(Nicole McFeely)

Featured Event: Saturday + Sunday, September 3-4 – SF Zinefest

Free and open to the public, The San Francisco Zine Fest is an ever-growing annual celebration of small-press publishing held at the San Francisco County Fair Building in Golden Gate Park. From zines and comics to art books and beyond, exhibitors range from established small-press publishing houses such as RE/Search Publications and AK Press to first time self-publishers and creators. Writers, cartoonists, crafters, illustrators, printmakers, and artists of all kinds use the SFZF as a unique venue to sell, trade, and share their work.

This year’s festival will be the largest one to date with more than 150 exhibitors, in addition to added workshops, panels, and events including special guests Hamburger Eyes, a loosely-knit photographers’ collective, and Lark Pien, a native San Franciscan and comic maker.

Also This Week:
The San Francisco Bay Area MFA Mixer is back for its sixth installment Monday, August 29th. Should be a good one, seeing as it’s the first day back at school for a lot of these folks. Mixer, indeed. Check out the readers and find more information here, and check out a past event.

On Tuesday, August 30th grab your friends and make friends with ModCloth and failbetter.com at the Make-Out Room as they celebrate writing and style with A Literary Match-Up featuring Sally Ashton, Maggie Glover, Kelly Luce, Laura Vrcek, Katie Williams and no cover charge!

Free, free, free; this week is all about it, and Wednesday, August 31st is no exception. Raise a toast with Litquake as they help NCBPMA ring in the end of the season with their first-ever Summer Cocktail Celebration at the Hotel Rex. Make sure to RSVP with your name, membership status, and the name of your organization by August 29th to ncbpma@ncbpma.org if you’d like to attend. Bonus deals for signing up as a member: find out more here.

On Thursday, September 1st, join Chris Colin as he celebrates the release of Blindsight, a true story of Hollywood tragedy combining with miraculous medical oddity. Read an excerpt here to find out what I’m talking about. Not in the mood for Hollywood and other general tragedy of that sort? Enjoy some poetry at Thursdays at Readers with features Alfonso Texidor and Mark Kockinos.

On Friday, September 2nd spend an evening with Clive Matson and friends at First Fridays over at Caffe Roma. Or, check out Oakland-based visual artist and poet Cassandra Smith and author Ben Mirov at First Fridays at Studio One.