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Saturday, October 12
 

12:30pm PDT

Behind the Veil: Ghostwriting 101
Saturday October 12, 2024 12:30pm - 1:30pm PDT
San Francisco Public Library Saroyan Gallery
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
  Writers Weekend

2:00pm PDT

Radical Creative Womanist Workshopping and Reflection in Community
Saturday October 12, 2024 2:00pm - 3:00pm PDT
San Francisco Public Library Saroyan Gallery
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
  Writers Weekend

3:30pm PDT

Black Poetics, Black Worldbuilding
Saturday October 12, 2024 3:30pm - 4:30pm PDT
San Francisco Public Library Saroyan Gallery
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
  Writers Weekend
 
Sunday, October 13
 

12:30pm PDT

FilBookFest Keynote with Elaine Castillo
Sunday October 13, 2024 12:30pm - 12:45pm PDT
San Francisco Public Library Koret Auditorium
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
  Writers Weekend

1:00pm PDT

How Mighty Is the Small, Independent Press?
Sunday October 13, 2024 1:00pm - 2:00pm PDT
San Francisco Public Library Saroyan Gallery
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
  Writers Weekend

2:30pm PDT

Is Nonfiction Literature? Exploring the Intersection of Fact and Art
Sunday October 13, 2024 2:30pm - 3:30pm PDT
San Francisco Public Library Saroyan Gallery
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
  Writers Weekend

4:00pm PDT

Subterfuge and Secrets: Memoirists Who Go Undercover to Learn the Truth
Sunday October 13, 2024 4:00pm - 5:00pm PDT
San Francisco Public Library Saroyan Gallery
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
  Writers Weekend
 
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