
avatar for Zoë Elton

Zoë Elton

Zoë is a Herefordian by birth and a Hampsteadian by heart, though many years in the San Francisco Bay Area has made her Oaklandish by avocation. She’s a film curator, writer, interviewer and cartoonist, who’s also a tea-drinker, book nerd, traveller, food-appreciator and yogi... Read More →
Authors and Participants
avatar for Christine Angot

Christine Angot

CHRISTINE ANGOT is one of the most controversial authors writing today in France. Since the 1999 publication of Incest, Angot has remained at the center of public debate and has continued to push the boundaries of what society allows an author to express. Born in 1958 in Châteauroux... Read More →
Sunday October 27, 2024 7:00pm - 9:00pm PDT
4 Star Theater

7:30pm PDT

Lifeform: Jenny Slate
Sunday October 27, 2024 7:30pm - 9:00pm PDT
Spend an evening of nearly impossible-to-describe strangeness, whimsy, and hilarity with the one and only, Jenny Slate. As she reads you pieces from Lifeform—her brand-new book of essays—join Jenny on a journey through all of the relatable phases of life from heartbreak to true love to pregnancy, parenthood, not to mention all of the tiny, odd details that make up a life. The actor, comedian, co-creator of Marcel the Shell, and New York Times bestselling author will host an evening complete with a live reading, a moderated conversation, and an audience Q&A. Tickets include a signed copy of Lifeform. $82-$92
Authors and Participants
avatar for Jenny Slate

Jenny Slate

Jenny Slate is an actor and stand-up comedian, and the author of the essay collection Little Weirds (an instant New York Times best seller), as well as the New York Times best selling children's book Marcel The Shell with Shoes On. Her feature film Marcel The Shell With Shoes On (which... Read More →
Sunday October 27, 2024 7:30pm - 9:00pm PDT
Palace of Fine Arts
 
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