Howell, Millar, + Laux
2017-07-30 15:00 - 16:00 UTC | DIESEL, A Bookstore, 5433 College Ave, Oakland, CA, 94618, United States
DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland hosts another installment of Poetry Flash on Sunday, July 30th at 3pm. The featured guest poets will be Christopher Howell, Joseph Millar and Dorianne Laux.
Christopher Howell’s new book of poems is Love’s Last Number. Laura Kasischke says, “In these gemlike meditations on love and time and the human condition—and so much more—Christopher Howell’s vision is nearly mystical, his music almost entirely uncanny…There is a distance in this tone that is all about clarity, and a proximity that is all about intimacy, humility.” He has published ten collections, most recently Gaze and Dreamless and Possible, a volume of new and selected poems. His honors include two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, two Washington State Book Awards, and three Pushcart Prizes.
Joseph Millar’s new book of poems is Kingdom. Marie Howe says, “If this is a kingdom then Joe Millar may be one of the kings. He’s lived enough to be both man and woman now, and he’s learned to sing so sweet a song it might be rising from the broken branches and the bones of the lost horses, or the desert stars, or the scars of the middleweight boxers who finally went home.” He’s published three previous books of poems, most recently Blue Rust, and he’s won fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts.
Joseph Millar and Dorianne Laux will be reading from their new chapbook of poems about music, Duet, as well as from their own books.
Dorianne Laux’s fifth book of poems is The Book of Men, winner of the Paterson Prize. Alan Shapiro says, “The Book of Men could just as easily have been called The Book of Empathy, or The Book of Negative Capability, or The Book of Intimate Awareness of Who We Are and How We Got To Be This Way. Whether she is writing about men or women, the powerful or the powerless, the present day or the past, Laux observes, evokes and meditates with profound compassion and understanding for the delicate complexities of the human heart.” Her previous collections are Awake, What We Carry, finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, Smoke, and Facts About the Moon, which won the Oregon Book Award. Among her other honors are a Pushcart Prize, two appearances in Best American Poetry, two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.

Bona Fide Storytelling
2017-07-30 19:00 - 22:00 UTC | StageWerx, 466 Valencia Street, San Francisco, CA, 94103, United States
Bawdy Storytelling
Organizer of Bona Fide Storytelling (7/30, SF)

Organizer Facebook Profile BawdyStorytelling
Organizer Twitter Profile @Bawdy

Bawdy Storytelling (“The Moth for Pervs” – LA Weekly) is America’s Original Sex+Storytelling series featuring Real People & Rockstars sharing their bona fide sexual exploits, live onstage. This award-winning performance series is currently monthly in San Francisco and Los Angeles, & expanding to new cities every day. Storytellers are an eclectic mix of authors, sex educators, poets, comedians and actors – along with real people just like YOU who have submitted their stories online and were chosen for their panache and sense of (mis)adventure.
Wanna get Bawdy? Contact Dixie@BawdyStorytelling.com

Tim Taranto
2017-07-31 19:00 - 21:00 UTC | Green Apple Books, 506 Clement St, San Francisco , CA, 94118, United States
Please join Green Apple Books on Clement street Monday, July 31st at 7:00pm as we welcome Author Tim Taranto, reading from and discussing his book Ars Botanica.

Written as letters to his unborn child, Tim Taranto’s Ars Botanica describes the infinite pleasures of falling in love — the small discoveries of each other’s otherness, the crush of desire, the frightening closeness — and the terrifying impossibility of losing someone. Through examinations of the ways in which various cultures and religions carry grief, Taranto discovers the emotional instincts that shape his own mourning. He seeks solace in the natural elements of our world, divining meaning from the Iowa fields that stretch around him, the stones he collects, the plants he discovers on walks through the woods. His letters, then, are the honest wanderings of someone earnestly seeking meaning and belonging, ultimately resulting in a field guide for love, grief, and celebrating life. At times astonishingly personal and even painful, Ars Botanica is also playfully funny, a rich hybrid of memoir, poetry, and illustration that delightfully defies categorization.

Tim Taranto is a writer, visual artist, and poet from New York. His work has been featured in Buzzfeed, FSG’s Works in Progress, Harper’s, The Iowa Review, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, The Paris Review Daily, The Rumpus, and The Saint Ann’s Review. Tim is a graduate of Cornell University and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop.

Heather Bourbeau + James Tracy
2017-08-01 18:30 - 20:30 UTC | North Beach, SF Public Library, 850 Columbus Ave, San Francisco, CA, 94133, United States
Tuesdays at North Beach is a highly-respected weekly poetry series celebrating internationally acclaimed poets and showcasing local talent. Past guests have included Jonathan Richman, Diane di Prima, California Poet Laureate Al Young and freshly-discovered poets from our sister program, Poets 11.
The series is presented by Friends and curated by Friends’ Poet-in-Residence, Jack Hirschman.
Interested in reading? Please contact Friends’ Literary Director Byron Spooner at byron.spooner@friendssfpl.org or call (415) 522-8602.

Wayne + Rick's Big Castro Publication Party!
2017-08-01 19:00 - 20:00 UTC | Dog Eared Books Castro, 489 Castro Street, San Francisco , CA, 94114, United States
Wayne Goodman and Rick May celebrate the publication of their new books Tuesday, August 1, 7pm at Dog Eared Books Castro, with friends Lori Ostlund and Anne Raeff. Goodman’s new novel Better Angels is a retelling for modern readers of the first known American Gay novel, Joseph and His Friend by Bayard Taylor, which was published in 1869. May is celebrating the paperback edition of his short-story collection Inhuman Beings: Monsters, Myths, & Science Fiction. Ostlund reads from her novel After the Parade, and Raeff reads from her short-story collection The Jungle Around Us. Champagne and chocolates, party favors, and door prizes! Signing by all four authors follows the readings.

Rob Reid
2017-08-01 19:30 - 21:30 UTC | The Booksmith, 1644 Haight St, San Francisco , CA, 94117, United States
The Booksmith is excited to host Rob Reid as he discusses his new novel, Forever On. Join us!
Meet Phluttr—a diabolically addictive new social network and a villainess, heroine, enemy, and/or bestie to millions. Phluttr has ingested every fact and message ever sent to, from, or about her innumerable users. Her capabilities astound her makers—and they don’t even know the tenth of it.
But what’s the purpose of this stunning creation? Is it a front for something even darker and more powerful than the NSA? A bid to create a trillion-dollar market by becoming “The UberX of Sex”? Or a reckless experiment that could spawn the digital equivalent of a middle-school mean girl with enough charisma, dirt, and cunning to bend the entire planet to her will?
Phluttr has it in her to become the greatest gossip, flirt, or matchmaker in history. Or she could cure cancer, bring back Seinfeld, then start a nuclear war. Whatever she does, it’s not up to us. But a motley band of Silicon Valley entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and engineers might be able to influence her. Forever On achieves the literary singularity—fusing speculative satire and astonishing reality into a sharp-witted, ferociously believable, IMAX-wide view of our digital age.
Rob Reid is the founder of Listen.com, which launched the streaming music service Rhapsody, creating the subscription model since adopted by Apple and Spotify. He is the author of the New York Timesbestseller Year Zero, a work of fiction; Year One, a memoir about student life at Harvard Business School; and Architects of the Web, the first true business history of the Internet. He lives in New York City with his wife, Morgan, and Ashby the Dog.

Eugene Lim w/ Mauro Javier Cardenas
2017-08-01 19:30 - 21:30 UTC | Green Apple Books on the Park, 1231 9th Ave, San Francisco , CA, 94122, United States
Praise for Dear Cyborgs
“Eugene Lim’s Dear Cyborgs is a mad badass fan letter to comicdom and a chastening reminder of how America’s greatest fantasy doesn’t involve superheroes with superpowers but the prospect of a fair and honest political life. Go read it in the streets.” ―Joshua Cohen, author of Book of Numbers
“Eugene Lim’s Dear Cyborgs is a secret tunnel fresh with cool, strange storms. What is it to be super? What is it to be beyond? Dear Cyborgs is ripe with mysteries, heroes, even heartache.” ―Samantha Hunt, author of Mr. Splitfoot
“Eugene Lim tells his sly superhero tales in a kind of hard-boiled deadpan―a voice at once incongruously comic and playfully soulful. Beneath the dry wit there’s an ache of loneliness, an echo of every comic-book reader’s yearning for the camaraderie of the super team, the intimate enmity of the nemesis.” ―Peter Ho Davies, author of The Fortunes

About Dear Cyborgs
In a small Midwestern town, two Asian American boys bond over their outcast status and a mutual love of comic books. Meanwhile, in an alternative or perhaps future universe, a team of superheroes ponder modern society during their time off. Between black-ops missions and rescuing hostages, they swap stories of artistic malaise and muse on the seemingly inescapable grip of market economics.

Gleefully toying with the conventions of the novel, Dear Cyborgs weaves together the story of a friendship’s dissolution with a provocative and timely meditation on protest. Through a series of linked monologues, a lively cast of characters explores narratives of resistance―protest art, eco-terrorists, Occupy squatters, pyromaniacal militants―and the extent to which any of these can truly withstand and influence the cold demands of contemporary capitalism. All the while, a mysterious cybernetic book of clairvoyance beckons, and trusted allies start to disappear.

Entwining comic-book villains with cultural critiques, Eugene Lim’s Dear Cyborgs is a fleet-footed literary exploration of power, friendship, and creativity. Ambitious and knowing, it combines detective pulps, subversive philosophy, and Hollywood chase scenes, unfolding like the composites and revelations of a dream.

Kim Shuck
2017-08-02 19:30 - 21:30 UTC | Bird & Beckett Books and Records, 653 Chenery St, San Francisco , CA, 94131, United States
Kim Shuck has been selected as San Francisco’s seventh poet laureate, and will take the reins from Alejandro Murguia in early August. Her four published collections (three books and one chapbook) are, in order Smuggling Cherokee, Rabbit Stories (proses), Sidewalk Ndn and Clouds Running; she considers the chapbook Sidewalk Ndn her best collection so far.
Kim’s first publication was in a Canadian First Nations magazine The En’owken Journal. Her first reading organizing was for the Native American Cultural Center in SF, which Bird and Beckett is pleased to have supported by hosting some of the readings. Subsequently, she has received various awards and accolades and has done much teaching. Kim was on the board of directors for California Poets in the Schools in the early 2000s, received a Diane Decorah award, various mentor awards, a local hero award from KQED and a Mary Tall Mountain Award. She has been much nominated for a Pushcart, has co-edited two anthologies of poetry for PEN Oakland, has an infrequent online journal called Rabbit and Rose which doesn’t include her own work. She teaches poetry in a number of places including as a classroom volunteer in SF Unified and as unranked faculty at CCA. She has read her work LitQuake, Flor y Canto, Petaluma Poetry Walk, Beast Crawl, Watershed, the Beatnik Shindig and other major gatherings. Her work can be found in anthologies including The World is One Place (ed. Glancy and Rodriquez), Imaniman (ed. Silva and Vera), Red Indian Road West (ed. Schweigman and Day) and others forthcoming. She has also curated panels of Native poetry on permanent display on Alcatraz in commemoration of the occupations there.
We are pleased and proud to welcome Kim to Bird & Beckett for this reading at the outset of her two-year term as Poet Laureate of San Francisco.

Community Voices: Poets Speak George Higgins
2017-08-03 17:00 - 17:30 UTC | Museum of the African Diaspora, 685 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA, 94105, United States
Every Thursday at 5pm from June 29 – August 10, join us for Community Voices: Poets Speak at the Museum of the African Diaspora where Bay Area Cave Canem poets reflect on themes of our current exhibition. Now on view, The Ease of Fiction presents the work of four African artists living in the United States as the foundation of a critical discussion about history, fact and fiction. The readings and discussion of original work will take place in the gallery for a maximum of 30 minutes. The series culminates with a reception and an evening of poetry by the participating poets, along with Arisa White and James Cagney, on Thursday, August 17, 6:30-8pm. Free Admission.
Founded by Toi Derricotte and Cornelius Eady in 1996 to remedy the under-representation and isolation of African American poets in the literary landscape, Cave Canem Foundation is a home for the many voices of African American poetry and is committed to cultivating the artistic and professional growth of African American poets.
Community Voices: Poets Speak is curated by Arisa White, poet, writer & educator.
George Higgins
George Higgins is an Oakland poet and actor. His first book There, There was published by White Violet Press. His poems have appeared in Best American Poetry, Pleiades, Nimrod, Poetry Flash, Salamander and Fugue,among others. He has an MFA from Warren Wilson College where he was a Holden Fellow. A Cave Canem fellow and a Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop participant, he performs completely improvised one-act plays with the improv troupe the (i)ncidentalists in the Glenview district of Oakland.

Robert Moor
2017-08-03 19:00 - 21:00 UTC | Books Inc. Berkeley, 1491 Shattuck Ave, Berkeley , CA, 94710, United States
Award-winning journalist Robert Moor discusses his critically-acclaimed book, On Trails: An Exploration. Winner of the Pacific Northwest Book Award and named One of the Best Books of 2016 by The Boston Globe, The Seattle Times, Booklist, and more, On Trails is a wondrous exploration of how trails help us understand the world–from invisible ant trails to hiking paths that span continents, from interstate highways to the Internet.

Jack Micheline: Cockymoon Book Release
2017-08-04 19:00 - 21:00 UTC | The Beat Museum, 540 Broadway, San Francisco , CA, 94133, United States
Join The Beat Museum and Zeitgeist Press for the release of Cockymoon, the first new collection of poems by Jack Micheline in a decade, edited by SF poet William Taylor, Jr. This collection includes such Micheline favorites as “Rock Song,” “Zero is Nothing,” “Imaginary Conversation with Jack Kerouac,” and “Ballad of Benny Roads,” among others.
Jack Micheline was the greatest street poet of the 20th century, a memorable bardic balladeer celebrating the distress and divinity of urban Americans. original Beat poets, he was an innovative artist who was active in the San Francisco Poetry Renaissance of the 1950s and 1960s. To celebrate this poet, our night will include readings from Jack Hirschman, Bruce Isaacson, William Taylor Jr., Richard Loranger and surprise guests!

BAPC First Saturday Reading
2017-08-05 15:00 - 17:00 UTC | Strawberry Creek Lodge, 1320 Addison Street, Berkeley, CA, 94702, United States
Come and enjoy a friendly and informal read-around — 3-5 minutes per poet/reader, or “just listening” is fine too.

Present Minds, New Poetry
2017-08-05 18:00 - 20:00 UTC | Adobe Books, 3130 24th St., San Francisco, CA, 94110, United States
San Francisco musicians Sarah Elena Palmer and Jason Hoopes invite you to a reading of their original poetry and other creative writing on Saturday, August 5th, at Adobe Books in SF. Joining Sarah and Jason will be fellow bay area writers Nora Toomey, Alicia Franco, Colin Partch, and Brett Carson.
This evening marks a public reading debut for Sarah and Jason (reading as SEP and Rachtious Palmer respectively) as poets. SEP uses ethereal language to play out her inner controversies; irreverent and hallowing, she swings through her moods, seeking neutrality in her observations. Her rhythmic song-like delivery balances the more severe and confrontational style of Rachtious Palmer, who is concerned with stern angle, strict conservative imagery, quietly sharpened thought knives and a lean predatory hunt for relentless truth. Together with Toomey, Franco, Partch, and Carson, this evening of poetic spoken word promises electricity and blood, illumination, off-kilter snickers, and MUCH reprieve from the modern disease of homogonized communication.

Jonny Sun w/ Selena Larson
2017-08-05 18:00 - 20:00 UTC | The Booksmith, 1644 Haight St, San Francisco , CA, 94117, United States
Booksmith is out-of-this-world excited to welcome Weird Twitter celeb Jonny Sun for his first book, everyone’s a aliebn when ur a aliebn too. Joining him is Selena Larson.
Please note: due to popular demand this event, originally to be held at The Bindery, has been moved to Booksmith, 1644 Haight St. Seating is limited, and you can reserve a seat by pre-ordering the book. Standing, sitting, somewhere in between—however you wish, please join us!
An alien named jomny is dropped onto Earth by a space ship and given a task – “please find out about the earbth creatures …. humabns. Take ur time, realy take as much time as u need.” What ensues is not only a journey of exploration by a friendly alien introducing himself to anyone he meets, but it is also a window into the incredibly creative mind of Jonny Sun.
Jonathan Sun is the author behind @jonnysun. When he isn’t tweeting, he is an architect, designer, engineer, artist, playwright and comedy writer. His work across multiple disciplines is concerned with narratives of human experience. As a playwright, Jonathan’s work has been performed at the Yale School of Drama, Factory Theater in Toronto, Hart House Theater, Theater Lab in Toronto, and the University of Toronto Drama Festival (where he received the President’s Award for Best Production). As an artist and illustrator, his work has been commissioned by the New Haven ArtSpace, and exhibited at MIT, the Yale School of Architecture, and the University of Toronto. His comedic work has appeared in NPR, BuzzFeed, Playboy, GQ, and McSweeney’s. He is currently a doctoral student at MIT and a Berkman Klein Fellow at Harvard.
When not writing about tech, Selena Larson dabbles in fiction and tells jokes on Twitter. She is a reporter for CNNTech covering cybersecurity and tech policy.

Poetry Flash w/ Cassandra Dallett + Bruce Isaacson
2017-08-06 15:00 - 16:00 UTC | DIESEL, A Bookstore, 5433 College Ave, Oakland, CA, 94618, United States
DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland hosts another installment of Poetry Flash on Sunday, August 6th at 3pm. The featured guest poets will be Cassandra Dallett and Bruce Isaacson.
Poetry Flash readings are wheelchair accessible; ASL interpreters may be requested one week in advance from editor@poetryflash.org. Visit Poetryflash.orgfor more events and reviews!

Author Event: Sayantani Dasgupta
2017-08-06 15:00 - 17:00 UTC | Adobe Books, 3130 24th St., San Francisco, CA, 94110, United States
Born in Calcutta and raised in New Delhi, Sayantani Dasgupta teaches at the University of Idaho. Her writing has appeared in The Rumpus, Phoebe, and Gulf Stream, among other magazines and literary journals. She is the author of the chapbook The House of Nails: Memories of a New Delhi Childhood. She edits nonfiction for Crab Creek Review and previous honors include a Pushcart Prize Special Mention and a Centrum Fellowship.
In FIRE GIRL, her debut collection of essays, Sayantani examines her personal story against the complexities of India & America through Bollywood; Hindu mythology; South Asian religion, history, and politics; gender and feminism; and what it means to grow up in the crowded, cosmopolitan world of New Delhi versus the small, university town of the American West where she now lives and teaches.

Summer of Love Literary Soirée!
2017-08-06 16:00 - 18:00 UTC | Castro District Private Home (address sent to respondents)
A groovy gathering of the bookish tribe and the hip-squares who want to “get with it.” Includes a conversation with legendary hepcat music journalist Joel Selvin, bestselling author of several books about pop music, San Francisco history, and the Summer of Love. Proceeds to benefit Litquake festival 2017.

my gaze // yr gaze - queer film series curated by Irwin Swirnoff
2017-08-06 18:00 - 20:30 UTC | Alley Cat Books, 3036 24th St, San Francisco, CA, 94110, United States
This month’s film is “It’s Only The End of the World,” a film by Xavier Dolan, curated by our departing leader Jordan Gower. Don’t miss this extra-emotional showing! my gaze///yr gaze is curated by irwin swirnoff. it’s a queer film series that happens on the first sunday of the month at alley cat books in the mission in san francisco. the series is always free and believes in the importance of creating spaces for queer community and culture that isn’t about money or commerce.

Books & Brews: Hamilton Edition Race to Revolution!
2017-08-07 19:00 UTC | Bookshop Santa Cruz, 1520 Pacific Ave, Santa Cruz , CA, 95060, United States
Join Bookshop Santa Cruz at Lupulo for our Race to Revolution game, a new event for history buffs who love Hamilton! This literary revolution in downtown Santa Cruz will feature not only the finest hops– but we’ll also be bringing a selection of books based around fantastic founders of the United States, and test your knowledge about history in a fun game. The winning team in this Race To Revolution will get a swag bag, a Hamilton-themed prize, and bragging rights of historic proportions.
In the first days of our nation, the character of our country was hotly debated in pubs and breweries across the land, with those like Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Paine and many others using this unique community space as crucible for freedom and expression. And lest we forget, our many founding mothers like Abigail Adams and Phillis Wheatley wrote pamphlets, letters and poems that were read in such beer-soaked locales, adding to the great American experiment. In that spirit we invite you to join us for an evening celebrating the ideals this country was founded upon, and hopefully introduce you to a founder or two you maybe never knew.

Bright Heroines in Dark Times: A She Writes Mystery Tour
2017-08-07 19:00 - 20:30 UTC | Dog Eared Books Castro, 489 Castro Street, San Francisco , CA, 94114, United States
Five mystery writers with tough and original heroines discuss how and why they write crime and suspense. Why are so many women drawn to the mystery genre, as readers and writers, and what makes a great heroine?
Join Michelle Cox (A Ring of Truth), JL Doucette (Last Seen), Jennifer Dwight (The Tolling of Mercedes Bell), Judith Newton (Oink), and Kate Jessica Raphael (Murder Under the Bridge) for a lively and fun-filled discussion and book signing, plus refreshments

POETS! - featured readers to be announced followed by an open mic
2017-08-07 19:00 - 21:00 (America/Los_Angeles) | CA

Swan Huntley
2017-08-07 19:00 - 21:00 UTC | Book Passage Marin, 51 Tamal Vista Blvd. , Corte Madera, CA, 94925, United States
The Descendants meets Single White Female in this captivating novel about a woman who moves her family to Hawaii, only to find herself wrapped up in a dangerous friendship, from the celebrated author of We Could Be Beautiful.
When Nancy and her family arrive in Kona, Hawaii, they are desperate for a fresh start. Nancy’s husband has cheated on her; they sleep in separate bedrooms and their twin sons have been acting out, setting off illegal fireworks. But Hawaii is paradise: they plant an orange tree in the yard; they share a bed once again and Nancy resolves to make a happy life for herself. She starts taking a yoga class and there she meets Ana, the charismatic teacher. Ana has short, black hair, a warm smile, and a hard-won wisdom that resonates deeply within Nancy. They are soon spending all their time together, sharing dinners, relaxing in Ana’s hot tub, driving around Kona in the cute little car Ana helps Nancy buy. As Nancy grows closer and closer to Ana skipping family dinners and leaving the twins to their own devices she feels a happiness and understanding unlike anything she’s ever experienced, and she knows that she will do anything Ana asks of her. A mesmerizing story of friendship and manipulation set against the idyllic tropical world of the Big Island, The Goddesses is a stunning psychological novel by one of our most exciting young writers.
Swan Huntley is the author of We Could Be Beautiful. She earned her MFA from Columbia University and has received fellowships from the MacDowell Colony and the Ragdale Foundation. She lives in California and Hawaii.

Calligraphy Typewriters: The Selected Poems of Larry Eigner
2017-08-07 19:00 - 21:00 UTC | The Green Arcade, 1680 Market St, San Francisco , CA, 94102, United States
With Jennifer Bartlett, Norma Cole, Steve Dickison, Richard Eigner, Norman Fischer, Jack Foley, Kathleen Frumkin, Lyn Hejinian, Stephen Ratcliffe, Kit Robinson
Join us for a celebration of Larry Eigner’s Selected Poems on what would be his 90th birthday.
Larry Eigner (August 7, 1927, Swampscott, MA – February 3, 1996, Berkeley, CA) began writing poetry at age eight and was first published at age nine. Revered by poets and artists across a broad spectrum of generations and schools, Eigner’s remarkably moving poetry was created through enormous effort: because of severe physical disabilities, he produced his texts by typing with only one index finger and thumb on a 1940 Royal manual typewriter, creating a body of work that is unparalleled in its originality.

Donnelle McGee + Vincent Meis - POETS! - Featured Readers Followed by an Open Mic
2017-08-07 19:00 - 21:00 UTC | Bird & Beckett Books and Records, 653 Chenery St, San Francisco , CA, 94131, United States
Donnelle McGee reads recent poems and other work. Vincent Meis reads from his novel, Deluge (Fallen Bros. Press, 2016).

Janelle Brown
2017-08-07 19:30 - 20:30 UTC | Kepler’s Books, 1010 El Camino Real, Menlo Park , CA, 94025, United States
Who do you want people to think you are?
Bay Area-native Janelle Brown celebrates the release of her propulsive new novel, Watch Me Disappear.
A year after Billie Flannigan a Berkeley mom with an enviable life goes missing on a hike, the husband and daughter she leaves behind struggle to maintain the illusion of normal life. Meanwhile, alcohol and depression, and loose ends that just don’t make sense erode the foundations of the life they once had.
Brown, the bestselling author of All We Ever Wanted and This is Where We Live, does it again with a heart-stopping new novel that will leave you breathless.
With by-lines in nationally syndicated magazines across the country including Vogue, Elle, Wired, and Self, Brown is an unstoppable force. Her work has been lauded by The San Francisco Chronicle, the Los Angeles Times, and more. Join us as we toast one of the Bay Area’s own on the release of her explosive new book!

Justin McFarr
2017-08-07 19:30 - 21:30 UTC | Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Ave, Berkeley, CA, 94704, United States
Moe’s welcomes first time novelist Justin McFarr as we help him launch The Bear Who Broke the World.
Justin McFarr grew up in the Bay Area during the 70’s and 80’s as a latchkey kid. He is a proud graduate of both UCLA and the MPW program at USC, and has attended the New York State Summer Writers Institute at Skidmore College and the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley. His short stories have been published in numerous magazines and online journals, and will be collected in the forthcoming Controlled Chaos: Stories from Wheeler Street Press. He currently lives in Los Angeles with his family. The Bear Who Broke The World is his first novel.
About The Bear Who Broke the World:
1976. Berkeley, California. 11-year-old Daedalus Stephen O’Neill and his 6-year-old brother Demian spend the Bicentennial summer struggling to find normalcy and refuge from the dangerous indifference of the adults that surround them. With an impetuous mother, an unpredictable boyfriend, and a menacing neighbor to protect themselves against, the brothers are forced to navigate their own way through an unrestrained world of drugs, alcohol, and sexual activity.

Augustus Rose
2017-08-07 19:30 - 21:30 UTC | Green Apple Books on the Park, 1231 9th Ave, San Francisco , CA, 94122, United States
Augustus Rose discusses his new novel, The Readymade Thief with Robin Sloan.

Praise for The Readymade Thief
“In his highly addictive and multi-faceted first novel, Augustus Rose pits an irrepressible and gritty young heroine against a sinister group of fanatics. The Readymade Thief is a kickass debut from start to finish.”—Colson Whitehead, author of The Underground Railroad

“The Readymade Thief is my favorite kind of book: an improbable one. The novel is a map of things—urban exploration, secret societies, the city of Philadelphia, Marcel Duchamp, very possibly the Home Alone movies—and if those things don’t seem to fit together, well, that’s the magic of the improbable book, and the transmutation of obsessions, by energy and intellect, into something wholly new: a novel that’s unexpected, uncategorizable, unputdownable.”—Robin Sloan, author of Mr. Penumbra’s 24-Hour Bookstore

“The Readymade Thief is a brilliant, suspenseful, and cinematic novel with an unforgettable heroine and a big story about art, the nature of consciousness, and all points in between. Be prepared to lose yourself in it.”—Edan Lepucki, author of California and Woman No. 17

About The Readymade Thief
Lee Cuddy is seventeen years old and on the run, alone on the streets of Philadelphia.
After taking the fall for a rich friend, Lee reluctantly accepts refuge in the Crystal Castle—a cooperative of homeless kids squatting in an austere, derelict building. But homeless kids are disappearing from the streets in suspicious numbers, and Lee quickly discovers that the secret society’s charitable façade is too good to be true. She finds an unexpected ally in Tomi, a young artist and hacker whose knowledge of the Internet’s black market is rivaled only by his ability to break into and out of buildings. From abandoned aquariums to highly patrolled museums to the homes of vacationing Philadelphians, Tomi and Lee can always chart a way to the next, perfect hide-out.
But the harder Lee tries to escape into the unmapped corners of the city, the closer she unwittingly gets to uncovering the disturbing agenda of the very men who pull the strings of the secret society she’s hoped to elude, a group of fanatics obsessed with the secrets encoded in the work of early-twentieth-century artist Marcel Duchamp. What these men want is more twisted than anything Lee could’ve imagined, and they believe Lee holds the key to it all.
The Readymade Thief heralds the arrival of an astoundingly imaginative and propulsive new voice in fiction for fans of Marisha Pessl and Ernest Cline.

Lunada Literary Lounge Fall Season Opener
2017-08-07 19:30 - 21:30 UTC | Galería de la Raza, 2857 24th Street, San Francisco , CA, 94110, United States
LUNADA Literary Lounge – Fall Season Opener
Spoken Word * Música * Open Mic
Monday, August 7, 2017 | 7:30 pm
Featuring Chris Abani, Denise Chavez, & special guests. Open Mic sign-up 7:00pm.
Please arrive early, anticipating a full house.
At Lunada’s Fall Season Opener we swing the gate wide with a fierce and resounding bang, featuring a special evening of visiting writers and faculty of the Las Dos Brujas Writers Workshops. Nigerian novelist, poet, essayist, screenwriter and playwright Chris Abani, will join leading Chicana playwright and novelist Denise Chavez, in exchange with additional local luminaries from around the Bay, to celebrate the celestial phenomena and 17 year lunar literary tradition we represent.
OPEN MIC sign-up starts at 7:00pm: 8 spots on the list, 5 min. ea., inviting poets, storytellers, emcees, musicians, laureates and first-timers to share their voices under the lunar spotlight.
Host & Curator: Sandra García Rivera
$5.00 Admission: Please arrive early, in anticipation of a full house.
GALERIA DE LA RAZA
2857 24th Street, at Bryant
SF, CA 94110
LUNADA is the Bay Area’s only full moon bilingual literary ritual & performance gathering devoted to spoken word, música, song, and story. Located in the heart of the Mission District at Galería de la Raza, and guest curated by some of the Bay Area’s most dynamic word slingers and artists, each LUNADA features community poets, local legends, visiting mystics, and other mero meros of the stage. Voted Best Literary Night of 2016 by the SF Bay Guardian.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS

Chris Abani is a novelist, poet, essayist, screenwriter and playwright. Born in Nigeria to an Igbo father and English mother, he grew up in Afikpo, Nigeria, received a BA in English from Imo State University, Nigeria, an MA in English, Gender and Culture from Birkbeck College, University of London and a PhD in Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Southern California. He has resided in the United States since 2001. He is the recipient of the PEN USA Freedom-to-Write Award, the Prince Claus Award, a Lannan Literary Fellowship, a California Book Award, a Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, a PEN Beyond the Margins Award, the PEN Hemingway Book Prize and a Guggenheim Award. Through his TED Talks, public speaking and essays Abani is known as an international voice on humanitarianism, art, ethics, and our shared political responsibility. His critical and personal essays have been featured in books on art and photography, as well as Witness, Parkett, The New York Times, O Magazine, and Bomb.
Denise Chávez is a leading Chicana playwright and novelist who comes out of the Southwest United States. Chávez has been honored with many awards for her literary contribution in Chicana writing. New Mexico State University awarded her play “The Wait” with Best Play. In 1995, she received the New Mexico Governor’s Award in literature and the El Paso Herald Post Writers of the Pass distinction. This same year she was awarded with the Premio Aztlan Award, American Book Award, and Mesilla Valley Writer of the Year Award, all for her work of Face of an Angel. She is also a founding member of the National Institute of Chicana Writers. Chávez focuses her writing in the Southwest, “in heat and dust” where she claims “love is as real as the land.” From here, she draws inspiration for her characters that reflect the love that “is as real as the land.” She has written over of 21 plays, novels, and a children’s book. Chávez is also represented in anthologies including An Anthology: The Indian Rio Grande, Voices: An Anthology of Nuevo Mexicanos Writers, An Anthology of Southwestern Literature, as well as many others.

Poetic Tuesdays with Litquake & Yerba Buena Gardens Festival
2017-08-08 12:30 - 13:30 UTC | Jessie Square, 736 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA, 94103, United States
Yerba Buena Gardens Festival presents Poetic Tuesdays on the second Tuesday of each month at Jessie Square next to the Contemporary Jewish Museum. Guest curated by Litquake’s Brynn Saito, Poetic Tuesdays run from 12:30pm-1:30pm and feature poets and music.

Heather Harpham: Happiness
2017-08-08 18:00 UTC | Book Passage San Francisco, 1 Ferry Building, San Francisco, CA, 94111, United States
Happiness begins with a charming courtship between hopelessly attracted opposites: Heather, a world-roaming California girl, and Brian, an intellectual, homebody writer, kind and slyly funny, but loath to leave his Upper West Side studio. Their magical interlude ends, full stop, when Heather becomes pregnant—Brian is sure he loves her, only he doesn’t want kids. Heather returns to California to deliver their daughter alone, buoyed by family and friends. Mere hours after Gracie’s arrival, Heather’s bliss is interrupted when a nurse wakes her, “Get dressed, your baby is in trouble.”
This is not how Heather had imagined new motherhood – alone, heartsick, an unexpectedly solo caretaker of a baby who smelled “like sliced apples and salted pretzels” but might be perilously ill. Brian reappears as Gracie’s condition grows dire; together Heather and Brian have to decide what they are willing to risk to ensure their girl sees adulthood.
The grace and humor that ripple through Heather Harpham’s writing transform the dross of heartbreak and parental fears into a clear-eyed, warm-hearted view of the world. Profoundly moving and subtly written, Happiness radiates in many directions–new, romantic love; gratitude for a beautiful, inscrutable world; deep, abiding friendship; the passion a parent has for a child; and the many unlikely ways to build a family. Ultimately it’s a story about love and happiness, in their many crooked configurations.
Heather Harpham has written six solo plays, including BURNING which toured nationally. Her fiction, essays and reviews have appeared in MORE Magazine and Water~Stone Review. Harpham is the recipient of the Brenda Ueland Prose Prize, a Marin Arts Council Independent Artist Grant and a grant from the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund. She teaches at Sarah Lawrence College and SUNY Purchase and lives along the Hudson River with her family.
