Upcoming Events › South Bay

The Center for Literary Arts is excited to welcome author of A Lucky Man and finalist for the National Book Award, Jamel Brinkley in conversation with SJSU’s new fiction professor, Keenan Norris on Thursday, February 27, 2020 in MLK Library Room 225/229 at 7PM. This event is free and open to the public. A debut that Entertainment Weekly saw “creating waves within the literary sphere,” A Lucky Man explores the charged, complex ties between men whose mistakes threaten their relationships with friends, lovers, and family members.…

The Humanities Institute at UC Santa Cruz and the Center for Creative Ecologies present Beyond the End of the World Lecture Series, featuring Amitav Ghosh: “Unmuting the Brutes: Human and Non-human After the Collapse of ‘Civilization.'" Amitav Ghosh will speak at the UC Santa Cruz Music Recital Hall Thursday, February 27th at 7:00 pm. This event is free and open to the public with registration. Please register here. Books by Amitav Ghosh will be available for sale at this event, provided by Bookshop…

Hospice of Santa Cruz County, in partnership with Bookshop Santa Cruz, presents Dr. Christopher Kerr who will discuss and sign copies of his new book, Death Is but a Dream: Finding Hope and Meaning at Life's End—the first book to validate the meaningful dreams and visions that bring comfort as death nears. Christopher Kerr is a hospice doctor. All of his patients die. Yet he has cared for thousands of patients who, in the face of death, speak of love and…

Join Poetry Santa Cruz at Bookshop Santa Cruz for a poetry reading featuring local poets and authors. This month's event will feature local poets Doren Robbins and Jory Post. Doren Robbins is a contemporary American poet, prose poet, fiction writer, essayist, mixed media artist, and educator. As a cultural activist, he has organized and developed projects for Amnesty International, the Salvadoran Medical Relief Fund, the Romero Relief Fund, and poetsagainstthewar.org. His latest book is an in-depth critical study titled, Apocalypse Contemporary: A…

Admission FREE Free parking in the Staff/Volunteer lot on Phelan Avenue. Please enter History Park from the Phelan Avenue side Questions? Call 408-368-0353 RSVP recommended but not required: poetsatplay@pcsj.org The Markham House and map:

ookshop Santa Cruz and the NAACP of Santa Cruz County welcome Zach Norris, executive director of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, for a discussion and signing of his new book, We Keep Us Safe: Building Secure, Just, and Inclusive Communities—a groundbreaking new vision for public safety that overturns more than 200 years of fear-based discrimination, othering, and punishment. As the effects of aggressive policing and mass incarceration harm historically marginalized communities and tear families apart, how do we define safety? In a time…

With unprecedented student debt keeping an entire generation from realizing the "American Dream," this book sounds a warning about how that debt may undermine both higher education—and our democracy. American higher education boasts one of the most impressive legacies in the world, but the price of admission for many is now endless debt. As this book shows, increasing educational indebtedness undermines the real value of higher education in our democracy. To help readers understand this dilemma, the book examines how…

ookshop welcomes acclaimed local poet, editor, and teacher Patrice Vecchione (Ink Knows No Borders: Poems of the Immigrant and Refugee Experience) for a celebration of her newest book, My Shouting, Shattered, Whispering Voice—the ultimate writing guide for teens. Ever had an emotion or experience you wanted to express, but didn't know how? This guide encourages teens to find their voices, step up and speak their truths, and articulate what matters to them most--both personally and politically--whether it be boldly to an outside audience…

Bookshop Santa Cruz is delighted to welcome celebrated poet Carolyn Forché for a reading and signing of In the Lateness of the World—her new poetry collection of uncanny grace and moral force. Over four decades, Carolyn Forché's visionary work has reinvigorated poetry's power to awaken the reader. Her groundbreaking poems have been testimonies, inquiries, and wonderments. They daringly map a territory where poetry asserts our inexhaustible responsibility to each other. Her first new collection in seventeen years, In the Lateness of the World, is…

Indigo merges elegy and praise poem in an exploration of life's complex grey areas. Whether her subject is oysters, high heels, a pork chop, a beloved dog, or a wife's return to health, Bass pulls us in with exquisite immediacy. Her lush and precisely observed descriptions allow us to feel the sheer primal pleasure of being alive in our own "succulent skin," the pleasure of the gifts of hunger, desire, touch. In this book, joy meets regret, devotion meets dependence, and…

Dana Gioia is an internationally acclaimed poet and writer. Former California Poet laureate and Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, Gioia was born in Los Angeles of Italian and Mexican descent. The first person in his family to attend college, he received a B.A. and M.B.A. from Stanford and an M.A. from Harvard in Comparative Literature. For fifteen years he worked as a businessman before quitting at forty-one to become a full-time writer. Gioia has published five full-length…

Join Poetry Santa Cruz at Bookshop Santa Cruz for a poetry reading featuring local poets and authors. This month's event will feature Molly Fisk, editor of a new anthology of recent topical poetry by Californian authors titled "Fire and Rain", as well as several of the book's poets. Poetry Santa Cruz is dedicated to nurturing the poetry community and bringing poetry to the larger community in Santa Cruz County. They present poetry readings at Bookshop Santa Cruz and other locations in Santa…

 Rick Riordan Presents (dedicated to providing entertaining middle grade fiction based on various world mythologies) with Aru Shah and the End of Time, written by best-selling author Roshani Chokshi. It delves into Hindu mythology and is described as a mix of Riordan’s own Percy Jackson series and the Sailor Moon franchise. It’s an imaginative novel that puts girl power and diverse protagonists front and center. . “Have you ever read a book and thought, Wow, I wish I’d written that!?”…

From one of our most ceaselessly provocative literary talents, a novel of haunting metaphysical suspense about an elderly widow whose life is upturned when she finds a cryptic note on a walk in the woods that ultimately makes her question everything about her new home. While on her normal daily walk with her dog in the nearby forest woods, our protagonist comes across a note, handwritten and carefully pinned to the ground with a frame of stones. Her name was…

This is an advanced event listing. Please check back for updated information, or sign up for our events emails. This free event will take place at Bookshop Santa Cruz. Chairs for open seating are usually set up about an hour before the event begins. If you have any ADA accommodation requests, please email info@bookshopsantacruz.com by May 4th. An electric debut novel set against the twilight of the American gold rush, two siblings are on the run in an unforgiving landscape--trying not just to…

Join Poetry Santa Cruz at Bookshop Santa Cruz for a poetry reading featuring local poets and authors. This month's event will feature Francesca Bell and Len Anderson. Poetry Santa Cruz is dedicated to nurturing the poetry community and bringing poetry to the larger community in Santa Cruz County. They present poetry readings at Bookshop Santa Cruz and other locations in Santa Cruz County, and the Poet/Speak open reading. They also provide free information on other poetry-related events in the area. Poetry Santa Cruz…