Litseen

Third Thursdays at Willow Glen Library feat. Rachelle Escamilla!
2020-05-21 19:00 - 21:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
Featured reader: Rachelle Escamilla!
Open mic to follow.
Free and open to the public with Eventbrite registration, tix booth closes at 6:30pm on 5/21.
Rachelle Escamilla is the descendant of campesinos and cannery workers from San Benito County, California. Her first book, “Imaginary Animal”, won the 2014 Willow Books Literature Award for Poetry and is being adapted into an off Broadway play in New York with Director Katherine Wilkinson. Her second collection of poetry “me drawing a picture of me[n]” was published in 2019 (Willow Publishing). Escamilla is the producer and host of the longest running poetry radio show in the United States, Out of Our Minds, and the founder of the Poets & Writers Coalition at San Jose State University.

You’re Going to Die: Poetry, Prose & Everything Goes Online!
2020-05-21 19:00 - 22:00
You’re Going to Die: Poetry, Prose & Everything Goes Online!
an ONLINE Open Mic w/Ned Buskirk, the You’re Going to Die team & music from Trevor Bahnson!
Yeah. It’s an ONLINE OPEN MIC.
I need it. You need it. Let’s do it.
Thursday, May 21st
Virtual Doors at 7pm
Show at 7:30pm
REGISTER HERE: https://bit.ly/35RWDmt
TICKETING:
Like so many other artists & nonprofits with an event focus, much of our work for the foreseeable future is cancelled. For this special online event we suggest that people pay between $10-50, but don’t hesitate to go above or below based on what feels possible. And PLEASE, if you are suddenly in financial danger, DO NOT pay us. We’re just happy you’re alive & able to join. If you’re still earning income (or are just generally resourced), we very much welcome your generosity.
Venmo: @YG-2D
Paypal: chelsea@yg2d.com
You’re Going to Die: Poetry, Prose & Everything Goes Online!
is an ONLINE open mic event, the communal offering for us to gather during these uniquely difficult times, to witness & be witnessed, to embrace our shared mortality together, to grieve, bereave & honor what we’ve lost & love… while all the while making room for simply being ALIVE.
Sign-ups will be during the Zoom Call, with directions posted when you enter & the list will fill up quickly, so if you want to share, say so sooner rather than later.
And if being seen/heard doesn’t sound appealing to you right & you’d like simply to be an audience member, you can absolutely keep your camera + mic off, & journal or meditate or lay flat on your face (or do whatever you’d like to do to make sure the call serves you best)!
Poetry, prose, music, dancing, comedy, drama, happy, sad, & on & on & on… Remember: EVERYTHING GOES… so share whatever you want. And you don’t have to perform anything; the audience is as essential as the performers.
If you’re going to perform, keep it under 5 MINUTES. That’s right: 5 MINUTES. WE WILL TIME YOU. And YES – NED WILL VIRTUALLY HUG YOU WITH A NEDDY BEAR IF HE HAS TO!
Please contact ned@yg2d.com with any questions, concerns or feedback!
Looking forward to sharing a special evening together…
Mortally Yours,
the You’re Going to Die Team
www.yg2d.com

Karolina Waclawiak: Life Events
2020-05-21 19:30 - 21:00 | Green Apple Books on the Park, 1231 9th Ave, San Francisco , CA, 94122, United States
Karolina Waclawiak discusses her new novel Life Events.
Praise for Life Events
“Waclawiak writes with emotional precision and explores the tragedy of existence by masterfully walking the line between suffering and hope.” —Arianna Rebolini, BuzzFeed
“Life Events is a hypnotic novel that beautifully grapples with fundamental questions about how to die and how to live. Karolina Waclawiak transports the reader into the streets of Los Angeles, the deserts of the southwest, the apartments of the dying, and a woman’s life at a moment of profound change. Filled with compelling, provocative details about the work of “exit guides” for terminally ill people, Life Events is both a mid-life bildungsroman and a meditation on self-determination. I can’t stop thinking about this novel.” —Lydia Kiesling, author of The Golden State
“In this exquisite novel, Karolina Waclawiak rightfully recasts the American West as the territory of wandering dreams and dreamers and the land where this life and the improbable afterlife most often collide. Life Events is a deeply moving meditation on death and the dying, the fierce weight of marriage and family, and the unrelenting absurdity of being alive.” —Hannah Lillith Assadi, author of Sonora
About Life Events
A woman at a crossroads learns the only way to reclaim her life is to help others die
Karolina Waclawiak’s breakout novel, Life Events, follows Evelyn, who, at thirty-seven, is on the verge of divorce and anxiously dreading the death of everyone she loves. She combats her existential crisis by avoiding her husband and aimlessly driving along the freeways of California looking for an escape—one that eventually comes when she discovers a collective of “exit guides.” Evelyn enrolls in their training course, where she learns to provide companionship and a final exit for terminally ill patients seeking a conscious departure.
She meets Daphne, a dying woman still full of life; Lawrence, an aging porn king; and Daniel, who seems too young to die and whom Evelyn falls for, despite knowing better, not to mention the exit guide code. Each client opens something new in Evelyn, allowing her a chance to access her own grief and confront the self-destructive ways she suppresses her pain. When Evelyn travels through the Southwest to an afterlife convention to further her death education, she must finally face her complicated relationship with her alcoholic father and reconcile her life choices.
Sensitively observed and darkly funny, Life Events is a moving, enlivening story of the human condition: the doldrums of loneliness, the consuming regret of past mistakes, and the thrill, finally, of finding meaning—and love—where you least expect it.

Online Bookclub: Join us in reading and discussing Roy Jacobsen's The Unseen
2020-05-21 19:30 - 21:30
Introducing our online book club
Join us as we read The Unseen by Roy Jacobsen, a bestseller in Norway and finalist for the Booker International Prize in 2017. We will meet virtually on Thursday, May 21 for a conversation about the book with Molly, Stephen, and Dan Wells of Biblioasis, who published the book in April.
This is what Stephen had to say about the novel for the Literary Hub’s April “Books You Should Read” round-up:
“The Unseen is a novel of elemental force with the bearing of myth. It tells of love and loss and the struggle for existence on a rough-hewn island where simple joys flash in brief moments between endless travail. It is a masterpiece.”
About The Unseen
Islanders are never afraid, if they were, they wouldn’t be able to live here. Born on the Norwegian island that bears her name, Ingrid Barr y’s world is circumscribed by storm-scoured rocks and the moods of the sea by which her family lives and dies. But her father dreams of building a quay that will end their isolation, and her mother longs for the island of her youth, and the country faces its own sea change: the advent of a modern world, and all its attendant unpredictability and violence. Brilliantly translated into English by Don Bartlett and Don Shaw, The Unseen is a profoundly moving exploration of family, resilience, and fate.

Speaking Axolotl Reading and Open Mic
2020-05-21 20:00 | Nomadic Press, 2926 Foothill Blvd, Oakland , CA, 94601, United States
A Latinx poetry reading series y open mic that happens every third Thursday (unless otherwise noted) in “The Chapel” at Nomadic Press. Decolonized beats provided by the one-and-only L7. Hosted by Josiahluis Alderete.
This month’s features are TBA.
Donations will be kindly requested to help pay the features and cover the cost of the space.
The 10-slot open mic list opens at 7:30 PM and fills up pretty quick so if you plan on reading get there early
Free parking in the back of the building and the closest BART station is 19th Street BART in Oakland (about a 15-minute walk straight down Broadway).

Zoom Forward! #9 with Karen Joy Fowler, Elizabeth McKenzie, Peggy Townsend
2020-05-22 17:00
Phren-Z, The Hive Poetry Collective, and Bookshop Santa Cruz present Zoom Forward! #9 with Karen Joy Fowler, Elizabeth McKenzie, Peggy Townsend part of the Zoom Forward Reading Series—an ongoing reading series to showcase writers, keep our cultural spritits high, and support Bookshop Santa Cruz.
Join the Santa Cruz Writes/phren-Z email list by subscribing here. Weekly Zoom links will be emailed to you. Contact Jory Post with any questions at jory@cruzio.com.

Zoom Forward! #10 with Karen Joy Fowler, Elizabeth McKenzie, Peggy Townsend
2020-05-22 17:00 - 19:00
Phren-Z, The Hive Poetry Collective, and Bookshop Santa Cruz present Zoom Forward! #10 with Karen Joy Fowler, Elizabeth McKenzie, and Peggy Townsend, part of the Zoom Forward Reading Series—an ongoing reading series to showcase writers, keep our cultural spirits high, and support Bookshop Santa Cruz.
Join the Santa Cruz Writes/phren-Z email list by subscribing here. Weekly Zoom links will be emailed to you. Contact Jory Post with any questions at jory@cruzio.com.

Nomadic Press' Virtual Open Mic #10
2020-05-22 18:00 - 19:30
90 minutes
30 readers
3 minutes each
On Zoom!
FREE AND ALL WELCOME!
Showing up is one amazing form of support that we really appreciate. Another is financial. Money = energy to us, and donating sends one signal (of many) that you would like our work to continue. If 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/e/nomadic-press-virtual-open-mic-2-tickets-100581457848;
OR 3) donating through the website at www.nomadicpress.org/donate
We have a short goal of $150.
It feels really important to gather in these times, and we need to prioritize the health of most vulnerable community members (our elders, those who work with elders, and those with suppressed immune systems). So we are hosting another virtual open mic! Feel free to join just to listen, too! We can hold up to 100 people.
Hosted by Nazelah Jamison (with J. K. on tech). It’s a continuing experiment, and we hope you can join us!
Sign Up Here:
https://forms.gle/1ZNKSnnzRZpXxvUE7
Our safe space process still applies to our collective virtual space, so please read this by visiting https://www.nomadicpress.org/safespaceprocess.
Zoom Joining Info
Topic: Nomadic Press’ Virtual Open Mic #10
Time: May 22, 2020 06:00 PM Pacific Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89499187644
Meeting ID: 894 9918 7644
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Meeting ID: 894 9918 7644
Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kc05mFj7HQ

Virtual Book Talk with John Tateishi
2020-05-23 13:00 - 14:30
Join us for a virtual book talk with Redress author John Tateishi. Email berkeleyjacl@gmail.com or message us to receive the Zoom link. Buy your book at Heyday books before 5/31 with a 30% discount. Use code jaclberkeley at checkout.

How to Get Off Fossil Fuels Quickly—and Fairly: The Green New Deal and Beyond
2020-05-23 13:00 - 15:00
This event is free & will be broadcast on Zoom. Sign up here to attend!

Stan Cox, author of The Green New Deal and Beyond, will join his Ecosphere Studies colleagues Wes Jackson, Aubrey Streit Krug, and Robert Jensen in a discussion of the need for climate policies that go far beyond new technology, carbon taxes, and other market-based approaches. The event is hosted by Breanna Draxler, Climate Editor at YES!

The speakers will explore, as well, the fundamental changes that our society will have to go through in order to adapt to strict ecological boundaries.

About the participants:

Breanna Draxler (host) is Climate Editor at YES!, covering science and the environment with a particular focus on solutions. She serves on the board for the Society of Environmental Journalists and the Northwest Science Writers Association. She joins us from Seattle, WA.

Robert Jensen (moderator) is a Contributing Editor at YES! Magazine, and Emeritus Professor in the School of Journalism at the University of Texas in Austin. He collaborates with The Land Institute’s Ecosphere Studies program. His books include Plain Radical: Living, Loving, and Learning to Leave the Planet Gracefully. He joins us from Arroyo Seco, NM.

Stan Cox is a research fellow in Ecosphere Studies at The Land Institute. His most recent book is The Green New Deal and Beyond: Ending the Climate Emergency While We Still Can (City Lights Books, 2020). He joins us from Salina, KS.

Wes Jackson, president emeritus of The Land Institute in Salina, Kansas, is the author and editor of numerous books, including Nature as Measure: The Selected Essays of Wes Jackson and Consulting the Genius of the Place. His newest work, a book of true stories about people he has known (with digressions), will be published in 2021 by the University Press of Kansas. He joins us from Salina, KS.
Aubrey Streit Krug directs The Land Institute’s Ecosphere Studies program. She is a writer and teacher who studies stories of relationships between humans and plants, and is co-author of The Omaha Language and the Omaha Way. She joins us from Salina, KS.

Celebrate APA Heritage with the Poetry of J.Bayani, A.Cassinetto, M.Win
2020-05-23 15:00 - 17:00
Poetry and conversation with Aileen Cassinetto, Maw Shein Win, and Jason Bayani

About this Event

Celebrate Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month with Eastwind Books of Berkeley! Join us for a very special poetry reading and conversation with poets Jason Bayani, Aileen Cassinetto, and Maw Shein Win.
Register to receive a Zoom link. A recording of the event will also be posted online afterwards for further viewing.
About the poets:
Aileen Cassinetto is the current Poet Laureate of San Mateo County. Widely anthologized, Aileen is the author of the poetry collections, Traje de Boda and The Pink House of Purple Yam Preserves & Other Poems. She is the publisher of Paloma Press, an independent literary press aileencassinetto.com
Jason Bayani is artistic director for Kearny Street Workshop in San Francisco, and author of two books, Locus and Amulet. Drawing inspiration from musical fragments in DJ culture, Locus lays tracks to create a Pilipinx-American artistic power tied to the most fundamental parts of ourselves: families, cultures,, memories passed down through generations. jasonbayani.net
Maw Shein Win is a poet, editor, and educator who lives and teaches in the Bay Area. Her first poetry is Invisible Gifts: Poems in 2018. Win is the first poet laureate of El Cerrito (2016 – 2018), and her poetry collection Storage Unit for the Spirit House will be published by Omnidawn in Fall 2020. mawsheinwin.com

Living Between Generations: An Intergenerational Reading
2020-05-23 17:00 - 19:00
Foglifter’s Emerging Writer Fellows Reginald Edmonds and Ali Michael Cannon Present: Living Between Generations: An Intergenerational Reading
Please join Foglifter in celebrating the culmination of the inaugural Emerging Writer Fellowship with an intergenerational reading featuring:
Bambi Walker
Tino V.H. Jr
Daniel
Jewelle Gomez
Willy Wilkinson
Aurora Levins Morales
Andrew Ramer
We’ll be steaming live on Facebook and Youtube, so please follow us here and subcribe to our YouTube channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU1EBHRChvckNrKbkIL9fxQ?view_as=subscriber).
For accessibility, the reading will be live captioned and we will also have an ASL interpreter.

Youth Spirit Artworks Open Mic Poetry, Asé
2020-05-23 18:00
Our monthly Open Mic Poetry event, Asé, is happening this Saturday from 6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. on Zoom! We are featuring poets Kathy Dana and J.J Rush! We invite you to join. To register, click on the link below. We’ll see you there.

Funny Sexy Sad Worldwide: a Zoom reading to benefit Bail Project
2020-05-23 18:30 - 19:30
The Funny Sexy Sad council– Lizzy, Amira, Nate and Melissa– host these incredible readers, all sharing something that’s either hilarious, miserable, or some kind of sex story, or some combination of those things:
RAX KING
(James Beard award winner, work in Catapult, Electric Literature and elsewhere, essay collection “Tacky” coming soon from Knopf)
MELISSA LOZADA-OLIVA
(Say More podcast, poetry collection “peluda” from Button Poetry, work featured in REMEZCLA, Breakbeat Poets and elsewhere)
MAGGIE TOKUDA-HALL
(The Mermaid The Witch and the Sea, Also an Octopus, Shipwreck)
TOM BATTEN
(The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, The Guardian)
To get the Zoom link, give any amount to the Bail Project and send the receipt to funnysexysad@gmail.com

Jazmina Barrera and Philip Hoare
2020-05-23 19:00 - 21:00
Join us for a virtual–but real!–event to celebrate the publication of Jazmina Barrera’s On Lighthouses (Two Lines Press). Jazmina will be joined by Philip Hoare for a conversation about lighthouses, the ocean, and our relationship with peril and safeguarding at the edge of the sea.
This is a benefit event for the Point Reyes National Seashore Association (PRNSA).
About On Lighthouses
Far from home, in the confines of a dim New York apartment where the oppressive skyscrapers further isolate her, Jazmina Barrera offers a tour of her lighthouses–those structures whose message is “first and foremost, that human beings are here.”
Starting with Robert Louis Stevenson’s grandfather, an engineer charged with illuminating the Scottish coastline, On Lighthouses artfully examines lighthouses from the Spanish to the Oregon coasts and those in the works of Virginia Woolf, Edgar Allan Poe, Ingmar Bergman, and many others.
In trying to “collect” lighthouses by obsessively describing them, Barrera begins to question the nature of writing, collecting, and how, by staring so intently at one thing we are only trying to avoid others. Equal parts personal memoir and literary history, On Lighthouses takes the reader on a desperate flight from raging sea to cold stone–from a hopeless isolation to a meaningful one–concluding at last in a place of peace: the home of a selfless, guiding light.
About the conversationalists
Jazmina Barrera was born in Mexico City. She won the Latin American Voices award in 2013. She studied the Master’s in Creative Writing in Spanish at NYU. She is co-editor at Ediciones Antilope and author of On Lighthouses, to be published by Two Lines in May 2020.
Philip Hoare is the author of seven books of nonfiction, including The Sea Inside, The Whale, and biographies of Noel Coward and Stephen Tennant. He lives in Southampton and on Cape Cod.

James Tracy, Hilary Moore, and Friends
2020-05-24 13:00 - 15:00
with James Tracy, Hilary Moore, Bill Crossman, and Nancy Kurshan
celebrating the release of
No Fascist USA! The John Brown Anti-Klan Committee and Lessons for Today’s Movements
published by City Lights Books
This is a virtual event that will be hosted by City Lights on a platform to be announced. You will need access to a computer or other device that is capable of accessing the internet. Instructions for access coming soon,
———-
(Click Here) in the near future for ticket information
Event is free, but reservations are required
———–
Books for this event may be purchased on :
BOOKSHOP.ORG
————
The story of how a national grassroots network fought a resurgence of the KKK and other fascist groups during the Reagan years, laying the groundwork for today’s anti-fascist/anti-racist movements.
“Smash fascism! Read this book!”––Tom Morello, songwriter and guitarist with Rage Against the Machine
“Studying the John Brown Anti-Klan Committee will give readers an understanding of the complexity of deconstructing the weapon of white supremacy from the inside out. Thank you Hilary and James for the precision of this analysis, and the true north of this star.”––adrienne maree brown, author of Pleasure Activism and Emergent Strategy
In June 1977, a group of white anti-racist activists received an alarming letter from an inmate at a New York state prison calling for help to fight the Ku Klux Klan’s efforts to recruit prison staff and influence the people incarcerated. Their response was to form the first chapter of what would eventually become a powerful, nationwide grassroots network, the John Brown Anti-Klan Committee, dedicated to countering the rise of the KKK and other far-right white nationalist groups.
No Fascist USA! tells the story of that network, whose efforts throughout the 1980s––which included exposing white supremacists in public office, confronting neo-Nazis in street protests, supporting movements for self-determination, and engagement with the underground punk scene––laid the groundwork for many anti-racist efforts to emerge since. Featuring original research, interviews with former members, and a trove of graphic materials, their story offers battle-tested lessons for those on the frontlines of social justice work today.
Praise for No Fascist USA!:
“Hilary Moore and James Tracy have written a magnificent book that not only corrects the record but helps explain the mercurial rise of white supremacist organizations in the 1970s, how the Klan was (temporarily) defeated, and why this period has been largely ignored. No Fascist USA! radically shifts our perspective, challenging the prevailing wisdom that racist terrorism rises in response to economic downturns, white downward mobility, or in a vacuum created by progressive alternatives. I love this book.”––Robin D.G. Kelley, from the foreword
“No Fascist USA! is not only timely, but also essential in the present period of accelerated white supremacist activity and anti-racist organizing to combat it. In telling the story of the John Brown Anti-Klan Committee, the authors, without romanticizing or condemning, draw important lessons from the fifteen-year history of the group.”––Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, author of Loaded: A Disarming History of the Second Amendment
“With its savvy blend of youth culture and street confrontation, the John Brown Anti-Klan Committee tried to stop Trumpism before Trump. They confronted the rise of white nationalism in prisons, workplaces, and music scenes when precious few paid attention to it . . . Hilary Moore and James Tracy have gifted us with an urgent read.”—Dan Berger, author of Captive Nation: Black Prison Organizing in the Civil Rights Era
“James Tracy and Hilary Moore deliver a searing, bold new work that examines another painful and complicated chapter in American race relations. In an eye-opening account, They are able to connect the dots of the John Brown Anti-Klan Committee, a band of contemporary predominantly white activists, and its efforts to expose white supremacist organizations. With a fresh eye and new research, their book uncovers with stunning precision how these groups remain active and exposes some of their unlikely alliances.”—Laurens Grant, filmmaker, The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution and Freedom Riders
“We learned from history. You can too!”–Terry Bisson, author of Fire on the Mountain and former member of the John Brown Anti-Klan Committee
“No Fascist USA! brings us the unromanticized, and largely untold story of the John Brown Anti-Klan Committee. . . . we learn how their work exposed the complicity of the state—all the way to its highest levels—as well as the media’s role in the spread of white nationalist ideology. This book is a must-read for anyone wanting to understand the roots of what happened in Charlottesville, and the burgeoning white nationalist membership lists in the U.S. today. We cannot possibly take on the challenges we face without learning from the past. This book is a necessary and long overdue contribution to inform the way forward.”––Carla F. Wallace, co-founder, Showing Up for Racial Justice
“Yes! This book is right on time! As a Black woman supporting Black liberation struggles, it has been terrifying to grasp the resilience and reach of fascism in the U.S. and around the globe, and disheartening to see how many White people want to sign petitions and express discontent with current political conditions, but won’t acknowledge that there is a ongoing race war that they’re benefiting from, and who won’t put their actions behind their beliefs. This book is about an imperfect effort to be brave, to be committed, and to risk the privileges of Whiteness in order to relinquish the entire construct of white supremacy. And from where organized people of color are sitting, this kind of work is absolutely necessary. Studying the John Brown Anti-Klan Committee will give readers an understanding of the complexity of deconstructing the weapon of white supremacy from the inside out. Thank you Hilary and James for the precision of this analysis, and the true north of this star.”––adrienne maree brown, author of Emergent Strategy, Pleasure Activism, and facilitator of Black liberation movements
“I’ve waited thirty years for this book! Our emergency hearts have always driven uprisings to stop white terrorism, but it always takes more than black-bloc tactics in the streets to stop fascists. No Fascist USA! firmly connects today’s militant anti-fascist street-fighting movements with important living radical histories to disrupt the cycles that keep the spectre of fascism alive in the modern era. The struggles faced by the John Brown Anti-Klan Committee continue today in our difficult arc towards collective liberation.”––scott crow, author of Setting Sights: Histories and Reflections on Commu

Aaron Shurin reads from The Blue Absolute
2020-05-25 18:00 - 18:30
Monday May 25th at 6pm we will post video here and on youtube: Aaron Shurin reading from his latest book.
You can order a copy of The Blue Absolute here:
https://bookshop.org/books/the-blue-absolute/9781643620169?aid=2426
Or call the store 510.849.2087 for curbside pickup.
Aaron Shurin is the author of fourteen books of poetry and prose, most recently The Blue Absolute, just out from Nightboat Books. Other works include: Flowers & Sky: Two
Talks (Entre Rios Books, 2017), The Skin of Meaning: Collected Literary Essays and Talks (University of Michigan Press, 2015), and two books from City Lights: Citizen (poems, 2012) and King of Shadows (essays, 20008). His writing has appeared in over
forty national and international anthologies, and has been supported by grants from The National Endowment for the Arts, The California Arts Council, The San Francisco Arts
Commission, and the Gerbode Foundation. A pioneer in both LGBTQ+ studies and innovative verse, Shurin is the former director and currently Professor Emeritus for the MFA Writing Program at the University of San Francisco.

Porochista Khakpour / Brown Album: Essays on Exile and Identity
2020-05-25 19:00 - 21:00
Booksmith hosts a virtual event with Porochista Khakpour for her new book Brown Album: Essays on Exile and Identity.
This will be a virtual event, live-streamed on our Facebook page. Please join us!
Friends, neighbors: We are pleased to be able to bring you some of our events virtually while our doors are otherwise closed in the interest of public health. If you’d like to support the store, you can still do that in the usual ways: you can make donations; you can buy the book and we’ll deliver it directly to your door; and did you know we keep our gift certificates on file and they never expire? Thank you very much for your support – we’re proud to be a legacy business and a mainstay of the Haight-Ashbury since 1976!

Novelist Porochista Khakpour’s family moved to Los Angeles after fleeing the Iranian Revolution, giving up their successes only to be greeted by an alienating culture. Growing up as an immigrant in America means that one has to make one’s way through a confusing tangle of conflicting cultures and expectations. And Porochista is pulled between the glitzy culture of Tehrangeles, an enclave of wealthy Iranians and Persians in LA, her own family’s modest life and culture, and becoming an assimilated American. Porochista rebels — she bleaches her hair and flees to the East Coast, where she finds her community: other people writing and thinking at the fringes. But, 9/11 happens and with horror, Porochista watches from her apartment window as the towers fall. Extremism and fear of the Middle East rises in the aftermath and then again with the election of Donald Trump. Porochista is forced to finally grapple with what it means to be Middle-Eastern and Iranian, an immigrant, and a refugee in our country today.Brown Album is a stirring collection of essays, at times humorous and at times profound, drawn from more than a decade of Porochista’s work and with new material included. Altogether, it reveals the tolls that immigrant life in this country can take on a person and the joys that life can give.

VIRTUAL: Amir Ahmadi Arian / Then the Fish Swallowed Him
2020-05-26 17:30 - 19:30
Booksmith and The Bindery host Amir Ahmadi Arian for his new novel, Then the Fish Swallowed Him. Please join us!
This will be a virtual event, which we will be streaming live on our Facebook page.
Friends, neighbors: We are pleased to be able to bring you some of our events virtually while our doors are otherwise closed in the interest of public health. If you’d like to support the store, you can still do that in the usual ways:
> Buy the book and we’ll deliver it directly to your door.
> Buy one of our gift certificates, which we keep on file and never expire.
> Make a donation.
Thank you very much for your support – we’re proud to be a legacy business and a mainstay of the Haight-Ashbury since 1976!

Yunus Turabi, a bus driver in Tehran, leads an unremarkable life. A solitary man since the unexpected deaths of his father and mother years ago, he is decidedly apolitical – even during the driver’s strike and its bloody end. But everyone has their breaking point, and Yunus has reached his.
Handcuffed and blindfolded, he is taken to the infamous Evin prison for political dissidents. Inside this stark, strangely ordered world, his fate becomes entwined with Hajj Saeed, his personal interrogator. The two develop a disturbing yet interdependent relationship, with each playing his assigned role in a high stakes psychological game of cat and mouse, where Yunus endures a mind-bending cycle of solitary confinement and interrogation. In their startlingly intimate exchanges, Yunus’s life begins to unfold—from his childhood memories growing up in a freer Iran to his heartbreaking betrayal of his only friend. As Yunus struggles to hold on to his sanity and evade Saeed’s increasingly undeniable accusations, he must eventually make an impossible choice: continue fighting or submit to the system of lies upholding Iran’s power.
Gripping, startling, and masterfully told, Then the Fish Swallowed Him is a haunting story of life under despotism.

Litquake on Lockdown: Nerd Novels -- A Different Kind of Escape
2020-05-26 18:00
As society grinds to a halt around us, many readers find themselves at home with time on their hands, yearning to think about something—anything—beyond the daily drama of the pandemic. In this conversation, authors Jean Hegland & Susan M. Gaines discuss “nerd novels,” those books whose characters, plots, and themes depend on some specialized body of knowledge. Examples include Barbara Kingsolver’s “Flight Behavior” (2012), Karen Joy Fowler’s “We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves” (2013), Marilynne Robinson’s “Gilead,” and most of A.S. Byatt’s and Richard Powers’ novels. Tonight’s conversation covers the concept of the nerd novel, as well as the special challenges and rewards of reading and writing them, and invites questions and discussion from the virtual audience. FREE, $5 suggested donation
Streamed live on Crowdcast and Facebook Live!
Books are available from your favorite indie bookstores, or order from bookshop.org!

Speakers

Jean Hegland
Jean Hegland is the author of three novels and a book of creative nonfiction. Her first novel, “Into the Forest,” has been translated into 17 languages, adapted as a film starring Ellen Page and Evan Rachel Wood, and a French graphic novel. Set in a near future that bears an eerie… Read More →

Susan M. Gaines
Susan M. Gaines is the author of the nerd novels “Accidentals” and “Carbon Dreams,” as well as the science narrative “Echoes of Life: What Fossil Molecules Reveal About Earth History.” Her stories have appeared in the “North American Review,” “Missouri Review,” “Best of the West… Read More →

ODD SALON ONLINE: RESILIENT
2020-05-26 18:00
Stories of triumph and perseverance, hope, support, and love from times of plague and pandemic
ODD SALON ONLINE: RESILIENT
Tuesday, May 26, 6pm PT/9pm/ET
We’re taking the salon online! Join speakers from both the San Francisco and New York City chapters for an evening of stories of strength, silver linings, and kicking ass during some of history’s darkest chapters.
Unfettered from our usual theaters on opposite coasts, we are excited to bring a first ever line up of Odd Salon Fellows from both cities together for this, our first online salon.
Even during the worst of days of history – then as now – individuals have stepped up to make a difference, communities have rallied together, unlikely heroes have emerged, and resilient art forms have flowered, inspired and informed by the shared experience endured.
Featuring Odd Salon Fellows Christopher Reeves, JR Pepper, Matt Codner, Kate O’Donnell, Alexander Razo Myers, and San Francisco Producing Curator Isolde Honore.
~Story specifics to be announced.~
Curated and hosted by Odd Salon Co-founders Annetta Black and Tre Balchowsky
This event will livestream for free. Paid tickets go to support Odd Salon during this unexpected hiatus from live salons, and all paid levels come with extra perks, including both limited-edition print and digital access to our first edition of the Odd Salon Journal, featuring related reading and art, resources, and supplemental material from our speakers, related to the talks featured in our RESILIENT salon and related stories.
Tickets:
FREE: Save the date with a free RSVP, and we’ll remind you when the show is coming up
$15: RSVP + Digital access to the first edition of the Odd Salon Journal
$25: RSVP + Print copy of our limited first edition of the Odd Salon Journal
$50: RSVP + Receive both digital access and the print journal, plus something strange (but nice) in the mail from Odd Salon
Donation tickets in any amount are also available.
Discounts on all tiers available to 2020 Members of Odd Salon with membership access code.
GET TICKETS / FREE RSVP

Maurice Carlos Ruffin in conversation with Margaret Wilkerson Sexton
2020-05-26 18:00 - 20:00
Maurice Carlos Ruffin reading from
We Cast A Shadow
published by One World
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This is a virtual event that will be hosted by City Lights on the Crowdcast platform. You will need access to a computer or other device that is capable of accessing the internet. If you have not used Crowdcast before, you may consider referencing Getting Started with Crowdcast.
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(Click Here) to make reservations
Event is free, but reservations are required
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Books for this event may be purchased at these links :
>Purchase We Cast A Shadow here<
>Purchase The Revisioners here<
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About We Cast a Shadow:
“An incisive and necessary” (Roxane Gay) debut for fans of Get Out and Paul Beatty’s The Sellout, about a father’s obsessive quest to protect his son—even if it means turning him white
Longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize • “Stunning and audacious . . . at once a pitch-black comedy, a chilling horror story and an endlessly perceptive novel about the possible future of race in America.”—NPR
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR AND THE WASHINGTON POST
“You can be beautiful, even more beautiful than before.” This is the seductive promise of Dr. Nzinga’s clinic, where anyone can get their lips thinned, their skin bleached, and their nose narrowed. A complete demelanization will liberate you from the confines of being born in a black body—if you can afford it.
In this near-future Southern city plagued by fenced-in ghettos and police violence, more and more residents are turning to this experimental medical procedure. Like any father, our narrator just wants the best for his son, Nigel, a biracial boy whose black birthmark is getting bigger by the day. The darker Nigel becomes, the more frightened his father feels. But how far will he go to protect his son? And will he destroy his family in the process?
This electrifying, hallucinatory novel is at once a keen satire of surviving racism in America and a profoundly moving family story. At its center is a father who just wants his son to thrive in a broken world. Maurice Carlos Ruffin’s work evokes the clear vision of Ralph Ellison, the dizzying menace of Franz Kafka, and the crackling prose of Vladimir Nabokov. We Cast a Shadow fearlessly shines a light on the violence we inherit, and on the desperate things we do for the ones we love.
Praise for We Cast a Shadow
“We Cast a Shadow asks some of the most important questions fiction can ask, and it does so with energetic and acrobatic prose, hilarious wordplay and great heart. . . . Love is at the core of this funny, beautiful novel . . . . At any moment, Ruffin can summon the kind of magic that makes you want to slow down, reread and experience the pleasure of him crystallizing an image again. . . . Read this book.”—Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, The New York Times Book Review (Editors’ Choice)
“A full-throated novelistic debut of ferocious power and grace . . . a story that refracts the insanity of the world into a shape so unique you wonder how this book wasn’t there all along.”—Lit Hub
“Propulsive . . . We Cast a Shadow proves that the eeriest works of speculative fiction are those that hit closest to home.”—Vulture

Maurice Carlos Ruffin has been a recipient of an Iowa Review Award in fiction and a winner of the William Faulkner–William Wisdom Creative Writing Competition for Novel-in-Progress. His work has appeared in Virginia Quarterly Review, AGNI, The Kenyon Review, The Massachusetts Review, and Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas. A native of New Orleans, Ruffin is a graduate of the University of New Orleans Creative Writing Workshop and a member of the Peauxdunque Writers Alliance.
Born and raised in New Orleans, Margaret Wilkerson Sexton studied creative writing at Dartmouth College and law at UC Berkeley. Her debut novel, A Kind of Freedom, , was a 2017 National Book Award Nominee, a New York Times Notable Book of 2017 and a New York Times Book Review Editor’s Choice. Her work has been published in The New York Times Book Review, Oprah.com, Lenny Letter, The Massachusetts Review, Grey Sparrow Journal, and other publications. She lives in the Bay Area, California,

How to Raise a Reader with Pamela Paul of The New York Times
2020-05-26 19:00 - 20:00
In conversation with Diana Divecha
Program will air Tuesday May 26th, 7:00 PM PST

Register (for free) to watch this program’s debut

In a world where so much is competing for a child’s attention, how do you raise a reader? Becoming a reader, at any stage of a child’s development, has huge cognitive, emotional, and social benefits that last a lifetime. But which books to choose? How to help your child turn to books over TV and games, much less carve out time to dive headlong into a book? There’s no one better than New York Times Book Review editor Pamela Paul to show us how instilling a lifelong love of reading in your child can be easy, fun, and rewarding.
Based on a New York Times article that went viral with its insightful advice, How to Raise a Reader, co-authored with New York Times Book Review children’s books editor Maria Russo, is more relevant than ever now that schools are closed, kids are sheltering in place, and parents are casting about for learning and bonding opportunities that are constructive, comforting, and simple. In a lively conversation with developmental psychologist Diana Divecha of the Yale Child Study Center, Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, and Greater Good Science Center, Paul will show us how to give kids of all ages one of the greatest and most joyful gifts.

Recommended Reading

Pamela Paul and Maria Russo, How to Raise a Reader
Order your copies from one of our independent bookstore partners

Phuc Tran: Sigh, Gone
2020-05-26 19:30 - 21:00 | Green Apple Books on the Park, 1231 9th Ave, San Francisco , CA, 94122, United States
Phuc Tran discusses his new memoir Sigh, Gone: A Misfit’s Memoir of Great Books, Punk Rock, and the Fight to Fit In.
Praise for Sigh, Gone
“The United States was already a better country because Phuc Tran refused to change his name. Then he went even further in changing this country by giving us this bold, funny, and profane memoir: a portrait of a young punk refugee and of heartland America itself, each of them as defiant and compelling as the other.” —Viet Thanh Nguyen, author of Pulitzer-Prize winning The Sympathizer and The Refugees
“I like to think that had I been born a much cooler, male, Vietnamese version of myself, Sigh, Gone is the book I would have written. This glorious memoir is a reminder of the transformative power of literature and a tribute to friendships, music, and the unique kindness of Americans. I loved it!” —Firoozeh Dumas, New York Times bestselling author of Funny in Farsi and Laughing Without An Accent
“I started reading this book and couldn’t stop. Phuc Tran has written the Great American Nerd-Punk Boyhood Memoir, a story that’s rollicking and laugh-out-loud funny while also offering a piercingly profound look at race, the challenges of assimilation, and the inherently defiant act of growing up. Earnest, observant, and diamond-sharp, this is a new voice of unmistakable talent. I’ll follow this writer anywhere.” —Sara Corbett, coauthor of New York Times best-selling A House in the Sky
About Sigh, Gone
For anyone who has ever felt like they don’t belong, Sigh, Gone shares an irreverent, funny, and moving tale of displacement and assimilation woven together with poignant themes from beloved works of classic literature.
In 1975, during the fall of Saigon, Phuc Tran immigrates to America along with his family. By sheer chance they land in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, a small town where the Trans struggle to assimilate into their new life. In this coming-of-age memoir told through the themes of great books such as The Metamorphosis, The Scarlet Letter, The Iliad, and more, Tran navigates the push and pull of finding and accepting himself despite the challenges of immigration, feelings of isolation, and teenage rebellion, all while attempting to meet the rigid expectations set by his immigrant parents.
Appealing to fans of coming-of-age memoirs such as Fresh Off the Boat, Running with Scissors, or tales of assimilation like Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Displaced and The Refugees, Sigh, Gone explores one man’s bewildering experiences of abuse, racism, and tragedy and reveals redemption and connection in books and punk rock. Against the hairspray-and-synthesizer backdrop of the ‘80s, he finds solace and kinship in the wisdom of classic literature, and in the subculture of punk rock, he finds affirmation and echoes of his disaffection. In his journey for self-discovery Tran ultimately finds refuge and inspiration in the art that shapes—and ultimately saves—him.

Joanna Hershon & Phyllis Grant
2020-05-27 08:00 - 17:00 | Green Apple Books on the Park, 1231 9th Ave, San Francisco , CA, 94122, United States
Joanna Hershon and Phyllis Grant discuss their new books, St. Ivo and Everything is Under Control: A Memoir with Recipes.
Praise for St. Ivo
“From the very first sentences of St. Ivo, I felt certain I was in good hands. What happens when we can no longer communicate with the people we know best? What happens when what was once fluent between two people becomes indecipherable? Not a tender novel, exactly, though there is tenderness in these pages. In St. Ivo Joanna Hershon paints a portrait of grief, of survival, but also of hope. Anyone who has ever loved fiercely, desperately, will devour this story, as I did. The effect here is cumulative and I found myself reading the final pages with the book gripped in both hands.”—Mary Beth Keane, author of Ask Again, Yes
“St. Ivo is a wise and revealing book, full of elegant menace—a novel whose tensions threaten to break its surface on every page. But Hershon is a master of control, showing us patiently, and with rich verisimilitude, how a parent’s love for an estranged child persists despite separation and silence; how longtime friendships hurt and heal; and how loss compels us to know ourselves, much as we might wish to look away.”—Julie Orringer, author of The Flight Portfolio
“An elegant, suspenseful gem of a novel. I admired the crisp writing and intelligent depictions of people, but more than that I needed to know what was going to happen next—I devoured it in a weekend.”—Adelle Waldman, author of The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P.
About St. Ivo
It’s the end of summer when we meet Sarah, the end of summer and the middle of her life, the middle of her career (she hopes it’s not the end), the middle of her marriage (recently repaired). And despite the years that have passed since she last saw her daughter, she is still very much in the middle of figuring out what happened to Leda, what role she played, and how she will let that loss affect the rest of her life.
Enter a mysterious stranger on a train, an older man taking the subway to Brooklyn who sees right into her.Then a mugging, her phone stolen, and with it any last connection to Leda. And then an invitation, friends from the past and a weekend in the country with their new, unexpected baby.
Over the course of three hot September days, the two couples try to reconnect. Events that have been set in motion, circumstances and feelings kept hidden, rise to the surface, forcing each to ask not just how they ended up where they are, but how they ended up who they are.
Unwinding like a suspense novel, Joanna Hershon’s St. Ivo is a powerful investigation into the meaning of choice and family, whether we ever know the people closest to us, and how, when someone goes missing from our lives, we can ever let them go.
Praise for Everything is Under Control
“What a beautiful, rich, and poetic memoir this is. Phyllis Grant writes of longing, suffering, celebration, family, and food with such delicate power. Like the best chefs, she knows how to make a masterpiece from a few simple ingredients: truth, taste, poignancy, and love. This is a wonderful book.” —Elizabeth Gilbert, author of City of Girls and Eat, Pray, Love
“Phyllis Grant has the voice of a poet and the sensuality of a cook. This very brave book makes you want to experience the world with equal intensity. As for the recipes … completely irresistible.” —Ruth Reichl, author of Save Me the Plums
“How do we locate ourselves in time? In our families? Within the intricacies of our own appetites? With raw candor and discipline, Phyllis Grant peels back the layers of her innermost experience and gives us a memoir as rich and nuanced, as delicate as life itself.” —Dani Shapiro, author of Inheritance
About Everything is Under Control
Phyllis Grant’s Everything Is Under Control is a memoir about appetite as it comes, goes, and refocuses its object of desire. Grant’s story follows the sometimes smooth, sometimes jagged, always revealing contours of her life: from her days as a dancer struggling to find her place at Julliard, to her experiences in and out of four-star kitchens in New York City, to falling in love with her future husband and leaving the city after 9/11 for California, where her children are born. All the while, a sense of longing pulses in each stage as she moves through the headspace of a young woman longing to be sustained by a city into that of a mother now sustaining a family herself.
Written with the transparency of a diarist, Everything Is Under Control is an unputdownable series of vignettes followed by tried-and-true recipes from Grant’s table—a heartrending yet unsentimental portrait of the highs and lows of young adulthood, motherhood, and a life in the kitchen.

Alta Asks Live: Matthew Zapruder
2020-05-27 12:30 - 13:00
Poet Matthew Zapruder will join Alta Asks Live and host Heather Scott Partington on Wednesday, May 27 at 12:30 p.m. PST to discuss his latest collection, “Father’s Day,” the role of poetry in a time of global crisis, how he’s teaching college from his Oakland home, and much more. REGISTER: https://www.crowdcast.io/e/alta-asks-live-matthew

Guerrilla Lit: Farooq Ahmed, Nicole Mabry, Peter Kline
2020-05-27 16:30 - 17:30
Dixon Place Presents Guerrilla Lit Reading Series: Virtual Edition.
We are pleased to announce that the reading scheduled for Wednesday, May 27 features Farooq Ahmed, Nicole Mabry, and Peter Kline.
This virtual reading will occur on Zoom at 7:30 PM.
THIS EVENT REQUIRES ADVANCE REGISTRATION.
Register for this meeting here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZYsf-qqqzsoHdAZ4S9KORubUVSsEY-U9rk1

After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
About the Readers:
Raised in the great state of Kansas, Farooq Ahmed is a graduate of the Columbia University Creative Writing Program and of Brown University, where he studied biochemistry. He is a Contributing Editor for Photonics magazine, and his writing has appeared in the Financial Times, Nature, and The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. His work has been lauded by the South Asian Journalists Association, and he lives in Los Angeles. KANSASTAN is his debut novel.
Nicole Mabry grew up in Northern California but has lived in Queens for the past 17 years. She went to college at UCLA and Cal State Hayward, graduating with degrees in Art History, Photography and Digital Graphics. She currently works at NBCUniversal managing Photography Post Production for Bravo, SYFY and USA Network. Her award-winning photography has graced the covers of books internationally and has been featured in shows throughout the city. After a successful 20-year career in photography, she decided to take a left turn and go from telling a story with an image, to telling a story with words. Nicole’s debut novel, an apocalyptic women’s fiction thriller, was inspired by a dream she had when a real life snow storm shut down all forms of public transportation in the city. PAST THIS POINT tells the story of one woman and her dog fighting to survive during a deadly virus outbreak that renders New York City a ghost town.
A former Wallace Stegner Fellow and Merrill House and Clampitt House resident, Peter Kline teaches writing at the University of San Francisco and in Stanford University’s Master of Liberal Arts Program. He is the author of two poetry collections, Deviants (SFASU Press, 2013), and Mirrorforms, which was published by Parlor Press/Free Verse Editions in the fall of 2019.
Dixon Place Literary Programs are generously supported by the Axe Houghton Foundation and the NYC Department of Cultural Affairs.
We’d be so grateful if you considered making a donation to keep the literary fires burning at Dixon Place. If you can, please donate here:
https://shop.vendini.com/dixonplace/product-details/donation/054d4ca95ace388c1932e38137522652

Litquake on Lockdown: Sarah Ray and A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety
2020-05-27 18:00
A youth movement is reenergizing global environmental activism. The “climate generation”—late millennials and iGen, or Generation Z—is demanding that policy makers and government leaders take immediate action to address the dire outcomes predicted by climate science. Those inheriting our planet’s environmental problems expect to encounter challenges, but they may not have the skills to grapple with the feelings of powerlessness and despair that may arise. Author and professor Sarah Jaquette Ray releases her new book A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety (UC Press), an “existential tool kit” for the climate generation. Combining insights from psychology, sociology, social movements, mindfulness, and the environmental humanities, Ray explains why and how we need to let go of eco-guilt, resist burnout, and cultivate resilience while advocating for climate justice. FREE, $5 suggested donation
Streamed live on Crowdcast and Facebook Live!
Books are available from your favorite indie bookstores, or order from bookshop.org!

Speakers

Sarah Jaquette Ray
Sarah Jaquette Ray teaches environmental studies at Humboldt State University in Arcata, California, and is also the author of The Ecological Other: Environmental Exclusion in American Culture.

Alka Joshi with Angie Coiro
2020-05-27 19:00 - 20:00
This event is online.
Join us for an event with Alka Joshi, your new favorite novelist. Reading during this time period can be challenging… but the exquisite story we’re about to share is guaranteed to sweep you away to another time and place.
We know you’ll love Alka’s debut, The Henna Artist, as much as we do. Beautiful and compellingly readable, this novel effortlessly evokes post-Raj 1950s Jaipur, all while completely enmeshing you in the conflicts and politics that drive the courageous protagonist Lakshmi Shastri. Against all odds, and after fleeing an arranged marriage to an abusive older man, the teenaged Lakshmi carves out a living for herself as a henna artist, friend, and confidante to wealthy, upper-caste women within the grand Pink City. Then, as a grown woman several years into this new life, an exciting twist suddenly threatens to unravel all that Lakshmi has built.
In conversation with our own award-winning in house journalist, Angie Coiro, this is one literary conversation you do not want to miss.
More than just a romantic work of historical fiction, The Henna Artist is based off Alka’s late mother’s life— but this story serves as a reimagining of what life might have been like if Alka’s mother hadn’t been in an arranged marriage at 18, with three children by 21. Instead, the novel recreates her life as if she had been able to pursue the independence and education that she never enjoyed in real life… the independence and education that Alka’s mother advocated for her.
Captivating and smart, this is the perfect read for your digital book group— a novel that will transport you completely each time it is opened.
Registration for this event is open, with the additional options of making a tax-deductible donation to Kepler’s Literary Foundation, or supporting Kepler’s Books with a (non-tax-deductible) book purchase. Donations will go toward Kepler’s Literary Foundation programs online, in local schools and throughout our community.
**Registration will close one hour before the event; please reserve your spot early to guarantee access, as registrations are limited.**

Frank Wilderson III in conversation with Justin Desmangles
2020-05-28 18:00 - 20:00
discussing the subject of his new book
Afropessimism
published by Liveright Books / W.W. Norton
This is a virtual event that will be hosted by City Lights. You will need access to a computer or other device that is capable of accessing the internet.
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(Click Here) to make reservations
Event is free, but reservations are required
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(Purchase AFROPESSIMISM here)
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In the tradition of Edward Said’s Orientalism and Frantz Fanon’s Black Skin, White Masks, Afropessimism is an unparalleled account of the non-analogous experience of being Black.
A seminal work that strikingly combines groundbreaking philosophy with searing flights of memoir, Afropessimism presents the tenets of an increasingly influential intellectual movement that theorizes blackness through the lens of perpetual slavery. Rather than interpreting slavery through a Marxist framework of class oppression, Frank B. Wilderson III, “a truly indispensable thinker” (Fred Moten), demonstrates that the social construct of slavery, as seen through pervasive, anti-black subjugation and violence, is hardly a relic of the past but an almost necessary force in our civilization that flourishes today, and that Black struggles cannot be conflated with the experiences of any other oppressed group. In mellifluous prose, Wilderson juxtaposes his seemingly idyllic upbringing in halcyon midcentury Minneapolis with the harshness that he would later encounter, whether in radicalized, late-1960s Berkeley or in the slums of Soweto. Following in the rich literary tradition of works by DuBois, Malcolm X and Baldwin, Afropessimism reverberates with wisdom and painful clarity in the fractured world we inhabit.
Professor and chair of African American studies at the University of California, Irvine, and author of Incognegro: A Memoir of Exile and Apartheid, Frank B. Wilderson III has received an NEA Literature Fellowship and a Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Legacy Award for Creative Nonfiction, among other awards.
Justin Desmangles is chairman of the Before Columbus Foundation, administrator of the American Book Award, and host of the radio broadcast New Day Jazz, now in its fifteenth year.
What has been said about the work of Frank Wilderson III:

Frank Wilderson slings piercing stories and scalding analyses with literary fire and intellectual rigor. His tales juke genre and high-step over high-theory mumbo jumbo, and float Franz Fanon some new wings. Like Ralph Ellison’s bluesman, he peers unflinching into the abyss, testifies to its brutal histories and hopeless predicaments, ‘to finger its jagged grain, and to transcend it, not through the consolation of philosophy but by squeezing from it a near-tragic, near-comic lyricism.’ He ghostwrites our brutal pasts into present and still hopeless predicaments, yet divines deep love and blues humor. Even if our own hopes may live elsewhere, we cannot dismiss Afropessimism‘s unnerving and undeniable truths, nor the timeless art of its author.
—Timothy B. Tyson, author of The Blood of Emmett Till
A writer of hard, searing lyricism…. [Wilderson] is, to my mind, an indispensible thinker.
—Fred Moten, author of The Undercommons
