Litseen

Bazaar Writers Salon
2019-05-05 18:00 - 20:00 UTC | Bazaar Cafe, 5927 California St, San Francisco, CA, 94121, United States
Readings by Heather June Gibbons, Richie Hofmann, Kim Shuck, and Rose Whitmore
Hosted by Peter Kline
Heather June Gibbons is the author of the poetry collection Her Mouth as Souvenir, winner of the 2017 Agha Shahid Ali Poetry Prize from the University of Utah Press, as well as two chapbooks, Sore Songs and Flyover. Her poems have appeared widely in literary journals, including Blackbird, Boston Review, Gulf Coast, Indiana Review, jubilat, New American Writing, and West Branch. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, she has been the recipient of fellowships and awards from the Vermont Studio Center, Academy of American Poets and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. She teaches creative writing at San Francisco State University and elsewhere in the Bay Area community.
Richie Hofmann is the recipient of a Ruth Lilly Fellowship and a Pushcart Prize, and his poems appear in The New Yorker, Poetry, Ploughshares, The New York Times Style Magazine, and many other magazines. His debut poetry collection is Second Empire (Alice James Books, 2015), winner of the Beatrice Hawley Award. He is currently a Stegner Fellow in Poetry at Stanford University.
Kim Shuck is a silly protein. She is author of four books with a fifth coming out later this year from City Lights. Shuck is the current poet laureate of San Francisco.
Rose Whitmore’s stories have appeared in the Alaska Quarterly Review, Mid-American Review, and The Missouri Review. Her essays have appeared in The Sun, The Iowa Review, The Colorado Review and Fourth Genre. She is the recipient of the Peden Prize from The Missouri Review, a work-study scholarship from the Breadloaf Writer’s Conference, and is currently a Wallace Stegner Fellow in Fiction. Rose lives in San Leandro with her chickens, where she is working on a novel about weightlifting and Enver Hoxa’s communist regime in post-World War II Albania.

Joseph Noble & Todd Melicker reading
2019-05-05 14:00 - 16:00 | Bird & Beckett Books and Records, 653 Chenery St, San Francisco , CA, 94131, United States
Sun, May 5, 2:00pm – 3:45pm
Todd Melicker and Joseph Noble read from their new books, is this the body/if hovers, and Within Hearing.

Wild Geese Sorrow
2019-05-05 13:00 - 14:00 | North Beach Library, 850 Columbus Ave., San Francisco
Join poet and writer Jeffrey Thomas Leong as he takes us through the hidden history of the Chinese wall inscriptions at Angel Island. Drawing from his recent published works, Wild Geese Sorrow: The Chinese Wall Inscriptions at Angel Island and Writ, Jeff will give us a glimpse at this dark, yet relevant periods of the Chinese American experience.
Jeffrey Thomas Leong is a poet and writer, born in Southern California and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. For over two decades, he worked as a public health administrator and attorney for the City of San Francisco. While earning his MFA in Writing at the Vermont College of Fine Arts, he began a project to translate anew the Chinese wall poems found at the Angel Island Immigration Station. These translations became the book Wild Geese Sorrow: The Chinese Wall Inscriptions at Angel Island published by Calypso Editions in 2018. His new book Writ, consisting of original poems also about the Angel Island detainee experience, will be published by Eastwind Books of Berkeley in March 2019.

Ian McEwan Machines Like Me
2019-05-04 19:30 - 21:30 | Sydney Goldstein Theater, 275 Hayes St, San Francisco, CA, 94102, United States
Ian McEwan is the author of Enduring Love (1997), Amsterdam (1998; Booker Prize), Atonement (2001), Saturday (2005), The Children Act (2014), and others. Twelve movies have been made from his novels and short stories, five of them with screenplays by McEwan.

Ian McEwan’s Homepage
Ian McEwan’s Wikipedia page

In his new novel, Machines Like Me, Ian McEwan uses science fiction and counter-factual history to speculate about the coming of artificial intelligence and its effect on human relations. The opening page introduces a pivotal character, “Sir Alan Turing, war hero and presiding genius of the digital age.”
The evening with McEwan will feature conversation with Stewart Brand, based on written questions from the audience, along with some readings.
Ian McEwan is the author of Enduring Love (1997), Amsterdam (1998; Booker Prize), Atonement (2001), Saturday (2005), The Children Act (2014), and others. Twelve movies have been made from his novels and short stories, five of them with screenplays by McEwan.
Stewart Brand is co-founder and president of The Long Now Foundation and co-founder of Global Business Network. He created and edited the Whole Earth Catalog (National Book Award), and co-founded the Hackers Conference and The WELL. His books include The Clock of The Long Nowand Whole Earth Discipline.
Long Now’s Seminars are curated and hosted by Stewart Brand. These monthly talks were started in 02003 to build a compelling body of ideas about long-term thinking. To follow the series, you can watch the videos online, share the highlights and subscribe to our podcasts.

Dmitry Samarov: A Talk, a Slide-show
2019-05-04 19:00 - 21:00 | The Green Arcade, 1680 Market St, San Francisco , CA, 94102, United States
Dmitry Samarov: A Talk, a Slide-show
Introduced by Ben Terrall, publisher of the cult ‘zine
Namaste Motherfu**er

Author and artist Dmitry Samarov talks about and shows slides of art from his new book Music to My Eyes. Samarov has written for The Chicago Tribune, The Chicago Reader, and more; in Music to My Eyes he turns his eye and pen towards the musical stage, sketching and describing a host of independent musicians he’s seen, crossed paths with, offered sofa space to, and taken out to breakfast over the course of the past few decades. From well-known names like Nick Cave and Mission of Burma to lesser-known greats like Bill MacKay and Condo Fucks, Samarov draws haunting portraits of artistry at the fringes of (and off the edges of) the mainstream, while also offering poignant and memorable essays not only about their work, but about musicianship and art, creativity and commerce—the perils of selling out, and the dangers of never doing so, and above all else, the thrill of creating something new. A love song and a lifer’s lament, Music to My Eyes is an exquisite tribute to the trials and triumphs of independent music.
Dmitry Samarov was born in Moscow, USSR in 1970. He immigrated to the US with his family in 1978. He got in trouble in first grade for doodling on his Lenin Red Star pin and hasn’t stopped doodling since.
He has exhibited his work in all manner of bars, coffeeshops, libraries, and even the odd gallery (when he’s really hard up). He paints and writes in Chicago, Illinois. He is the author of Where To: A Hack Memoir.

Nomadic Press showcase
2019-05-04 19:00 - 21:00 | Nomadic Press: Uptown, 2301 Telegraph Ave., Oakland, CA, 94612, United States
Nomadic Press showcases four writers and a musician, every first Saturday of the month, at their new space at the Oakland Peace Center, red wine and coffee, Nomadic Press, 111 Fairmount Avenue, Oakland, $10-$15, no one turned away for lack of funds, 7:00 (www.facebook.com/pg/NomadicPress/events)

EVENT PAGE

Music to my Eyes - Stories, Music and Art From a Chicago Cabbie
2019-05-04 19:00 - 20:30 | The Green Arcade, 1680 Market St, San Francisco , CA, 94102, United States
Author and artist Dmitry Samarov talks about and shows slides of art from his new book Music to My Eyes. Samarov has written for The Chicago Tribune, The Chicago Reader, and more; in Music to My Eyes he turns his eye and pen towards the musical stage, sketching and describing a host of independent musicians he’s seen, crossed paths with, offered sofa space to, and taken out to breakfast over the course of the past few decades. From well-known names like Nick Cave and Mission of Burma to lesser-known greats like Bill MacKay and Condo Fucks, Samarov draws haunting portraits of artistry at the fringes of (and off the edges of) the mainstream, while also offering poignant and memorable essays not only about their work, but about musicianship and art, creativity and commerce—the perils of selling out, and the dangers of never doing so, and above all else, the thrill of creating something new. A love song and a lifer’s lament, Music to My Eyes is an exquisite tribute to the trials and triumphs of independent music.
Dmitry Samarov was born in Moscow, USSR in 1970. He immigrated to the US with his family in 1978. He got in trouble in first grade for doodling on his Lenin Red Star pin and hasn’t stopped doodling since.
He has exhibited his work in all manner of bars, coffeeshops, libraries, and even the odd gallery (when he’s really hard up). He paints and writes in Chicago, Illinois. He is the author of Where To: A Hack Memoir.

BAPC OPEN POETRY READING
2019-05-04 15:00 - 17:00 | Strawberry Creek Lodge, 1320 Addison Street, Berkeley, CA, 94702, United States
Upcoming First Saturday Readings in 2019:

May 4, June 1

3:00 – 5:00 PM

STRAWBERRY CREEK LODGE
1320 Addison St., Berkeley, CA

Addison is one block south of and parallel to University Ave.
between Acton & Bonar St.
Parking on the street (NOT in the S.C.L. parking lot)

Check in at the front desk and you will be directed to the meeting location
(usually Movie Room, or backyard garden)

All Ages Welcome

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

Bay Area Book Festival
2019-05-04 10:00 - 2019-05-05 19:00 | Martin Luther King Jr. Civic Center Park, 2151 Martin Luther King Jr Way, Berkeley, 94704
May 4-5, 2019, 10am – 7pm both days
Get ready to come face-to-face with 250+ amazing authors at the 5th Anniversary Bay Area Book Festival, the most dynamic ever!
The Festival will fill downtown Berkeley with a literary extravaganza that offers pleasure to anyone who has ever loved a book.
Meet national book award winners, NY Times top 10 authors, international writers, YA and children’s book legends, and a diverse cross-section of the of what the literary world has to offer.
Keynote speakers include Anand Giridharadas (“Winners Take All”) in conversation with Robert Reich, moderated by Kat Taylor. In addition to a wide breadth of programming, explore tracks diving into immigration, modern slavery, motherhood, the environment, and prison reform.
The free outdoor fair features booksellers and independent authors, reading lounges, fine local eats, free books, and entertainment for all ages.
#baybookfest #baybookfest2019 @baybookfest
Free to $15.
Presented by Bay Area Book Festival.

Bronze Age Greece: Mycenaeans & the Origins of Western Civilization
2019-05-03 19:30 - 2019-05-04 16:00 | Marines’ Memorial Theatre, 609 Sutter Street, San Francisco, 94102
May 3, 7:30-9:30pm, and May 4, 10am-4pm
Humanities West brings together a panel of noted scholars to present talks uncovering the Mycenaean story, from ancient tales to the latest archaeological finds, in an effort to deepen our understanding of the roots of Western Civilization.
When the Bronze Age collapsed, all signs of state-level society disappeared from Greece, and Mycenaeans disappeared from history. Yet, their oral tales remained, composed half a millennium later by Homer into the Iliad and the Odyssey. Most scholars came to assume the Homeric tales and even the society they described largely were fiction. Then a few 19th-century amateur archaeologists took those tales seriously and brought these brilliant predecessors of the ancient Greeks back from obscurity.
The program opens with an illustrated talk exploring the great tales of the Iliad and Odyssey, along with other Mycenaean-derived myths that provided a look into this ancient society long before 19-century archaeologist would prove its existence. The Friday program includes a special lecture-performance-demonstration of Mycenaean literature, music, and performance culture.
On Saturday, presentations delve further into Bronze Age Myth discussing how the Mycenaean legends and stories have become accepted as reality, as science rises to claim authority away from literature through the archaeological findings. Finds from new excavations, including the discovery of the grave of the so-called “Griffin Warrior,” shed light on early Mycenaean culture and suggest that the myths and legends of the Homeric poems were already in circulation at the dawn of the Mycenaean civilization.
The program explores what life was like at a Mycenaean palatial center, highlighting the everyday experiences of a bustling world with monumental architecture, large-scale craft production, and religious ritual, and provides a growing picture of a trans-Mycenaean society in the north Aegean.
$25-$80.
Presented by Humanities West.

Studio One Reading Series featuring Terry Taplin, William "Endlesswill" Davis, and Caroline O'Connor Thomas!
2019-05-03 19:30 - 21:30 | Studio One Arts Center, 365 45th Street, Oakland, CA, 94609, United States
Friday, May 3rd, featuring Terry Taplin, William “Endlesswill” Davis, and Caroline O’Connor Thomas!
Please join us on Friday, May 3rd from 7:30-9:30 pm for a reading featuring Terry Taplin, William “Endlesswill” Davis,
and Caroline O’Connor Thomas!
*****
author bios & photos below.
All of our readings are free & open to the public.
Snacks, wine & Lagunitas beer will be served.
365 45th Street | Oakland | 94609
Here’s a map.
+ a huge thank you to our generous sponsors!
Lagunitas Brewing Company
Clorox Company Foundation
Oakland Parks and Recreation Foundation
*****
Terry Taplin is the inaugural Lambda Literary Fellow at Saint Mary’s College. Terry serves as Poetry Editor for MARY: A Journal for New Writing, Co-Editor of Baest, and is the Social Media Manager at speCt! books. He holds a BA in Classical Languages: Greek and Latin. He is a former slam champion and the recipient of the Ina Coolbrith Prize for Undergraduate Poetry (academic year 2014-15). Terry’s work has appeared in PARADISE NOW and Baest: A Journal of Queer Forms and Affects. He is the author of fragmenta (Marigold 2016), and has a chapbook forthcoming from Nion Editions.
William “Endlesswill” Davis, 2016-2018 poet laureate of Hillsborough, NC, and author of Broken Perception and Falling Apples, is a spoken word artist who is dedicated to continuing the tradition of poetry in living form. Ambitious in his craft and performance, Endlesswill offers audiences unforgettable performances that evoke thoughtfulness, introspection, and connection as a community. William is a publisher, graphic design artist, basketball coach, and radio host, and manages to juggle all of that under the umbrella of being a father and a husband.
Caroline O’Connor Thomas is a writer who lives in Oakland, California. Her poetry has appeared in 580 Split, Tin House, Sixth Finch and others. She is the author of the chapbook Unusual Light Source (White Stag, 2018) and a graduate of the MFA program at St. Mary’s College of California. https://carolineoconnorthomas.com
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Bronze Age Greece: Mycenaeans & the Origins of Western Civilization
2019-05-03 19:30 - 21:30 | Marine’s Memorial Theater, 609 Sutter Street, San Francisco, 94102
Discover the magnificence of the Mycenaeans. Humanities West brings together a panel of noted scholars to present talks uncovering the Mycenaean story, from ancient tales to the latest archaeological finds, in an effort to deepen our understanding of the roots of Western Civilization. When the Bronze Age ended, oral tales of the Mycenaeans remained and were composed half a millennium later by Homer in the stories of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Most assumed these Homeric tales and the society they described largely were fiction, until a few 19th-century archaeologists took those tales seriously and have come to proved the existence of these brilliant predecessors of the ancient Greeks.

Brenda Shaughnessy, D.A. Powell, and Roberto Santiago
2019-05-03 19:30 - 21:30 | Green Apple Books on the Park, 1231 9th Ave, San Francisco , CA, 94122, United States
Brenda Shaughnessy reads from her new collection, The Octopus Museum. Also featuring readings by D.A. Powell, and Roberto Santiago.
About The Octopus Museum
This collection of bold and scathingly beautiful feminist poems imagines what comes after our current age of environmental destruction, racism, sexism, and divisive politics.
Informed by Brenda Shaughnessy’s craft as a poet and her worst fears as a mother, the poems in The Octopus Museum blaze forth from her pen: in these pages, we see that what was once a generalized fear for our children (car accidents, falling from a tree) is now hyper-reasonable, specific, and multiple: school shootings, nuclear attack, loss of health care, a polluted planet. As Shaughnessy conjures our potential future, she movingly (and often with humor) envisions an age where cephalopods might rule over humankind, a fate she suggests we may just deserve after destroying their oceans. These heartbreaking, terrified poems are the battle cry of a woman who is fighting for the survival of the world she loves, and a stirring exhibition of who we are as a civilization.
About The Poets
Brenda Shaughnessy was born in Okinawa, Japan, and grew up in Southern California. She is the author of four books of poetry, including So Much Synth, Human Dark with Sugar–winner of the James Laughlin Award and finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award–and Our Andromeda, which was a New York Times Book Review 100 Notable Books of 2013. She is an assistant professor of English at Rutgers University, Newark. She lives in New Jersey.
D. A. Powell is the author of five collections of poetry, including Chronic, winner of the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. He lives in San Francisco, California.
Roberto F. Santiago is a poet, translator, musician, and performer. He earned a BA from Sarah Lawrence and MFA from Rutgers University. His first collection of poetry, Angel Park (2015), was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award for Poetry and long-listed for an Able Muse Poetry Prize. Santiago is the recipient of an Alfred C. Carey Poetry Prize and has received fellowships from the Lambda Foundation and Sarah Lawrence; in 2016, he was named a Community of Writers fellow. He currently lives in Oakland and works in San Francisco as an educator.

Nomadic Press & Chapter 510 Black Joy Poetry Anthology Release
2019-05-03 18:00 - 21:00 | Chapter 510 & the Dept. of Make Believe, 2301 Telegraph Ave, Oakland, CA, 94612, United States
Nomadic Press will be releasing an anthology written by Chapter 510 & the Dept. of Make Believe authors taking part in our Black Joy Workshop (a poetry workshop for black young men ages 13-18, led by poet and teaching artist Daniel B Summerhill).
Grab your copy of the anthology and hear readings by Vernon Keeve III, James Cagney, Darius Simpson, Leila Mottley – 2018 Oakland Youth Poet Laureate, the authors published in the anthology (Samuel Getachew, Nicos Hubbard-Riley, Julian Khalil Allen, Elijah I. Hynson, Damion Evans, and Charles Hall), and live music by Azuah Melara starting at 7 PM.
Boots Riley will speak at the beginning of the event about the importance of Black Joy.
Emceed by the ever-fabulous Nazelah Jamison. DJ XCAIROCITOSX will weave together sounds and Two Mamacita’s pop-up kitchen will be on site. Tiny book making on the theme of “Joy” will be happening throughout the evening. On-site photography by Robbie Sweeny and Rohan DaCosta. Oh, and did we also mention it is Oakland First Fridays?!
This event is FREE and open to all!
Through publications, events, and active community participation, Nomadic Press collectively weaves together platforms for intentionally marginalized voices to take their rightful place within the world of the written and spoken word. Through its limited means, Nomadic Press is simply attempting to help right the centuries’ old violence and silencing that should never have occurred in the first place and builds alliances and community partnerships with others who share a collective vision for a future far better than today.
“This project was made possible with support from California Humanities, a non-profit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Visit calhum.org.”

Nomadic Press & Chapter 510 Black Joy Poetry Anthology Release
2019-05-03 18:00 - 21:00 | Chapter 510 & the Dept. of Make Believe, 2301 Telegraph Ave, Oakland, CA, 94612, United States
Nomadic Press will be releasing an anthology written by Chapter 510 & the Dept. of Make Believe authors taking part in our Black Joy Workshop: a poetry workshop for black young men ages 13-18, lead by poet and teaching artist Daniel B Summerhill. Get your copy and hear readings by Vernon Keeve III (more TBD) and live music by Azuah Melara at 7pm. Emceed by the ever-fabulous Nazelah Jamison. FREE!
Through publications, events, and active community participation, Nomadic Press collectively weaves together platforms for intentionally marginalized voices to take their rightful place within the world of the written and spoken word. Through its limited means, Nomadic Press is simply attempting to help right the centuries’ old violence and silencing that should never have occurred in the first place and builds alliances and community partnerships with others who share a collective vision for a future far better than today.
“This project was made possible with support from California Humanities, a non-profit partner of the National Endowment for the Humanities. Visit calhum.org.”

Have a Poet for Lunch: Jocelyn Saidenberg
2019-05-03 12:30 - 13:00 | Contemporary Jewish Museum, 736 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA, 94103, United States
Hear Bay Area poet Jocelyn Saidenberg present work in dialogue with the exhibition “Show Me as I Want to Be Seen.” Many of the poets speaking in this bi-weekly series are rooted in the New Narrative tradition, an experimental writing movement and theory that evolved in San Francisco.
“Show Me as I Want to Be Seen” presents the work of groundbreaking French Jewish artist, Surrealist, and activist Claude Cahun (1894-1954) and her lifelong lover and collaborator Marcel Moore (1892-1972) in dialogue with ten contemporary artists to examine the complex and empowered representation of fluid identity.
Jocelyn Saidenberg is a Bay Area writer and performer, whose books include “Mortal City,” “Cusp,” “Negativity,” “Shipwreck,” and “Dead Letter.” Her most recent book is “kith & kin” (The Elephants, 2018). She is one of the editors of KRUPSKAYA Books and she teaches at University of California, Berkeley and San Quentin State Prison.

EVES AT THE BEAT: WOMXN READING AT THE BEAT MUSEUM
2019-05-02 19:30 - 21:30 | The Beat Museum, 540 Broadway, San Francisco , CA, 94133, United States
EVES AT THE BEAT: WOMXN READING AT THE BEAT MUSEUM
During Women’s History month a constellation of events brought together a group of fabulous womxn+ writers. The meeting of these hearts and minds exploded into something powerful and a new monthly reading series concept was born, “Eves at the Beat”.
THURS. MAY 2ND, 7:30PM
Featuring:
SHELLEY WONG
THEA MATTHEWS
JENNY QI
ROSA DE ANDA
JENNIFER HASEGAWA
AISHWARYA VARDHANA
Curated by Cassandra Rockwood-Rice
MC’d by Nicole Noel
“Eves at the Beat” is a monthly first Thursday reading series at The Beat Museum with occasional readings in Kerouac Alley featuring womxn and non-binary people. Each first Thursday there will be a new curator and MC invited from the previous month. This will give many people the opportunity to step into these roles and make the culture of the readings more equitable and circular, rather than hierarchal.
This is a donation based event. We will pass a hat so bring a contribution for the readers.
We will also be accepting packages of dry goods, new socks, and sanitary items for the local homeless community.

Tony Perrottet: Cuba Libre! Che, Fidel, and the Improbable Revolution
2019-05-02 19:30 - 21:30 | Berkeley Hillside Club, 2286 Cedar St, Berkeley, 94709
KPFA Radio 94.1 FM presents:
TONY PERROTTET
CUBA LIBRE! Che, Fidel, and the Improbable Revolution that Changed World History
Advance tickets: $12: T: 800-838-3006 or independent bookstores, $15 door, benefits KPFA Radio 94.1FM
Most people are familiar with the basics of the Cuban Revolution of 1956-1959. It was led by two of the twentieth century’s most charismatic figures, Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. Their movement successfully overthrew the island nation’s US-backed dictator, Fulgencio Batista, and has remained to this day an intense socialist provocation to the massive imperial capitalist country only ninety miles north of Cuba.
Tony Perrottet unravels the human drama behind history’s most improbable revolution: a scruffy handful of self-taught revolutionaries-many of them kids just out of college, literature majors and art students, including a number of extraordinary young women-who defeated 40,000 professional soldiers to overthrow the dictatorship of Batista. Cuba Libre!’s deep dive into the revolution reveals fascinating details. He describes how Fidel’s highly organized lover Celia Sanchez kept the male guerrillas disciplined, and he portrays a few of the North American volunteers who joined the Cuban rebels. He gained access to private letters, diaries, videos, and other documents no other historian has seen. Perrottet has used these as well as countless interviews to describe the years of guerrilla fighting throughout the Sierra Maestra mountains, the final victory march into Havana, the gradual building of a socialist state, and
the accompanying Cold War tensions.
“Perrottet takes us far beyond the basic facts of the Cuban Revolution to the juicy details that remind us that history is deeply human.” – Chris Ryan, NY Times bestselling author
Tony Perrottet, author of five previous books, is a regular guest on the History Channel.
Steve Wasserman is Executive Director of Heyday Books.
$12 advance, $15 door.
Presented by KPFA Radio 94.1 FM.

Miriam Toews and Lydia Kiesling
2019-05-02 19:30 - 21:30 | Green Apple Books on the Park, 1231 9th Ave, San Francisco , CA, 94122, United States
Miriam Toews discusses her new novel, Women Talking with Lydia Kiesling.

Praise for Women Talking
“This amazing, sad, shocking, but touching novel, based on a real-life event, could be right out of The Handmaid’s Tale.” –Margaret Atwood, on Twitter
“An astonishment, a volcano of a novel with slowly and furiously mounting pressures of anguish and love and rage. No other book I’ve read in the past year has spoken so lucidly about our current moment, and yet none has felt as timeless; the always-wondrous Miriam Toews has written a book as close to a Greek tragedy as a contemporary Western novelist can come.” —Lauren Groff, author of FATES AND FURIES and FLORIDA
“I am in awe of this novel. In Toews’s brilliant design, eight women in a Mennonite hayloft manage to lay bare the rancid global root system of patriarchy. Their story is terrifying, joyful, gruesome, and magnetic. What a reckoning–and what a gift.” Leni Zumas, author of RED CLOCKS
“A flawless, ferocious work of art. I have yet to read a more scathing indictment of patriarchal violence, or a more illuminating quest to comprehend the most vital contours of the human experience: what is agency, what is meaning, what is justice, what is love. This is the kind of novel that changes you. Get ready.” —Laura van den Berg, author of THE THIRD HOTEL

About Women Talking
One evening, eight Mennonite women climb into a hay loft to conduct a secret meeting. For the past two years, each of these women, and more than a hundred other girls in their colony, has been repeatedly violated in the night by demons coming to punish them for their sins. Now that the women have learned they were in fact drugged and attacked by a group of men from their own community, they are determined to protect themselves and their daughters from future harm.
While the men of the colony are off in the city, attempting to raise enough money to bail out the rapists and bring them home, these women–all illiterate, without any knowledge of the world outside their community and unable even to speak the language of the country they live in–have very little time to make a choice: Should they stay in the only world they’ve ever known or should they dare to escape?
Based on real events and told through the “minutes” of the women’s all-female symposium, Toews’s masterful novel uses wry, politically engaged humor to relate this tale of women claiming their own power to decide.

Mazza Writer in Residence Juliana Delgado Lopera with Joseph Cassara, reading and in conversation
2019-05-02 19:00 - 21:00 | The Poetry Center, San Francisco State University, 1600 Holloway Ave, San Francisco , CA, 94132, United States
Juliana Delgado Lopera and Joseph Cassara
“I could write simply, pero tengo la lengua salada”
Juliana Delgado Lopera
For the concluding event as Mazza Writer in Residence at The Poetry Center for Spring 2019, Juliana Delgado Lopera will be reading and in conversation with novelist Joseph Cassara, author of The House of Impossible Beauties, an acclaimed debut novel that “follows the lives of the major players in New York’s 1980s drag ball scene, made famous by Jennie Livingston’s 1990 film Paris Is Burning.” (full review at The Guardian) Supported by the Sam Mazza Foundation, this event is free and open to the public.
“I could write simply, pero tengo la lengua salada” (*) is the title for Juliana Delgado Lopera’s Mazza Residency with The Poetry Center. Prior to this evening with Joseph Cassara, she’ll by joined by special guest Monique Jenkinson, aka Fauxnique, for an “afternoon of literary drag,” Saturday April 27 at The Bindery, annex of The Booksmith and just across Haight Street, and will be visiting multiple classes at SF State, in Women and Gender Studies, Sexuality Studies, and Creative Writing, throughout the week of April 22.
Juliana Delgado Lopera is an award-winning Colombian writer, historian, speaker, and performance artist based in San Francisco. The recipient of the 2014 Jackson Literary award, she’s the author of Quiéreme (Nomadic Press 2017) and ¡Cuéntamelo!, an illustrated bilingual collection of oral histories by LGBT Latinx immigrants which won a 2018 Lambda Literary Award and a 2018 Independent Publisher Book Award. She’s received fellowships from Brush Creek Foundation of the Arts, Lambda Literary Foundation, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and The SF Grotto, and an individual artist grant from the SF Arts Commission. She’s the recipient of the 2016 Jeanne Córdova Words Scholarship. Her work has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and has appeared in Eleven Eleven, Foglifter, Four Way Review, Broadly, and TimeOut Magto name a few. She’s the creative director of RADAR Productions a queer literary non-profit in San Francisco. Much more at julianadlopera.com
• Make sure to check out Juliana Delgado Lopera’s recent Ted Talk, “The Poetry of Everyday Speech,” which took place early this year at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.
Joseph Cassara is the author of The House of Impossible Beauties, which won the National Arts & Entertainment Journalism Award for Best Fiction Book of 2018, is a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in Gay Fiction, and was chosen by Barnes & Noble as a Discover Great New Writers selection. He holds degrees from Columbia University and the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and has received fellowships from the Macdowell Colony and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. He currently lives in Fresno, where he is an Assistant Professor of English at the California State University, Fresno. More at josephcassara.com
(*”but my tongue is salty”)
Related event:
Mazza Writer in Residence
Juliana Delgado Lopera with Monique Jenkinson, aka Fauxnique
an afternoon of literary drag
Saturday APRIL 27
3:00 pm @ The Bindery (door + bar at 2:00 pm)
1727 Haight Street (at Cole), San Francisco
free and open to the public
supported by the Sam Mazza Foundation
Event contact:
The Poetry Center
Event email:
poetry@sfsu.edu
Event phone:
415-338-2227
Event sponsor:
The Poetry Center, Mazza Writer in Residence project

Odd Salon: SAN FRANCISCO: BRAINSTORMING FOR JUNE
2019-05-02 19:00 - 21:00 | Beer Nerds, 3331 24th St, San Francisco, CA, 94103
MAY 2 @ 7:00 PM – 9:00 PM
Free!

Once again we come together to pool brains ! Bring your mathematical quandaries, sweet solutions, high octane spirits and tales of sleuthing genius for Odd Salon PROOF, curated by Isolde Honore.
Brainstorming sessions are free open to all! Come out and grab a drink, meet the Oddlings, and share your ideas around the table.
Thursday, May 2nd at 7pm.
We’ll be in the back room at Beer Nerds, 3331 24th St, San Francisco, drinking and thinking. Just a couple of doors down from the 24th and Mission BART stop.
No formal RSVP needed – just come out and join us!

Barry Gifford
2019-05-02 19:00 - 21:00 | City Lights Bookstore, 261 Columbus Ave, San Francisco , CA, 94133, United States
Seven Stories and City Lights present
Barry Gifford
celebrating the release of
Southern Nights Trilogy: Night People, Arise and Walk, Baby Cat Face
from Seven Stories Press
Barry Gifford’s three Southern Gothic novels, Night People, Arise and Walk, and Baby Cat-Face, may be among the weirdest and best of Gifford’s novels for their sheer velocity–the copious, raw violence; the invented religions and gods that make people do things; and how the horrors somehow cohabit—affably—with the genuine pathos and loveliness of the unforgettable characters that live in these books and the things they say so easily that we’ve never heard anyone say before. God in these Southern Nights is only another possibly deranged near relative, cast in the only nonspeaking part in this human drama. Everyone else talks and talks. And it’s the dialogue in these novels that make them some of Gifford’s best, reminders of the author’s seemingly unlimited range and versatility, a comic-tragic genius for our time.
As a character in Night People says, “Safety first ain’t never been my motto.”
Barry Gifford is the author of more than forty works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, which have been translated into over twenty-five languages. From screenplays and librettos to his acclaimed Sailor and Lula novels, Gifford’s writing is as distinctive as it is difficult to classify. Born in the Seneca Hotel on Chicago’s Near North Side, he relocated in his adolescence to New Orleans. The move proved significant: throughout his career, Gifford’s fiction—part-noir, part-picaresque, always entertaining—is born of the clash between what he has referred to as his “Northern Side” and “Southern Side.” Gifford has been recipient of awards from PEN, the National Endowment for the Arts, the American Library Association, the Writers Guild of America, and the Christopher Isherwood Foundation. His novel Wild at Heart was adapted into the 1990 Palme d’Or-winning film of the same name. Gifford lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Student reading
2019-05-02 12:10 - 12:50 | Morrison Library, UC Berkeley, 2000 Carleston Street, Berkeley, CA, 94720, United States
One of the year’s liveliest events, the student reading includes winners of the following prizes: Academy of American Poets, Cook, Rosenberg, and Yang, as well as students nominated by Berkeley’s creative writing faculty, Lunch Poems volunteers, and representatives from student publications.

DAVID BROOKS In Conversation with Ryan Bauer
2019-05-01 19:30 - 21:30 | Sydney Goldstein Theater, 275 Hayes St, San Francisco, CA, 94102, United States
DAVID BROOKS
In Conversation with Ryan Bauer
Wednesday, May 1, 2019, 7:30 pm
Venue: Sydney Goldstein Theater
Series: Special Events
Buy Tickets | 415.392.4400

David Brooks is an op-ed columnist for The New York Times and appears regularly on PBS NewsHour, NPR’s All Things Considered, and Meet the Press. He is the author of The Road to Character; The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement; Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There; and On Paradise Drive: How We Live Now (And Always Have) in the Future Tense. In The Second Mountain, Brooks explores our human relations within our societies — to our families, careers, faith, and community — and how these commitments help us to lead more meaningful lives.

Rabbi Ryan Bauer joined Congregation Emanu-El in 2005 where he has helped create and oversee the community engagement department. He supervises the Preschool and B’nai-Mitzvah program and is nationally recognized for his work with Syrian refugees. Before attending rabbinical school, he studied psychology with an emphasis in Political Economies of Industrialized Societies at the University of California, Berkeley.

May Day: One Big Union
2019-05-01 19:00 - 21:00 | The Octopus Literary Salon, 2101 Webster St #170, Oakland , CA, 94612, United States
Featured readers: Andrena Zawinski, Kirk Lumpkin, Lenore Weiss, Dennis Bernstein. Late Night Open Mic follows the featured readers. Sign-up now. Book & Broadside Giveaway. Free, 7-9 pm. The Octopus Literary Salon, 2101 Webster St., Oakland.

Alan Bernheimer and Alli Warren
2019-05-01 19:00 - 21:00 | Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Avenue, BERKELEY, 94704-2322
Wednesday, May 01, 2019 7:00 PM
Location:
In the basement
2476 Telegraph Ave., Berkeley
Website
Alan Bernheimer’s latest collection of poetry is From Nature (Cuneiform Press, 2019). Recent work has appeared at Across the Margin and at SFMOMA’s Open Space and in The Equalizer, The Delineator, and Hambone. The Spoonlight Institute was published by Adventures in Poetry in 2009. Born and raised in Manhattan, he has lived in the Bay Area since the 1970s. He produces a portrait gallery of poets reading on flickr. His translation of Philippe Soupault’s memoir, Lost Profiles: Memoirs of Cubism, Dada, and Surrealism, was published by City Lights in 2016. More information is at The Electronic Poetry Center.
Alli Warren is the author of I Love It Though (Nightboat), which was nominated for the California Book Award. Other recent publications include Little Hill (The Elephants), Moveable C (Push Press), Don’t Go Home With Your Heart On (Faux Press), and Here Come the Warm Jets (City Lights), which was nominated for the California Book Award and won the Poetry Center Book Award. Her writing has been published in many venues, including Harpers, Poetry, Jacket, The Brooklyn Rail, and Feminist Formations. Alli has lived and worked in the Bay Area since 2005.

READING Jenn McCreary and Norma Cole
2019-05-01 19:00 - 21:00 | Artists’ Television Access, 992 Valencia St, San Francisco, CA, 94110, United States
READING
Jenn McCreary and Norma Cole
May 1, 2019 7:00 PM
Artists’ Television Access
992 valencia street, san francisco, ca
FREE
Free for members

Alan Bernheimer and Alli Warren
2019-05-01 19:00 - 20:00 | Moe’s Books, 2476 Telegraph Avenue, BERKELEY, 94704-2322
Alan Bernheimer’s latest collection of poetry is From Nature (Cuneiform Press, 2019). Recent work has appeared at Across the Margin and at SFMOMA’s Open Space and in The Equalizer, The Delineator, and Hambone. The Spoonlight Institute was published by Adventures in Poetry in 2009. Born and raised in Manhattan, he has lived in the Bay Area since the 1970s. He produces a portrait gallery of poets reading on flickr. His translation of Philippe Soupault’s memoir, Lost Profiles: Memoirs of Cubism, Dada, and Surrealism, was published by City Lights in 2016. More information is at The Electronic Poetry Center.
Poets and audience will gather upstairs at More Moe’s one hour before the reading.
Alli Warren is the author of I Love It Though (Nightboat), which was nominated for the California Book Award. Other recent publications include Little Hill (The Elephants), Moveable C (Push Press), Don’t Go Home With Your Heart On (Faux Press), and Here Come the Warm Jets (City Lights), which was nominated for the California Book Award and won the Poetry Center Book Award. Her writing has been published in many venues, including Harpers, Poetry, Jacket, The Brooklyn Rail, and Feminist Formations. Alli has lived and worked in the Bay Area since 2005.

Berkeley 2050
2019-05-01 12:30 - 13:30 | Freight & Salvage, 2020 Addison St., Berkeley, CA, 94704, United States
Berkeley 2050

Wednesday, May 1, 2019 – 12:30pm to 1:30pm

Freight & Salvage Coffeehouse

Climate change is a pressing and urgent global issue and a challenge that needs planet and human focused solutions. Join UC Berkeley’s Director of Sustainability and UC Berkeley’s Executive Director, Center for Environmental Public Policy, for a lively discussion highlighting policy and implementation action happening in the state, bay area cities, and the UC system to reduce carbon emissions.
The state has signed into law numerous policies designed to reduce greenhouse gas emission from buildings, industrial processes, vehicles, agricultural and solid waste management, electric power and fossil fuel production and freight transport. Those policies are continuously evolving to reflect change in technology, markets and public opinion In similar suit, UC Berkeley and the UC system have pledged to be carbon neutral from building and fleet energy use by 2025 and from transportation and other sources by 2050. The presenters will cover what is underway in green building, energy efficiency, clean electricity, resource management, and behavior-based programs, and how these can help meet these ambitious but achievable goals.
Kira Stoll was the 2016 recipient of The Sustainability Champion Award at this year’s California Higher Education Sustainability Conference. Kira was celebrated for recognizing the critical role staff play in transforming campus operations as well as providing leadership for UC system-wide initiatives. At the campus level, Kira spearheaded a solar energy procurement project to bring 1MW of photovoltaic energy to campus, through a collaborative RFQ with 19 other public agencies. She has also worked diligently to improve alternative transportation options on campus as well as reduce greenhouse gas emissions from operations. In her system-wide role as co-chair of the Climate Change Working Group and representative to the UC Global Climate Leadership Council, Kira has advocated for staff engagement and climate action planning that has driven progress towards UC’s goal to be carbon neutral by 2025.
David Wooley is a Visiting Professor at the UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy and Executive Director of the Center for Environmental Public Policy. He has over 30 years’ experience with electric power regulation, climate policy and Clean Air Act implementation. David is also Of Counsel at the Oakland firm of Keyes & Fox LLP, a law practice focused on distributed energy resources and is a consultant to the Energy Foundation. Previously, David served as an Assistant Attorney General in NY, taught energy and environmental law at Pace University Law School and was a founder of and Executive Director of the Pace Energy Project. Later he directed the American Wind Energy Association’s Northeast Policy Project, served as Counsel to the Clean Air Task Force and as Vice President for Domestic Policy Initiatives at the Energy Foundation in San Francisco. David is co-author of West Group’s Clean Air Act Handbook (2017).

Lunch + Learn: Self-Publishing 101 by Author L.B. Lewis
2019-05-01 12:00 - 13:00 | Industrious, 345 California St, San Francisco, 94104
Thought about writing a book yourself but don’t know where to start?
Tired of people always telling you, “You should write a book”?
Think you’ve got something good to publish?
When I tell people I’m a self-published author, the most common response I get is “I want to write a book.”
But there’s so much more…
This Lunch + Learn is dedicated to sharing more about my journey to self-publishing including what I’ve learned, pubilshing resources and marketing
Lunch provided. Spaces limited. RSVP on Eventbrite required.
