Litseen

Rikki Ducornet and Jeff VanderMeer
2021-05-14 18:00 - 20:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | CA
Jeff VanderMeer joins Rikki Ducornet for a conversation about her new novel, Trafik (Coffee House Press).
“Surrealism meets space opera in Trafik, Rikki Ducornet’s startlingly original look at a post-human and non-human pairing wandering through space while obsessed with the scattered fragments of a world they never knew. At once funny and absurd, Trafik peers at our own time through the lens of the future to reveal what we should regret losing and what would be better gone.” —Brian Evenson
This free event will be streamed on our Crowdcast channel.
REGISTER HERE
About Trafik
From the singularly inventive mind of Rikki Ducornet, Trafik is a buoyant voyage through outer space and inner longing, transposing human experiences of passion, loss, and identity into a post-Earth universe.
Quiver, a mostly-human astronaut, takes refuge from the monotony of harvesting minerals on remote asteroids by running through a virtual reality called the Lights, chasing visions of an elusive red-haired beauty. Her high-strung robot partner, Mic, pilots their Wobble and entertains himself exploring his records of the obliterated planet Earth, searching for Al Pacino trivia, unfamiliar recipes, and high fashion trends. But when an accident destroys their cargo, Quiver and Mic go rogue, setting off on a madcap journey through outer space towards an idyllic destination: the planet Trafik.
About the writers
Rikki Ducornet is a transdisciplinary artist. Her work is animated by an interest in nature, Eros, tyranny and the transcendent capacities of the creative imagination. She is a poet, fiction writer, essayist, and artist, and her fiction has been translated into fifteen languages. Her art has been exhibited internationally, most recently with Amnesty International’s traveling exhibit I Welcome, focused on the refugee crisis. She has received numerous fellowships and awards including an Arts and Letters Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, the Bard College Arts and Letters Award, the Prix Guerlain, a Critics’ Choice Award, and the Lannan Literary Award for Fiction. Her novel The Jade Cabinet was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.
Jeff VanderMeer is the author of Dead Astronauts, Borne, and The Southern Reach Trilogy, the first volume of which, Annihilation, won the Nebula Award and the Shirley Jackson Award and was adapted into a movie by Alex Garland starring Natalie Portman. VanderMeer speaks and writes frequently about issues relating to climate change. He grew up in the Fiji Islands and now lives in Tallahassee, Florida, with his wife, Ann VanderMeer, and their cats, plants, and bird feeders.

VIRTUAL EVENT: Julia Alvarez, Afterlife
2021-05-16 11:00 - 13:00 | CA
Bestselling author Julia Alvarez (In the Time of the Butterflies, How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents) will be in conversation with Sylvanna Falcón about Alvarez’s most recent novel, Afterlife, now available in paperback. This event is cosponsored by Research Center for the Americas at UC Santa Cruz.
Register for this free Crowdcast by clicking here!

This is a free event. The book may be ordered below.
You can make a donation to help support Bookshop Santa Cruz here. Thank you!
In Alvarez’s first adult novel in almost fifteen years, Antonia Vega, the immigrant writer at the center of Afterlife, has had the rug pulled out from under her. She has just retired from the college where she taught English when her beloved husband, Sam, suddenly dies. And then more jolts: her bighearted but unstable sister disappears, and Antonia returns home one evening to find a pregnant, undocumented teenager on her doorstep. Antonia has always sought direction in the literature she loves—lines from her favorite authors play in her head like a soundtrack—but now she finds that the world demands more of her than words.
Afterlife is a compact, nimble, and sharply droll novel. Set in this political moment of tribalism and distrust, it asks: What do we owe those in crisis in our families, including—maybe especially—members of our human family? How do we live in a broken world without losing faith in one another or ourselves? And how do we stay true to those glorious souls we have lost?
“A stunning work of art that reminds readers Alvarez is, and always has been, in a class of her own.” —Elizabeth Acevedo, National Book Award-winning author of the New York Times bestseller The Poet X
Julia Alvarez left the Dominican Republic for the United States in 1960 at the age of ten. She is the author of six novels, three books of nonfiction, three collections of poetry, and eleven books for children and young adults. She has taught and mentored writers in schools and communities across America and, until her retirement in 2016, was a writer in residence at Middlebury College. Her work has garnered wide recognition, including a Latina Leader Award in Literature from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, the Hispanic Heritage Award in Literature, the Woman of the Year by Latina magazine, and inclusion in the New York Public Library’s program “The Hand of the Poet: Original Manuscripts by 100 Masters, from John Donne to Julia Alvarez.” In the Time of the Butterflies, with over one million copies in print, was selected by the National Endowment for the Arts for its national Big Read program, and in 2013 President Obama awarded Alvarez the National Medal of Arts in recognition of her extraordinary storytelling.
Sylvanna M. Falcón is an Associate Professor in the Department of Latin American and Latino Studies, Director of the Research Center for the Americas, and founder/director of the Human Rights Investigations Lab at the University of California, Santa Cruz. She is the author of Power Interrupted: Antiracist and Feminist Activists inside the United Nations, [University of Washington Press, 2016; winner of the National Women’s Studies Association’s Gloria E. Anzaldúa Book Award] and the co-editor of Precarity and Belonging: Labor, Migration, and Noncitizenship [Rutgers University Press, 2021] and New Directions in Feminism and Human Rights [Routledge, 2011]. She is a former UN consultant to the UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women.
Founded in 1992, the Research Center for the Americas at UC Santa Cruz is the first in the UC system to advance a broad program of interdisciplinary research that brings together Chicanx/Latinx and Latin American Studies.

Memory, Meaning and Memoir
2021-05-16 14:00 - 15:30 | online, CA, United States
Presented by the Asian Pacific Islander Cultural Center as part of the 24th annual United States of Asian America Festival.

A presentation of readings by a diverse, intergenerational, cross-section of writers, who include visual artists, educators, activists and professionals from the AAPI community, who will share their stories and poems, ranging from immigration stories and family memoir to gender and racial oppression, anti-Asian hate and police violence, written during the course of a writing workshop conducted by poet-playwright, Genny Lim. The online APICC workshops have met every week, throughout the pandemic. These memoir pieces were written in response to weekly writing prompts provided by Genny Lim. All levels and ages, from emerging to advanced writers, were welcomed and encouraged to explore and develop their individual voices and craft in a safe and communal atmosphere that allowed for constructive critique, dialogue, mutual support and growth.

::READERS::
Leila Beltran
Sharleen Boummer
Vickie Ya Rong Chang
Carole Chinn Morales
Susan Hayase
Susan Kitazawa
Mei Lam
Mirah Lucas
Grace Morizawa
Shizue Shikuma
Leon Sun
Casimiro Tolentino
Leslie Yee-Murata

ABOUT GENNY LIM
Genny Lim is San Francisco Jazz Poet Laureate emeritus. Lim’s award-winning play, Paper Angels, was the first Asian American play aired on PBS’s American Playhouse in 1985 and has been produced throughout the U.S., Canada and China. She is author of five poetry collections, Winter Place, Child of War, Paper Gods and Rebels, KRA!, La Morte Del Tempo, and co-author of Island: Poetry and History of Chinese Immigrants on Angel Island, winner of the American Book Award and an anthology of Senior Asian American memoirs, Window: Glimpses of Our Storied Past. She has worked with past Jazz legends, such as Max Roach, Herbie Lewis and Eddie Marshall and long-time collaborators, Jon Jang, John Santos, Francis Wong and Del Sol String Quartet.

ABOUT THE UNITED STATES OF ASIAN AMERICA FESTIVAL
This year’s 24th annual United States of Asian American Festival (USAAF) presents over 20 different programs reflecting the artistic accomplishments and cultural diversity of San Francisco’s Pacific Islander and Asian American communities. USAAF showcases artists representing a diverse range of ethnic and cultural groups and aims to heighten the visibility of Asian and Pacific Islander (API) artists working in all disciplines – theater, music, dance, film, literature, visual arts, and more! Our goal is to nurture and empower these groups to be self-sufficient while providing the support they need to grow.
This year’s theme, Forging Our Futures – SoMa & Chinatow n, explores how we are fostering recovery, resilience and regeneration in our communities, what place-making and community building looks like, past, present and future and how we’re imagining and manifesting empowered future for ourselves and our communities.

USAAF 2021 is funded by the San Francisco Arts Commission , San Francisco Grants for the Arts , California Arts Council , Fleishhacker Foundation , Zellerbach Family Foundation , startsmall and National Endowment for the Arts .

Michael McClure: East Coast Memorial & Tribute
2021-05-16 14:00 - 16:00 | CA
Please join The Poetry Project and City Lights as we celebrate and remember Michael McClure, poet and beloved friend.
Featuring readings and remembrances from: Ammiel Alcalay, David Brazil, Garrett Caples, Francesco Clemente, David Henderson, Bob Holman, Mary Norbert Korte, Filip Marinovich, Amy Evans McClure, Jackson Meazle, Uche Nduka, Lee Ranaldo, Ed Sanders, Declan Spring, Amber Tamblyn, and Jeffrey Yang
Event is free but requires registration.
(Register Here)
Michael McClure (1932-2020) was an award-winning American poet, playwright, songwriter, and novelist. After moving to San Francisco as a young man, he was one of the five poets who participated in the Six Gallery reading that featured the public debut of Allen Ginsberg’s landmark poem “Howl.” A key figure of the Beat Generation, McClure is immortalized as Pat McLear in Jack Kerouac’s novels The Dharma Bums and Big Sur. He also participated in the 60s counterculture alongside musicians like Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison. He taught for many years at California College of the Arts and lived with his wife, Amy, in the San Francisco Bay Area.
This event follows a series of celebrations for Michael McClure’s life and work. Here is the registration link for the launch of Michael McClure’s final book on May 8 with Anne Waldman and Eileen Myles; and here is the registration link with West Coast celebrants and friends in tribute to McClure on May 9.
Please note you must be logged in to your Eventbrite account to access the event’s zoom link. We will begin letting people into the reading from Eventbrite a few minutes before the start of the event. Please also note that if you are not logged into Eventbrite, you will receive a notification reading “You don’t have access to this event” when you click on the event link. This is an automatically generated notification indicating that you need to login, using the email address with which you registered for the event. You can do so using the button located directly below the notification. If you have any questions, have trouble accessing your Eventbrite account, or have trouble accessing Zoom after the event’s listed start time, please contact Poetry Project staff directly at info@poetryproject.org
The Poetry Project is committed to making our event programming inclusive and accessible for individuals with different experiences, and are continuously working to improve and expand upon accessibility measures. Our online broadcasts feature live transcription and are presented on broadcasts compatible with most screen readers. If you have a question about either of these resources, or an accessibility measure we haven’t described, please contact us at rm@poetryproject.org.

Lone Glen: de la Perrière/Hong/Hume
2021-05-18 17:30 - 18:30 | online, CA, United States
On Tuesday May 18th, the Lone Glen series will feature writers Donna de la Perrière, Anna Maria Hong, and Christine Hume. Join us on zoom to hear their forms reverberate from two coasts. This 31st Lone Glen will “open doors” at 5:30 pm PST and get going by 5:40. Bring your sense of humor, and a friend!

Lone Glen is a quarterly reading and performance series dedicated to fostering all writing and art genres within a spirit of collaborative, down-to-earth, and inclusive creative community. Launched in December 2011 in an apartment in the Mission District of San Francisco, Lone Glen was later an Oakland basement operation for several years before taking root at the Temescal Art Center in Oakland and The Bindery in San Francisco. We are hosting several virtual events in 2021.
About the writers:
Donna de la Perrière is the author of five collections of poetry: three books — Works of Love & Terror (2019), Saint Erasure (2010), and True Crime (2009), all from Talisman House — as well as two chapbooks, Night Calendar (Omerta, 2018) and First Love (The Poetry Center Chapbook Exchange Collection, 2013). Her work has appeared in journals such as Brooklyn Rail, Colorado Review, Denver Quarterly, New American Writing, and Volt, as well as anthologies such as No Gender: Reflections on the Life and Work of kari edwards (2009) and Bay Poetics (2006). The recipient of a 2009 Fund for Poetry Award and a 2016 Creative Work Grant from Intersection for the Arts, she founded and curated the Bay Area Poetry Marathon reading series (2004 – 2019) in San Francisco. She teaches at San Francisco State University, and lives in Oakland with poet Joseph Lease and cats Whitman and Dickinson. Read more at www.donnadelaperriere.net.
Anna Maria Hong is the author of three recent books: Age of Glass, winner of the Poetry Society of America’s Norma Farber First Book Award and the Cleveland State University Poetry Center’s First Book Poetry Competition, the novella H & G (Sidebrow Books), winner of the A Room of Her Own Foundation’s Clarissa Dalloway Prize, and Fablesque, winner of Tupelo Press’s Berkshire Prize. A former Bunting Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, she has poetry and fiction published and forthcoming in publications including The Nation, Colorado Review, The Common, Shenandoah, Plume, Ecotone, Smartish Pace, The Hopkins Review, Poetry, Poetry Daily, Best New Poets, and The Best American Poetry. She is an Assistant Professor at Mount Holyoke College. https://www.annamariahong.net/
Christine Hume is the author of an experimental memoir in the form of three interlinked essays, Saturation Project (Solid Objects, 2021), as well as three books of poetry and six chapbooks. She recently edited a special issue of the American Book Review on Girlhood (April 2020) and finished a new manuscript on two despised subjects in America, sex offenders and women’s bodies. She is professor of English at Eastern Michigan University. https://christinehume.com/

Virtual Event: Kevin McIlovy and Peter Orner
2021-05-18 18:00 - 19:00 | online, CA, United States
Join us on Tuesday, May 18 at 6pm PT when Kevin McIlvoy discusses his latest novel, One Kind Favor, with Peter Orner on Zoom!

Zoom Login Info
Please click the link below to join the webinar:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88148839841

About One Kind Favor
Based loosely on a tragic real-life incident in 2014, ONE KIND FAVOR explores the consequences of the lynching of a young black man in rural North Carolina. After the lynching of Lincoln Lennox is discovered and subsequently covered up in the small fictional community of Cord, North Carolina, the ghosts who frequent the all-in-one bar and consignment shop take on the responsibility of unearthing the truth and acting as the memory for the town that longs to forget and continues to hate. A reimagined Kathy Acker, the groundbreaking literary icon, engages Lincoln in a love triangle and brings a transgressive post-punk esthetic to the mission. The down-the-rabbit-hole satirical storytelling of ONE KIND FAVOR, Kevin McIlvoy’s sixth novel, echoes Appalachian ghost stories in which haunting presences will, at last, have their way.

About Kevin McIlvoy
Kevin McIlvoy is the author of seven previous books: five novels, a book of short stories, and a book of prose poetry. He is a retired Regents Professor of Creative Writing from New Mexico State University and teaches at the Warren Wilson College MFA Program in Creative Writing. His short fiction has appeared in Harper’s, Southern Review, Ploughshares, Missouri Review, and other literary magazines. He lives in Asheville, North Carolina.

VIRTUAL: Launch for Norman Fischer / When You Greet Me I Bow
2021-05-18 18:00 - 20:00 | CA
Booksmith and The Bindery are thrilled to host the virtual launch for Norman Fischer‘s new book, When You Greet Me I Bow: Notes and Reflections from a Life in Zen. More to be announced soon, but won’t you save the date and join us?
This event is free and all ages, but RSVP is required. Event link will be sent to everyone who registers.
You can order When You Greet Me I Bow here – we’re currently offering free shipping throughout San Francisco and the East Bay.
About the book
“Looking backwards at a life lived, walking forward into more life to live built on all that, trying not to be too much influenced by what’s already been said and done, not to be held to a point of view or an identity previously expressed, trying to be surprised and undone and maybe even dismayed by what lies ahead.” – Norman Fischer
Norman Fischer is a Zen priest, poet, and translator whose writings, teachings, and commitment to interfaith dialogue have supported and inspired Buddhist, Jewish, and other spiritual practitioners for decades. When You Greet Me I Bow spans the entirety of Norman Fischer’s career and is the first collection of his writings on Buddhist philosophy and practice. Broken into four sections—the joy and catastrophe of relationship; thinking, writing, and emptiness; cultural encounters; and social engagement—this book allows us to see the fascinating development of the mind and interests of a gifted writer and profoundly committed practitioner.
About the author
Norman Fischer is a Zen teacher, poet, translator, and director of the Everyday Zen Foundation. A beloved figure in the Buddhist world, he is also well-known for his efforts at interreligious dialogue. His numerous books include The World Could Be Otherwise: Imagination and the Bodhisattva Path, What Is Zen?: Plain Talk for a Beginner’s Mind, and Training in Compassion: Zen Teachings on the Practice of Lojong.
This event is free and all ages, but RSVP is required.

Virtual Get Lit #72
2021-05-18 19:00 - 21:00 | online
We’re in our 6th consecutive year as we continue to celebrate 12–15 writers taking risks and reading never-before-read work (rough drafts/debuts) within a 3-minute time limit + live music. All ages are welcome. Emceed by Abe Becker.

Nomadic Press’ Safe Space Statement and Process: https://www.nomadicpress.org/safespaceprocess

Poster by Jevohn Tyler Newsome

FREE AND ALL WELCOME!

If you enjoy spaces like this and can swing it in these tight times, please consider supporting us via:
1) the Cash App to $NomadicPress OR https://cash.app/$NomadicPress;
2) donating via the “ticket” option here https://www.eventbrite.com/…/nomadic-press-monthly-get…; OR
3) donating through the website at www.nomadicpress.org/donate

We have a short goal for the evening of $200.

Topic: Nomadic Press’ Monthly Get Lit
Time: Feb 16, 2021 07:00 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)
Every month on the Third Tue, until Dec 21, 2021, 11 occurrence(s)
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Dec 21, 2021 07:00 PM
Please download and import the following iCalendar (.ics) files to your calendar system.
Monthly: https://us02web.zoom.us/…/tZIkcOmhrD8qGNS4vvapk6…/ics…
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TICKETED VIRTUAL EVENT: John Green, The Anthropocene Reviewed
2021-05-18 19:00 - 21:00 | CA
TICKETED VIRTUAL EVENT: Bestselling author John Green and special guest Sarah Green will discuss John’s new collection of personal essays, Anthropocene Reviewed, adapted from his critically acclaimed podcast.
Purchase tickets for this event here.
Ticketing: $30–$70

All tickets include a signed hardcover copy of THE ANTHROPOCENE REVIEWED; choose store pickup or have it shipped to you.

You will receive an emailed invitation to this Zoom event before the event begins, including emailed reminders both the day before and an hour before the event.

Each ticket includes a $1 charitable donation to a cause John is very passionate about: maternal health in Sierra Leon. Read more about Partners in Health HERE
On The Anthropocene Reviewed:
The Anthropocene is the current geological age, in which human activity has profoundly shaped the planet and its biodiversity. In this remarkable symphony of essays adapted and expanded from his groundbreaking podcast, John Green reviews different facets of the human-centered planet—from the QWERTY keyboard and Staphylococcus aureus to the Taco Bell breakfast menu—on a five-star scale. John Green’s gift for storytelling shines throughout this artfully curated collection that includes both beloved essays and all-new pieces exclusive to the book.
John Green is the award-winning, #1 bestselling author of books including Looking for Alaska, The Fault in Our Stars, and Turtles All the Way Down. His books have received many accolades, including a Printz Medal, a Printz Honor, and an Edgar Award. John has twice been a finalist for the LA Times Book Prize and was selected by TIME magazine as one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World. He is also the writer and host of the critically acclaimed podcast The Anthropocene Reviewed. With his brother, Hank, John has co-created many online video projects, including Vlogbrothers and the educational channel Crash Course. He lives with his family in Indianapolis, Indiana. You can visit John online at johngreenbooks.com

VIRTUAL: Joseph Fink and Meg Bashwiner / The First Ten Years: Two Sides of the Same Love Story
2021-05-19 18:00 - 20:00 | CA
Booksmith and The Bindery are thrilled to host Joseph Fink and Meg Bashwiner for The First Ten Years: Two Sides of the Same Love Story.
This event is free and all ages, but RSVP is required. Event link will be sent to everyone who registers.
You can order The First Ten Years here – we’re currently offering free shipping throughout San Francisco and the East Bay.
About the book
In 2009, 22-year-old Joseph Fink, newly arrived to New York City from the West Coast, was juggling odd jobs to pay the rent and volunteering with a theater company in the East Village so he could snag free tickets to their shows.
Meg Bashwiner, a 22-year-old aspiring performer and playwright, was living with her parents in New Jersey, working a desk job and commuting to her internship with that same East Village theater company.
Joseph and Meg’s stories meet when they both find themselves selling tickets in a cramped box office. They quickly became friends. Within a year, they were a couple. Within five years they were touring the world, performing on some of the world’s greatest and not so great stages.
In this candid, soul-baring memoir, Joseph and Meg recount their first ten years together, each telling their story as they remember it, without having consulted the other. We hear both sides of their first kiss, first breakup, first getting back together, the death of a father, marriage, international fame, world tours, mental illness, and discussions about having children. Sometimes, they recall things differently—neither agrees on who paid for the morning after pill on their first date. Sometimes they remember the exact same details in the same way—but still have their own narrative on just what those details mean.
Poignant, funny, and real, alternately told in Joseph and Meg’s remarkably different, yet equally compelling voices, The First Ten Years is the story of two individuals finding their way in the world and becoming “adults” as they learn to become a couple.

About the authors
Joseph Fink created the Welcome to Night Vale and Alice Isn’t Dead podcasts and is the author of the novel Alice Isn’t Dead, and co-author of the New York Times best-selling novels Welcome to Night Vale, It Devours!, The Faceless Old Woman Who Secretly Lives In Your Home, and four Welcome to Night Vale episode script books: Mostly Void, Partially Stars, The Great Glowing Coils of the Universe, The Buying of Lot 37, and Who’s a Good Boy.
Meg Bashwiner is a writer, performer, tour manager, podcaster and producer. She is the emcee for the international touring live show of the Welcome to Night Vale podcast. She is an alumni member of the acclaimed New York theater company The New York Neo-Futurists. They live in the Hudson Valley and Los Angeles.
This event is free and all ages, but RSVP is required.

Policies

Refund Policy:
No refunds or returns. Contact events@booksmith.com with any questions.
Cancellation Policy:
If we have to cancel an event, you will be refunded within 4 business days of the event date.

Aminatta Forna
2021-05-19 18:00 - 20:00 | CA
reading from
The Window Seat: Notes From a Life In Motion
published by Grove Press
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This is a virtual event that will be hosted by City Lights on the Zoom platform. You will need access to a computer or other device that is capable of accessing the internet. If you have not used Zoom before, you may consider referencing Getting Started with Zoom.
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Event is free, but registration is required.
(CLICK HERE) to register. Link coming soon!
(CLICK HERE) to purchase book. Link coming soon!
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A stunning new collection of essays from the award-winning author of Happiness, The Window Seat explores border crossings both literal and philosophical, our relationship with the natural world, and the stories that we tell ourselves.
“These essays, ranging across continents and time, so broad in their themes and so deep in their perceptions, are essential reading, combining Aminatta Forna’s great gifts as a storyteller and her razor-sharp analytical skills.”—Salman Rushdie

Aminatta Forna is one of our most important literary voices, and her novels have won the Windham Campbell Prize Literature Prize and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for Best Book. Now, she returns with The Window Seat, an elegantly rendered, thought-provoking collection of new and previously published essays. In this wide-ranging collection, Forna writes intimately about displacement, trauma and memory, love, and how we coexist and encroach on the non-human world.

In “Obama and the Renaissance Generation,” she documents how, despite the narrative of Obama’s exceptionalism, his father, like her own, was one of a generation of gifted young Africans who came to the United Kingdom and the United States for education and were expected to build their home countries anew after colonialism. In “The Last Vet,” time spent shadowing Dr. Jalloh, the only veterinarian in Sierra Leone, as he works with the street dogs of Freetown, becomes a meditation on what a society’s treatment of animals tells us about its principles. In “Crossroads,” she examines race in America from an African perspective, and in “Power Walking” she describes what it means to walk in the world in a Black woman’s body.

The Window Seat is, in the words of acclaimed author Chinelo Okparanta, “a journey . . . These essay are altogether a sharp, elegant meditation . . . on everything from politics and insomnia to food insecurity and biodiversity.”
Aminatta Forna is the author of the novels Ancestor Stones, The Memory of Love, and The Hired Man, as well as the memoir The Devil That Danced on the Water. Forna’s books have been translated into sixteen languages. Her essays have appeared in Granta, The Guardian, The Observer, and Vogue. She is currently the Lannan Visiting Chair of Poetics at Georgetown University.
Visit: https://www.aminattaforna.com/

Praise for The Window Seat
“Novelist Forna (Happiness) explores notions of place, identity, and movement in this bracing collection . . . Forna is a razor sharp prose stylist . . . and her attention to detail moves the collection forward . . . Full of careful observations, Forna’s meditations hit the mark.”—Publishers Weekly
“The Window Seat is gutsy, funny, risky and wise, full of dazzling late night insight, in-the-middle-of-everything epiphanies, moments of sheer honesty blooming into gut truths, in a clear-eyed voice that makes you listen in wonder.”—Marlon James, winner of the 2015 Booker Prize
“If you had to take the middle seat and sit next to anyone with the window seat, Aminatta Forna would be the perfect stranger to talk to. Wise, witty, sensitive, and sophisticated—about travel, politics, globalization, writing, and the nuances of the human heart and soul—Forna has lived a life of which many of us would be envious. Her essays illuminate that life but ours as well, making us understand the many ways we are connected, even if we only see each other from a distance.”—Viet Thanh Nguyen, author of The Committed
“The essays in this magnificent collection are exhilarating and expansive meditations on traveling—and living—in places so consequential and historically significant that they cannot be measured simply by distance. Who are we far from home? What becomes of those who return, and what do we owe to those who stay behind? These are just a few of the questions that Forna raises in this sharply rendered, personal collection. But she doesn’t stop there: by the end, this book invites a reckoning with our rightful place on this earth. Generous in spirit and breathtakingly intelligent, The Window Seat reminds us why Forna is one of our best writers working today.”—Maaza Mengiste, author of The Shadow King
“These brilliant essays, reflections from a boundary-crossing life, are urgently needed in America right now. Forna writes to us from a world where democracies are in the process of being made and unmade, where “nation-building is no simple task,” where lives are lost to civil war. With expert storytelling, she provides a vivid context for our politics and culture. The Window Seat is a wise guidebook for how to be at home in the world.”—Eula Biss, author of Having and Being Had
“From the Shetlands to Sierra Leone, from Teheran to Georgetown, Aminatta Forna has been everywhere, paid attention to everything and everyone. She is brilliant at thinking in narration and can thus tell superb stories about her life and experience. She contains multitudes, and her essays are populated with those multitudes, dense with unforgettable details and landscapes, amazing people and animals, astonishing histories. The Window Seat is dazzling.”—Aleksandar Hemon, author of The Lazarus Project
“The Window Seat is a journey. Imagine yourself on a scenic, thought-provoking flight around the world—from the UK to New Zealand, Sierra Leone to the USA—in this candid exploration of nostalgia for a lost past and the trappings of home. These essays are altogether a sharp, elegant meditation on childhood, adulthood, race, migration, and itinerancy. Astutely balancing illuminating research with intimate personal anecdotes, Forna expertly suffuses the book with her insights on everything from politics and insomnia to food insecurity and biodiversity.”—Chinelo Okparanta, author of Under the Udala Trees
“Forna’s essays are simultaneously introspective and political, big-hearted and hard-edged, adventurous and wise. She can write about race and war and family and loss and everything in between, and she has the words to match her extraordinary experience. This book enlarged my world.”—Juan Gabriel Vásquez, author of Songs for the Flames

This event has been sponsored by the City Lights Foundation

TICKETED VIRTUAL EVENT: Yusef Salaam, Better, Not Bitter
2021-05-19 18:00 - 20:00 | CA
VIRTUAL TICKETED EVENT: Yusef Salaam, one of the wrongfully incarcerated Central Park Five, will discuss his powerful new book, Better, Not Bitter: Living on Purpose in the Pursuit of Racial Justice. This event is cosponsored by NAACP Santa Cruz County Branch.
Salaam’s memoir is an inspiring story that grew out of one of the gravest miscarriages of justice, one that not only speaks to a moment in time or the rage-filled present, but reflects a 400-year history of a nation’s inability to be held accountable for its sins. Yusef Salaam’s message is vital for our times, a motivating resource for enacting change. Better, Not Bitter has the power to soothe, inspire and transform. It is a galvanizing call to action.
Tickets for this special event are available on Eventbrite! Click here!
Yusef Salaam is the inspirational speaker and prison reform activist, who, at age fourteen was one of the five teenage boys wrongly convicted and sentenced to prison in the Central Park jogger case. In 1997, he left prison as an adult to a world he didn’t fully recognize or understand. In 2002, the sentences for the Central Park Five were overturned, and all Five were exonerated for the crime they didn’t commit.
Yusef now travels the world as an inspirational speaker, speaking about the effects of incarceration and the devastating impact of disenfranchisement. He is an advocate and educator on issues of mass incarceration, police brutality and misconduct, press ethics and bias, race and law, and the disparities in the criminal justice system, especially for men of color.

Noah Warren - The Complete Stories
2021-05-19 19:00 - 21:00 | CA
Noah Warren, winner of the Yale Younger Poets prize, celebrates the release of his second book of poems, The Collected Stories (Copper Canyon Press) with Armen Davoudian, Randall Mann, and Katie Peterson.
This event will be streamed on our Crowdcast channel.
Registration info coming soon

About The Collected Stories
The Complete Stories announces its desire and its lie in the title; this is a book of shatter and loss. In his second collection, Noah Warren–previously selected by Carl Phillips for the Yale Series of Younger Poets–unravels histories both personal and public, picking apart their ugliness, beauty, and irreducible singularity. Clothed in broken forms, these poems of grieving and tentative joy ask finally how we can go forward with our own mottled pasts, into the futures we can’t predict but for which we must bear responsibility.
About Noah Warren
Noah Warren was born in Canada and is the author of The Destroyer in the Glass (2016), chosen by Carl Phillips for the Yale Series of Younger Poets. A former Wallace Stegner Fellow, he is pursuing a PhD in English at UC Berkeley. He lives in Oakland. His poems appear in The Paris Review, Poetry, ZYZZYVA, PEN America, New England Review, Narrative, The Southern Review, AGNI, Poets.org, The Sewanee Review, and elsewhere.

Virtual Event: Martha Wells and Annalee Newitz
2021-05-20 18:00 - 19:00 | online, CA, United States
Join us on Thursday, May 20 at 6pm PT when Martha Wells is joined by Annalee Newitz to discuss Fugitive Telemetry, the latest in The Murderbot Diaries, on Zoom!

Signed copies available!
Special Murderbot Diary will be available for the first 20 copies sold!
Be sure to write “diary!” in your order comment to receive yours.
While supplies last.

Zoom Login Info
Please click the link below to join the webinar:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89627822577

Praise for The Murderbot Diaries
“I love Murderbot!” —Ann Leckie

“The most heartwarming action-packed literally explosive space opera I’ve enjoyed in a long time. Martha Wells is the best writer of loveable snarky gender-subversive killing machines out there!” —N. K. Jemisin

“We are all a little bit Murderbot.”—NPR

About Fugitive Telemetry
The New York Times bestselling security droid with a heart (though it wouldn’t admit it!) is back!
Having captured the hearts of readers across the globe (Annalee Newitz says it’s “one of the most humane portraits of a nonhuman I’ve ever read”) Murderbot has also established Martha Wells as one of the great SF writers of today.

No, I didn’t kill the dead human. If I had, I wouldn’t dump the body in the station mall.
When Murderbot discovers a dead body on Preservation Station, it knows it is going to have to assist station security to determine who the body is (was), how they were killed (that should be relatively straightforward, at least), and why (because apparently that matters to a lot of people—who knew?)

Yes, the unthinkable is about to happen: Murderbot must voluntarily speak to humans! Again!

VIRTUAL: Launch for Ethel Rohan with Joy Lanzendorfer / In the Event of Contact
2021-05-20 18:00 - 20:00 | CA
Booksmith and The Bindery are thrilled to host the launch for Ethel Rohan and her new story collection In the Event of Contact. She’ll be joined in conversation by Joy Lanzendorfer (Right Back Where We Started From).
This event is free, but RSVP is required. Event link will be sent to everyone who registers.
You can order the authors’ books below – we’re currently offering free shipping throughout San Francisco and the East Bay:
In the Event of Contact by Ethel Rohan
Right Back Where We Started From by Joy Lanzendorfer
About the book
In the Event of Contact chronicles characters profoundly affected by physical connection, or its lack. Among them, a scrappy teen vies to be the next Sherlock Holmes; an immigrant daughter must defend her decision to remain childless; a guilt-ridden woman is haunted by the disappearance of her childhood friend; a cantankerous crossing guard celebrates getting run over by a truck; an embattled priest with dementia determines to perform a heroic, redemptive act, if he can only remember how; and an aspirational, angst-ridden mother captains the skies.
Amidst backgrounds of trespass and absence, the indelible characters of In the Event of Contact seek renewed belief in themselves, recovery, and humanity.
About the authors
Ethel Rohan is the author of In the Event of Contact, winner of the Dzanc Short Story Collection Prize. Her debut novel The Weight of Him (St. Martin’s Press and Atlantic Books, 2017) was an Amazon, Bustle, KOBO, and San Francisco Chronicle Best Book, and was shortlisted for the Reading Women Award. She is also the author of the story collections Goodnight Nobody and Cut Through the Bone, the former longlisted for the Edge Hill Prize and the latter longlisted for the Story Prize. Her work has appeared widely, including The New York Times, World Literature Today, The Washington Post, PEN America, Tin House, Guernica, and more. Raised in Ireland, she lives in San Francisco where she is a member of the Writers Grotto.
Joy Lanzendorfer’s work has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Atlantic, NPR, Smithsonian, Poetry Foundation, and many others. Her writing was included in The Best Small Fictions 2019 and was notable in The Best American Essays 2019 and 2020. Grants and residencies include the Discovered Awards for Emerging Literary Artists, Wildacres Residency Program, and the Speculative Literature Foundation.
This event is free and all ages, but RSVP is required.

Policies

Refund Policy:
No refunds or returns. Contact events@booksmith.com with any questions.
Cancellation Policy:
If we have to cancel an event, you will be refunded within 4 business days of the event date.

Virtual Speaking Axolotl Reading and Open Mic #35
2021-05-20 20:00 - 22:00 | online
A Latinx poetry reading series y open mic entering into our 3rd consecutive year that happens every third Thursday of the month en el Zoom mundo. Curated y hosted by Josiahluis Alderete.

Sign up for the 10-slot virtual open mic by filling out this form:
https://forms.gle/aHgoJxdUFXZXHjgQA

This month’s features: TBA

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Virtual Event: Suyi Davies Okungbowa and Rebecca Roanhorse
2021-05-21 18:00 - 19:00 | online, CA, United States
Join us on Friday, May 21 at 6pm PT when Suyi Davies Okungbowa discusses his latest book, Son of the Storm, with Rebecca Roanhorse on Zoom!

Zoom Login Info
Please click the link below to join the webinar:
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Praise for Son of the Storm
“A mesmerizing coming of age tale set against a thrilling, fantastical adventure that introduces a beguiling new world…and then rips apart everything you think you know.” —S. A. Chakraborty, author of City of Brass

“It’s always refreshing to find fantasies that break with all the old conventions and tropes, and Son of the Storm delivers on this like a flash of lightning in the dark! Set in a deftly craftedworld of forbidden sorcery, magical beasts, and fractured polities, this tale follows three characters whose seemingly disparate journeys are set for a collision course that will rewrite the fate of whole peoples and empires. Suyi Davies Okungbowa has created an original and fully conceived new world of fantasy teeming with brilliant possibilities and demanding to be explored!”—P. Djeli Clark, author of A Master of Djinn

“Okungbowa’s world feels fully formed from the first pages, sweeping readers away into an elaborately plotted tale of ancient magics and world-shattering politics. I, like many others, will be impatiently waiting for the next installment!”—Andrea Stewart, author of The Bone Shard Daughter

“Everything I love in a fantasy novel. Damn good stuff!” —Jenn Lyons, author of The Ruin of Kings

About Son of the Storm
From one of the most exciting new storytellers in epic fantasy, Son of the Storm is a sweeping tale of violent conquest and forgotten magic set in a world inspired by the pre-colonial empires of West Africa.

In the ancient. city of Bassa, Danso is a clever scholar on the cusp of achieving greatness—only he doesn’t want it. Instead, he prefers to chase forbidden stories about what lies outside the city walls. The Bassai elite claim there is nothing of interest. The city’s immigrants are sworn to secrecy.

But when Danso stumbles across a warrior wielding magic that shouldn’t exist, he’s put on a collision course with Bassa’s darkest secrets. Drawn into the city’s hidden history, he sets out on a journey beyond its borders. And the chaos left in the wake of his discovery threatens to destroy the empire.

Nomadic Press' Virtual Open Mic #59
2021-05-21 18:00 - 19:30 | online, CA, United States
90 minutes
30 readers
3 minutes each
On Zoom!
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Pandemic times continue in 2021 and we continue to gather our community virtually across state and country lines. Join us to read, join us to listen. All are welcome.
Hosted by Nazelah Jamison (with Tula Biederman on tech). It’s a continuing experiment, and we hope you can join us!
Our safe space process still applies to our collective virtual space, so please read this by visiting https://www.nomadicpress.org/safespaceprocess.
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Topic: Nomadic Press’ Weekly Virtual Open Mic
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Alice Sparkly Kat on Postcolonial Astrology
2021-05-21 18:00 - 19:30 | Virtual
Astrologer and author Alice Sparkly Kat is ushering in a new wave of astrology that is intersectional, inclusive, and geared towards queer and POC communities. In their cross-cultural approach to understanding astrology as a magical language, Alice uses our historical and collective constructs of the planets, sun, and moon to re-chart our subconscious history, redefine the body in the world, and assert our politics of the personal.
Alice believes that too often, magic and astrology are divorced from their potency and cultural contexts: co-opted by neoliberalism, used as a force of oppression, or distilled beyond recognition into applications that belie their individual and collective power. Dedicated to unmasking the political power of astrology, Alice shows how it can be channeled as a force for collective healing and liberation.
Join educator, creator, and astrologer Kirah Tabourn for a conversation with Alice Sparkly Kat on their work and their latest book, Postcolonial Astrology. Kirah and Alice share insights into ways we can use astrology to challenge our own practices, interrogate our truths, and reshape our institutions to build better frameworks for communities of care.
Free, suggested donation of $10.
https://www.ciis.edu/public-programs/event-calendar/kat-sparkly-alice-may-21-2021 ppforte@ciis.edu 415-575-6175

Virtual Event: Suyi Davies Okungbowa and Rebecca Roanhorse
2021-05-21 18:00 - 20:00 | CA
JOIN US ON FRIDAY, MAY 21 AT 6PM PT WHEN SUYI DAVIES OKUNGBOWA DISCUSSES HIS LATEST BOOK, SON OF THE STORM, WITH REBECCA ROANHORSE ON ZOOM!
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Praise for Son of the Storm
“A mesmerizing coming of age tale set against a thrilling, fantastical adventure that introduces a beguiling new world…and then rips apart everything you think you know.” —S. A. Chakraborty, author of City of Brass
“It’s always refreshing to find fantasies that break with all the old conventions and tropes, and Son of the Storm delivers on this like a flash of lightning in the dark! Set in a deftly craftedworld of forbidden sorcery, magical beasts, and fractured polities, this tale follows three characters whose seemingly disparate journeys are set for a collision course that will rewrite the fate of whole peoples and empires. Suyi Davies Okungbowa has created an original and fully conceived new world of fantasy teeming with brilliant possibilities and demanding to be explored!”—P. Djeli Clark, author of A Master of Djinn
“Okungbowa’s world feels fully formed from the first pages, sweeping readers away into an elaborately plotted tale of ancient magics and world-shattering politics. I, like many others, will be impatiently waiting for the next installment!”—Andrea Stewart, author of The Bone Shard Daughter
About Son of the Storm
From one of the most exciting new storytellers in epic fantasy, Son of the Storm is a sweeping tale of violent conquest and forgotten magic set in a world inspired by the pre-colonial empires of West Africa.
“Everything I love in a fantasy novel. Damn good stuff!” —Jenn Lyons, author of The Ruin of Kings
In the ancient. city of Bassa, Danso is a clever scholar on the cusp of achieving greatness—only he doesn’t want it. Instead, he prefers to chase forbidden stories about what lies outside the city walls. The Bassai elite claim there is nothing of interest. The city’s immigrants are sworn to secrecy.
But when Danso stumbles across a warrior wielding magic that shouldn’t exist, he’s put on a collision course with Bassa’s darkest secrets. Drawn into the city’s hidden history, he sets out on a journey beyond its borders. And the chaos left in the wake of his discovery threatens to destroy the empire.

Youth Speaks 25th Anniversary Fundraiser
2021-05-21 19:00 - 20:00 | online, CA, United States
Youth Speaks invites you to join us in celebrating 25 years of supporting and challenging young people to develop and amplify their voices as creators of societal change. Come for a night of youth poetry, some special guests, and learn more about our home for the next 25 years and beyond. The fundraiser will be emceed by Marc Bamuthi Joseph with special guests Rafael Casal and Daveed Diggs with a special musical guest.
TICKETS

Virtual Event: Rivers Solomon and Charlie Jane Anders
2021-05-22 12:00 - 13:00 | online, CA, United States
Join us on Saturday, May 22 at 12pm PT when Rivers Solomon and Charlie Jane Anders discuss their latest books, Sorrowland and Victories Greater Than Death!

Litquake’s Epicenter: A Virtual Series
Bringing writers from around the world to your computer screen
Litquake and Green Apple Books are honored to host this launch event for River Solomon’s Sorrowland (MCD) and Charlie Jane Anders’ Victories Greater Than Death (Tor/Forge). Both authors will read from and discuss their work. Audience Q&A to follow.
FREE, $10-15 suggested donation.
Registration is required. Spots are limited.
Event will also be available to stream on Facebook Live.

About Sorrowland
Sorrowland is a triumphant, genre-bending breakout novel from one of the boldest new voices in contemporary fiction.

Vern—seven months pregnant and desperate to escape the strict religious compound where she was raised—flees for the shelter of the woods. There, she gives birth to twins, and plans to raise them far from the influence of the outside world. But even in the forest, Vern is a hunted woman. Forced to fight back against the community that refuses to let her go, she unleashes incredible brutality far beyond what a person should be capable of, her body wracked by inexplicable and uncanny changes. To understand her metamorphosis and to protect her small family, Vern has to face the past, and more troublingly, the future—outside the woods. Finding the truth will mean uncovering the secrets of the compound she fled but also the violent history in America that produced it. Rivers Solomon’s Sorrowland is a genre-bending work of Gothic fiction. Here, monsters aren’t just individuals, but entire nations. It is a searing, seminal book that marks the arrival of a bold, unignorable voice in American fiction.

Rivers Solomon writes about life in the margins, where they are much at home. In addition to appearing on the Stonewall Honor List and winning a Firecracker Award, Solomon’s debut novel An Unkindness of Ghosts was a finalist for a Lambda, a Hurston/Wright, an Otherwise (formerly Tiptree) and a Locus award. Solomon’s second book, The Deep, based on the Hugo-nominated song by Daveed Diggs-fronted hip-hop group clipping, was the winner of the 2020 Lambda Award and shortlisted for a Nebula, Locus, Hugo, Ignyte, Brooklyn Library Literary, British Fantasy, and World Fantasy award. Solomon’s short work appears in or is forthcoming from Black Warrior Review, the New York Times, the New York Times Magazine, Guernica, Best American Short Stories, Tor.com, Best American Horror and Dark Fantasy, and elsewhere. A refugee of the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade, Solomon was born on Turtle Island but currently resides on an isle in an archipelago off the western coast of the Eurasian continent.

About Victories Greater Than Death
Victories Greater Than Death is a thrilling YA sci-fi adventure set against an intergalactic war from internationally bestselling author Charlie Jane Anders.

Outsmart Your Enemies. Outrun the Galaxy. “Just please, remember what I told you. Run. Don’t stop running for anything.”

Tina never worries about being ‘ordinary’–she doesn’t have to, since she’s known practically forever that she’s not just Tina Mains, average teenager and beloved daughter. She’s also the keeper of an interplanetary rescue beacon, and one day soon, it’s going to activate, and then her dreams of saving all the worlds and adventuring among the stars will finally be possible. Tina’s legacy, after all, is intergalactic–she is the hidden clone of a famed alien hero, left on Earth disguised as a human to give the universe another chance to defeat a terrible evil. But when the beacon activates, it turns out that Tina’s destiny isn’t quite what she expected. Things are far more dangerous than she ever assumed–and everyone in the galaxy is expecting her to actually be the brilliant tactician and legendary savior Captain Thaoh Argentian, but Tina….is just Tina. And the Royal Fleet is losing the war, badly–the starship that found her is on the run and they barely manage to escape Earth with the planet still intact. Luckily, Tina is surrounded by a crew she can trust, and her best friend Rachel, and she is still determined to save all the worlds. But first she’ll have to save herself.

Charlie Jane Anders is the author of Victories Greater Than Death, the first book in a new young-adult trilogy coming in April 2021, along with the forthcoming short story collection Even Greater Mistakes. Her other books include The City in the Middle of the Night and All the Birds in the Sky. Her fiction and journalism have appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Slate, McSweeney’s, Mother Jones, the Boston Review, Tor.com, Tin House, Conjunctions, Wired Magazine, and other places. Her TED Talk, Go Ahead, Dream About the Future got 700,000 views in its first week. With Annalee Newitz, she co-hosts the podcast Our Opinions Are Correct.

Sorrowland & Victories Greater Than Death: A Conversation with Rivers Solomon & Charlie Jane Anders
2021-05-22 17:00 - 18:00 | online, CA, United States
Co-presented by Green Apple
Litquake and Green Apple Books are honored to host this launch event for River Solomon’s Sorrowland (MCD) and Charlie Jane Anders’ Victories Greater Than Death (Tor/Forge). Both authors will read from and discuss their work. Audience Q&A to follow. FREE, $10-15 suggested donation
Registration is required. Spots are limited. Event will also be available to stream on Facebook Live.
See Less

Sarah Schulman in conversation with Marc Stein
2021-05-24 18:00 - 20:00 | CA
Sarah Schulman and Marc Stein discuss
Let The Record Show: A Political History of Act Up New York, 1987-1993
by Sarah Schulman
published by Farrar Straus Giroux
Twenty years in the making, Sarah Schulman’s Let the Record Show is the most comprehensive political history ever assembled of ACT UP and American AIDS activism.
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This is a virtual event that will be hosted by City Lights on the Zoom platform. You will need access to a computer or other device that is capable of accessing the internet. If you have not used Zoom before, you may consider referencing Getting Started with Zoom.
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Event is free, but registration is required
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(CLICK HERE) to register. Link to be posted.
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(CLICK HERE) to purchase book. Link to be posted.
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One of O, the Oprah Magazine‘s 32 LGBTQ Books That Will Change the Literary Landscape in 2021, one of and Cosmopolitan‘s LGBTQ+ Books to Add to Your Reading List in 2021, one of The Observer‘s Spring Books You Don’t Want to Miss, and one of Bloomberg‘s 14 Books to Put on Your Reading List This Spring
“A masterpiece of historical research and intellectual analysis that creates many windows into both a vanished world and the one that emerged from it, the one we live in now.” –Alexander Chee
In just six years, ACT UP, New York, a broad and unlikely coalition of activists from all races, genders, sexualities, and backgrounds, changed the world. Armed with rancor, desperation, intelligence, and creativity, it took on the AIDS crisis with an indefatigable, ingenious, and multifaceted attack on the corporations, institutions, governments, and individuals who stood in the way of AIDS treatment for all. They stormed the FDA and NIH in Washington, DC, and started needle exchange programs in New York; they took over Grand Central Terminal and fought to change the legal definition of AIDS to include women; they transformed the American insurance industry, weaponized art and advertising to push their agenda, and battled—and beat—The New York Times, the Catholic Church, and the pharmaceutical industry. Their activism, in its complex and intersectional power, transformed the lives of people with AIDS and the bigoted society that had abandoned them.
Based on more than two hundred interviews with ACT UP members and rich with lessons for today’s activists, Let the Record Show is a revelatory exploration—and long-overdue reassessment—of the coalition’s inner workings, conflicts, achievements, and ultimate fracture. Schulman, one of the most revered queer writers and thinkers of her generation, explores the how and the why, examining, with her characteristic rigor and bite, how a group of desperate outcasts changed America forever, and in the process created a livable future for generations of people across the world.
Sarah Schulman is the author of more than twenty works of fiction (including The Cosmopolitans, Rat Bohemia, and Maggie Terry), nonfiction (including Stagestruck, Conflict is Not Abuse, and The Gentrification of the Mind), and theater (Carson McCullers, Manic Flight Reaction, and more), and the producer and screenwriter of several feature films (The Owls, Mommy Is Coming, and United in Anger, among others). Her writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Slate, and many other outlets. She is a Distinguished Professor of Humanities at College of Staten Island, a Fellow at the New York Institute of Humanities, the recipient of multiple fellowships from the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and the New York Foundation for the Arts, and was presented in 2018 with Publishing Triangle’s Bill Whitehead Award. She is also the cofounder of the MIX New York LGBT Experimental Film and Video Festival, and the co-director of the groundbreaking ACT UP Oral History Project. A lifelong New Yorker, she is a longtime activist for queer rights and female empowerment, and serves on the advisory board of Jewish Voice for Peace.
Marc Stein is a professor of history at San Francisco State University and the author of multiple books on queer topics, including most recently The Stonewall Riots: A Documentary History (NYU Press, 2019). His next book, Queer Public History: Essays on Scholarly Activism, will be published by the University of California Press, in 2022.

Praise for Let the Record Show:

“A masterful work twenty years in the making . . . Schulman holds a unique position to chronicle this critical history and connect it with our own chaotic moment.” —Lauren LeBlanc, Observer
“A significant boots-on-the-ground account . . . Readers are right there with activists, hearing their stories from them but also others who knew them . . . Vital, democratic truth-telling.” —Kirkus (starred review)
“[A] fine-grained history . . . [Schulman’s] firsthand perspective and copious details provide a valuable testament to the courage and dedication of many unheralded activists.” —Publishers Weekly
“People often speak of the authoritarian handbook, and I always wonder, what is the opposite? Maybe this book, in fact. In so many ways. Sarah Schulman has written more than an authoritative history of ACT UP NY here– it is a masterpiece of historical research and intellectual analysis that creates many windows into both a vanished world and the one that emerged from it, the one we live in now. I can’t think of a book like this–it is an almost entirely new model, uniquely possible as the result of Schulman’s life’s work. As one of our only genuinely intellectual iconoclasts, she returns to us with this story of a movement that changed the world at least once, now a part of the work to change that world again. Any reader will be changed, I think, by the stories here–radicalized and renewed, which to me is something better than just hope.” –Alexander Chee, author of How to Write an Autobiographical Novel
“Characteristically forthright, Sarah Schulman gives us the most comprehensive history of the ACT UP movement in New York to date through a wide range of interviews, a trenchant commentary, and a sustained testament to collaborative action and its history. From this extraordinary history told with the multiple voices of participants, Schulman makes clear that the history of HIV and AIDS in this country has been marred by popular narratives and bouts of grandstanding that largely failed to acknowledge the thousands of lives still lost annually from AIDS, the schisms that opened up serious issues of power within the movement, and the specific ways that people of color and poor people remained unserved by the scientific advances widely celebrated. This work also tells us why so many people become activists: to understand social and political forces that seem overwhelming, to work with others to give order to their world, and to find community in suffering, anger, analysis, and action. This book lets us know that neither our sorrow nor our rage is finished, and that the work of acknowledgement of all who struggled and suffered remains our task.” —Judith Butler
“In the style of the late great Howard Zinn, Sarah Schulmam has written an epic, moving and important People’s History of the Act up Movement, filled with powerful storytelling and invaluable lessons in the do’s and don’t of organizing. We owe a great deal to Schulman for the depth and years of her research, for her commitment to telling a story that lifts and honors a group rather than highlighting only a few individuals, and for her willingness to tell the whole truth with serious rigor and love.”–V (formerly Eve Ensler), author of The Vagina Monologues
“Sarah Schulman’s remarkable book Let the Record Show offers a thorough and corrective retelling of the history of ACT-UP, introducing a diverse cast of characters that has been largely erased from what passes as the official HIV/AIDS narrative. She brings extraordinary reporting, finely calibrated detail and her own lived experience to a book that is at once a love letter to the movement that refused to back down as it forced an epidemic to its knees and a road map for a new generation of activists grappling with social change.” —Linda Villarosa, contributing writer, The New York Times Magazine
“With heart, anger and rigor, Sarah Schulman shows us how AIDS has shaped our political world by letting the people of ACT UP tell us what they did in their own words. Let The Record Show is more than a single book; it’s an encyclopedia, an oral history, and a map. Indeed, as the most marginalized people are again at risk during yet another viral pandemic, Schulman (and the voices she foregrounds so lovingly) gives us an activist guide for communally creating a better world. It is a masterpiece—the book on AIDS history I wish had been available for me to read years ago.” –Steven Thrasher, Daniel H. Renberg Chair of Social Justice in Reporting, Northwestern University Medill School of Journalism and author of The Viral Underclass
“Sarah Schulman has achieved the near impossible in this riveting and powerful book. She writes with the knowledge and experience of a passionate insider as she lays out a detailed and deep history of ACT UP. Yet she has a sharp eye for the bigger picture, offering a broad analysis, bringing in diverse, fascinating, and illuminating perspectives. Not until this book has an author captured how ACT UP was grounded in both the feminist and civil rights movements, nor how the group spawned new movements and inspired a new generation of queer activism while dramatically influencing the course of the AIDS epidemic and making a mark on American culture. The writing is crisp and compassionate. The stories are vivid — heroic, painful, breathtaking and joyous. Sarah Schulman has produced a definitive and monumental work.” —Michelangelo Signorile, author of It’s Not Over: Getting Beyond Tolerance, Defeating Homophobia and Winning True Equality

Sponsored by the City Lights Foundation

VIRTUAL EVENT: Suzanne Simard, Finding the Mother Tree
2021-05-24 19:00 - 21:00 | CA
FREE VIRTUAL EVENT: Leading forest ecologist Suzanne Simard will join us to discuss Finding the Mother Tree. In this, her first book, Simard brings us into her world, the intimate world of the trees, in which she brilliantly illuminates the fascinating and vital truths—that trees are not simply the source of timber or pulp, but are a complicated, interdependent circle of life; that forests are social, cooperative creatures connected through underground networks by which trees communicate their vitality and vulnerabilities with communal lives not that different from our own.
Register for this free Crowdcast event by clicking here!

This is a free event. The featured book may be preordered below. You can make a donation to help support Bookshop Santa Cruz here. Thank you!
Suzanne Simard is a pioneer on the frontier of plant communication and intelligence; she’s been compared to Rachel Carson, hailed as a scientist who conveys complex, technical ideas in a way that is dazzling and profound. Her work has influenced filmmakers (the Tree of Souls of James Cameron’s Avatar) and her TED talks have been viewed by more than 10 million people worldwide. Simard writes—in inspiring, illuminating, and accessible ways—how trees, living side by side for hundreds of years, have evolved, how they perceive one another, learn and adapt their behaviors, recognize neighbors, and remember the past; how they have agency about the future; elicit warnings and mount defenses, compete and cooperate with one another with sophistication, characteristics ascribed to human intelligence, traits that are the essence of civil societies—and at the center of it all, the Mother Trees: the mysterious, powerful forces that connect and sustain the others that surround them.
“This book promises to change our understanding about what is really going on in the forest, and other pressing mysteries about the real world.”—Michael Pollan
“It completely overturned my view of nature.”—Kristin Ohlson, New York Times bestselling author
SUZANNE SIMARD was born in the Monashee Mountains of British Columbia and was educated at the University of British Columbia and Oregon State University. She is Professor of Forest Ecology in the University of British Columbia’s Faculty of Forestry.

Cynthia Kaufman in conversation with Francesca Caparas
2021-05-25 18:00 - 20:00 | CA
discussing Cynthia Kaufman’s new book
The Sea Is Rising and So Are We: A Climate Justice Handbook
foreword by Bill McKibben
published by PM Press

This is a virtual event that will be hosted by City Lights on the Zoom platform. You will need access to a computer or other device that is capable of accessing the internet. If you have not used Zoom before, you may consider referencing Getting Started with Zoom.
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Event is free, but registration is required.
(CLICK HERE) to register. Links coming soon.
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(CLICK HERE) to purchase book. Links coming soon.
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The Sea is Rising and So Are We: A Climate Justice Handbook is an invitation to get involved in the movement to build a just and sustainable world in the face of the most urgent challenge our species has ever faced. By explaining the entrenched forces that are preventing rapid action, it helps you understand the nature of the political reality we are facing and arms you with the tools you need to overcome them. The book offers background information on the roots of the crisis and the many rapidly expanding solutions that are being implemented all around the world. It explains how to engage in productive messaging that will pull others into the climate justice movement, what you need to know to help build a successful movement, and the policy changes needed to build a world with climate justice. It also explores the personal side, how engaging in the movement can be good for your mental health. It ends with advice on how you can find the place where you can be the most effective and where you can build climate action into your life in ways that are deeply rewarding.
Cynthia Kaufman is the director of the Vasconcellos Institute for Democracy in Action, where she also teaches community organizing and philosophy. The author of Getting Past Capitalism: History, Vision, Hope (Lexington Books, 2012), she is a lifelong social change activist, having worked on issues such as tenants’ rights, police abuse, union organizing, international politics, and most recently climate change.
Francesca Caparas teaches English and Asian American Studies at De Anza College and she is the Faculty Coordinator of the Jean Miller Resource Room for Women, Gender, and Sexuality. She is the 2020-21 Fulbright Scholar to the Philippines where she will be researching discourses of digital literacy. Her interests and community work include international human rights, intersectional feminism, digital culture, and decolonization.
Advance Praise for The Sea Is Rising and So Are We
“The Sea is Rising and So Are We is a rare kind of book, at once a primer for activists and an astute commentary on a set of critical topics that even a seasoned climate stalwart could benefit from. It takes on some really tough questions—transformational change, how to talk about the emergency, the need for a specifically global politics of climate justice—and it does in a manner that is both simple and sophisticated. It’s not an easy balance, but Kaufman pulls it off.”
—Tom Athanasiou, author of Dead Heat: Global Justice and Global Warming
“Cynthia Kaufman’s The Sea Is Rising and So Are We is a valuable overview of where we as a species are in the existential fight to prevent catastrophic climate disruption. It covers a lot, from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assessment of our situation to the need for a personally supportive movement culture to sustain our climate activism. It is an accessible, up-to-date resource both for those who have been in the climate fight for decades and those who know they need to do so but haven’t yet figured out how.”
—Ted Glick, longtime climate organizer and author of Burglar for Peace
“In The Sea Is Rising and So Are We Cynthia Kaufman has provided us with a vital manual for confronting the climate crisis and its root causes. Kaufman offers compelling analysis, a comprehensive mapping of the political landscape, and practical guidance for action—all in a straightforward and accessible manner. Most importantly, she offers hope.”
—Tony Roshan Samara, Program Director of Land Use and Housing at Urban Habitat

Virtual Event: Waterlog Reissue Celebration
2021-05-25 18:00 - 20:00 | CA
JOIN US ON TUESDAY, MAY 25 AT 6PM PT FOR THE REISSUE OF ROGER DEAKIN’S CLASSIC, WATERLOG: A SWIMMER’S JOURNEY THROUGH BRITAIN,
WITH CRAIG POPELARS, BONNIE TSUI, AND PETE MULVIHILL ON ZOOM!
Zoom Login Info
Please click the link below to join the webinar:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83346470886
Or One tap mobile :
US: +16699009128,,83346470886# or +12532158782,,83346470886#
International numbers available: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kPwSATyv
About Waterlog
“Like swimming through Alice’s Wonderland.” —Lynne Cox
A swimming journey would give me access to that part of our world which, like darkness, mist, woods or high mountains, still retains most mystery. It would afford me a different perspective on the rest of land-locked humanity.
A masterpiece of nature writing, Roger Deakin’s Waterlog is a fascinating and inspiring journey into the aquatic world that surrounds us.
In an attempt to discover his island nation from a new perspective, Roger Deakin embarks from his home in Suffolk to swim Britain—the seas, rivers, lakes, ponds, pools, streams, lochs, moats, and quarries. Through the watery capillary network that braids itself throughout the country, Deakin immerses himself in the natural habitats of fish, amphibians, mammals, and birds. And as he navigates towns, private property, and sometimes dangerous waters and inclement weather, Deakin finds himself in precarious situations: he’s detained by bailiffs in Winchester, intercepted by the coast guard at the mouth of a river, and mistaken for a dead body on a beach. The result of this surprising journey is a deep dive into modern Britain, especially its wild places.
With enchanting descriptions of natural landscapes, and a deep well of humanity, boundless humor, and unbridled joy, Deakin beckons us to wilder waters and inspires us to connect to the larger world in a most unexpected way. Thrilling, vivid, and lyrical, Waterlog is a fully immersive adventure—a remarkable personal quest, a bold assertion of the swimmer’s right to roam, and an unforgettable celebration of the magic of water.

VIRTUAL: ZYZZYVA #120: The Technology Issue: Stories, Dreams, & Nightmares
2021-05-25 18:00 - 20:00 | CA
Booksmith is thrilled to host a virtual event to celebrate the latest installment of ZYZZYVA—The Technology Issue: Stories, Dreams, & Nightmares, which reminds us of the essential synergy between art and science—how important literature is, as a critical challenge to technology’s momentum, as a creative force driving innovation, and, sometimes, as a conscience.
Join us for an evening featuring contributors Juhea Kim, Troy Jollimore, Lee Conell, and William Brewer—and for a special reading by Alex Torres of Anthony Veasna So’s story “Generational Differences,” which also appears in ZYZZYVA’s new issue.
This event is free and all ages, but RSVP is required. Event link will be sent to everyone who registers.
You can order the issue here and we’ll ship it directly to you (or hold for pickup at our San Francisco shop).
We are happy to fulfill orders anywhere in the world – international postage will be invoiced separately. If you have any questions at all, don’t hesitate to contact events@booksmith.com.
About the authors
Juhea Kim is the founder and editor of Peaceful Dumpling, an online magazine covering sustainable lifestyle and ecological literature. Her first novel, Beasts of a Little Land, will be published in the fall by Ecco.
Alex Torres studied English and Spanish literature at Stanford and UC Berkeley. He was a Fulbright Scholar in Bogotá, Colombia, and has worked at Business Insider and other startups. His writing has been published or is forthcoming in The Millions, Poets & Writers Magazine, ESQ: A Journal of the American Renaissance, Hobart, and elsewhere. He is currently working on a collection of essays.
Troy Jollimore is the author of three books of poetry and three books of philosophy, as well as numerous articles, essays, and reviews. His first collection of poetry, Tom Thomson in Purgatory, won the National Book Critics Circle award in poetry. He is currently a Professor in the Philosophy Department at California State University, Chico.
Lee Conell is the author of the novel The Party Upstairs, which was awarded the Wallant Award, as well as the story collection Subcortical, which was awarded The Story Prize Spotlight Award.
William Brewer is the author of the poetry collections I Know Your Kind (Milkweed Editions), a winner of the National Poetry Series, and Oxyana. He is a Jones Lecturer at Stanford.
This event is free and all ages, but RSVP is required.

REVIVAL SEASON Book Launch with Author Monica West
2021-05-25 19:00 - 21:00 | CA
Please join us on Tuesday, May 25, 2021 at 7 PM PDT for an online book launch of REVIVAL SEASON with author Monica West.
Our discussion will be webcast on Zoom at https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81681297923.
Preorder your copy of REVIVAL SEASON at http://bit.ly/ggpRevivalSeason, or in audiobook from Libro.fm at http://bit.ly/RevivalSeasonAB.
Description

The daughter of one of the South’s most famous Baptist preachers discovers a shocking secret about her father that puts her at odds with both her faith and her family in this “tender and wise” (Ann Patchett, author of Commonwealth) debut novel.
Every summer, fifteen-year-old Miriam Horton and her family pack themselves tight in their old minivan and travel through small southern towns for revival season: the time when Miriam’s father—one of the South’s most famous preachers—holds massive healing services for people desperate to be cured of ailments and disease.This summer, the revival season doesn’t go as planned, and after one service in which Reverend Horton’s healing powers are tested like never before, Miriam witnesses a shocking act of violence that shakes her belief in her father—and in her faith.
When the Hortons return home, Miriam’s confusion only grows as she discovers she might have the power to heal—even though her father and the church have always made it clear that such power is denied to women. Over the course of the next year, Miriam must decide between her faith, her family, and her newfound power that might be able to save others, but, if discovered by her father, could destroy Miriam.
Celebrating both feminism and faith, Revival Season is a story of spiritual awakening and disillusionment in a Southern, black, Evangelical community. Monica West’s transporting coming-of-age novel explores complicated family and what it means to live among the community of the faithful.
About the Author

Born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio, Monica West received her BA from Duke University, her MA from New York University, and her MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop where she was a Rona Jaffe Graduate Fellow. She was a Southern Methodist University Kimbilio Fellow in 2014, and she will be a Hedgebrook Writer in Residence in 2021. Revival Season is her first novel.
Praise For…

“Explosive…. West does a fantastic job illuminating the struggles faced by women and girls in the Southern Baptist evangelical movement, and the change in Miriam is palpable and moving. West’s deep understanding of her characters and community makes for essential reading.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
West’s debut is a bold insight into traditional southern Christianity and its contradictions to contemporary perspectives on gender equality. She writes with a melodic cadence that is honest and often heartbreaking. Her characters are three-dimensional people who tug at readers’ emotions. West’s refreshing literary voice and thought-provoking perspective hint at a wealth of stories to come.—Booklist
“Tender and wise, Revival Season explores a girl’s faith in both her family and in God. Monica West’s formidable talent is matched by her generosity of spirit, making the most winning combination a reader could wish for.”—Ann Patchett
