Featured

• Franny Choi and sam sax
  Author of "Floating, Brilliant, Gone" and the chapbook "Death by Sex Machine" Franny Choi visits San Francisco from Michigan to read from her anticipated second collection of poems, "Soft Science," which uses the myth of the cyborg to explore queer, Asian American femininity. Choi haunts with questions of identity and consciousness. Joining her is Stegner […]
• Nathaniel Rich with Mark Danner
  Last year, The NYT Magazine devoted an entire issue to Nathaniel Rich's article chronicling the decade beginning in 1979, when we knew nearly everything we understand today about climate change--including how to stop it--and what happened instead. Now expanded into book form, "Losing Earth" tells the human story of climate change from the birth of […]
• Jenny Odell
  Oakland-based multi-disciplinary artist and writer Jenny Odell ("The Bureau of Suspended Objects") reads from her debut book, "How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy," which critiques the forces vying for our attention, redefines what we think of as productivity, reconnects us with the environment and reveals all that we've been too distracted to see […]
• What Doesnt Kill You Makes You Blacker
  Damon Young, co-founder of VerySmartBrothas and senior editor at The Root, visits CIIS to read from and discuss his provocative and humorous new book, "What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Blacker: A Memoir in Essays." Writing on race and culture, Young examines the ever-shifting definition of what it means to be black (and male) in […]
• The Salon Presents: Ng?g? wa Thiong’o
  Beloved author of many books, including “A Grain of Wheat,” “Weep Not, Child” and “Petals of Blood,” Ng?g? wa Thiong’o reads from his new story collection, “Minutes of Glory and Other Stories.” The book covers Kenya from the British colonial rule and resistance to the bittersweet experience of independence. Tickets include food provided by local […]
• Rachel Howard
  "The Lost Night" author Rachel Howard celebrates the publication of her debut novel "The Risk of Us," about a 40-something woman who longs to be a mother and the captivating but troubled child--Maresa--she and her husband take in. After a year with Maresa threatens to break up their marriage, the couple must decide if they […]
• Roxane Dunbar-Ortiz
  Author of many books, including "An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States," Roxane Dunbar-Ortiz reads from her much-lauded "Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment," which City Lights published early last year. The book presents an informative, deeply researched history of guns and gun laws in America in an effort to understand the […]
• SFJAZZ Poetry Festival
  SFJAZZ kicks off its 7th annual Poetry Festival with a night curated by Poet Laureate Marc Bamuthi Joseph, who's invited writers of different genres to respond to a key piece of writing on the American Dream, which they'll perform in collaboration with the band Mino Yanci. Featuring Mona Webb, Jeff Chang, RyanNicole, Adam Mansbach, Tongo […]
• Lynn Breedlove
  Writer/performer of "Lynnee Breedlove's One Freak Show"(and the ensuing book, which won a 2010 Lambda Literary Award in the transgender category), and entrepreneurial founder of Homobiles, the beloved ride service for the LGBTIQQ community, Lynn Breedlove celebrates his new book "45 Thought Crimes" (Manic D Press), which he began the morning after the 2016 election.
• Rhea Mukherjee and Adam Nemett
  LA-based indie Unnamed Press presents Rhea Mukherjee and Adam Nemett reading from their new novels. Mukherjee got her MFA at CCA and returns from Bangalore to read "The Body Myth", a modern story of love and loss. Nemett, from Charlottesville, VA, reads from "We Can Save Us All," about a group of alienated Princeton students […]