Beast Crawl Literary Festival

What Is Beast Crawl?
On Saturday, July 16th 2016, Uptown Oakland’s Beast Crawl will hold its fifth annual free literary festival featuring more than a hundred writers in a single night, spread out over three hours and numerous local galleries, bars, restaurants, cafés, and storefronts. Past venues have included Telegraph Beer Garden, Awaken Café, Farley’s East, Era Art Bar & Lounge, The Legionnaire Saloon, and many more.

Each leg of the Beast lasts one hour, and offers as many as a dozen readings to chose from. There’s a half hour break between literary legs for socializing and relocating to a new venue before the next reading begins. We recommend choosing one reading per leg. You can even plan your route in advance. Crawl maps listing all the venues, curators, legs, and after-party locations will be available online and at all the Leg 1 events.

To curate these literary events for Beast Crawl, we invite a diverse collection of local reading series producers and literary rock stars including the Oakland Youth Poet Laureate Awards, Tourettes Without Regrets, Nomadic Press, Kundiman West, Quiet Lightning, Small Press Distribution, Lip Service West and many more.

The name “Beast Crawl” derives from the Pig Latin for Beast, which is East Bay, symbolized by the classic Oakland image of the giant cranes that stalk our shore. We think every city should have its own unique literary identity, and Beast Crawl is the beating literary heart of Oakland.

1st leg: 5pm to 6pm
2nd leg: 6:30pm to 7:30pm
3rd leg: 8pm to 9pm
4th leg: 9pm to 2am (After Party)

To plan your crawl, check out our festival map,
sponsored by East Bay Express!