The End of the Golden Gate: Writers on Loving (and Sometimes Leaving) San Francisco

Co-presented by Green Apple Books on the Park

Join Litquake for the exclusive Bay Area launch of the new anthology The End of the Golden Gate: Writers on Loving (and Sometimes Leaving) San Francisco (Chronicle Prism), featuring stories from 25 acclaimed writers about living in one of the most turbulent cultural epicenters in the U.S. Join us for a rollicking evening of stories and conversation, with The End of the Golden Gate contributors Gary Kamiya, John Law, Kimberly Reyes, and Alia Volz. Moderated by Litquake co-founder Jack Boulware. Audience Q&A to follow.

FREE, $10-15 suggested donation
Registration required. Spots are limited.
Event will also be livecasted on Facebook Live.

A percentage of this book’s proceeds will be given to charities that help those in the bay experiencing homelessness. Every copy purchased offers a small way to help those in need.

Over the last few decades, San Francisco has experienced radical changes with the influence of Silicon Valley, tech companies, and more. Countless articles, blogs, and even movies have tried to capture the complex nature of what San Francisco has become, a place millions of people have loved to call home, and yet are compelled to consider leaving. In this beautifully written collection, writers take on this Bay Area-dweller’s eternal conflict: Should I stay or should I go?

Including an introduction written by Gary Kamiya and essays from Margaret Cho, W. Kamau Bell, Michelle Tea, Beth Lisick, Daniel Handler, Bonnie Tsui, Stuart Schuffman, Alysia Abbott, Peter Coyote, Alia Volz, Duffy Jennings, John Law, and many more, The End of the Golden Gate is a penetrating journey that illuminates both what makes San Francisco so magnetizing and how it has changed vastly over time, shapeshifting to become something new for each generation of city dwellers.

With essays chronicling the impact of the tech-industry invasion and the evolution, gentrification, and radical cost of living that has transformed San Francisco’s most beloved neighborhoods, these prescient essayists capture the lasting imprint of the 1960s counterculture movement, as well as the fight to preserve the art, music, and other creative movements that make this forever the city of love.

Gary Kamiya is an author, journalist and historian of San Francisco. His latest book, with artist Paul Madonna, is Spirits of San Francisco: Voyages Through the Unknown City. He is also author of Cool Gray City of Love: 49 Views of San Francisco. His award-winning history column “Portals of the Past” appears every other Saturday in the San Francisco Chronicle. He lives in San Francisco.

John Law has been involved in creating underground culture in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond for 40 years. He was an original member of the legendary San Francisco urban adventure and pranks group The Suicide Club, was integral to the creation of The Cacophony Society, and is co-founder of the Burning Man Festival. Law is still involved in the worldwide urban exploration underground, and collaborates with a number of artists and businesses on various projects. He is co-author of Tales of the San Francisco Cacophony Society (Last Gasp), and lives in San Francisco.

Kimberly Reyes is a poet and essayist, and has received fellowships from the Poetry Foundation, the Academy of American Poets, CantoMundo, Callaloo, the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht in Ireland, the Munster Literature Centre, the Prague Summer Program for Writers, and many other places. She’s written nonfiction for The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Associated Press, Entertainment Weekly, Alternative Press, ESPN the Magazine, and poetry for journals including American Poets Magazine, The Feminist Wire, Columbia Journal, and The Stinging Fly. She is author of the poetry collections Running to Stand Still (Omnidawn) and Warning Coloration (dancing girl press), and her nonfiction book of essays Life During Wartime (Fourteen Hills) won the 2018 Michael Rubin Book Award.

Alia Volz is the author of Home Baked: My Mom, Marijuana, and the Stoning of San Francisco (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), winner of the 2020 Golden Poppy Award for nonfiction from the California Independent Booksellers Alliance. Her work has appeared in The Best American Essays, The New York Times, Bon Appetit, Guernica, The Best Women’s Travel Writing, and many other publications. She’s received fellowships from MacDowell and Ucross. Her family story has been featured on Snap Judgment, Criminal and NPR’s Fresh Air. She lives in San Francisco.