Litseen

José Gutiérrez + Dean Rader
2017-05-10 19:00 - 21:00 UTC | Book Passage Marin, 51 Tamal Vista Blvd. , Corte Madera, CA, 94925, United States
A World Less Away is a honeycomb, blackbox, dream codex and memory palace. These poems traffic in the interstices of our lives where the quotidian is imbued with meaning and hums with metaphysical unrest. By turns existential, surreal and elegiac, the poems in this collection take swerves that are sure to transport the reader to the oneiric side of reality while never losing sight that “flesh was the first simile/we were given,/to feel, conjure,/never truly inhabit.
José Gutiérrez is a San Francisco-based poet. His work has appeared in Eratio, Scythe, Margie, Poemeleon, DMQ, Kestrel, Thrush Journal, Jetfuel, Caliban, Gnarled Oak and the anthologies Mutanabbi Street Starts Here and 99 Poems for the 99 Percent and is forthcoming in Metonym, Public Pool, eleveneleven and Xavier Review, among others. He works as an interpreter and translator in the medical and legal fields in the Bay Area.
Wikipedia articles are never finalized. In Dean Rader’s energized and inventive new book, Self-Portrait as Wikipedia Entry, the poet considers identity of self and society as a Wikipedia page — sculpted and transformed by the ever-present push and pull of politics, culture, and unseen forces. And, in the case of Rader, how identity can be affected by the likes of Paul Klee’s paintings and the characters from the children’s stories about Frog and Toad. Rader’s cagey voice is full of humor and inquiry, warmly inviting readers to fully participate in the creation.
Born in Oklahoma, Dean Rader has published in the fields of poetry, American Indian studies, and popular culture. He is a professor of English at the University of San Francisco, and writes regularly on literature and politics for The San Francisco Chronicle.

Smut: An Unseemly Story (The Greening of Mrs. Donaldson)
2017-05-10 19:00 - 2017-06-11 23:30 UTC | Z Space, 450 Florida Street, San Francisco, CA, 94110, United States
One of England’s finest and most loved writers, Alan Bennett, explores the uncomfortable and tragicomic gap between people’s public appearance and their private desires in this tender and surprising story. In The Greening of Mrs. Donaldson, a recently bereaved widow finds interesting ways to supplement her income by performing as a patient for medical students, and renting out her spare room. Quiet, middle-class, and middle-aged, Mrs. Donaldson will soon discover that she rather enjoys role-play at the hospital, and the irregular and startling entertainment provided by her tenants.A master storyteller dissects a very English form of secrecy with this story of the unexpected in otherwise apparently ordinary lives. Directed by Amy Kossow.

Sarah Ladipo Manyika
2017-05-10 19:30 - 21:00 UTC | Green Apple Books on the Park, 1231 9th Ave, San Francisco , CA, 94122, United States
Sarah Ladipo Manyika in conversation with Vendela Vida about her new book, Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun.
Praise for Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun
“Dr. Morayo Da Silva is one of the most memorable characters you are likely to encounter on the page – intelligent, indomitable, author and survivor of a large life. In dreamlike prose, Manyika dips in and out of her present, her past, in a story that argues always for generosity, for connection, for a vigorous and joyful endurance.” —Karen Joy Fowler, author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, shortlisted for 2014 Man Booker Prize
“If aging be a lamp, then Morayo, the protagonist in Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun is a mesmerising glow. Astute, sensual, funny, and moving.” —NoViolet Bulawayo, author of We Need New Names, shortlisted for 2013 Man Booker Prize
“From the instant you pick it up, you know that you will privy to the most intimate secrets. A beautiful, important new novel. ” —Peter Orner, author of Love and Shame and Love
About Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun
Morayo Da Silva, a cosmopolitan Nigerian woman, lives in hip San Francisco. On the cusp of seventy-five, she is in good health and makes the most of it, enjoying road trips in her vintage Porsche, chatting to strangers, and recollecting characters from her favourite novels. Then she has a fall and her independence crumbles. Without the support of family, she relies on friends and chance encounters. As Morayo recounts her story, moving seamlessly between past and present, we meet Dawud, a charming Palestinian shopkeeper, Sage, a feisty, homeless Grateful Dead devotee, and Antonio, the poet whom Morayo desired more than her ambassador husband.
A subtle story about ageing, friendship and loss, this is also a nuanced study of the erotic yearnings of an older woman.

Dani Shapiro
2017-05-10 19:30 - 21:30 UTC | Mrs. Dalloway’s Bookstore, 2904 College Ave, Berkeley, CA, 94705, United States
Dani Shapiro reads from Hourglass: Time, Memory, Marriage, the novelist’s most intimate and powerful work to date: a piercing, life-affirming memoir about marriage and memory, about the frailty and elasticity of our most essential bonds, and about the accretion, over time, of both sorrow and love.
“Reading this book was like skating across a perfect piece of ice and then slowly noticing the cracks. Dark, cold water shows through. We can’t see the depths. Be careful, Shapiro warns, be careful, but still she skates on in the fading light with remarkable beauty and grace.”–Jenny Offill

Benjamin Ludwig
2017-05-11 13:00 - 15:00 UTC | Book Passage Marin, 51 Tamal Vista Blvd. , Corte Madera, CA, 94925, United States
Readers who loved Christopher from The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, Jack from Room, and Bee from Where’d You Go, Bernadette, will be thrilled to get to know Ginny Moon in this unforgettable debut that affirms of how fiction has the power to change the way we look at the world.
Told in an extraordinary and wholly unique voice that will candidly take you into the mind of a curious and deeply human character.
For the first time in her life, Ginny Moon has found her “forever home”-a place where she’ll be safe and protected, with a family that will love and nurture her. It’s exactly the kind of home that all foster kids are hoping for. So why is this 14-year-old so desperate to get kidnapped by her abusive, drug-addict birth mother, Gloria, and return to a grim existence of hiding under the kitchen sink to avoid the authorities and her mother’s violent boyfriends?
While Ginny is pretty much your average teenager-she plays the flute in the school band, has weekly basketball practice and studies Robert Frost poems for English class-she is autistic. And so what’s important to Ginny includes starting every day with exactly nine grapes for breakfast, Michael Jackson, bacon-pineapple pizza and, most of all, getting back to Gloria so she can take care of her baby doll.
A compulsively readable and touching novel, this story is about being an outsider trying to find a place to belong and making sense of a world that just doesn’t seem to add up.
Benjamin Ludwig lives in New Hampshire with his family and is a life-long teacher of English and writing. He holds an MAT in English Education and an MFA in Writing. Shortly after he and his wife married they became foster parents and adopted a teenager with autism.

Simon Wickhamsmith on Mongolian Poet Tseveendorjin Oidov
2017-05-11 18:00 - 20:00 UTC | Center for the Art of Translation office, 582 Market St #700, San Francisco, CA, 94104, United States
Join us for a conversation with Mongolian translator Simon Wickhamsmith and Scott Esposito about Wickhamsmith’s translation of Tseveendorjin Oidov’s The End of the Dark Era. Wickhamsmith was awarded a PEN/Heim Translation grant for his work on the book, and he’ll talk about how he became interested in Mongolian literature and the challenges of translating from the language.
Light snacks and drinks will be provided. Come prepared to join the conversation!

David Weisberg discusses and signs "The American Plan"
2017-05-11 19:00 - 20:00 UTC | DIESEL, A Bookstore, 5433 College Ave, Oakland, CA, 94618, United States
DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes David Weisberg to the store to discuss and sign The American Plan, on Thursday, May 11th at 7:00 pm. This will be his West coast launch and all are welcome to attend.
A daring and disturbing tale of survival set in Cuba and South Florida during the 1950s and early 60’s, embracing both the breadth of historical fiction and the intimate intensity of a psychological suspense novel, The American Plan is a vertiginous ride through the mid-century American psyche.
Copies of The American Plan will be for sale at the event.

Dodie Bellamy + Kevin Killian
2017-05-11 19:00 - 21:00 UTC | City Lights Bookstore, 261 Columbus Ave, San Francisco , CA, 94133, United States
celebrating the release of
Writers Who Love Too Much: New Narrative 1977-1997
Edited by Dodie Bellamy and Kevin Killian
Published by Nightboat Books
In the twenty years that followed America’s bicentennial, narrative writing was re-formed, reflecting new political and sexual realities. With the publication of this anthology, the New Narrative era bounds back to life, ripe with dramatic propulsion and infused with the twin strains of poetry and Continental theory. Arranged chronologically, the reader will discover classic texts of New Narrative from Bob Glück to Kathy Acker, and rare materials including period interviews, reviews, essays, and talks combined to form a new map of late twentieth-century creative rebellion.
Dodie Bellamy is the author of numerous works of prose. Her latest book is When the Sick Rule the World. She teaches creative writing at San Francisco State University and California College of the Arts.
Kevin Killian is a San Francisco-based poet, novelist, playwright, and art writer. He is the author of fifteen books and co-wrote Poet Be Like God, a biography of the American poet Jack Spicer (1925-1965). City Lights published his novel Impossible Princess, winner of the 2010 Lambda Literary Award for Best Gay Erotica .

Marissa Moss
2017-05-11 19:00 - 21:00 UTC | Books Inc. Opera Plaza, 601 Van Ness, San Francisco , CA, 94107, United States
Award-winning author and illustrator Marissa Moss shares her touching memoir, Last Things: A Graphic Memoir of Loss and Love.
Last Things is the true and intensely personal story of how one woman coped with the devastating effects of a catastrophic illness in her family.
Using her trademark mix of words and pictures to sharp effect, Marissa Moss presents the story of how she, her husband, and her three young sons struggled to maintain their sense of selves and wholeness as a family and how they continued on with everyday life when the earth shifted beneath their feet.
After returning home from a year abroad, Marissa’s husband, Harvey, was diagnosed with ALS. The disease progressed quickly, and Marissa was soon consumed with caring for Harvey while trying to keep life as normal as possible for her young children. ALS stole the man who was her husband, the father of her children, and her best friend in less than 7 months.
This is not a story about the redemptive power of a terminal illness. It is a story of resilience–of how a family managed to survive a terrible loss and grow in spite of it. Although it’s a sad story, it’s powerfully told and ultimately uplifting as a guide to strength and perseverance, to staying connected to those who matter most in the midst of a bleak upheaval. If you’ve ever wondered how you would cope with a dire diagnosis, this book can provide a powerful example of what it feels like and how to come through the darkness into the light.

Glori Simmons
2017-05-11 19:30 - 21:30 UTC | Green Apple Books on the Park, 1231 9th Ave, San Francisco , CA, 94122, United States
Glori Simmons discusses her new story collection, Suffering Fools, winner of the Spokane Prize for Short Fiction.

About Suffering Fools

A woman running a halfway house for paroled sexual predators is left wondering if her favorite has committed his most unthinkable crime yet. A groundskeeper who has just discovered that his ex is pregnant digs up an infant’s tombstone inscribed with his own name. A traumatic traffic collision sends an aging couple back into their decades long marriage. Whether it be a dying man spying on two teenage lovers or a new mother running from her colicky infant, the nine stories in Suffering Fools spring from the dark corners of our psyches, revealing the fears and contradictions that give shape to unconditional love. Suffering Fools is the winner of the Spokane Prize for Short Fiction.

Laura McBride
2017-05-11 19:30 - 21:30 UTC | Mrs. Dalloway’s Bookstore, 2904 College Ave, Berkeley, CA, 94705, United States
Laura McBride

reads from her new novel, ‘Round Midnight, a story that follows the interconnected lives of four women in Las Vegas, each of whom experiences a life-changing moment at a classic casino nightclub.
“Gorgeous, engrossing, moving, and at times wickedly funny, this brilliant novel pulled me in and didn’t let me go until the shattering final sentence. This is the novel you need to read right now.”–Joanna Rakoff, author of My Salinger Year and A Fortunate Age

Thursday, May 11, 2017 – 7:30pm

Spanning the six decades when Las Vegas grew from a dusty gambling town into the melting pot metropolis it is today, ‘Round Midnight is the story of four women–one who falls in love, one who gets lucky, one whose heart is broken, and one who chooses happiness–whose lives change at the Midnight Room.
June Stein and her husband open the El Capitan casino in the 1950s, and rocket to success after hiring a charismatic black singer to anchor their nightclub. Their fast-paced lifestyle runs aground as racial tensions mount.
Honorata leaves the Philippines as a mail order bride to a Chicago businessman, then hits a jackpot at the Midnight Room when he takes her on a weekend trip to Las Vegas.
Engracia, a Mexican immigrant whose lucky find at the Midnight Room leads to heartbreak, becomes enmeshed in Honorata’s secret when she opens her employer’s door to that Chicago businessman–and his gun.
Last is Coral, an African-American teacher who struggles with her own mysterious past. A favor for Honorata takes her to the Midnight Room, where she hits a jackpot of another kind.
Mining the rich territory of motherhood and community, ‘Round Midnight is a story that mirrors the social transformation of our nation. Full of passion, heartbreak, heroism, longing, and suspense, it honors the reality of women’s lives.
Laura McBride is also the author of the novel We Are Called to Rise. She lives in Las Vegas and teaches composition at the College of Southern Nevada.

Event address:

2904 College Avenue

Berkeley, CA 94705

Two Voices Salon: Simon Wickhamsmith
2017-05-11 20:00 UTC | Center for the Art of Translation office, 582 Market St #700, San Francisco, CA, 94104, United States
Two Voices Salon: Translator Simon Wickhamsmith on Mongolian Poet Tseveendorjin Oidov

Center for the Art of Translation | 582 Market Street, Suite 700 | San Francisco, CA

Doors at 5:30. Event will begin promptly at 6:00 p.m.

Join us for a conversation with Mongolian translator Simon Wickhamsmith and Scott Esposito about Wickhamsmith’s translation of Tseveendorjin Oidov’s The End of the Dark Era. Wickhamsmith was awarded a PEN/Heim Translation grant for his work on the book, and he’ll talk about how he became interested in Mongolian literature and the challenges of translating from the language.
Light snacks and drinks will be provided. Come prepared to join the conversation!

CONTACT:

Leslie-Ann Woofter
lwoofter@catranslation.org
415.512.8812

Christopher Bernard Reads from Chien Lunatique
2017-05-12 19:00 - 21:00 (America/Denver) | The Beat Museum, 540 Broadway, San Francisco , CA, 94133, United States
Love, Modernity, and the Internet Just who, or what, is le chien lunatique?
The poet driven out of his mind when faced with the catastrophe of the modern world? The modern world turned into a rabid canine when faced with the hopelessly idealistic poet? Or when it looks in the mirror and sees what it has become?
These poems – profound yet accessible, contemporary yet classical, eloquent and dynamic even when apparently most despairing – distill one poet’s somewhat jaundiced look at modernity, from the Renaissance and the philosophical revolutions of the seventeenth century to the nihilism of postmodernism, from the death of God to the bankruptcy of humanism, from the midnight of the Enlightenment to the immortalized barbarism of the internet. Yet behind all of these poems, supporting them like a hand, lies the passion that drives all of existence, old or new – the ferocious and uncompromising demands of love.
A rabid dog eventually bites itself to death. So is there hope pour ce pauvre chien lunatique? Maybe there is. Maybe there isn’t. Only the future knows. It sits at your feet. Growling.
Pre-publication Comments on
Christopher Bernard’s
CHIEN LUNATIQUE
“An extraordinary, and extraordinarily strange, accomplishment. It is bound to offend at least one of your friends.”
– Jack Foley
“. . . poems of diamond-like brilliance, filled with despair, passion, and surreal beauty. The poet . . . in an act of intellectual courage, climbs up on the rubble of western culture to speak truth to both power and powerlessness.”
– Mary Mackey, author of Sugar Zone and
the novel The Village of Bones
“Another entrancing book from a poet and novelist of visionary authority, whose imagination is at once brilliant and unsettling.”
– Ernest Hilbert, author of Caligulan
“An attempt to right the world . . . a generous collection.” – Simon Perchik
“ ‘The Wife of the Painter’ . . . takes my breath away . . . . ‘Midnight’ is . . . a masterpiece, yet so modest as to almost escape notice.”
– Curt Barnes
“In this provocative collection of poems, Christopher Bernard emerges as a maverick bucking current tastes and trends . . . balancing an unabashed prophetic fury with poems of great love and tenderness.”
– Philip Fried

THERE 15
2017-05-12 19:00 - 21:00 UTC | The Octopus Literary Salon, 2101 Webster St #170, Oakland , CA, 94612, United States
NEXT THERE: THERE 15 – Friday, May 12 , 2017 – award-winning East Bay author Cecile Barlier, local author Katie Moulton, and another writer TBA.
THERE (THe Eastbay Reading Extravaganza) is a reading series showcasing emerging and established writers from Oakland and Berkeley, with the occasional San Franciscan. Doug hosts it on the third Friday of each month at Octopus Literary Salon in Uptown Oakland. It also features a live original musical performance by a local musical artist at “halftime” of each month’s reading, and Doug’s famous original LitQuiz literary trivia contest. It’s from 7:00-9:00pm. THERE has been putting the there back in Oakland since 2015!

Butchertown Book Release Party!
2017-05-13 15:00 - 16:30 UTC | Stookey’s Club Moderne, 895 Bush St. at Taylor, San Francisco, CA, 94610, United States
BUTCHERTOWN BOOK RELEASE PARTY: At Stookey’s Club Moderne
“One Bad Weekend in One Bad Town . . . Butchertown.”
“A darkly fascinating novel. Butchertown is incendiary”— David Corbett, award-winning author of Mercy of the Night.
“Burchfield rounds up a great cast of gangsters and gunsels to bat his wide-eyed hero around.”—Don Herron, author of the Literary World of San Francisco and Its Environs and The Dashiell Hammett Tour
“A sexy, violent non-stop thrill ride deep into the seedy underbelly of post-World War I San Francisco!” Critic’s Report, The BookLife Prize, sponsored by Publishers Weekly.
Oakland, CA, 5/5/2017 – The first official book release party for Butchertown, Thomas Burchfield’s new novel set in 1920s gangland San Francisco Bay will be held this coming Saturday May 13, 2017 at Stookey’s Club Moderne, 895 Bush Street (at Taylor) from 3:00-4:30 PM, with doors opening at 2:30. The author will read from Butchertown, plus an excerpt from an upcoming novel and will provide signed copies of Butchertown for sale.
Butchertown tells the story of Paul Bacon, ex-Navy boxer, Jazz-Age playboy and junior city attorney, who’s moved to California expecting sunshine and sandy beaches. But all he’s found is lonely misery in the chilly fog-choked canyons of 1920s San Francisco.
Then, one foggy night, he meets Molly Carver. Alluring, irresistible, mysterious, she lures Paul across San Francisco Bay to her hometown of Evansville, to what she claims is the California promised in the travel brochures.
But Molly’s promise is only camouflage for a dangerous game. Evansville is no paradise but a whirling sewer of sin and perdition; a wilderness of slaughterhouses, factories, oil refineries, gambling dens, brothels, and speakeasies even more decadent than San Francisco. And within its grimy, gritty heart, a gang war smolders, ready for someone to throw a match.
They don’t call it Butchertown for nothing.
ABOUT THE VENUE: Stookey’s Club Moderne, located at 895 Bush at Taylor, between Nob Hill and Union Square, is a lounge evoking the style of post-prohibition San Francisco (1930-1940).
The bar’s classic cocktails and Streamline-Moderne design, brings its guests back in time and into the mood of Dashiell Hammett’s San Francisco.
Contact:
Thomas Burchfield
amblerhouse@att.net
(510) 817-4432
http://amblerhouse.blogspot.com/

Tenderloin Museum Turns Two
2017-05-13 16:00 - 21:00 UTC | Tenderloin Museum, 398 Eddy St, San Francisco , CA, United States
The Tenderloin Museum marks its 2nd anniversary in the midst of an important year in the history of San Francisco – it’s the 50th anniversary of the Summer of Love and the 100th anniversary of the “anti-vice” Tenderloin neighborhood shutdown. On Saturday, May 13, the Tenderloin Museum is inviting its friends and neighbors to celebrate the Tenderloin’s unique contributions to San Francisco history with daylong free museum admission and free public programs from 4 pm to 9 pm, featuring accounts of the “Invisible Circus” from the Diggers, San Francisco Chronicle Columnist David Talbot, the first-ever reading of the new play The Compton’s Cafeteria Riot, and a dynamic jazz night by SF Recovery Theater. We’re excited to show off the best the neighborhood has to offer and celebrate the 31 square blocks we call home.
Programming Schedule:
4pm, The Diggers’ “Invisible Circus” Remembered
Come hear what the Summer of Love was like in the Tenderloin. Judy Goldhaft (original participant in the Diggers) and Eric Noble (Diggers archivist) talk with LisaRuth Elliott (Shaping San Francisco’s co-director) about who the Diggers were, and their radical anti-capitalist philosophy and activities. They will share archival materials and personal experiences from the Diggers’ “Invisible Circus” Happening at Glide Church on February 24, 1967. Stories about the “Invisible Circus” became legend in San Francisco’s hip community for years. Originally billed as a 72 hour event, participants were thrown out within 24 hours. See the poster from the event and hear stories of the spectacle from the Diggers themselves.
5pm, David Talbot on the Summer of Love, Season of the Witch, and the Tenderloin
Author of the best selling book on San Francisco’s Summer of Love and its aftermath, San Francisco Chronicle columnist David Talbot gives his unique perspective on this seminal time in history.
6pm, The Compton’s Cafeteria Riot
Join us for the first-ever reading of scenes from a new play about Tenderloin history, The Compton’s Cafeteria Riot, based on events surrounding the United States’ first-ever anti-police riot by the LGBTQ community. Followed by dazzling drag performances by co-authors Donna Personna & Collette LeGrande, and joined by Olivia Hart (all featured in James Hosking’s film about Aunt Charlie’s bar, Beautiful by Night). The play is being co-produced by the Tenderloin Museum and writer Mark Nassar, co-creator of Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding, and will premiere this fall in the Tenderloin.
7:30, SF Recovery Theater: Night at the Black Hawk
Join us for a raucous tour-de-force performance of some of the best musical talent in the neighborhood! Night at the Black Hawk is a live jazz concert, part of an ongoing series that reflects on the lives and stories of the artists, musicians, and residents that lived in the shadow of the Black Hawk Jazz Club.
Participant Bios
A former member of the Diggers, Judy Goldhaft is an activist who has used art, theater and education to further social change in urban and rural locations to promote community empowerment and bioregional ecological education. Judy has performed dance, street theater, life acting, multispecies theater and single person performance pieces. Judy has been a guiding force with the ecological educational nonprofit Planet Drum Foundation since its inception in 1973, serving currently as its director. She also gardens, and is a maker, repairer, and reuser.
After reading a copy of the Digger Papers while living in Ohio in 1968, Eric Noble dropped out of college and made his way across the country to find the Diggers. From 1968 to 1971 he lived a peripatetic existence in lots of different communes along the way. Once in San Francisco in 1971, he moved into the Kaliflower commune, an offshoot inspired by the Diggers. Learning about how prolific the Digger movement had been in terms of written material, he collected whatever he could find and became known as the Digger archivist, so named by Peter Berg. His project, the Digger Archives have been online in some form since 1995, and continue to inspire people all over the world.
Shaping San Francisco is a participatory community history project dedicated to uncovering and sharing the overlooked and forgotten histories of the City. Through Free Public Talks, Walking and Bicycle History Tours, and our digital archive at Foundsf.org, Shaping San Francisco seeks to make history together, recognizing that “History is a Creative Act in the Present.” shapingsf.org, foundsf.org, diggers.org, planetdrum.org
David Talbot is a bestselling author, journalist, media entrepreneur and political activist. He is the founder and former editor-in-chief of the pioneering online publication Salon and a former senior editor of Mother Jones magazine. In recent years, he has built a reputation as a popular historian with books such as the national bestseller Season of the Witch and the New York Times bestsellers The Devil’s Chessboard andBrothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years. Talbot has written for Time magazine, The New Yorker,Rolling Stone, and other publications. He is currently a columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle. He is also a cofounder of San Francisco Vision, a progressive coalition that fights for “San Francisco values.”
Mark Nassar along with Tenderloin Museum director Katie Conry conceived of the idea of an interactive play based on the Compton’s Cafeteria riot, inspired by the Tenderloin Museum’s exhibits on the subject. Nassar, in collaboration with long-term Tenderloin drag queens Donna Persona and Collette LeGrande, has spent the past year writing the play The Compton’s Cafeteria Riot. He boasts an impressive record of artistic success, having written plays and screenplays, and has also acted in theater, TV and film. Mr. Nassar is also the co-creator of Tony n’ Tina’s Wedding, the longest running Off-Broadway comedy in New York City history. More recently, he wrote the screenplay, A Line in the Sand, a film directed by Jeffrey Chernov, in which he also had a principal role. In 2008, the film won Best Feature and the Audience Award at numerous film festivals, as well as the Grand Jury prize at the Canada International Film Festival. He also attended the Djerassi Artists Residency in Woodside, California, where he completed a new play, Shouting in the Wilderness, and is currently playing Sal the owner in San Francisco’s immersive hit – The Speakeasy.
Collette LeGrande is the twice former Grand Duchess of the Ducal Court of San Francisco. She has raised funds for charity in the Tenderloin for 30 years, supporting AIDS Emergency Fund, Magnet, Mama Reinhardt’s Toys for Tots, and many others. She has worked at Aunt Charlie’s since 1998 and organizes her own bi-weekly drag show, the Dream Queens Revue.
Donna Personna is an artist and performer, who first hit the stage with the legendary Cockettes. She was the subject of the 2013 Iris Prize-winning short “My Mother,” by Jay Bedwani, and is currently in production with Bedwani on another documentary film. She serves on the board of directors committees for Trans March and the Transgender Day of Remembrance, working to gain wider visibility for transgender rights.
Olivia Hart is a chef by day and performer by night. She is the current Grand Duchess of the Ducal Court of San Francisco. She has organized and hosted numerous events to benefit the LGBT community and, in particular, organizations that support addiction recovery and sober living.
The San Francisco Recovery Theatre is a grassroots organization with a lot of local and some municipal support. It is funded by grants from the art and health community in San Francisco with no full time staff, but with a core group of dedicated actors, composed mainly of people in recovery. Its mission is to meet people where they are, provide a medium of communication and deliver a message of hope, consequence and solutions. http://sfrecoverytheatre.org

Deborah Fleming
2017-05-13 17:30 - 19:30 UTC | Adobe Books, 3130 24th St., San Francisco, CA, 94110, United States
Author Deborah Fleming
Award winning hippie/Vietnam War novel Without Leave published by Black Mountain Press. Winner of the 2013 Asheville Award from Black Mountain Press, the novel Without Leave places brave people into the hippie experience and turbulent antiwar movement of the 1960s and addresses the existential question of freedom of the will.
Published 47 years since the “Summer of Love” and 49 years since the troop surge that ushered in the full-scale American commitment to the Vietnam War, Without Leave chronicles the stories of two alienated young people during 1967-70. David Shields goes AWOL from the Navy where he’d hoped to find training and focus for his life but instead finds boredom and disillusionment during deployment on an aircraft carrier in the Gulf of Tonkin. In the Haight-Ashbury region of San Francisco in 1967 he meets and falls in love with an artist, Diane Cavanagh, who drops out of college after a brutal rape and the death of the black man she loved. Through turmoil and separation, they find they cannot escape their past.

Jennifer Barone + Ingrid Keir
2017-05-13 19:00 - 21:00 UTC | Frank Bette Center for the Arts, 1601 Paru Street, Alameda, 94501, United States
Jennifer Barone and Ingrid Keir featuring at Frank Bette
Hosted By: Deborah Ledvick and Jeanne Lupton
Jennifer Barone is an Italian-American poet and artist. She is the author of three books of poetry, her most recent: “Saporoso – Poems of Italian Food & Love.” She is known to collaborate with artists and musicians as founder and co-host of the WordParty Poetry & Jazz Series and as Creative Director for FeatherPress. She has been a featured poet at the SFJazz Poetry & Jazz Festival, The SF Public Library, The Red Poppy Art House, SF MoMa, DeYoung, and The Beat Museum. She was a winner of the 2007 and 2012 SF Public Library’s Poets Eleven contest for North Beach where she resides and has been published in literary journals such as The Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, and Quiet Lightning’s sPARKLE & bLINK. She is currently working on a new collection of poetry. Visit thewordparty.com for more.
Ingrid Keir is a poet, performer and educator. She is co-founder of the WordParty, a long-running San Francisco poetry and jazz series. She has been a featured reader at diverse venues in the Bay Area including the DeYoung Museum, The Beat Museum, City Hall, Quiet Lightning as well as many others. Ingrid has lectured Creative Writing at San Francisco State University where she taught undergraduate poetry, fiction and playwriting while simultaneously engaging students with writers of the Bay Area. She also received both her M.F.A and B.A. degrees at San Francisco State University. She has written several chapbooks: The Secrets of Like (2004), Toward the Light (2007) and recently released a new book of poetry in September 2016, The Choreography of Nests, published by Feather Press. Ingrid has been published in many literary journals including: Two Hawks Quarterly, The Haight Ashbury Literary Journal, Sparkle and Blink and Out of Our. She was also shortlisted in the 2016 Litquake poetry contest.

Chris Higgs, Sunnylyn Thibodeaux, + Cassandra Troyan
2017-05-13 19:00 - 21:00 UTC | Alley Cat Books, 3036 24th St, San Francisco, CA, 94110, United States

The Odd Mondays Series
2017-05-15 19:00 - 21:00 UTC | Folio Books, 3957 24th St, San Francisco , CA, 94114, United States
The Odd Mondays Series at Folio Books
Monday, May 15th, 7 PM
3957 24th Street, San Francisco
A LITERARY POTPOURRI
Featuring Authors: Erika Atkinson, Michael Helquist, Andrew McIntyre, Laynie Tzena.
FREE ADMISSION
ERIKA ATKINSON signed up with the Canadian Foreign Service in Washington, D.C., for several years, after which she worked in administrative positions in schools, colleges, and universities across Canada, the United States, and various parts of Europe before settling in Bernal Heights in 1984. She is the author of five books. Two of them, Happily Lost in Time and Place, and More Miles and Moments, are collected stories about adventures of happenstance, about characters, situations, and experiences that were never planned. In her book Frozen Stillness, she recounts her journey to Antarctica in 2010. Her first collection of poetry, Exhort the Goddesses, was compiled in 2015 to honor the Supreme Court’s historic decision that same sex marriage be declared legal across the United States. The most recent book, Ode to the Castro, is her dedication to the neighborhood she loves, where she has now lived and played for nearly two decades.
MICHAEL HELQUIST is an awarding-winning author, journalist, and historian. He has published in “Ms. Magazine,” “The Advocate”, “American Medical News”, and “The Oregon Historical Quarterly.” As a medical journalist, he consulted for the World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control, and the U.S. State Department. He was inspired to write the biography, Marie Equi: Radical Politics & Outlaw Passions, because of Dr. Equi’s fierce struggle as an outsider to achieve independence, and her commitment to social and economic justice. Helquist lived in Noe Valley for five years before relocating to the North Panhandle neighborhood.
After years of traveling, ANDREW McINTYRE has found a settled existence in San Francisco. He attended universities in England, Scotland, Japan, and the United States, and holds master’s degrees in Economics and Comparative Literature. His stories have appeared in numerous magazines, including “The Mississippi Review,” “3:AM Magazine”, “Long Story Short”, “The Copperfield Review”, and “Pindeldyboz.” In 2002, he was a finalist in Ireland’s Fish Short Story Prize. His short story collection, The Short, the Long, and the Tall, was published by Merilang Press in December, 2010. He lives in San Francisco.
LAYNIE TZENA is a writer, performer, and visual artist based in San Francisco. Her work has been published in “Bayou”, “Event”, “The Michigan Quarterly Review”, “Sonora Review”, and “Zone 3,” among others; she has received an Avery Hopwood Award in Poetry, was named on of the “New Voices in Michigan Poetry”, and has been a Cranbrook Fiction Scholar. “Glimmer Train” recently included her short story, “Egg,” in the top 25 of its “Family Matters” competition. Tzena has been a featured performer at the Austin International Poetry Festival, the Marsh Café, the Monkey House, and on Michigan Public Radio.
Consider joining us for a no-host pizza/salad or other entré dinner ($15-20), before the reading, 5:30 p.m. at the Haystack Pizza Restaurant, south side of 24th near Sanches Street.
The 24 line and the 48 line and the J Church are the nearby Muni transportation lines available.
www.oddmondays.com
Odd Mondays is presented by Judith and Ramón Sender and Folio Books.
“You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you odd.” -Flannery O’Connor

Hala Alyan
2017-05-15 19:30 - 21:30 UTC | The Booksmith, 1644 Haight St, San Francisco , CA, 94117, United States
Join us to celebrate a dazzling new literary voice, Hala Alyan, and her debut novel, Salt Houses, about a Palestinian family caught between present and past, between displacement and home.
On the eve of her daughter Alia’s wedding, Salma reads the girl’s future in a cup of coffee dregs. She sees an unsettled life for Alia and her children; she also sees travel, and luck. While she chooses to keep her predictions to herself that day, they will all soon come to pass when the family is uprooted in the wake of the Six-Day War of 1967. Salma is forced to leave her home in Nablus; Alia’s brother gets pulled into a politically militarized world he can’t escape; and Alia and her gentle-spirited husband move to Kuwait City, where they reluctantly build a life with their three children. When Saddam Hussein invades Kuwait in 1990, Alia and her family once again lose their home, their land, and their story as they know it, scattering to Beirut, Paris, Boston, and beyond. Soon Alia’s children begin families of their own, once again navigating the burdens (and blessings) of assimilation in foreign cities. Lyrical and heartbreaking, Salt Houses is a remarkable debut novel that challenges and humanizes an age-old conflict we might think we understand—one that asks us to confront that most devastating of all truths: you can’t go home again.

Fenton Johnson
2017-05-16 18:00 - 20:00 UTC | SF Public Library, 100 Larkin Street, San Francisco, 94102, United States
The San Francisco Public Library presents Fenton Johnson for a Launch Party in celebration of his new work, Everywhere Home: A Life in Essays. Fenton will be in conversation with Andrew Lam, author of Birds of Paradise Lost–which was a 2013 California Book Awards-finalist for First Fiction.
Part retrospective, part memoir, Fenton Johnson’s collection Everywhere Home: A Life in Essays explores sexuality, religion, geography, the AIDS crisis, and more. Johnson’s wanderings take him from the hills of Kentucky to those of San Francisco, from the streets of Paris to the sidewalks of Calcutta. Along the way, he investigates questions large and small: What’s the relationship between artists and museums, illuminated in a New Guinean display of shrunken heads? What’s the difference between empiricism and intuition?
The collection draws together essays that originally appeared in Harper’s, The New York Times, All Things Considered and elsewhere, along with new work. Johnson reports from the front lines of the AIDS epidemic, from Burning Man, from monasteries near and far. His subject matter ranges from Oscar Wilde to censorship in journalism to Kentucky basketball.
Everywhere Home is the latest title in Sarabande’s Bruckheimer Series in Kentucky Literature.
Fenton Johnson is the author of the novels The Man Who Loved Birds, Scissors, Paper, Rock, and Crossing the River, and the nonfiction books Keeping Faith and Geography of the Heart. Johnson has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. He writes regularly for Harper’s, and is a professor in the creative writing programs at the University of Arizona and Spalding University.
The thirteen stories in Birds of Paradise Lost shimmer with humor and pathos as they chronicle the anguish and joy and bravery of America s newest Americans, the troubled lives of those who fled Vietnam and remade themselves in the San Francisco Bay Area. The past memories of war and its aftermath, of murder, arrest, re-education camps and new economic zones, of escape and shipwreck and atrocity is ever present in these wise and compassionate stories. It plays itself out in surprising ways in the lives of people who thought they had moved beyond the nightmares of war and exodus. It comes back on TV in the form of a confession from a cannibal; it enters the Vietnamese restaurant as a Vietnam Vet with a shameful secret; it articulates itself in the peculiar tics of a man with Tourette s Syndrome who struggles to deal with a profound tragedy. Birds of Paradise Lost is an emotional tour de force, intricately rendering the false starts and revelations in the struggle for integration, and in so doing, the human heart.
Andrew Lam is the author of Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora, which won the 2006 PEN Open Book Award, and East Eats West: Writing in Two Hemispheres. Lam is an editor and cofounder of New American Media, an association of over two thousand ethnic media outlets in America. He was a regular commentator on NPR s All Things Consideredfor many years, and was the subject of a 2004 PBS documentary called My Journey Home. His essays have appeared in newspapers and magazines such as The New York Times, The LA Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, The Baltimore Sun, The Atlanta Journal, theChicago Tribune, Mother Jones, and The Nation, among many others. His short stories have been widely taught and anthologized. Birds of Paradise Lostis his first story collection. He lives in San Francisco.

Eastridge Open Mic
2017-05-16 18:00 - 20:00 UTC | Barnes & Noble at Eastridge Mall, 2200 Eastridge Loop, Suite #1420, San José, CA, 95122, United States
Eastridge Open Mic
with host Lorenz Dumuk
Tuesday, May 16, 2017, 6:00pm
Feature: Tyson Amir
open mic follows
Barnes & Noble at Eastridge Mall
2200 Eastridge Loop, Suite #1420, San José
Nearest cross streets are Tully and E. Capitol Expressway
Free and open to the public
Tyson Amir is an author, musician, educator, community organizer, and freedom fighter born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. In the spirit of The Dragon, George Lester Jackson, he endeavors to utilize any and all resources at his disposal as weapons to bring about the eventual liberation of his people. Tyson has been engaged in movement work since the late 1990s. His movement work has influenced his artistic work. Black Boy Poems, his debut release as an author is an example of that. Black Boy Poems is a powerful, timely, and revolutionary body of literature that seeks to inspire his people towards liberation. Find out more about Tyson Amir at www.BlackBoyPoems.com.

GET LIT #24
2017-05-16 19:00 - 21:00 UTC | Ale Industries, 3096 E 10th Street, Oakland, CA, 94601, United States
An amazing gathering of writers will read NEVER-BEFORE-READ material (rough drafts / debuts) within a three-minute time limit.
The emcee for the night will be the one and only NO ‘HARE (Isobel O’Hareand Christine No.)
Featured lineup of writers include: and more TBA!
Musical Guest:
Beer made by Ale Industries on site and coffee by our good friends next door, Red Bay Coffee.
Donations will be kindly requested, though no one will be turned away for lack of funds. All ages are welcome, though profanity will be present.

The WordParty Poetry & Jazz Night
2017-05-16 19:00 - 21:00 UTC | PianoFight, 144 Taylor St, San Francisco , CA, 94102, United States
The WordParty Poetry & Jazz Night: Every 3rd Tuesday of the Month from 7:00-9:30pm
NEXT: Tuesday May 16th, 2017
Featured Poet: Tatiana Molinar!
at PianoFight: 144 Taylor Street (between Turk & Eddy), San Francisco, CA 94102 – Powell Street BART
Hosted by Jennifer Barone, Ingrid Keir. Live jazz with Daniel Heffez, Geordie Van Der Bosch and friends. FREE admission, all ages, full menu and bar in the front room. Open Mic for poetry only – 3min time limit, pick your best poem to read with live jazz accompaniment.

A Leak in the Speakers!
2017-05-16 19:00 - 21:00 UTC | Rebound Bookstore, 1611 4th Street, San Rafael, CA, 94901, United States
Last teen open mic of the year, organized by Rebound Bookstore intern, Sami Stilson! Come by, share this event with teens you think would like to be involved. Grown ups more than welcome!
Writers, singers, rappers, slammers, speakers, composers, musicians, etc. are welcome, whether performing or supporting (drop-ins welcome)
Friendly feedback!
RSVP at reboundbookstore@aol.com.
Free Refreshments! Meet like-minded artists! Safe space for all!

Jeff VanderMeer
2017-05-16 19:30 - 21:00 UTC | Green Apple Books on the Park, 1231 9th Ave, San Francisco , CA, 94122, United States
Acclaimed science fiction writer Jeff VanderMeer, author of the Southern Reach trilogy, discusses his new novel, Borne.
Praise for Jeff VanderMeer:
“I’m loving The Southern Reach trilogy by Jeff VanderMeer. Creepy and fascinating.” ―Stephen King on the Southern Reach trilogy
“VanderMeer masterfully conjures up an atmosphere of both metaphysical dread and visceral tension . . . Annihilation is a novel in which facts are undermined and doubt instilled at almost every turn. It’s about science as a way of not only thinking but feeling, rather than science as a means of becoming certain about the world. . . . Ingenious.” ―Laura Miller, Salon
“If J.J. Abrams-style by-the-numbers stories of shadowy organizations and science magic have let you down one too many times, then Annihilation will be more like a revelation. VanderMeer peels back the skin of the everyday, and gives you a glimpse of a world where science really is stretching the bounds of our knowledge–sometimes to the point where we can’t ever be the same . . . [Annihilation] will make you believe in the power of science mysteries again.” ―Annalee Nevitz, io9
About Borne:
In a ruined, nameless city of the future, Rachel makes her living as a scavenger. She finds a creature she names Borne entangled in the fur of Mord, a gigantic despotic bear that once prowled the corridors of a biotech firm, the Company, until he was experimented on, grew large, learned to fly, and broke free. Made insane by the company’s torture of him, Mord terrorizes the city even as he provides sustenance for scavengers.
At first, Borne looks like nothing at all—just a green lump that might be a discard from the Company, which, although severely damaged, is rumored to still make creatures and send them to far-distant places that have not yet suffered collapse.
Borne reminds Rachel of the island nation of her birth, now long lost to rising seas. She feels an attachment that she resents: attachments are traps, and in this world any weakness can kill you. Yet when she takes Borne to her subterranean sanctuary, Rachel convinces her lover, Wick—a special kind of dealer—not to render down Borne as raw genetic material for the drugs he sells.
But nothing is quite the way it seems: not the past, not the present, not the future. If Wick is hiding secrets, so is Rachel—and Borne most of all. What Rachel finds hidden deep within the Company will change everything and everyone. There, lost and forgotten things have lingered and grown. What they have grown into is mighty indeed.

Granta: Best of Young American Novelists
2017-05-16 19:30 - 21:00 UTC | The Booksmith, 1644 Haight St, San Francisco , CA, 94117, United States
Every ten years Granta magazine publishes a special issue of new fiction from the most exciting American writers under the age of forty. The third list of Granta’s Best of Young American Novelists will be announced on April 26; join us as we host some of the Best Young American Novelists!
The last issue was published in 2007 and featured an extraordinary selection of young writers: Kevin Brockmeier, Anthony Doerr, Jonathan Safran Foer, Nicole Krauss, Yiyun Li, Karen Russell, Akhil Sharma and Gary Shteyngart among them. Similarly, the list of writers from twenty years ago showcases some of today’s most successful and talented writers: Jonathan Franzen, Edwidge Danticat, Jeffrey Eugenides, Lorrie Moore, ZZ Packer, Mona Simpson, Elizabeth McCracken, David Guterson, Madison Smartt Bell, Sherman Alexie and more.
Granta’s forthcoming Best of Young American Novelists issue will feature new work from each writer, creating a timely and authoritative commentary on the state of American writing.
The judges for this year’s selection are novelists Patrick deWitt, A.M. Homes, Kelly Link, Ben Marcus and Granta’s editor and publisher Sigrid Rausing.
Check back here on April 26, when we’ll announce which authors will be in the store!
More Info Here: http://www.booksmith.com/event/granta-best-young-american-novelists

Gordon Ball
2017-05-17 19:00 - 21:00 UTC | City Lights Bookstore, 261 Columbus Ave, San Francisco , CA, 94133, United States
Gordon Ball is a poet, photographer, filmmaker, professor of english, and master storyteller. For 28 years Gordon Ball took informal photographs of poet Allen Ginsberg and other members of the Beat Generation, the literary and cultural phenomenon which has had a world-wide impact since its inception in the mid-1950s. As well as being exhibited at five conferences on Ginsberg and the Beat Generation, at one-man shows at the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art and other venues, Ball’s photos have appeared in many books, including Dennis McNally’s Desolate Angel: Jack Kerouac, the Beat Generation, and America; Michael Köhler’s Burroughs: Eine Bild Biographie; Carole Tonkinson’s Big Sky Mind: Buddhism and the Beat Generation; Steven Watson’s The Birth of the Beat Generation: Visionaries, Rebels, and Hipsters, 1994-1960; and many more. Starting at Ginsberg’s farm in 1968, he worked with the poet on numerous literary and artistic projects, editing three books, including two volumes of journals and the Pulitzer Prize nominee Allen Verbatim: Lectures on Poetry, Politics, Consciousness. He’s the author of ’66 Frames: A Memoir (Coffee House Press, 1999) and Dark Music (Cityful Press, 2006) Gordon now lives in Lexington, Virginia, where he teaches at the Virginia Military Institute.
Visit: http://gordonballgallery.com/

Jeff VanderMeer
2017-05-17 19:00 - 21:00 UTC | Bookshop Santa Cruz, 1520 Pacific Ave, Santa Cruz , CA, 95060, United States
Award-winning novelist Jeff VanderMeer will be in conversation with Karen Joy Fowler about his thrilling new novel, Borne, which has earned starred reviews from Publishers Weekly, Booklist, and Kirkus Reviews.
In Borne, a young woman named Rachel survives as a scavenger in a ruined city half destroyed by drought and conflict. The city is dangerous, littered with discarded experiments from the Company—a biotech firm now derelict—and punished by the unpredictable predations of a giant bear. Rachel ekes out an existence in the shelter of a run-down sanctuary she shares with her partner, Wick, who deals his own homegrown psychoactive biotech.
One day, Rachel finds Borne during a scavenging mission and takes him home. Borne as salvage is little more than a green lump—plant or animal?—but exudes a strange charisma. Borne reminds Rachel of the marine life from the island nation of her birth, now lost to rising seas. There is an attachment she resents: in this world any weakness can kill you. Yet, against her instincts—and definitely against Wick’s wishes—Rachel keeps Borne. She cannot help herself. Borne, learning to speak, learning about the world, is fun to be with, and in a world so broken that innocence is a precious thing. For Borne makes Rachel see beauty in the desolation around her. She begins to feel a protectiveness she can ill afford.
“Jeff VanderMeer’s Southern Reach Trilogy was an ever-creeping map of the apocalypse; with Borne he continues his investigation into the malevolent grace of the world, and it’s a thorough marvel.” –Colson Whitehead, author of The Underground Railroad
Jeff VanderMeer is most recently known as the author of the New York Times bestselling Southern Reach Trilogy—the first volume of which, Annihilation, is currently being made into movie to be released by Scott Rubin / Paramount in 2017—and the coeditor with his wife, Ann VanderMeer, of The Big Book of Science Fiction. His fiction has been translated into twenty languages and has appeared in the Library of America’s American Fantastic Tales and multiple year’s-best anthologies. He grew up in the Fiji Islands and now lives in Tallahassee, Florida.
Karen Joy Fowler is the author of three short story collections and six novels including We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award. The Jane Austen Book Club spent thirteen weeks on the New York Times bestsellers list and was a New York Times Notable Book. Fowler’s short story collection, Black Glass. won the World Fantasy Award in 1999, and her collection What I Didn’t See won the World Fantasy Award in 2011. Fowler and her husband, who have two grown children and seven grandchildren, live in Santa Cruz, California.
