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DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20200902T080000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20201029T170000
DTSTAMP:20260519T045648
CREATED:20200925T232535Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200925T232535Z
UID:59869-1599033600-1603990800@litseen.com
SUMMARY:Peninsula Virtual Bookfest
DESCRIPTION:PENINSULA VIRTUAL BOOKFEST\n2020 SCHEDULE\n\n\nWelcome Message from San Mateo County Supervisor Carole Groom and local librarians\nhttps://youtu.be/D__YAzFYfV0\n\n\nSeptember 2\, 1pm PT\nBurlingame Public Library presents a virtual bookfest featuring NPR’s Malaka Gharib\, Sari-Sari Storybooks’ founder Christina Newhard & NYT bestselling YA author Erin Entrada Kelly. Webinar/FB Live. (Fiction\, Middle School/YA)\nhttps://youtu.be/k4U_bDFfrmo\n\n\nSeptember 3\, 5pm PT\nSan Mateo County Libraries presents “Poetry & Home in Diaspora” featuring Kai Coggin\, Lee Herrick\, Antonio Lopez & Persis Karim. SMCL YouTube (Poetry)\nhttps://youtu.be/rH_thzyluCc\n\n\nSeptember 7\, 5pm PT\nSan Mateo County Libraries presents a virtual bookfest featuring Irenosen Okojie\, London-based author & winner of the 2020 AKO Caine Prize for African Writing\, Murzban Shroff\, Mumbai-based author & recipient of the John Gilgun Fiction Award\, and Ricco Siasoco\, San Francisco-based author & National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow. Facebook Watch Party. (Fiction)\nhttps://youtu.be/8eI1E8NySAg\n\n\nSeptember 10\, 6pm PT\nBurlingame Public Library presents a virtual bookfest featuring Thea Matthews with MK Chavez\, Natasha Dennerstein & Tongo Eisen-Martin. Webinar/FB Live. (Poetry)\nhttps://www.facebook.com/480Primrose/videos/1475338219322119\n\n\nSeptember 16\, 6pm PT\nDaly City Public Library presents a virtual bookfest featuring Veronica Montes with Alan Chazaro\, Elsa Valmidiano & Ricco Siasoco. Webinar/FB Live. (Fiction)\nhttps://www.facebook.com/DalyCityLibrary/videos/2661021164214044\n\n\nSeptember 17\, 6pm PT\nDaly City Public Library presents a virtual bookfest featuring Barbara Jane Reyes with Arlene Biala\, Marianne Chan\, Janice Lobo Sapigao & Jean Vengua. Webinar/FB Live. (Poetry)\nhttps://www.facebook.com/DalyCityLibrary/videos/754302115300958\n\n\nSeptember 20\n“The Makers’ Call to Action” featuring Kai Coggin\, Samuel Getachew\, Tureeda Mikell\, Dena Rod and Michael Simms.\nhttps://www.instagram.com/tv/CFVnf_YhmoM/\n\n\nSeptember 21\, 2:30pm PT\nBurlingame Public Library presents a virtual bookfest featuring Ellen Bass\, Hugh Behm-Steinberg\, Danusha Lameris\, hosted by San Mateo County Poet Laureate Emerita Lisa Rosenberg. Webinar/FB Live. (Poetry)\nhttps://youtu.be/TLLuK6Jp-_Y\n\n\nSeptember 21\, 6pm PT\nSan Mateo County Libraries presents a virtual bookfest featuring Johanna Ely\, Joel Katz\, Phyllis Klein\, Ron Riekki\, Jacki Rigoni\, Kim Shuck\, Tanuja Wakefield & July Westhale. Hosted by San Mateo County Inaugural Poet Laureate Caroline Goodwin. SMCL YouTube Channel. (Poetry)\n\nhttps://www.facebook.com/events/311565253246052/\n\n\n\nSeptember 22\, 6pm PT\nDaly City Public Library presents a virtual bookfest featuring Janet Stickmon with Michelle Bautista\, Herna Cruz-Louie & Melinda Luisa de Jesus. Webinar/FB Live. (Nonfiction)\nhttps://www.facebook.com/DalyCityLibrary/videos/681790089360727\n\n\nSeptember 24\, 6pm PT\nDaly City Public Library presents a virtual bookfest featuring Maw Shein Win with Jennifer Hasegawa\, Jenny Qi & Audrey T. Williams. Webinar/FB Live. (Poetry)\n\nhttps://www.facebook.com/events/2312434539051532/\n\n\n\nSeptember 30\, 6pm PT\nSan Mateo County Libraries presents a virtual bookfest featuring Carole Bumpus\, Joan Gelfand\, Audrey Kalman & Geri Spieler\, with California Writers Club Immediate Past President Lisa Meltzer Penn. SMCL Youtube Channel. (Fiction/Nonfiction)\n\nhttps://www.facebook.com/events/3266256730087640/\n\n\n\nOctober 3\, 1pm PT\nSouth San Francisco Public Library presents a virtual bookfest featuring children’s book authors Christina Newhard\, Gayle Romasanta & Justine Villanueva\, and illustrator Lynnor Bontigao. Webinar/FB Live. (Fiction/Nonfiction)\n\nhttps://www.facebook.com/events/3407003262725443/\n\n\n\nOctober 5\, 5pm PT\nSan Mateo County Libraries presents a virtual bookfest featuring Cody Tolmasoff. SMCL YouTube Channel. (Middle School/YA Fiction)\nhttps://youtu.be/A5dmcSeWnPE\n\n\nOctober 13\, 3pm PT\nSan Mateo County Libraries presents a virtual bookfest with devorah major\, Jason Bayani & James Cagney. SMCL Youtube Channel. (Poetry)\n\nhttps://www.facebook.com/events/719854585237673/\n\n\n\nOctober 23 (time TBA)\nSouth San Francisco Public Library presents a virtual bookfest featuring July Westhale\, author of “Occasionally Accurate Science” and Nomadic Press’ J.K. Fowler.\n\n\nOctober 26\, 5pm PT\nSan Mateo County Libraries presents a virtual bookfest featuring Francesca Bell\, Barbara Berman\, Joe Cottonwood\, Peter N. Carroll\, Ken Haas\, Kathleen McClung\, Connie Post\, & Lee Rossi. Hosted by San Mateo County Poet Laureate Emerita Lisa Rosenberg. Facebook Watch Party/SMCL Youtube Channel. (Poetry)\n\nhttps://www.facebook.com/events/4134399856630670/\n\n\n\nOctober 29 (details TBA)\n\n\n#virtualbookfest #bookfest #PeninsulaBookfest
URL:https://litseen.com/event/peninsula-virtual-bookfest/
LOCATION:CA
CATEGORIES:Free,Virtual
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/png:https://litseen.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/peninsula-virtual-bookfest.png
ORGANIZER;CN="San Mateo County Poet Laureate Aileen Cassinetto":MAILTO:acassine@gmail.com
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20201008T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20201008T120000
DTSTAMP:20260519T045648
CREATED:20200912T194324Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200912T194324Z
UID:59574-1602158400-1602158400@litseen.com
SUMMARY:Fowzia Karimi
DESCRIPTION:Fowzia Karimi is a writer\, illustrator\, and alumni of the Mills MFA in Creative Writing Program. As Publishers Weeklydescribes\, her illuminated debut novel Above Us the Milky Way “renders a family’s wartime emigration through a polyphonic mix of voices and genres along with evocative color illustrations and photographs.” Karimi also illustratedThe Brick House by Micheline Aharonian Marcom and Vagrants & Uncommon Visitors by A. Kendra Greene. She is the recipient of The Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award and lives in Texas.
URL:https://litseen.com/event/fowzia-karimi/
LOCATION:CA
CATEGORIES:Free,Virtual
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://litseen.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/image-3.jpeg
ORGANIZER;CN="Mills College":MAILTO:syoung@mills.edu
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20201008T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20201008T140000
DTSTAMP:20260519T045648
CREATED:20200923T174324Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200923T174324Z
UID:59804-1602158400-1602165600@litseen.com
SUMMARY:Bathsheba Demuth and Elizabeth Rush Discuss the award-winning environmental history\, Floating Coast
DESCRIPTION:Bathsheba Demuth and Pulitzer Prize-finalist Elizabeth Rush join us for a conversation about Floating Coast: An Environmental History of the Bering Strait (W.W. Norton). \nThis event will be streamed on our Crowdcast channel. REGISTER HERE. \n“A brilliant hybrid.… Often reminiscent to me of Barry Lopez’s Arctic Dreams in its combination of rigorous research\, intense looking and listening\, and its clear ethical vision.” — Robert Macfarlane\, author of Underland \nAbout Floating Coast\nA Nature Top-Ten Book of 2019 \nAn NPR\, Library Journal\, and Kirkus Reviews Best Book of 2019 \n“A monument to a people and their land… an allegory of the world we have created.” —Sven Beckert\, author of Pulitzer Prize finalist Empire of Cotton: A Global History \nFloating Coast is the first-ever comprehensive history of Beringia\, the Arctic land and waters stretching from Russia to Canada. The unforgiving territories along the Bering Strait had long been home to humans—the Inupiat and Yupik in Alaska\, and the Yupik and Chukchi in Russia—before American and European colonization. Rapidly\, these frigid lands and waters became the site of an ongoing experiment: How\, under conditions of extreme scarcity\, would modern ideologies of capitalism and communism control and manage the resources they craved? \nDrawing on her own experience living with and interviewing indigenous people in the region\, Bathsheba Demuth presents a profound tale of the dynamic changes and unforeseen consequences that human ambition has brought (and will continue to bring) to a finite planet. \nAbout the participants\nBathsheba Demuth is an environmental historian at Brown University\, specializing in the United States and Russia\, and in the history of energy and past climates. She has lived in and studied Arctic communities across Eurasia and North America. \nElizabeth Rush‘s journalism has appeared in the New York Times\, the Washington Post\, The Atlantic\, The Guardian\, Harper’s\, Pacific Standard\, and the New Republic\, among others. She is the recipient of fellowships and grants including the Howard Foundation Fellowship\, awarded by Brown University; the Andrew Mellon Foundation Fellowship for Pedagogical Innovation in the Humanities; the Metcalf Institute Fellowship; and the Science in Society Journalism Award from the National Association of Science Writers. She received her MFA in nonfiction from Southern New Hampshire University and her BA from Reed College. She lives in Rhode Island\, where she teaches creative nonfiction at Brown University.
URL:https://litseen.com/event/bathsheba-demuth-and-elizabeth-rush-discuss-the-award-winning-environmental-history-floating-coast/
LOCATION:CA
CATEGORIES:Free,Virtual
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://litseen.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/floating-coast.jpg
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20201008T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20201008T160000
DTSTAMP:20260519T045648
CREATED:20200828T224200Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200828T224200Z
UID:59365-1602165600-1602172800@litseen.com
SUMMARY:Patti Smith
DESCRIPTION:Bay Area Book Festival in conjunction with City Lights Booksellers present \nExtraordinary Dreamer: Patti Smith on “Year of the Monkey” \nPatti Smith in an intimate evening of reading and music \ncelebrating the paperback release of \nYEAR OF THE MONKEY \npublished by Vintage Books \nTickets: $35.00 \n(Purchase Tickets Here) \nThis is a virtual event. \nEach ticket purchase includes a paperback copy of Year of the Monkey (note: we can only ship within the United States)\, event admission for the live event\, and a link to the recorded conversation for viewing after October 8th. Book orders will begin shipping after September 1st. \nWe regret we cannot accept international orders for this event. \nShe redefined rock and roll for a generation\, defied conventional expectations at every turn\, and created enough zeitgeist-shaping art for more than one lifetime. Now Patti Smith has something new and beautiful to share: a “beautiful\, elegant\, and poetic” (NPR) memoir chronicling a transformational year of personal loss\, cross-country travel\, and political upheaval. Year of the Monkey reprises the spellbinding storytelling we all fell in love with in her National Book Award-winning Just Kids and bestselling M Train\, conjuring the complexity and magic of an extraordinary dreamer’s inner life. In this unique live experience\, Patti will play a few songs with longtime band mate Tony Shanahan and share passages from Year of the Monkey. \nCritical Praise for YEAR OF THE MONKEY \n“Poignant\, gorgeous—a picaresque voyage through Patti Smith’s dreams and life\, blending fiction and reality\, conjured characters and actual ones. She writes of seeing her image reflected on the surface of the toaster: ‘I noticed I looked young and old simultaneously.’ That describes her spirit perfectly.” —Maureen Dowd\, The New York Times\n \n“Elegant\, poetic\, wildly entertaining\, touching—a beautifully realized and unique memoir that chronicles a transformative year in the life of one of our most multi-talented creative voices. Part travel journal\, part reflexive essay on our times\, and part meditation on existence at the edge of a new decade of life . . . Effortlessly weaving together fiction and nonfiction\, Smith takes readers on two unique journeys: one that can be traced on a map and one\, infinitely richer and more complex\, that takes place inside her head and heart. Smith’s musical career sometimes threatens to overshadow her accomplishments in other creative fields—but every page in this book is packed with enough outstanding prose to constantly remind readers that Smith is an accomplished novelist\, essayist\, and poet who won the National Book Award in 2010. In her capable hands\, a simple look at New York City in winter becomes a flash of beautiful poetry. Smith’s approach to nonfiction is unique and brave: It counts as true if it happened\, if she imagined it\, and if she felt it. This is a book about Smith and the world all around. And that is just one more reason why everyone should read it.” —Gabino Iglesias\, NPR\n \n“Moving—an account of physical and intellectual wanderings . . . Smith does not rage against her approaching 70th birthday\, nor does she turn away from it. She finds art everywhere\, and remains a pioneer\, the same rules-shattering poet and National Book Award-winning writer . . . She is\, as she writes in Year of the Monkey\, ‘still going about my business\, that of being alive\, the best I can.’” —Jack Cline\, The Washington Post \n“Miraculous . . . A dream-driven\, reality-reclaiming masterpiece laced with poetry and philosophy and surrealism and the hardest realism there is: that of hope . . . Smith is aglow; she moves through this world as a time-traveler\, an eavesdropper\, a vagrant\, a vagabond in the land of literature and life; she is a human mirror. She. invites us to relinquish the different names we give to the living of life and just live it\, with all its disorienting uncertainty. Reflecting on clarifying dreams\, worrying for our shared future\, Smith reminds us that the only remedy for a broken reality is more truth. She reaches\, with a lucid and luminous hand\, for the buoyancy that is our lifeline.” —Maria Popova\, Brain Pickings\n \n“A lucid dream of a memoir . . .Smith sees mystical connections everywhere—and\, floating along on the drifts of her words\, the reader does\, too.” —The New Yorker\n \n“Deft and enigmatic. . . Life  can’t help but confound us; love is enough to sustain us\, and loss\, if not revocable\, can\, for the moment\, be redeemed. [But] Smith is too smart for easy consolations; she has been through too much . . . She summons this scene\, this moment\, giving it the weight of a reckoning. Year of the Monkey reminds us that despair and possibility often spring from the same source.” —David L. Ulin\, Los Angeles Times\n \n“Smith began writing Year of the Monkey on New Year’s Day 2016\, a transformative year for the artist that brought aging\, the loss of friends\, and overall disillusionment. Juxtaposed with this personal narrative are Smith’s descriptions of western landscapes she visited . . . Fact and fiction increasingly blur\, a combination made surreal by Smith’s obsession with details that keep popping up in various locations . . . A gripping tale of the search for meaning in times of turbulence—expressed with Smith’s signature poetic flair.” —Christian Allaire\, Vogue \n“Since 1975\, Patti Smith has been blurring the lines between music\, poetry\, and prose\, howling with grief and roaring with delight\, whether onstage or via the written word. Year of the Monkey [is] her preternatural latest memoir . . . In this slim\, hallucinatory volume\, Smith roves the country in real time\, visiting favorite haunts\, hitching rides with strangers\, contemplating the fuzzy border between waking and dreaming\, and mourning the results of the 2016 presidential election. But just as a sense of gloom begins to settle\, the sun peeks through the clouds. For while ‘there is nothing in heaven like the suffering of real life…\,’ she writes\, ‘I still keep thinking something wonderful is about to happen.’” —Leigh Haber\, O\, The Oprah Magazine\n \n“Lyrical\, poignant . . . [the book] chronicles Smith’s travels and beautifully veers between dreamlike solitary reveries. Smith gives voice in the book to a national feeling of grief framed by her own personal losses; she sums up the nexus of aging\, steeped in reflection and loss. She notices every detail like a photographer\, with her words exquisitely framed by nuance.” —Solvej Schou\, Associated Press \n“Reading about [Smith’s life] makes the world shimmer with possibility. We follow her as she hitchhikes through the desert and gets left for dead\, meets weirdos and mystics in diners up and down the coast\, then takes off for Kentucky to help the playwright Sam Shepard finish his final project. A book full of riddles and fantasies [and] about one woman’s 2016. Grief on a colossal\, national scale has a way of making the most personal\, quotidian sufferings feel small and unimportant. At the same time\, it makes those typical human tragedies appear suddenly of a piece with the world around them. Patti Smith writes beautifully.” —Kaitlyn Tiffany\, Vox\n \n“A fascinating journey . . . powerful stuff. Smith [has a] peculiar brand of wandering—dead phone\, no car\, scant provisions\, vague itinerary . . . The book has little about music\, [but] what’s there is priceless. Year of the Monkey [also] includes charming\, quirky photos by the author\, and achingly sweet recollections.” —Claude Peck\, Minneapolis Star Tribune\n \n“In her third memoir\, Smith is both haunted and joyed by the passage of time. Losses surround her [in] the year she turns 70—a year of devastation\, with catastrophes both unique to her life and ones shared across America. As she crosses the country in a series of solitary adventures infused with the memories of her life on the road\, she meets the world with curiosity and openness. The many [who] revere Smith will take a thrill in her vivid recollections of long ago days on the stage and the streets of Greenwich Village\, while anyone consumed by the fears of today will find them expressed vividly by a beautiful voice.” —Adrienne Gaffney\, San Francisco Chronicle\n \n“Smith’s grace and erudite philosophy is a welcome balm in these times . . . Her latest memoir is an introspective look at her year of solo wandering—she documents that year’s massive political and social change her own lyrical way. The American canon is littered with ‘road trip memoirs\,’ but if there’s a voice we’d want to add to that genre\, it would be Smith.” —Town & Country\n \n“Lovely\, dreamlike . . . a slim volume [with a] minor-key melancholy. The punk poet’s latest memoir unfold like the stack of old Polaroids in her New York apartment: ‘One after another\, each a talisman on a necklace of continuous travels.’” —Entertainment Weekly \n“Compelling—ruminations\, adventures\, unexpected connections: [this] personal\, cross-country odyssey captured by her prose and Polaroid portraits finds Smith mining magical moments within even the most seemingly mundane of circumstances. She weaves threads of everyday experiences and warm recollections together in the manner of a waking dream. Funny moments make Smith relatable.  The narrative thread is transformation.  She is equally a participant and observer of life; as much as art provides sustenance and solace for her in troubled times\, by the end she is invoking a greater call to action. If there is anyone capable of living in the past\, present and future simultaneously\, and occupying space between reality and dreams\, it is Smith. It may not be easy to conveniently explain Smith’s style or approach\, but that is not the point. You simply need to surrender to it to be inspired.” —Bryan Reesman\, Newsday \n“One of America’s finest memoirists. Funny and weird\, sober and sad\, Year of the Monkey is simultaneously a travelogue of Smith’s journeys through California\, Arizona\, Portugal and Kentucky; a fantastical dream-journal full of imagined conversations; and a clear-eyed meditation on Smith’s relationships with two of her oldest\, dearest friends—playwright Sam Shepard and music producer Sandy Pearlman—who passed away as she was writing it. It’s perhaps the closest she’s come to synthesizing the penetrating maturity of her latter-day writings with the improvisational wildness of her early free-form poems and songs.” —Andrew Barker\, Variety\n \n“In her poetic prose and [with] snaps of her trusty Polaroid camera\, Smith captures truth and beauty\, challenges and victories. Year of the Monkey traces her year of wandering across California’s Santa Cruz coast and the West\, searching for answers for questions she never knew she had . . . Smith’s writing is impressionistic; fact and fiction intermix and she captures authentic moments that never fade away.” —Drew Tewksbury\, Los Angeles Times \n“Whether it’s guttural\, poetic lyricism or compassionate nonfiction\, Patti Smith’s writing style and ability are truly unrivaled. In Year of the Monkey\, her words are paired with Polaroids as she explores aging\, grief and the dire global embrace of right-wing nationalism.” —Lizzie Manno\, Paste \n“In the time since her exquisite memoir Just Kids won the National Book Award in 2010\, godmother of punk Patti Smith has been documenting her travels with her pen and trusty Polaroid. In Year of the Monkey\, her wanderlust drives her from San Francisco to Santa Cruz to Arizona to Kentucky to New York . . . Along the way\, she meets fellow nomads\, mourns for loved ones both in the process of dying and those long gone\, and she drinks a whole lot of coffee. A keen observer of the world around her\, Smith is equally adept at documenting her inner terrain. Wherever she wanders\, it’s always worth the trip.” —Emily Rems\, Bust \n“This is the modern-day Patti Smith: older\, wiser\, seeing the world\, and reporting it all back to us in only the way she can. You can’t read this and not feel inspired after you put it down.” —Inside Hook \n“From meditations on poetry\, politics\, art\, and dreams\, to her own lyrical way of interacting with the world\, Year of the Monkey confirms Patti Smith cannot be boxed in by either genre or medium. The book also includes Smith’s Polaroids from her travels—yes\, she is somehow a talented photographer on top of everything else.”\n—Jeva Lange\, The Week\n \n“Lyrical: a book [that] defies all familiar categories\, playfully exploring the seam between reality and fantasy. It’s full of mysterious characters who emerge from somewhere out of the American landscape. [After] a New Year’s Day opening—Smith lost and alone in a part of Santa Cruz usually clogged with tourists–we follow her to Venice Beach\, Arizona\, Kentucky\, Seattle\, and New York. The beating heart of the book comes with Smith’s visits to Sam Shepard at his Kentucky horse ranch….A rich\, kaleidoscopic narrative of surprises and insights.” —Wallace Baine\, Good Times\n\n“Smith is always willing to see where a new road might lead. Her career has been a study of language\, with interest in melodic refrains\, surreal images\, and reverent tones. Year of the Monkey is absolutely true in eternal truths\, ornamented by a sense of poetry . . . A stunning\, soothing work.” —Megan Volpert\, PopMatters  \n“Over the course of a year leading up to her 70th birthday\, rock legend Patti Smith stood witness to the fragility of life. There’s an explicit dreamlike quality and focus to The Year of the Monkey\, which offers a very specific glimpse into the life of an artist facing her mortality without coasting. Through her trips\, cups of coffee\, and dreams\, Smith radiates compassionate and concern as she meditates upon the practice of sitting with loss and change during ever-turbulent times.” —Lauren LeBlanc\, Observer \n“A melancholy mood and poetic language distinguish Smith’s third memoir\, set during the Chinese year of the monkey\, the year when she moves from age 69 to 70. She begins on New Year’s Day\, 2016\, the morning after finishing a three-night run at the Fillmore in San Francisco and sitting at the deathbed of a long-time friendwho introduced her to City Lights\, Caffe Trieste and the Grateful Dead. She chronicles cafés\, hitchhiking trips\, strange motels in Santa Cruz and vivid dreams. With great tenderness\, she describes visiting Sam Shepard in the final months of his life and helping him get his last book completed.”\n—Jane Ciabattari\, BBC \n“Magical\, rich—the unique artistry of Smith’s prose remains.” —Fiona Sturges\, The Guardian (UK)\n \n“Extraordinary.” —Bryan Appleyard\, The Times (UK) \n“It was a year of disruption\, wandering\, dreams and surreal visions: this year of the monkey on the Chinese zodiac was also the year Smith turned 70\, and a trickster election hurled the country into a dark looking-glass realm. Smith writes with fresh lucidity\, wit\, bittersweet wonder\, and stoic sorrow\, shifting in tone from lyrical to hallucinatory to hard-boiled as she describes her meditative and investigative meanderings along the Pacific coast and in the desert. Keenly sensitive to atmosphere\, she finds herself ‘in the middle of the unexplained’ as she travels with cosmic spontaneity and ‘an almost religious simplicity’ . . . She remembers her life-saving childhood library and a cherished\, then dying friend. Smith also chronicles with exquisite poignancy her last visits with her soul mate Sam Shepherd . . . Elegiac\, vital\, and magical.”\n—Donna Seaman\, Booklist  [starred review] \n“Luminous . . . Smith wanders between waking and dreaming in a year filled with the death of a close friend and the political turmoil of the 2016 election . . . In light of her 70th birthday\, she writes lyrically on various subjects: she describes Allen Ginsberg’s poetry\, which she carries along her travels­\, as an ‘expansive hydrogen bomb;’ caught up in Belinda Carlisle’s infectious beat\, she imagines a ‘nonviolent hubris spreading across the land.’ She discovers that her most meaningful insights come from her vivid dreams\, and she feels a palpable melancholia over having to wake up from them. Smith casts a mesmerizing spell with exquisite prose.”\n—Publishers Weekly [starred review]\n \n“Intriguing—a memoir that evolves around the transformations both in Smith’s life and the American political landscape. Disturbing yet humorous\, with the boundary between fiction and nonfiction blurred\, Smith’s work is unlikely to disappoint.”\n—Jianan Qian\, The Millions \n“Captivating . . . a chronicle of a year filled with deep losses and rich epiphanies. The titular year\, 2016\, set Smith\, [who] refers to herself as the ‘poet detective\,’ on a quixotic quest\, with a mysterious companion unexpectedly reappearing amid a backdrop of rock touring\, vagabond traveling\, and a poisonous political landscape. Throughout\, Smith ponders time and mortality—no surprise considering her milestone birthday\, and the experience of losing friends who have meant so much to her. She stresses the importance of memory\, and the timeless nature of a person’s spirit . . . Redemptive.”\n—Kirkus [starred review] \n 
URL:https://litseen.com/event/patti-smith/
LOCATION:CA
CATEGORIES:Free,Virtual
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://litseen.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/year-of-the-monkey.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="Bay Area Book Festival's Women Lit Series":MAILTO:info@baybookfest.org
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20201008T160000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20201008T180000
DTSTAMP:20260519T045648
CREATED:20201003T150310Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20201003T150310Z
UID:59969-1602172800-1602180000@litseen.com
SUMMARY:Aarti Namdev Shahani - Here We Are: American Dreams\, American Nightmares (Virtual Event)
DESCRIPTION:Come join us! Sign up to participate in the next event in Macmillan’s Book + Author series: a virtual book club event with journalist and activist Aarti Namdev Shahani for the paperback release of her heart-wrenching debut memoir\, Here We Are. We’ve partnered with Macmillan to bring this opportunity to book club members across the country\, who can tune in to hear a discussion and participate in the live Q&A. Register through the link above. \nThe Shahanis came to Queens—from India\, by way of Casablanca—in the 1980s. They were undocumented for a few unsteady years and then\, with the arrival of their green cards\, they thought they’d made it. This is the story of how they did\, and didn’t; the unforeseen obstacles that propelled them into years of disillusionment and heartbreak; and the strength of a family determined to stay together. \nHere We Are: American Dreams\, American Nightmares follows the lives of Aarti\, the precocious scholarship kid at one of Manhattan’s most elite prep schools\, and her dad\, the shopkeeper who mistakenly sells watches and calculators to the notorious Cali drug cartel. Together\, the two represent the extremes that coexist in our country\, even within a single family\, and a truth about immigrants that gets lost in the headlines. It isn’t a matter of good or evil; it’s complicated. \nUltimately\, Here We Are is a coming-of-age story\, a love letter from an outspoken modern daughter to her soft-spoken Old World father. She never expected they’d become best friends. \nAarti Namdev Shahani is the author of memoir Here We Are: American Dreams\, American Nightmares. She is a correspondent for NPR based in Silicon Valley\, covering the largest companies on earth. Her reporting has received awards from the Society of Professional Journalists\, a regional Edward R. Murrow Award\, and an Investigative Reporters & Editors Award. Before journalism\, Shahani was a community organizer in New York City\, helping prisoners and families facing deportation. Her activism was honored by the Union Square Awards and Legal Aid Society. She received a Master’s in Public Policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government\, with generous support from the university and the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans. She completed her bachelor’s degree in anthropology at the University of Chicago. She was among the youngest recipients of the Charles H. Revson Fellowship at Columbia University and is an alumna of A Better Chance\, Inc. Shahani grew up in Flushing\, Queens—in one of the most diverse zip codes in the country—and believes every American should visit her hometown to understand what makes America great.
URL:https://litseen.com/event/aarti-namdev-shahani-here-we-are-american-dreams-american-nightmares-virtual-event/
LOCATION:CA
CATEGORIES:Free,Virtual
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://litseen.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/here-we-are.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20201008T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20201008T190000
DTSTAMP:20260519T045648
CREATED:20201007T220051Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20201007T220051Z
UID:60012-1602180000-1602183600@litseen.com
SUMMARY:San Francisco Poet Laureate Kim Shuck's Poem Jam
DESCRIPTION:featuring  special guests\, themes and writing groups. In October we honor Latinx Heritage month with poets Josiah Luis Alderete\, Lourdes Figuroa and more. \nJosiah Luis Alderete is a full blooded Pocho spanglish speaking poet from La Area Bahia who learned to write poetry in the kitchen of his Mama’s Mexican restaurant. He was a founding member of San Francisco’s outspoken word troupe The Molotov Mouths and is also a radio insurgente whose stories have appeared on KALW’s “Crosscurrents” and whose show “The Spanglish Power Hour” aired on KPFA. He curates  and hosts the Latinx reading series SPEAKING AXOLOTL in Oakland which happens every third Thursday of the month at Nomadic Press Studios. Josiah Luis Alderete’s  book of poems is forthcoming from Black Freighter Press. \nLourdes Figuroa is a proud 2009 and 2011 VONA alum. Her work has been published in the SF Poet’s 11 2008 & 2010\, Generations Literary Magazine\, Eleven Eleven\, Something Worth Revisin. Spooky Actions Books published her first chapbook\, yolotl\, and Backwords Press recently published her poem\, “War America War.” She received her MFA in Creative Writing at the University of San Francisco. Lourdes is a native of limbo nation and believes in your lung\, your throat. \n 
URL:https://litseen.com/event/san-francisco-poet-laureate-kim-shucks-poem-jam/
LOCATION:online
CATEGORIES:Free,San Francisco,Virtual
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://litseen.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/eblast-Poetry.jpg
ORGANIZER;CN="San Francisco Public Library - Virtual Library":MAILTO:anissa.malady@sfpl.org
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20201008T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20201008T200000
DTSTAMP:20260519T045648
CREATED:20200908T170351Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200908T170351Z
UID:59491-1602180000-1602187200@litseen.com
SUMMARY:VIRTUAL: Launch for Paul Madonna / Come to Light
DESCRIPTION:Booksmith and The Bindery host a virtual event with Paul Madonna to launch his new illustrated novel Come to Light. \n** Please note ** \n>  This event is free and all ages\, but RSVP is required. \n>  If you’d like a copy of Come to Light\, you can purchase one here\, below\, or when completing your registration. We are currently offering free shipping throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. \n  \n\nCome to Light is a fresh and original mystery with an unusual detective: Emit Hopper\, a former rock star turned author and artist. Six years ago\, Emit’s wife\, Julia\, went missing. Now the remains of her two hiking companions have been found buried in the California wilderness. But the discovery raises more questions than answers\, so with his love for classic detective books and rye whiskey\, Emit sets out across Europe chasing down clues\, sketchbook in hand. \nQuickly\, Emit finds himself embroiled in a plot far larger than he could have imagined: he becomes a target of a State Department investigation\, gets entangled in an international ring of art thefts\, and discovers his own artwork stolen. He meets an exuberant French nobleman\, a murderous five-year-old\, and a bohemian Roman heiress. From the Venice Biennale to the flooding of Piazza Navona\, you’ll find yourself laughing\, gasping\, and drawing right alongside Emit as he travels through some of the most beautiful regions of Europe\, unraveling a suspense-filled and surprisingly tangled mystery. \nReplete with strikingly rendered drawings that bring this exquisite and intriguing novel to life\, Come to Light is the thrilling follow-up to the adventures of Emit Hopper\, which debuted in Close Enough for the Angels. \n\n \nPaul Madonna is an award-winning artist and writer whose unique blend of drawing and storytelling has been heralded as an “all new art form.” He is the creator of the series All Over Coffee\, which ran in the San Francisco Chronicle for twelve years\, and the author of five books\, including Everything is its own reward (winner of the 2011 NCBA for best book) and the Emit Hopper Mystery Series. Paul’s work ranges from novels to cartoons to large-scale public murals\, and can be found internationally in print as well as in galleries and museums\, including the Oakland Museum of California and the William Blake Association in France. Paul was a founding editor for therumpus.net\, has taught drawing at the University of San Francisco\, and frequently lectures on creative practice. He holds a BFA from Carnegie Mellon University and was the first (ever!) art intern at MAD magazine. \n\n** Please note ** \n>  This event is free and all ages\, but RSVP is required. \n>  If you’d like a copy of Come to Light\, you can purchase one here\, below\, or when completing your registration. We are currently offering free shipping throughout the San Francisco Bay Area.
URL:https://litseen.com/event/virtual-launch-for-paul-madonna-come-to-light/
LOCATION:CA
CATEGORIES:Free,Virtual
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://litseen.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/come-to-light.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20201008T180000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20201008T200000
DTSTAMP:20260519T045648
CREATED:20200923T065031Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200923T065031Z
UID:59764-1602180000-1602187200@litseen.com
SUMMARY:Virtual Event: Neal Karlen on Prince
DESCRIPTION:Join us on Thursday\, October 8 at 6pm PDT when Neal Karlen joins us to discuss his book\, This Thing Called Life: Prince’s Odyssey On+Off the Record\non Zoom!\nSigned bookplates available while supplies last! Preorder now! \nZoom Login Info\nPlease click the link below to join the webinar:\nhttps://us02web.zoom.us/j/83006881839\nOr iPhone one-tap :\nUS: +16699009128\,\,83006881839#  or +13462487799\,\,83006881839#\nOr Telephone:\nDial(for higher quality\, dial a number based on your current location):\nUS: +1 669 900 9128  or +1 346 248 7799  or +1 253 215 8782  or +1 301 715 8592  or +1 312 626 6799  or +1 646 558 8656\nWebinar ID: 830 0688 1839\nInternational numbers available: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kernyVVTav \nAbout This Thing Called Life \nAn unusual\, remarkably detailed biography of one of the most iconic musicians of our times\, by a reporter who did the only two long authorized interviews with Prince and became a lifelong friend. \nThis Thing Called Life subtly changes what we know about a massive star\, one who relentlessly controlled his own image and career\, and who everyone wanted to know. \nNeal Karlen interviewed Prince for the artist’s two Rolling Stone covers and\, according to Prince’s former fiancée Susannah Melvoin\, was “the only reporter who made Prince sound like what he really sounded like.” Indeed\, Prince and Karlen had known each other years before\, as two of the gang of Minneapolis boys who biked around the neighborhood and played basketball. Karlen says that not only can fans not understand Prince without understanding Minneapolis in the 70s\, but that anyone who knew Prince only knew 15% of him: that was all he was willing to give\, no matter how much he cared for them. \nGoing back to Prince Rogers Nelson’s roots\, including his contradictory and often tortured relationship with his father\, This Thing Called Life explains the star as no biography has: a superstar who calls in the middle of the night to talk\, who loved The Wire and could quote from every episode of The Office\, frequented libraries\, jammed spontaneously for local crowds (and fed everyone pancakes afterward)\, who was lonely but craved being alone. Readers will drive around Minneapolis with Prince in a convertible\, talk about movies and music and life\, and watch as he tries not to curse (instead dishing a healthy dose of “mamma jammas”). \nAbout Neal Karlen \nNeal Karlen writes regularly for The New York Times and is a member of the adjunct faculty of the University of Minnesota journalism school. His work has appeared in The New Yorker\, Esquire\, GQ\, Elle\, The Forward\, Rolling Stone\, Newsweek\, and Olam\, among other publications. He lives in Minneapolis\, Minnesota.
URL:https://litseen.com/event/virtual-event-neal-karlen-on-prince/
LOCATION:CA
CATEGORIES:Free,Virtual
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://litseen.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/thing-called-life.jpg
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20201008T190000
DTEND;TZID=America/Los_Angeles:20201008T210000
DTSTAMP:20260519T045648
CREATED:20200923T175219Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20200923T175219Z
UID:59817-1602183600-1602190800@litseen.com
SUMMARY:Ticketed Virtual Event: Erin Brockovich\, Superman's Not Coming
DESCRIPTION:Join us for a ticketed online event with environmental activist\, crusader\, fighter\, and maverick Erin Brockovich\, who will discuss her new book\, Superman’s Not Coming: Our National Water Crisis and What We the People Can Do About It—a book that looks at our present situation with water and shows us how we can take action to make changes in our cities\, towns\, and villages\, before it’s too late. \nTickets for this special event will go on sale soon. \nBrockovich shows us what’s at stake\, and writes of the fraudulent science that disguises these issues\, along with cancer clusters not being reported. She writes of the saga of PG&E that continues to this day\, and of the communities and people she has worked with who have helped to make an impact. She writes of the water operator in Poughkeepsie\, New York\, who responded to his customers’ concerns and changed his system to create some of the safest water in the country; of the moms in Hannibal\, Missouri\, who became the first citizens in the nation to file an ordinance prohibiting the use of ammonia in their public drinking water; and about how we can protect our right to clean water by fighting for better enforcement of the laws\, new legislation\, and better regulations. She cannot fight all battles for all people and gives us the tools to take actions ourselves\, have our voices heard\, and know that steps are being taken to make sure our water is safe to drink and use. \n“Brockovich urges people to continue to fight for what they believe in…[Her] belief in individual activism—rather than relying on leaders\, corporations\, or the government to handle the water crisis—is the guiding theme in her new book…inspirational.”—Sam Gillette\, People \nERIN BROCKOVICH is the president of Brockovich Research & Consulting and the founder of the Erin Brockovich Foundation\, a nonprofit organization created to educate and empower communities in their fight for clean water. She is the coauthor of Take It from Me: Life’s a Struggle but You Can Win and has her own show on PodcastOne. She lives in Southern California.
URL:https://litseen.com/event/ticketed-virtual-event-erin-brockovich-supermans-not-coming/
LOCATION:CA
CATEGORIES:Virtual
ATTACH;FMTTYPE=image/jpeg:https://litseen.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/superman.jpg
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