Queer Writing Group
2018-07-05 19:00 - 21:00 UTC | Alley Cat Books, 3036 24th St, San Francisco, CA, 94110, United States
A group of LGTBQ+ writers to share new work

OAKLAND FIRST FRIDAYS AT NOMADIC PRESS!
2018-07-06 19:00 - 21:00 | Nomadic Press: Uptown, 2301 Telegraph Ave., Oakland, CA, 94612, United States
Doors open at 7:00 PM; show starts at 7:30 PM SHARP! Join us at Nomadic Press as we celebrate Oakland First Fridays! Featuring readings by 4-5 Nomadic Press authors in our intimate space amongst the hustle at 23rd and Telegraph Avenue. Come early and catch our authors reading on a street stage just down the block at 6:30 PM. This month features readings by TBD and music by TBD.
To help pay for our space and our artists and ensure that we can continue our robust programming series, we are asking for suggested donations of $10-15 at the door, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds (NOTAFLOF). Nomadic Press books, as always, will be for sale at the event.
Wine and Red Bay coffee will be available.

BINDERY: Amber Tamblyn / Any Man
2018-07-06 19:30 - 21:00 | The Bindery, 1727 Haight St, San Francisco , 94117, United States
In her electric and provocative debut novel Any Man, Amber Tamblyn blends genres of poetry, prose, and elements of suspense to give shape to the shocking narratives of victims of sexual violence, mapping the destructive ways in which our society perpetuates rape culture.
A violent serial rapist is on the loose, who goes by the name Maude. She hunts for men at bars, online, at home — the place doesn’t matter, neither does the man. Her victims then must live the aftermath of their assault in the form of doubt from the police, feelings of shame and alienation from their friends and family, and the haunting of a horrible woman who becomes the phantom on which society projects its greatest fears, fascinations, and misogyny. All the while the police are without leads and the media hound the victims, publicly dissecting the details of their attack.
What is extraordinary is how as years pass these men learn to heal, by banding together and finding a space to raise their voices. Told in alternating viewpoints signature to each voice and experience of the victim, these pages crackle with emotion, ranging from horror to breathtaking empathy.
As bold as it is timely, Any Man paints a searing portrait of survival and is a tribute to those who have lived through the nightmare of sexual assault.

Amber Tamblyn, author of the critically acclaimed poetry collection Dark Sparkler, has been nominated for Emmy, Golden Globe, and Independent Spirit awards. She has published two additional books of poetry, Free Stallion(2005), which won the Borders Book Choice Award for Breakout Writing, andBang Ditto (2009), an IndieNext bestseller. Tamblyn reviews books of poetry for Bust Magazine, is poet in residence at Amy Poehlers Smart Girls and is a contributing writer for The New York Times. Her work has appeared in Glamour, Teen Vogue,the San Francisco Chronicle, the Iowa Review, Poets & Writers, PANK, and elsewhere. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and daughter.​

Please note: this event will be held at The Bindery, 1727 Haight.

Bar opens at 7, event begins at 7:30pm.

RSVP appreciated but not required.

Bay Area Poets Coalition
2018-07-07 15:00 - 17:00 | Strawberry Creek Lodge, 1320 Addison Street, Berkeley, CA, 94702, United States
June 2, July 7, August 4
3:00 – 5:00 PM

STRAWBERRY CREEK LODGE
1320 Addison St., Berkeley, CA

Addison is one block south of and parallel to University Ave.
between Acton & Bonar St.
Parking on the street (NOT in the S.C.L. parking lot)
Check in at the front desk and you will be directed to the meeting location
(usually Movie Room, or backyard garden)

All Ages Welcome

Come and enjoy a friendly and informal read-around —
3-5 minutes per poet/reader, or “just listening” is fine too 🙂

After the reading, join us for dinner if you’d like at a nearby restaurant

Adrienne Eberhardt / closing reception for Emotional Science
2018-07-07 16:00 - 18:00 | The Bindery, 1727 Haight St, San Francisco , 94117, United States
The Bindery hosts a closing for Adrienne Eberhardt‘s exhibition Emotional Science
Emotional Science presents experimental and analog work Adrienne made as a teenager in her makeshift darkroom in St. Louis, Missouri. She will also be displaying a more recent series of self portraits entitled “Closer Still.”

Artist statement: The long, isolating gray winters growing up in Missouri were always a highly creative period for me. I spent so many days inside my darkroom, listening to music, looking at negatives and experimenting with image making. I was intrigued by the concept of photography: that light enabled an image to reflect off a mirror and record time. Many of the images I made represent 1-2 hour exposures of me literately standing in the dark with my enlarger dodging and burning parts of an image in to see what I could pull from it.

Adrienne’s technique may be described as a subtle interplay of the intentional and the accidental, which in turn reflects the cycle of disorder and reconstruction that characterize memory and life experience. By playing with light and texture, she allows the medium and method to interpret her subjects, often distorting individual features and rendering spaces ambiguous. The emotions explored have no definable shape and cannot be limited to the experience of one person; rather the purpose and process of her work is to remove forced definitions and expected categories to create an experience that is simultaneously recognizable and universal.

Her more recent body of work entitled “Closer Still” is a series of self portraits and represents two important firsts: using herself as a subject, and working in a digital medium. She painted exposed photographic paper and allowed the water and paint to dry in puddles, again letting time and randomness play a role in the formulation of the texture and final image. In “An Unusual Appearance of Light” the figure interacts with her environment by surfacing with clarity, arms raised up in a possible combination of surrender, exhibition, and confrontation. The figure appears to invite the viewer into a direct and mutual transmission of thought and feeling, and the distinct light surrounding the subject in this moment gives clues about what is before her. As with all of Adrienne’s work the exchange between subject and viewer is left ambiguous, inviting the viewer to explore the concept behind the process and his or her own possibilities of seeing.

Adrienne, the Creative Director of her own multi-disciplinary design studio based in San Francisco, will be on hand with originals and limited edition prints for sale, and a cash bar will be open from 6 – 9pm.

Please note: this event will be at The Bindery at 1727 Haight. RSVP appreciated but not required.

Poetry Event: GEARS TURNING w/ Kim Shuck
2018-07-08 16:00 - 18:00 | Adobe Books, 3130 24th St., San Francisco, CA, 94110, United States
Join us for an afternoon of wonderful poetry by SF Bay Area based poets, artists, and musicians with your host Kim Shuck.
To participate in the open mic sessions, please arrive by 4 and plan to listen to all of the featured poets. Seating/space is limited.

LaborFest 2018 Giving Voice: LaborFest Writers' Anthology 2005-2018
2018-07-08 18:00 - 20:00 | The Green Arcade, 1680 Market St, San Francisco , CA, 94102, United States
The collection includes a selection of works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry by writers Phyllis Holliday, Margaret Cooley, Keith Cooley, Adele Kearney, Nellie Wong, Jerry Path, and Alice Rogoff. Hear stories about the lives and struggles of laborers, farmers, cooks, cowboys, and coalminers from China, Ireland, Britain, rural Wisconsin, and the Old West. The anthology will be hot off the press and this event is the first opportunity to buy a book. Join us for an evening of readings from our new anthology as we honor our deceased members Phyllis Holliday and Adele Kearney.
Contact: info@laborfestwriters.org

The Diesel Readers Book Group discuses THE INTERIOR CIRCUIT
2018-07-09 19:00 - 21:00 | East Bay Booksellers, 5433 College Avenue, Oakland, 94618
East Bay Booksellers invites you to The Diesel Readers Book Group’s discussion of The Interior Circuit, by Francisco Goldman, on Monday July 9th at 7pm.
The Interior Circuit is Francisco Goldman’s brilliant chronicle of his emergence from grief five years after his beloved wife’s death, symbolized by his attempt to overcome his fear of driving in Mexico City (the DF). When organized crime erupts in the city in an unprecedented way during the summer of 2013, Goldman sets out to try to understand the menacing challenges the DF now faces. By turns exuberant, poetic, reportorial, philosophical, and urgent, The Interior Circuit fuses a personal journey to a searing account of one of the world’s most remarkable and often misunderstood great cities.

** The Diesel Readers is an ongoing group, and is open to all. **

Event date:

Monday, July 9, 2018 – 7:00pm

Event address:

East Bay Booksellers
5433 College Avenue

Oakland, CA 94618

Yerba Buena Gardens Festival Presents Poetic Tuesdays with Litquake
2018-07-10 12:30 - 13:30 | Jessie Square, 736 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA, 94103, United States
Yerba Buena Gardens Festival presents Poetic Tuesdays guest curated by Litquake, Poetic Tuesdays features an array of poets and music.

Poetic Tuesdays with Jason Bayani
2018-07-10 12:30 - 13:30 | Yerba Buena Gardens, 750 Howard St., San Francisco, CA, 94103, United States
Enjoy line breaks during your lunch break, as some of the Bay Area’s best poets and musicians share their work in the great outdoors.
This year see’s a new host and curator, Jason Bayani, artistic director for Kearny Street Workshop (the oldest multi-disciplinary Asian Pacific American multi-disciplinary arts organization in the country) as well as a Kundiman fellow and a veteran of the National Poetry Slam scene whose work has been published in Fourteen Hills, Muzzle Magazine, Mascara Review, the National Poetry Slam anthology Rattapallax, Write Bloody’s classroom anthology Learn Then Burn, and other publications.

Featuring

Jason Bayani

Perfectly Queer San Francisco "Summer Reading List"
2018-07-10 19:00 - 20:00 | Dog Eared Books Castro, 489 Castro Street, San Francisco , CA, 94114, United States
What to read when there’s a summer chill in the air in San Francisco? Perfectly Queer has five suggestions: Admissions by Eric Sasson, Alpha Wave by Andrew Demcak, Eros and Dust by Trebor Healey, The Last Time I Saw Her by Kathy Knowles, and Unseasonable Weather by Luiza Flynn-Goodlett. You can hear a sample of each at Perfectly Queer SF’s “Summer Reading List,” Tuesday, July 10, 7-8pm at Dog Eared Books Castro, 489 Castro St. in The City by the Bay. Free admission, tasty treats and drinks, and summer door prizes!
Here’s a bit about the authors:
ANDREW DEMCAK is an American poet and novelist, the author of four poetry collections and five Young Adult novels. His books have been featured by the American Library Association, Verse Daily, Lambda Literary Foundation, Best American Poetry, and Poets and Writers. He was a finalist for the prestigious Dorset Poetry Prize, the Gloria E. Anzaldúa Poetry Prize, and the Louise Bogan Award for Artistic Merit and Excellence in Poetry. About his new teen horror novel, How Do You Deal with a Dead Girl?, Kirkus Reviews said, “An eerily amusing horror tale that will have readers rooting for the characters.”
LUIZA FLYNN-GOODLETT is the author of the chapbooks Unseasonable Weather (dancing girl press, 2018) and Congress of Mud (Finishing Line Press, 2015). Her work can be found in Third Coast, Granta, Quarterly West, DIAGRAM, The Rumpus, and elsewhere. She serves as editor-in-chief for the Foglifter journal and lives in sunny Oakland, California.
TREBOR HEALEY is the recipient of a Lambda Literary Award, two Publishing Triangle Awards, and a Violet Quill Award. He is the author of three novels (Faun, A Horse Named Sorrow, and Through It Came Bright Colors), a book of poetry (Sweet Son of Pan), and two collections of stories (Eros and Dust, A Perfect Scar). He co-edited the anthologies Beyond Definition and Queer & Catholic. See www.treborhealey.com.
KATHLEEN KNOWLES grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania but has lived in San Francisco since 1979. She has written her whole life but published for the first time in 2012. Her first novel, Awake Unto Me, won the GCLS 2013 prize for historical romance and was named by Out in Print as one of its 2012 Notable Books. To date, Kathleen has written seven romance novels. She is married and she and her spouse–and pets–live on top of one of San Francisco’s forty-nine hills.
ERIC SASSON is the author of the short-story collection Margins of Tolerance and the novel Admissions. He is a frequent contributor to Vice, The New Republic, and GOOD magazines. His articles have been featured on “Meet the Press” and “Morning Joe Scarborough.” Other publication credits include pieces in them, Salon, Five Points, Best Gay Stories 2013, and BLOOM. He was born, bred, and still resides in Brooklyn.

Zoe Samudzi presents AS BLACK AS RESISTANCE
2018-07-10 19:00 - 21:00 | East Bay Booksellers, 5433 College Avenue, Oakland, 94618
EAST BAY BOOKSELLERS welcomes Zoe Samudzi to discuss her book As Black As Resistance: Finding the Conditions for Liberation, on Tuesday, July 10th at 7pm.
Over the course of United States history, resistance against oppression and the gains made from various struggles for everyone’s equality have often been Black led. However, liberal politics and the lack of strong leftist political power are two problems impeding the continued progress of Black America. Expanding on their original essay The Anarchism Of Blackness, Samudzi and Anderson make the case for a new program of transformative politics for Black Americans, one rooted in an anarchistic framework likened to the Black experience itself. This is not a compromising book that negotiates with intolerance. As Black as Resistance is a declaration for everyone who is ready to continue progressing towards liberation for all people.
About the Author
Zoé Samudzi is a writer and doctoral student in Medical Sociology at the University of California, San Francisco. Her research focuses on the scientific logics that produce race and gender, particularly focusing on transgender health and the ways Blackness is constructed.

Film Critic Joseph McBride on Ernst Lubitch
2018-07-10 19:00 - 21:00 | Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave, Berkeley, CA, 94704, United States
Join film critic Joseph McBride as he discusses the work of Ernst Lubitsch. This is a book launch for How Did Lubitsch Do It, forthcoming from Columbia University Press in June.
“Joseph McBride’s study of Lubitsch matches the breadth and range of his incomparable work on Welles and Ford. Reading it, it is impossible not to want to see each of the director’s greatest films again or for the first time-readers will be driven straight to seek out not only the repertory standards but the silents, the musicals, and the German films. It is especially gratifying to see McBride apply his supple understanding of the intricacies of Lubitsch’s sexual politics to the paradoxes lurking for contemporary viewers, exploring how the films play both against and into feminist readings. McBride doesn’t shy from such explorations, but never leaps to premature conclusions. The book is an act of devotion matched to the heart
of its subject.” – Jonathan Lethem

LaborFest 2018 Immigrant Girl, Radical Woman, a Memoir from the Early 20th Century
2018-07-10 19:00 - 21:00 | The Green Arcade, 1680 Market St, San Francisco , CA, 94102, United States
Presented by Robbin Henderson, Matilda Rabinowitz’s memoir challenges assumptions about the lives of early twentieth-century women. In Immigrant Girl, Radical Woman, Rabinowitz describes the ways in which she and her contemporaries rejected the intellectual and social restrictions imposed on women as they sought political and economic equality in the first half of the twentieth century. Rabinowitz devoted herself to the notion that women should be entitled to independence, equal rights, equal pay, and sexual and personal autonomy. After immigrating from the Ukraine to the US, she was radicalized by her experience in sweatshops and became an organizer for the Industrial Workers of the World from 1912 to 1917 before choosing single motherhood in 1918.

Meet Author Yang Huang
2018-07-11 18:00 - 19:30 | Oakland Main Library, 125 14th St, Oakland, CA, 94612, United States
Yang Huang grew up in China’s Jiangsu province and participated in the 1989 student uprisings. Her linked family story collection, My Old Faithful, won the Juniper Prize for Fiction. Her debut novel, Living Treasures, won the Nautilus Book Award silver medal in fiction. Her essays and short stories have appeared in
Poets & Writers, The Margins, Eleven Eleven, Asian Pacific American Journal, The Evansville Review, and others. She lives in the Bay Area and works for the University of California, Berkeley.
Books will be available for sale and signing courtesy of Laurel Book Store.

Nell Painter presents her memoir OLD IN ART SCHOOL
2018-07-11 19:00 - 21:00 | East Bay Booksellers, 5433 College Avenue, Oakland, 94618
EAST BAY BOOKSELLERS is very excited to welcome one of the preeminent historians in the United States, Nell Painter, to discuss her memoir Old in Art School: A Memoir of Starting Over, on Wednesday, July 11th at 7pm.
“Nell Painter has courage and intelligence. She reminds us that the only option as we grow older is to grow younger. Never forgetting our curiosity and passion, we are well armed for the challenge.” —Maira Kalman, author of The Principles of Uncertainty and Beloved Dog
How are women, and artists, “seen” and judged by their age, race, and looks? And how does this seeing change, depending upon what is asked of the viewer? What does it mean when someone states (as one teacher does) that “you will never be an Artist”—who defines “an Artist,” and all that goes with such an identity, and how are these ideas tied to our shared conceptions of beauty, value, and difference?
Old in Art School represents an ongoing exploration of such questions, one that ultimately honors curiosity, openness, and joy—the joy of embracing creativity, dreams, the importance of hard work, and the stubborn determination of your own value. Nell Painter’s journey is filled with surprises, even as she brings to bear the incisiveness of her insights from two careers, which combine in new ways even as they take very different approaches—one searching for facts and cohesion, the other seeking the opposite. She travels from her beloved Newark to the prestigious Rhode Island School of Design; finds meaning in the artists she loves, such as Alice Neel, Faith Ringgold, or Maira Kalman, even as she comes to understand how they are undervalued; and struggles with the ever-changing balance between the pursuit of art and the inevitable, sometimes painful demands of a life fully lived.
* * *
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
NELL PAINTER is the Edwards Professor of American History, Emerita, at Princeton University. Her acclaimed works of history include Standing at Armageddon, Sojourner Truth, and the New York Times bestseller The History of White People, which have received widespread attention for their insights into how we have historically viewed and translated ideas of gender, value, hierarchy, and race. She holds an MFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and a BFA from Mason Gross School of the Arts. Her visual artwork has been shown at numerous galleries and in many collections, including the San Angelo Museum of Fine Art, the Brooklyn Historical Society, and Gallery Aferro. She lives in Newark, New Jersey and the Adirondacks.

Event date:

Wednesday, July 11, 2018 – 7:00pm to 8:30pm

Event address:

East Bay Booksellers
5433 College Avenue

Oakland, CA 94618

Chloe Benjamin and Aja Gabel
2018-07-11 19:00 - 21:00 | Bookshop Santa Cruz, 1520 Pacific Ave, Santa Cruz , CA, 95060, United States
Friends and talented literary voices, Chloe Benjamin and Aja Gabel will be in conversation to discuss their fantastic new novels. Benjamin’s national bestseller and Bookshop staff favorite The Immortalists probes the line between destiny and choice, reality and illusion. Gabel’s The Ensemble is a heart-skipping portrait of ambition, friendship, and the tenderness of youth.
The Immortalists
It’s 1969 in New York City’s Lower East Side, and word has spread of the arrival of a mystical woman, a traveling psychic who claims to be able to tell anyone the day they will die. The Gold children–four adolescents on the cusp of self-awareness–sneak out to hear their fortunes.
The prophecies inform their next five decades. Golden-boy Simon escapes to the West Coast, searching for love in ’80s San Francisco; dreamy Klara becomes a Las Vegas magician, obsessed with blurring reality and fantasy; eldest son Daniel seeks security as an army doctor post-9/11; and bookish Varya throws herself into longevity research, where she tests the boundary between science and immortality.
A sweeping novel of remarkable ambition and depth, The Immortalists probes the line between destiny and choice, reality and illusion, this world and the next. It is a deeply moving testament to the power of story, the nature of belief, and the unrelenting pull of familial bonds.
The Ensemble
Jana. Brit. Daniel. Henry. They would never have been friends if they hadn’t needed each other. They would never have found each other except for the art which drew them together. They would never have become family without their love for the music, for each other.
Brit is the second violinist, a beautiful and quiet orphan; on the viola is Henry, a prodigy who’s always had it easy; the cellist is Daniel, the oldest and an angry skeptic who sleeps around; and on first violin is Jana, their flinty, resilient leader. Together, they are the Van Ness Quartet. After the group’s youthful, rocky start, they experience devastating failure and wild success, heartbreak and marriage, triumph and loss, betrayal and enduring loyalty. They are always tied to each other – by career, by the intensity of their art, by the secrets they carry, by choosing each other over and over again.
Following these four unforgettable characters, Aja Gabel’s debut novel gives a riveting look into the high-stakes, cutthroat world of musicians, and of lives made in concert. The story of Brit and Henry and Daniel and Jana, The Ensemble is a heart-skipping portrait of ambition, friendship, and the tenderness of youth.
Chloe Benjamin is the author of the New York Times bestseller The Immortalists. Her first novel, The Anatomy of Dreams, received the Edna Ferber Fiction Book Award and was long listed for the 2014 Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. She is a graduate of Vassar College and the M.F.A. in fiction at the University of Wisconsin. She lives with her husband in Madison, WI.
Aja Gabel’s writing has appeared in BOMB, The Kenyon Review, Glimmer Train, and elsewhere. A former cellist, she earned her B.A. at Wesleyan University, her MFA at the University of Virginia and has a Ph.D. in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Houston. Aja has been the recipient of fellowships from the Sewanee Writers” Conference, Literary Arts Oregon, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, where she was a fellow in fiction. She currently lives in Los Angeles.
This free event will take place in Bookshop Santa Cruz. Chairs for open seating are usually set up about an hour before the event begins.

Pandemonium Press Presents Poetry of Witness
2018-07-11 19:00 - 21:00 | The Octopus Literary Salon, 2101 Webster St #170, Oakland , CA, 94612, United States
Featured readers: MK Chavez, Susan Gubernat, Lucille Lang Day, James Cagney. Late Night Open Mic follows the featured readers. Sign-up now for Ist Annual Open Mic Award’s Contest (see below). Book & Broadside Giveaway. Free, 7-9 pm. The Octopus Literary Salon, 2101 Webster St., Oakland.

Lyrics & Dirges: A Monthly Reading Series
2018-07-12 08:00 - 17:00 | Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave, Berkeley , CA, 94704, United States
Wednesday, August 15, 7:30pm
This Recurring Event is at Pegasus Books Downtown
Lyrics & Dirges: A Monthly Reading Series
Lyrics and Dirges is our flagship monthly reading series featuring a mix of prominent, emerging and beginning writers. Its aim is to highlight various forms of writing in an effort to spotlight the diverse literary community of the Bay Area.
Hosted and Curated by Mk Chavez, Sharon Coleman, and Lark Omura.
Every third Wednesday of the month at Pegasus Books Downtown.

Poem Jam
2018-07-12 18:00 - 20:00 | San Francisco Public Library, Main Branch, 100 Larkin St., San Francisco, CA, 94102
Join San Francisco Poet Laureate Kim Shuck and others for a poetry jam. The Main Library’s monthly Poem Jam poetry reading series, moderated by Kim Shuck, takes place on Thursdays at 6 p.m. in the Main Library. Join us!

Voz Sin Tinta!
2018-07-12 18:30 - 20:30 | Alley Cat Books, 3036 24th St, San Francisco, CA, 94110, United States
Join us for our monthly bilingual poetry night created by Marguerite Munoz and Renee Voz

Get Lit! Celebrates FIVE Years!
2018-07-12 19:00 - 21:00 | Aqus Petaluma, 101 H St, Petaluma, CA, 94952, United States
Come celebrate FIVE YEARS of literary fun at our July Get Lit with Melissa Eleftherion, Manjula Martin & Hilary Zaid on Thursday, July 12; 7pm at Aqus Café in Petaluma
Something different for this event: we won’t have our traditional open mic this time around. Instead, we’ve invited some alumni readers to share a few short readings in lieu of the regular open mic.
We also have a ukulele band performing a few songs for us!
Please come out, support our readers, Aqus Café, our musicians and our fun community at this FREE event.
~~~~~
+ Melissa Eleftherion is a writer, librarian, and a visual artist. She grew up in Brooklyn, dropped out of high school, and went on to earn an MFA in Poetry from Mills College and an MLIS from San Jose State University. She is the author of field guide to autobiography (The Operating System, 2018), & six chapbooks: huminsect (dancing girl press, 2013), prism maps (Dusie, 2014), Pigtail Duty (dancing girl press, 2015), the leaves the leaves (poems-for-all, 2017), green glass asterisms (poems-for-all, 2017) & little ditch (above/ground press, 2018). Founder of the Poetry Center Chapbook Exchange for San Francisco State University, Melissa now lives in Mendocino County where she manages the Ukiah Library, teaches creative writing, & curates the LOBA Reading Series. Recent work is available at www.apoetlibrarian.wordpress.com.
+ Manjula Martin is editor of the anthology Scratch: Writers, Money, and the Art of Making a Living (Simon & Schuster, 2017). She is managing editor of Zoetrope: All-Story and her writing has appeared in the Virginia Quarterly Review, Pacific Standard, Aeon Magazine, Hazlitt Magazine, and The Awl. She lives in San Francisco and Camp Meeker.
+ A 2017 Tennessee Williams Scholar at the Sewanee Writers’ Conference, Hilary Zaid is also an alumna of the Squaw Valley Community of Writers and the Tin House Writers’ Workshop. Her short fiction has appeared in print and online venues including Lilith Magazine, The Southwest Review, The Utne Reader, CALYX, The Santa Monica Review, and The Tahoma Literary Review. She is the author of a novel, PAPER IS WHITE. Alexander Chee, author of Queen of the Night and How to Write an Autobiographical Novel, says: “Written across histories as seemingly varied as Lithuania’s Jewish Kovno Ghetto and Queer Nation San Francisco, Paper Is White connects them in a very different sort of adventure novel, where remembering someone you love becomes one of the most radical things you can do. Zaid is fierce, a rebel with a cause, and her breathtaking leaps of imagination make new worlds possible.”
~~~~~
Get Lit is a FREE quarterly literary event hosted by Dani Burlison and Kara Vernor at Aqus Café in Petaluma. All ages are welcome but DISCLAIMER: our readers may share adult content and we don’t provide ear muffs.

Otessa Moshfegh: My Year of Rest and Relaxation
2018-07-12 19:30 - 21:30 | Pegasus Books Downtown, 2349 Shattuck Ave, Berkeley , CA, 94704, United States
ABOUT MY YEAR OF REST AND RELAXATION
From one of our boldest, most celebrated new literary voices, a novel about a young woman’s efforts to duck the ills of the world by embarking on an extended hibernation with the help of one of the worst psychiatrists in the annals of literature and the battery of medicines she prescribes
Our narrator should be happy, shouldn’t she? She’s young, thin, pretty, a recent Columbia graduate, works an easy job at a hip art gallery, lives in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan paid for, like the rest of her needs, by her inheritance. But there is a dark and vacuous hole in her heart, and it isn’t just the loss of her parents, or the way her Wall Street boyfriend treats her, or her sadomasochistic relationship with her best friend, Reva. It’s the year 2000 in a city aglitter with wealth and possibility; what could be so terribly wrong?
My Year of Rest and Relaxation is a powerful answer to that question. Through the story of a year spent under the influence of a truly mad combination of drugs designed to heal our heroine from her alienation from this world, Moshfegh shows us how reasonable, even necessary, alienation can be. Both tender and blackly funny, merciless and compassionate, it is a showcase for the gifts of one of our major writers working at the height of her powers.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ottessa Moshfegh is a fiction writer from New England. Eileen, her first novel, was shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Man Booker Prize, and won the PEN/Hemingway Award for debut fiction. She is also the author of the short story collection Homesick for Another World. Her stories have been published in The Paris Review, The New Yorker, Granta, and have earned her a Pushcart Prize, an O. Henry Award, the Plimpton Discovery Prize, and a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Her first book, McGlue, a novella, won the Fence Modern Prize in Prose and the Believer Book Award.

Picture Book Surgery!
2018-07-13 07:00 - 21:00 | The Booksmith, 1644 Haight St, San Francisco , CA, 94117, United States
What makes a great picture book? Let’s find out together! We’ll dissect our favorite picture books, focusing each month on a different angle. We’ll go on a book hunt through the bookstore, and then finish up with some time to write down or sketch about what we’ve discovered.

Illustrators Charlotte Cheng and Diana Toledano lead this workshop/book club where all participants come to learn from each other.

This is the perfect event for author/illustrators looking forward to meet some colleagues, discover new books, and learn more about the craft. Authors interested in illustration, and illustrators interested in writing are also welcome.

This Month’s Topic is: The Role of Grown-Ups in Picture Book Stories.

Things to Note:

Feel free to bring a book from your personal collection, but remember, a good surgeon doesn’t have a relationship with the patient. In other words, please do not bring your own work to discuss.
The people at the Booksmith are super kind letting us host our meetings there, but they won’t be giving us any special treatment… You can politely ask them to carry your books or host your author event, just be aware that the answer might be “no”.

Space is limited, so sign up soon!

This is a monthly SCBWI Member-Hosted Event.
To get in touch or to join our mailing list please write us at: picturebooksurgery@gmail.com

HAIGHT-ASHBURY LITERARY JOURNAL
2018-07-13 19:00 - 21:00 | The Beat Museum, 540 Broadway, San Francisco , CA, 94133, United States
The Haight-Ashbury Literary Journal celebrates its 2018 edition.
Featuring readers:

ANDRENA ZAWINSKI
EILEEN MALONE
KIM SHUCK
ALICE ROGOFF
CESAR LOVE
K.R. MORRISON
STEPHEN KOPEL
ROCIO RAMIREZ

Ages 8-12! Ann Killion
2018-07-13 19:00 - 21:00 | Mrs. Dalloway’s Bookstore, 2904 College Ave, Berkeley, CA, 94705, United States
Ann Killion

presents Champions of Men’s Soccer and Champions of Women’s Soccer, the ultimate guides for young sports fans from an award-winning sports journalist.
To reserve your seat, purchase a copy of either book by speaking to a bookseller or ordering from our website.

Friday, July 13, 2018 – 7:00pm

Featuring Top Ten Lists and stunning photos of history-making moments, these comprehensive pro soccer collections catalog the greatest international players and the greatest Americans. These are the perfect books for young sports fans eager to kick off their soccer schooling.
Ann Killion has covered American sports for more than a quarter century. An award-winning columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle, she has covered several World Cups and pivotal moments in the rise of both American men’s and women’s soccer. She was named the 2014 California Sportswriter of the Year. She is co-author of Solo: A Memoir of Hope with soccer star Hope Solo, and Throw Like a Girl with softball great Jennie Finch. She lives in Mill Valley.

Event address:

2904 College Avenue

Berkeley, CA 94705

When You Die… Workshop and Book Signing
2018-07-14 14:00 - 16:30 | E.M. Wolfman General Interest Small Bookstore, 410 13th Street, Oakland , CA, 94612, United States
Oakland-based conceptual artist Lindsay Tunkl, is pleased to present Parting Practice: Rituals for Endings and Failure. This multifaceted event coincides with the release of the artist’s latest book, When You Die You Will Not Be Scared To Die, a work of conceptual art that reframes death as something to look forward to instead of fight against. To celebrate the release of the new book, a group workshop and book signing will take place at E.M. Wolfman General Interest Bookstore on July 14th from 2-4:30pm. The artist will also be conducting 50-minute one-on-one performance sessions at other locations in the bay area over the course of three days (July 15, July 21 and July 22) where volunteer participants can connect around their fears of death and dying.
Lindsay Tunkl’s artistic practice has been described as absurd, over-emotional, healing, and tragic. In an attempt to understand the particular experience of the human life cycle during the Anthropocene (the societal moment that our species began contributing to its own demise) Tunkl uses her art practice as a way to connect and share in the heartbreaking realities we all inhabit in this contemporary moment. Drawing from her own irrational fears of the apocalypse, death and intimacy, the artist has found that these topics – the things that scare us the most – are a platform for profound human connection and closeness.
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Parting Practice sprung from Pre Apocalypse Counseling, a series of interactive, one-on-one performances that took place in an SUV and lead participants through conversations, psychological and physical exercises, and visualizations in order to examine their emotional connection to the probable or improbable apocalypse (more than 100 sessions have taken place). Out of that project came two recently published works: Origins and Endings: A Divination Book and Inkblot Card Deck and the small book of meditations, When You Die You Will Not Be Scared To Die. With a tender and humorous hand, each of these works is an encounter that offers the viewer an opportunity to have a reflexive experience with their emotions within a world that is more often than not, heartbreaking.

Open Mic
2018-07-14 16:00 - 19:00 | Alley Cat Books, 3036 24th St, San Francisco, CA, 94110, United States
Fiestas Fridas open mic
All topics/ All skill levels welcome

POETRY READING & LIVE MUSIC with Swimming in Bengal / Invasive Species
2018-07-14 17:30 - 21:30 | Adobe Books, 3130 24th St., San Francisco, CA, 94110, United States
Please join us for a wonderful evening of poetry and music!
5:30 Poetry Reading features
Michelle Bonilla Garcia
Summer Bei
Aakash Tyagi
7:30 Live Music
Swimming in Bengal (Sacto)
https://www.facebook.com/swimminginbengal/

INVASIVE SPECIES
https://invasivespeciesduo.bandcamp.com/

Jessica Friedmann
2018-07-14 19:00 - 21:00 | Alley Cat Books, 3036 24th St, San Francisco, CA, 94110, United States
Australian author Jessica Friedmann discusses her new essay collection Things that helped: on Postpartum Depression. Jessica will be joined by local poet and writer Lauren Levin in a conversation moderated by Lydia Kiesling (editor of the Millions)
