San Francisco Grotto Writers: 3 Minute Reads
2016-12-02 18:00 - 20:00 UTC | Book Passage San Francisco, 1 Ferry Building, San Francisco, CA, 94111, United States
Join us for a fast-paced and irreverent evening, showcasing new work from the students of the San Francisco Writer’s Grotto writing classes. On this Friday evening, both fiction and nonfiction writers will read their work — but only for 3 minutes each! Their instructors (Grotto authors) will enforce the time limit. Join us for wine, fun, and fresh new writing.

Laura Levin + Eric Sneathen
2016-12-02 18:00 - 20:30 | Alley Cat Books, 3036 24th St, San Francisco, CA, 94110, United States
Please join Krupskaya Book for the release of our two new titles, Lauren Levin’s THE BRAID and Eric Sneathen’s SNAIL POEMS! We are so thrilled to see these books in the world and celebrate with Lauren and Eric at Alley Cat Books! Doors are at 6PM, reading at 7PM.
Lauren Levin grew up in New Orleans and lives in Richmond, CA with her family. Her first full-length book The Braid is out now from Krupskaya Books, and her second full-length, Two Essays, is forthcoming from Timeless, Infinite Light in 2018. Recent work can be found in the chapbook Only the Dead Are Never Anxious (Mondo Bummer), on the Poetry Project website, and forthcoming in the journal Hold.
Eric Sneathen splits his time between Oakland and UC Santa Cruz, where he is a PhD student in Literature. His poetry has been published by Mondo Bummer, littletell, Faggot Journal, and The Equalizer, and his first collection, Snail Poems, is out now from Krupskaya. He is also the editor and producer of Macaroni Necklace, a DIY literary zine and reading series featuring (mostly) writers who have not yet published a book-length manuscript.

Ambush Review Five
2016-12-02 19:00 - 21:00 | The Beat Museum, 540 Broadway, San Francisco , CA, 94133, United States
Book release of the new Ambush Review Five, with readings from the following contributors:

David Beckman
Sharon Coleman
Grace Marie Grafton
Jose Luis Gutierrez
Ken Saffran
Kim Shuck

…and others

Randa Jarrar
2016-12-02 19:30 - 21:30 | Green Apple Books on the Park, 1231 9th Ave, San Francisco , CA, 94122, United States
Praise for Randa Jarrar:
“Jarrar does what every brave storyteller should do-she makes sense of what other writers leave outside the bounds. She connects us with that which others have left unsaid.” – Colum McCann, author of Transatlantic

“Him, Me, Muhammad Ali is a searing collection of short stories about loving, lusting, losing, and surviving. Randa Jarrar is one of the finest writers of her generation. Her voice is assured, fiercely independent, laced with humor and irony–and always, always, honest.” – Laila Lalami, author of The Moor’s Account

“Randa Jarrar’s prose is bold and luscious and makes the darkly comic seem light. The voices in Him, Me, Muhammed Ali are powerful individually, and overwhelming as a chorus. This wonderful work isn’t just a collection: it’s a world.” – Mat Johnson, author of Loving Day

“Wow! These vibrant, funny, earthy, and above all yearning (for love, for family, for home) stories are a revelation. Jarrar combines the invention of Calvino, the sprung style of Paley, the poetic imagery of Babel. But that mash-up isn’t mere stylistic exuberance; it’s a restless, relentless and deeply affecting effort to forge identity out of fragments, to make a whole out of halves. These are the stories we need right now.” – Peter Ho Davies, author of The Welsh Girl

“Fearless, funny, and sad, soaring and earthly, fable-like and visceral, full of families, lovers, friends, strangers and lonely children. These stories laugh with and think through and rise against, which is just to say they brilliantly demonstrate Jarrar’s huge talent, compassion and range. “Him, Me, Muhammad Ali astonishes from start to finish.” – Sam Lipsyte, author of The Ask

About Him, Me, Muhammad Ali:
Award-winning novelist Randa Jarrar’s new story collection moves seamlessly between realism and fable, history and the present, capturing the lives of Muslim women and men across myriad geographies and circumstances. With acerbic wit, deep tenderness, and boundless imagination, Jarrar brings to life a memorable cast of characters, many of them “accidental transients”a term for migratory birds who have gone astrayseeking their circuitous routes back home. Fierce and feeling, Him, Me, Muhammad Ali is a testament to survival in the face of love, loss, and displacement.
Randa Jarrar is the author of a highly successful novel, A Map of Home, which received an Arab-American Book Award and was named one of the best novels of 2008 by the Barnes & Noble Review. She grew up in Kuwait and Egypt, and moved to the United States after the first Gulf War. Her work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the Utne Reader, Salon.com, Guernica, the Rumpus, the Oxford American, Ploughshares, and more. She blogs for Salon, and lives in California.

Studio One: Perez, Siegel, Burghardt, + Videtta
2016-12-02 19:30 - 21:30 | Studio One Arts Center, 365 45th Street, Oakland, CA, 94609, United States
Please join us on Friday, December 2nd @ 7:30 pm
for a reading featuring Robert Andrew Perez, Matthew Siegel
and Peter Burghardt, plus art by Peg Videtta!

Event is FREE.
Lagunitas beer, wine and snacks will be served.

Robert Andrew Perez lives in Berkeley and is an associate editor & book designer for speCt! in Oakland, where he also curates readings. He is an alum of the Lambda Literary fellowship & a recipient of the Lannan Literary Award for poetry. His poetry has appeared in print & online in publications such as DIAGRAM, The Awl, The Laurel Review & The Cortland Review, and has forthcoming work in Vinyl. His first collection, the field, was published with Omnidawn in their pocket book series. He is currently writing a movie about a divorce and wine tasting; it’s a comedy. More at robertandrewperez.com.
Matthew Siegel is the author of Blood Work (University of Wisconsin/CBe) which was shortlisted for the Forward Prize for best first collection. His poems and essays have appeared in The Guardian, Gulf Coast, Indiana Review, Ninth Letter, The Rumpus and elsewhere. A former Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford, he teaches literature and writing at San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
Peter Burghardt lives in Oakland, California, where he co-publishes speCt! books, and edits OAR, a print journal of poetry and prose. His recent work has appeared in such publications as the Offending Adam, Tammy, The Laurel Review, and White Stag. His chapbook, Cosmic American Music, is forthcoming from Old Gold.
Peg Videtta brings her experience of dance, yoga, and physics into making figurative sculpture. Her work explores the energetic components of the body, especially while in movement.

Spoken Word at Naivasha
2016-12-02 19:30 - 22:00 | Naivasha Studio & Gallery, 1499 Grant Ave, San Francisco, CA, 94133, United States
Celebrate the living legacy of spoken word in North Beach as we welcome our favorite local writers to share their work.
Featuring Brandon Loberg, Charlie Getter, Daniel Vaccerelli, Kristin Kennedy, Niko Van Dyke, Jason Whitacre & Zach Roz.
BYOB

Book Passage at 40!
2016-12-03 10:00 - 18:00 | Book Passage Marin, 51 Tamal Vista Blvd. , Corte Madera, CA, 94925, United States
Please join us for a day of fun and celebration:
10:00 am
We’re starting off with the kids, inviting them to come up and read stories they have written or whatever they feel like reading. Among the many who will be there reading, we expect the kids from INK to be there with their first book Dragon Mist and its new sequel. Come hear some of our local students read their work! We are showcasing the writers of tomorrow as part of our 40th Anniversary celebration. This is entirely selfish on our part. We’re hope that they will get the feel for how much fun it is to read in front of a bookstore audience. If so, they might just be coming back for years to come with books they have written. Time will be limited. So please contact Joy (joy@bookpassage. com) to let us know you will be a reader! (But we warn you! Famous authors have told us it could be habit-forming.)
3:00 pm
In the afternoon there will be a reception in the café for Tom Killion’s new collection of graphic arts that will be displayed both in the cafe and the gallery. Tom Killion is a native of Marin County who has been producing acclaimed Japanese-style woodcut prints of the California landscape for over forty years. Killion has created over 400 relief prints, and has produced five handmade art books depicting landscapes from California to Europe and Africa. Killion’s most recent book, California’s Wild Edge, is a fresh collaboration with Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Gary Snyder.
4:00 pm
Isabel Allende, Anne Lamott and Don George will speak about the history of the bookstore and what it means to them and the community. Following that there will be a slide presentation about the store (shamelessly heaped in nostalgia!). And following that, we will break out the bubbly and celebrate
And here’s where you can help!
We are asking our friends to bring a “not too used” book to donate to our Hospice Used Book department. We will be donating a portion of the day’s new book sales to Hospice to help support their wonderful programs.

Bay Area Poets Coalition First Saturday
2016-12-03 15:00 - 17:00 | Strawberry Creek Lodge, 1320 Addison Street, Berkeley, CA, 94702, United States
Addison is one block south of and parallel to University Ave.
between Acton & Bonar St.
Parking on the street (NOT in the S.C.L. parking lot)
Check in at the front desk and you will be directed to the meeting location
(usually Movie Room, or backyard garden)
All Ages Welcome
Come and enjoy a friendly and informal read-around —
3-5 minutes per poet/reader, or “just listening” is fine too 🙂

Ellingham, Stein, + Caples
2016-12-03 15:00 - 17:00 | Alley Cat Books, 3036 24th St, San Francisco, CA, 94110, United States
Suzanne Stein, Lewis Ellingham, and Garrett Caples read at Alley Cat Books, Saturday, December 3, 2016 at 3 p.m, for an exciting event organized by San Francisco poet and novelist Kevin Killian.
Alley Cat Books in located in the Mission District of San Francisco, at 3036 24th Street (at Treat).
Garrett Caples is the author of three full-length poetry collections, including the brand-new Power Ballads (Wave Books, 2016). He has also written a book of essays, Retrievals (Wave, 2014), and a pamphlet, Quintessence of the Minor: Symbolist Poetry in English (Wave, 2010). He co-edited Incidents of Travel in Poetry: New and Selected Poems by Frank Lima (City Lights, 2016), Particulars of Place by Richard O. Moore (Omnidawn, 2015), and Collected Poems of Philip Lamantia (California, 2013). A freelance writer, he is also an editor at City Lights, where he curates the Spotlight poetry series. He lives in San Francisco.
Lewis Ellingham: born February 27th, 1933, Fort Wayne, Indiana. By age 21, migrated to San Francisco, after living in Chicago and New York; settled in North Beach. With Kevin Killian, wrote a biography of Jack Spicer, Poet Be Like God [1995]. “My The Birds and Other Poems was published in 2009; new writing continues with a series of self-published books. My blog: “The Ellingham Digest”: http://lewellingham.wordpress.com/” He has a brand new book we launch this afternoon, SEEN, UNSEEN.
Suzanne Stein’s publications and performance documents include The Kim Game (Area Sneaks), TOUT VA BIEN (Displaced Press), and Passenger Ship (Ypolita). Poems, talk performances, and prose have appeared in War and Peace, On: Contemporary Practice, Counterpath; and at New Langton Arts, the Poetry Project, the Berkeley Art Museum, and elsewhere; audio performances are archived at PennSound. She was the founding editor of SFMOMA’s Open Space.
Facebook event is here: https://www.facebook.com/events/598929320310766/?active_tab=discussion

WHEN WE RISE Publication Launch
2016-12-03 17:00 - 20:00 | Strut, 470 Castro Street, San Francisco , CA, 94114, United States
Celebrate the launch of Cleve Jones‘ new memoir and get your signed copies!
Hosted by Juanita More
DJ Tweaka Turner
Food from Harvey’s, Catch, and Le Mediterranee.
By turns tender and uproarious, When We Rise is Jones’ account of his remarkable life. He chronicles the heartbreak of losing countless friends to AIDS, which very nearly killed him, too; his co-founding of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation during the terrifying early years of the epidemic; his conception of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, the largest community art project in history; the bewitching story of 1970s San Francisco and the magnetic spell it cast for thousands of young gay people and other misfits; and the harrowing, sexy, and sometimes hilarious stories of Cleve’s passionate relationships with friends and lovers during an era defined by both unprecedented freedom and possibility, and prejudice and violence alike.
When We Rise is not only the story of a hero to the LQBTQ community, but the vibrantly voice memoir of a full and transformative American life–an activist whose work continues today.
Preorder on Amazon today!
https://www.amazon.com/When-We-Rise-Life-Movement/dp/0316315435

Babylon Salon Winter Reading
2016-12-03 18:00 - 21:00 | The Armory Club, 1799 Mission St, San Francisco, CA, 94103, United States
On Saturday December 3, Babylon Salon’s Winter Reading welcomes double Lambda Literary Award-winning novelist, poet, essayist and recipient of a 2016 Barbary Coast Award from Litquake Jewelle Gomez (The Gilda Stories); short story writer and recipient of a 2015 Flannery O’Connor Award for short fiction Anne Raeff (The Jungle Around Us); poet and Kundiman fellow Jason Bayani (Amulet); author, San Francisco Chronicle columnist and Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award recipient Vanessa Hua (Deceit and Other Possibilities); writer and teacher Zach Wyner (What We Never Had).
OUR NEW LOCATION: The Armory Club [downstairs performance space], 1799 Mission Street, San Francisco, 94103. FREE admission – Cash bar exotica. Doors open at 5:30 PM, reading at 6:00 PM. More details: www.babylonsalon.com

Raucous Realness
2016-12-03 19:00 - 21:00 | Chapter 510 & the Dept. of Make Believe, 2301 Telegraph Ave, Oakland, CA, 94612, United States
Join us for an evening of fab-collab readings by a selection of Nomadic Press and Foglifter Journal and Press authors. Music by TBD.

Poetry: Neruda, Ferrer Lerín, + Panero
2016-12-03 19:00 - 21:00 | Alley Cat Books, 3036 24th St, San Francisco, CA, 94110, United States
Come to Alley Cat Books in the Mission District to hear the poetry and prose of three great writers of the Spanish speaking world:
Pablo Neruda, Francisco Ferrer Lerín and Leopoldo María Panero.
Their work of the Chileno and the two Spaniards will be read by their translators: William O’Daly and Arturo Mantecón.
Music will be provided by Arturo Balderrama.
Q & A to follow
Limited open mic
WILLIAM O’DALY is a poet, translator, fiction writer, and editor. His translations include eight books of the poetry of Chilean Nobel laureate Pablo Neruda — Still Another Day, The Separate Rose, Winter Garden, The Sea and the Bells, The Yellow Heart, The Book of Questions, The Hands of Day, and World’s End — all published with Copper Canyon Press. Copper Canyon will publish his translation of Crepusculario (1923), Neruda’s first book of poems, in late 2017. A chapbook of poems, The Whale in the Web, was published by Copper Canyon Press, and Folded Word Press released The Road to Isla Negra (poems) in June 2015. Folded Word will publish two more books— Water Ways (a collaboration with JS Graustein) and Yarrow and Smoke — in 2017. O’Daly was a finalist for the 2006 Quill Award in Poetry and was profiled on NBC’s The Today Show. A National Endowment for the Arts Fellow, his poems, translations, essays, and reviews have appeared widely in journals and anthologies. With co-author Han-ping Chin, O’Daly recently completed a historical novel, This Earthly Life, an excerpt from which was awarded as a Finalist in Narrative’s 2009 Fall Story Contest. He has received national and regional honors for literary editing and instructional design. To learn more, please visit him at: www.williamodaly.com.
ARTURO MANTECÓN is a poet and translator born in Laredo, Texas and raised in Detroit, Michigan. His poetry has appeared in La Ventana Abierta, Poetry Now and various anthologies. Recently published books of his translations include Chance Encounters and Waking Dreams (collected work of the great Spanish writer, Francisco Ferrer Lerín) and The Sick Rose (the posthumous poems of Leopoldo María Panero, the mad, genius of Spanish letters). A collection of his short stories, Memories, Cuentos Verídicos, y Otras Outright Lies, was published by En Casa in 2014.

Buuck, Troyan, + LaFrance
2016-12-03 19:00 - 21:00 | E.M. Wolfman General Interest Small Bookstore, 410 13th Street, Oakland , CA, 94612, United States
We’re excited to host a night of poetry in celebration of new books by David Buuck, Danielle LaFrance and Cassandra Troyan!
Danielle LaFrance is a poet, librarian, and independent scholar. She is the author of Friendly + Fire (Talonbooks 2016), Species Branding (CUE, 2010), and the chapbook Pink Slip (SIC, 2013). Between 2012-2016 she organized the feminist materialist collective and journal series About a Bicycle. Since 1983 she has mostly resided on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Skxwú7mesh, Úxwumixw, Stó:lo, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples.
Cassandra Troyan is a writer living in Oakland, CA. Recent publications include KILL MANUAL (Artifice Books 2014) and A THEORY IN TEARS (ANNOTATIONS & CASES FOR FREEDOM & PROSTITUTION) (Kenning Editions 2016). Currently they are writing with Maya Andrea Gonzalez on the intersections of sex work, (clean vs. dirty) money, state violence and the anti-trafficking movement under the purview of neoliberal ideology. They also organize and speak on issues of criminality and sex worker rights with St. James Infirmary in San Francisco, CA.
David Buuck lives in Oakland, where he edits Tripwire, a journal of poetics. Recent publications include Noise in the Face of (Roof Books 2016), SITE CITE CITY (Futurepoem, 2015) and An Army of Lovers, co-written with Juliana Spahr (City Lights, 2013).

Bazaar Writers Salon
2016-12-04 18:00 - 20:00 | Bazaar Cafe, 5927 California St, San Francisco, CA, 94121, United States
Readings by Peter Thomas Bullen, Grady Chambers, and Tess Taylor
Hosted by Peter Kline
Peter Thomas Bullen, hairdresser and co-founder of Peter Thomas Hair in Berkeley, began writing late, not just late in life, but also late at night. Later still he discovered that if you are standing in front of a room, holding text and trembling slightly, people will give you their attention. This made him happy. His work has appeared in sparkle & blink, eleven eleven, Red Light Lit, and the LA Review of Books. In October, his first chapbook, Wallflower, came out from Nomadic Press. He blogs at wetriedourbest.wordpress.com.
Grady Chambers was born and raised in Chicago. Poems of his have appeared in or are forthcoming from The Adroit Journal, Ninth Letter, Diode Poetry Journal, Barrow Street, Midwestern Gothic, and elsewhere. He lives in Oakland, and is a 2015-2017 Stegner Fellow at Stanford.
Tess Taylor’s chapbook, The Misremembered World, was selected by Eavan Boland for the Poetry Society of America’s inaugural chapbook fellowship. Her first book, The Forage House, was a finalist for the Believer Poetry Award. Her second book is Work & Days, which Stephen Burt called “our moment’s Georgic.” Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, Boston Review, Harvard Review, The Times Literary Supplement, and other places. Taylor chairs the poetry committee of the National Book Critics Circle, is currently the on-air poetry reviewer for NPR’s All Things Considered, and was most recently visiting professor of English and creative writing at Whittier College. Taylor has received awards and fellowships from MacDowell, Headlands Center for the Arts, and The International Center for Jefferson Studies. Taylor recently was awarded a Fulbright US Scholar Award to study and lecture at Queen’s University Belfast, in Northern Ireland, for six months in 2017.

Kay DeMartiniPresents: Fruitcake!
2016-12-04 19:00 - 21:00 | The Golden Bull Bar, 412 14th Street, Oakland, CA, 94612, United States
Stories where you can pick out the nuts . . .
This gummified traditional treat with its mystery ingredients and non-expiration date, is a sweet metaphor for this time of year. You can choose lots of things in life – but you really can’t pick which inappropriate outfit your niece will wear to dinner. She is family & you love her. It’s the holidays, it’s required.
Don’t miss this One Night FREE – but register, because there are Fire Laws.

Storytellers TBA
Kay DeMartini – Producer, Emcee, Storyteller, and she can’t be trusted in the open bin section of Whole Foods
YOU – bring your best 3min Family/Holiday Story – for a shot at possibly telling it.

Live Reading: The Racket
2016-12-05 19:00 - 21:00 | Adobe Books, 3130 24th St., San Francisco, CA, 94110, United States
Noah Sander‘s new monthly reading series – people making noise, people pulling one over on you – typical reading series stuff… bringing together some fantastic writers (to be announced shortly) and hoping that you, friends and lovers of reading alike, will come and celebrate great writing and maybe buy some books or just stand there awkwardly sipping a Tecate.

Sticky Pages
2016-12-05 19:30 - 20:30 | Center for Sex and Culture, 1349 Mission St., San Francisco , CA, 94103, United States
Come to “Sticky Pages,” three gay authors reading their erotic writing, Monday, December 5, 7:30pm to 8:30pm. Free admission, hot readings, and sexy door prizes! Andrew Demcak reads erotic poetry from Zero Summer, Rick May shares bedtime stories from Inhuman Beings: Encounters of Men and Not-Men, and Rob Rosen excerpts the juicy bits from his latest novel Midlife Crisis. Want more? You know you do. See you there.

Bill Ayers
2016-12-05 19:30 - 21:30 | The Booksmith, 1644 Haight St, San Francisco , CA, 94117, United States
Join us as we welcome Bill Ayers, here on a national tour to celebrate the release of his latest book, Demand the Impossible!: A Radical Manifesto.

In an era defined by mass incarceration, endless war, economic crisis, catastrophic environmental destruction, and a political system offering more of the same, radical social transformation has never been more urgent. We must imagine a world beyond what this rotten system would have us believe is possible.
In critiquing the world around us, Ayers uncovers cracks in the system, raising our sights for radical change, and envisioning strategies for building a movement to create a more humane, balanced, and peaceful world.

“For Bill Ayers, it is the freedom of our collective imagination that links the contemporary world—ensconced as it is in pervasive militarism, racist violence, and environmental devastation—to the flourishing of our planet. This is a manifesto that should be read by everyone who wants to believe that “another world is possible.” — Angela Y. Davis, author of Abolition Democracy and Freedom is a Constant Struggle
“With huge numbers of us recognizing the need for transformative change, this ambitious and exuberant book perfectly matches its historical moment. Ayers fearlessly confronts the intersecting crises of our age—endless war, surging inequality, unchecked white supremacy and perilous planetary warming—while mapping emancipatory new possibilities. From the first page, his courage is contagious.” — Naomi Klein, author of This Changes Everything and The Shock Doctrine
“Demand the Impossible is more than a book, more than a manifesto. It is a torch. Bill Ayers’ vision for a humane future is incendiary—fire that incinerates old logics and illuminates new paths. If we do not end the violence of militarism, materialism, caging, dispossession, debt, want, ignorance, and global warming, our very survival is impossible. Read aloud.” — Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams

December Silent Reading Party
2016-12-06 18:00 - 19:30 | Hotel Rex, 562 Sutter Street, San Francisco, CA, 94102, United States
Presented by Lemony Snicket and Radio Silence. Bring a book to read in absolute silence. Cocktails and food will be available. This event is FREE to attend. Proceeds from drink sales will benefit the school library of the June Jordan School for Equity.
This month, DJ Please Be Quiet I’m Trying to Read (AKA Lemony Snicket) will be spinning records by Joseph Haydn and Count Basie.
Sign up to receive emails about upcoming Silent Reading Parties here: http://eepurl.com/bZXqKb

Day Without Art
2016-12-06 18:30 - 21:00 | Spice Monkey, 1628 Webster St, Oakland, CA, 94612, United States
Featured readers: Janell Moon, Dale Jensen, Judy Wells, Fred Dodsworth. Guitar: Hao C. Tran. An open mic follows the featured readers. Everyone welcome. There is always room. It’s time to showcase your work. Free drawing for books, broadside, and Spice Monkey Gift Card.
Free, we pass the hat.

Michael McClure + Garrett Caples
2016-12-06 19:30 - 21:30 | Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave, Berkeley, CA, 94704, United States
A landmark work of bio-romanticism, Mephistos and Other Poems is the first completely new collection in five years from legendary Beat and SF Renaissance poet Michael McClure. The title sequence, “Mephistos,” stems from McClure’s ongoing “grafting” experiment, growing new poems from fragments of his older works. “Some Fringes” is a series of haiku-like nature poems, while the 17-part “Rose Breaths” derives from the poet’s practice of meditation. The freestanding poems grouped under the title “Being” pay homage to many of McClure’s collaborators and fellow travelers, such as Bruce Conner, Terry Riley, and Dave Haselwood. The book climaxes with “Song Heavy,” recounting McClure’s recent encounter with a beached whale in Rockport, MA, and recalling his classic “For the Death of 100 Whales,” which he read at the Six Gallery in 1955—the inaugural moment of American eco-poetics.
Garrett Caples is the author of Power Ballads (forthcoming from Wave Books, 2016), Retrievals (2014), The Garrett Caples Reader (1999), Complications (2007), and Quintessence of the Minor (2010). He is the co-editor of The Collected Poems of Philip Lamantia (2013). He is the poetry editor at City Lights Books and curates the Spotlight Poetry Series there. He is also a contributing writer to the San Francisco Bay Guardian. He has written articles and blogged for the Poetry Foundation and occasionally blogs for blogcitylights.com. He has a Ph.D. in English from the University of California, Berkeley, and lives in San Francisco.

Michael Goorjian
2016-12-07 18:00 - 20:00 | Book Passage San Francisco, 1 Ferry Building, San Francisco, CA, 94111, United States
“Something in me knows of a life I was meant to live but for whatever reason, I have not . . . ”
In What Lies Beyond the Stars, these words ring painfully true for Adam Sheppard, a San Francisco programmer who has spent the vast majority of his 30-something years lost in the dim glow of a computer screen. On the verge of a psychotic break, Adam begins to have a recurring dream of his early childhood and the hauntingly rustic town of Mendocino California where he grew up. Convinced he has left something behind there, something vital to his present sanity, Adam walks away from his current life to figure out what that is.
One night on the cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean, lost in thoughts of suicide, Adam has a chance encounter with a mysterious woman. Later he realizes that she is Beatrice, a long forgotten childhood friend whose fiery spirit and red hair had filled his young heart with immeasurable wonder. The coincidence of their reunion only deepens as Adam discovers that Beatrice has returned to Mendocino also due to a recurring dream, eerily similar to his own.
Are they lost soul mates drawn together through time and space? As Adam begins to hope that his life could be more than a bleak virtual wasteland, he finds himself a pawn in a game that pits dark forces against those few quixotic souls who still search for meaning, beauty, and magic in the world.
Michael Goorjian is an Emmy Award–winning actor, filmmaker, and writer. His acting credits include Party of Five, Leaving Las Vegas, and SLC Punk. As a filmmaker, he achieved widespread recognition for his first major independent film, Illusion, starring Kirk Douglas. Other directing credits include the Louise Hay documentary, You Can Heal Your Life, Wayne Dyer’s l’m The Shift, and the Hay House film anthology, Tales of Everyday Magic. Michael lives in Oakland, California.

Two Voices Salon w/ Chris Andrews on César Aira
2016-12-08 18:00 - 20:00 | Center for the Art of Translation office, 582 Market St #700, San Francisco, CA, 94104, United States
Chris Andrews joins us to talk about his newest translation, Ema, the Captive, from the prolific Argentine writer César Aira.
More event details to come.
Chris Andrews is a translator and professor at the University of Western Sydney, Australia. He has translated numerous books by César Aira and Chilean writer Roberto Bolaño, as well as a critical study of poetry and science and a collection of poems.
César Aira is an Argentine author and translator who has written more than 80 novels and translated and edited works from multiple languages. Aira also writes regularly for the Spanish newspaper El País. In 1996 he received a Guggenheim scholarship, and was a finalist for the 2015 Man Booker International Prize.
Snacks and beverages provided, please join us for the final Salon of 2016!

Resistance, Radio Heart
2016-12-08 19:00 - 21:00 | Kearny Street Workshop, 1246 Folsom St, San Francisco , CA, 94103, United States
MC: PAUL OCAMPO, KSW Board Member
party
to gather artists, activists, citizens of the bay area, in resistance and solidarity. we will dance, drink, and poetry.
chapbook launch
to celebrate the publication of radio heart; or, how robots fall out of love (finishing line press, 2016) by margaret rhee.

many of these poems were written with the guidance of truong tran and kearny street workshop. we want to take time to honor where the poetry emerged from, we write together, and not alone.
featuring
DEBBIE YEE
VIRGIE TOVAR
SEAN Y MANZANO
MARIA FIANI
DANIEL REDMAN
ISELA FORD with
MARGARET RHEE
award ceremony
to honor artist and poet TRUONG TRAN for years of service, mentorship, and friendship to writers and artists of color in the bay area. to celebrate and express our gratitude for his indomitable, gorgeous radical spirit fighting for what is fair and good.
this award will be given by CAPRE (Concerned Artists and Poets for Racial Equity) in light of the post-elections, and the need for resistance.
we will celebrate truong with testimonials of his mentorship and impact of his art and poetry, we also invite attendees to share their words of resistance in the space.
ALSO,
on display, speciality books by graphic design firm THE MYSTERY PARADE: themysterparade.com
CAKE – DRINKS – PRETTY THINGS
BIOS:
Isela Ford, born in Mexico and later emigrated to San Francisco, in the mid-seventies, is committed to improving the lives of marginalized peoples and creating opportunities for their voices to be heard. Growing up in the Mission District during the 1970’s and 1980’s set the foundation for learning, growing, and appreciating people and cultures from all walks of life. Her appreciation and committment uplifting disenfranchised people, particularly people of color, led her to work for the SF Department of Public Health, specifically working with adults in SF jails for over 15 years.
Maria is a Ph.D. candidate in Ethnic Studies and Critical Theory at UC Berkeley. Her academic work focuses on P.T.S.D., moral injury, and suicide; in addition to her academic life, she is an ARC fellow, a YBCA arts fellow, co-founder of the Life Writing Student and New Scholar Network and co-founder of an art collective titled (Un)Forbidden: a Valediction
Paul was born in the Philippines and immigrated to the US at eleven years old. He earned a Master’s degree in Asian American Studies at UCLA and MFA in creative writing at ASU. He has been published in anthologies and magazines including Veterans of War, Veterans of Peace and The New Engagement. He currently works at Asian Americans Advancing Justice-Asian Law Caucus.
Virgie Tovar travels around the world lecturing on the social effects of fat discrimination and diet culture. She is the founder of Babecamp, a 4 week online course designed for women who want to break up with diet culture but don’t know how. She started thr hashtag campaign #LoseHateNotWeight. Tovar has been featured by the New York Times, Tech Insider, Al Jazeera and NPR.

West Marin Review Launch party
2016-12-08 19:30 - 21:30 | Green Apple Books on the Park, 1231 9th Ave, San Francisco , CA, 94122, United States
Join us for an informal evening featuring authors and artists reading from and talking about their work published in the new West Marin Review, Volume 7. This award-winning literary and arts journal features prose, poetry, and art selected from contributors from across the nation, but the focus this night is on local writers and artists, several from San Francisco. West Marin Review is published by Point Reyes Books in collaboration with a group of professional artists, writers, and editors from West Marin.

Celebrating the Holidays w/ Poetry + Jazz
2016-12-09 19:00 - 21:00 | The Beat Museum, 540 Broadway, San Francisco , CA, 94133, United States
Ring in the holidays with a swingin’ evening of poetry and jazz, featuring:

Charles Curtis Blackwell
Jazz Poet Extraordinaire
Lucho
Cubano Saxophonist

…and a lineup of poets and musicians from both sides of the Bay.

Susan Isa Efros
2016-12-09 19:00 - 21:00 | Book Passage Marin, 51 Tamal Vista Blvd. , Corte Madera, CA, 94925, United States
Girls Gone Astray is a collection of short and shorter stories about women in their teens to eighties who venture off the traditional path to discover unexpected and potent truths about themselves. A high school student falls in love with her best girlfriend and promises not to tell anyone; a wealthy elderly woman with dementia goes for a drive with a homeless man; a psychic gets locked out of her office and with the help of her spirit guide talks her way back inside; a teenager idolizes her uncle until she finds out who he really is; a woman writer unaware that she has only twenty minutes to live is obsessed with getting a cup of coffee. These and other smart, provocative, humorous and emotionally charged stories will surprise and delight you.
Susan Isa Efros‘ work has appeared in Amelia, Ascent, Christopher Street, the Feminist Art Journal, Narrative Magazine, the Patterson Literary Review, Paris Transcontinental, Yellow Silk and is forthcoming in Juked. She is a frequent contributor to the San Francisco Chronicle and the Funny Times. She is the author of Walking Vanilla, a novel, and the editor of This Is Women’s Work, an anthology. Susan was awarded a Marin Arts Council Individual Writers Grant in 2003 for her short fiction, “The Ozzie and Harriet Factor.” She lives in Marin County with Jerilyn Gilbert, her partner of 30 years.

Book Release II: Dear Animal, MK Chavez
2016-12-10 19:00 - 21:00 | Chapter 510 & the Dept. of Make Believe, 2301 Telegraph Ave, Oakland, CA, 94612, United States
If you couldn’t make the first release at Studio Grand, please join us at our soon-to-be-additional-home at 2301 Telegraph Avenue with our dear friends and community partners, Chapter 510 & the Dept. of Make Believe, for the second release of Mk Chavez‘ much-anticipated full-length poetry collection, Dear Animal,. Readings by Tongo Eisen-Martin, Arisa White, Nick Johnson, Paul Corman-Roberts, Cyrus Armajani, Ingrid Keir, and of course,Mk Chavez. Music by James Meder. Book signing to follow.
Gnosh, wine, beer, and books—it’ll be another great night in a beautiful space!
Donations will be called for throughout the night, but no one will be turned away for lack of funds.
Hope to see you there!

Dillon, Hart, + Hannibal
2016-12-10 19:00 - 21:00 | Alley Cat Books, 3036 24th St, San Francisco, CA, 94110, United States
Join us for a reading from poets Russell Dillon, Matt Hart, and Shauna Hannibal hosted by Jason Morris
