Litseen

Anxious People by Frederik Backman | GGP Online Book Club
2020-12-08 19:00 - 20:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
Anxious People by Frederik Backman | GGP Online Book Club | Tue. Dec. 8 @ 7 PM PST

Please join us on Tuesday, December 8, 2020 at 7 PM PST for a GGP Online Book Club discussion of Frederik Backman’s new novel, ANXIOUS PEOPLE.
The Zoom meeting will be at https://us02web.zoom.us/j/87874523125.
You can order a copy in hardcover at https://bit.ly/ggpAnxious, or in audiobook from Libro.fm, GGP’s audiobook partner, at https://bit.ly/AnxiousAB.
Description

Instant #1 New York Times Bestseller
A People Book of the Week, Book of the Month Club selection, #1 Indie Next Pick, and Best of Fall in Good Housekeeping, PopSugar, The Washington Post, New York Post, Shondaland, CNN, and more!
“[A] quirky, big-hearted novel… Wry, wise, and often laugh-out-loud funny, it’s a wholly original story that delivers pure pleasure.” —People
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Man Called Ove comes a charming, poignant novel about a crime that never took place, a would-be bank robber who disappears into thin air, and eight extremely anxious strangers who find they have more in common than they ever imagined.
Looking at real estate isn’t usually a life-or-death situation, but an apartment open house becomes just that when a failed bank robber bursts in and takes a group of strangers hostage. The captives include a recently retired couple who relentlessly hunt down fixer-uppers to avoid the painful truth that they can’t fix their own marriage. There’s a wealthy bank director who has been too busy to care about anyone else and a young couple who are about to have their first child but can’t seem to agree on anything, from where they want to live to how they met in the first place. Add to the mix an eighty-seven-year-old woman who has lived long enough not to be afraid of someone waving a gun in her face, a flustered but still-ready-to-make-a-deal real estate agent, and a mystery man who has locked himself in the apartment’s only bathroom, and you’ve got the worst group of hostages in the world.
Each of them carries a lifetime of grievances, hurts, secrets, and passions that are ready to boil over. None of them is entirely who they appear to be. And all of them—the bank robber included—desperately crave some sort of rescue. As the authorities and the media surround the premises these reluctant allies will reveal surprising truths about themselves and set in motion a chain of events so unexpected that even they can hardly explain what happens next.
Rich with Fredrik Backman’s “pitch-perfect dialogue and an unparalleled understanding of human nature” (Shelf Awareness), Anxious People is an ingeniously constructed story about the enduring power of friendship, forgiveness, and hope—the things that save us, even in the most anxious times.
About the Author

Fredrik Backman is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of A Man Called Ove, My Grandmother Asked Me to Tell You She’s Sorry, Britt-Marie Was Here, Beartown, Us Against You, and two novellas, And Every Morning the Way Home Gets Longer and Longer and The Deal of a Lifetime, as well as one work of nonfiction, Things My Son Needs to Know About the World. His books are published in more than forty countries. His latest novel, Anxious People, was an instant #1 New York Times bestseller. He lives in Stockholm, Sweden, with his wife and two children. Connect with him on Facebook or Twitter @BackmanLand or on Instagram @Backmansk.

Author: Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore in conversation with CAConrad
2020-12-08 19:00 - 20:00 | San Francisco Public Library – Virtual Library
Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore reads from her new book, The Freezer Door, described by Maggie Nelson as “a book about not belonging that made me feel deeply less alone” and by Oprah Magazine as an “underline-every-sentence compendium of queer desire.” After the reading, Sycamore will be joined in conversation by poet and essayist CAConrad, with audience Q&A to follow.

Zoom Registration
YouTube Live

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore is the author of three novels, two nonfiction titles and the editor of five nonfiction anthologies. Her new book, The Freezer Door, will be published by Semiotext(e) in November 2020.
Sycamore’s most recent novel, Sketchtasy (Arsenal Pulp Press 2018), was one of NPR’s Best Books of 2018. Her memoir, The End of San Francisco (City Lights 2013), won a Lambda Literary Award. And her most recent anthology, Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots?: Flaming Challenges to Masculinity, Objectification, and the Desire to Conform (AK Press 2012), was an American Library Association Stonewall Honor Book.
Sycamore’s novels include So Many Ways to Sleep Badly (City Lights 2008) and Pulling Taffy (Suspect Thoughts 2003). She is the editor of four additional nonfiction anthologies, Nobody Passes: Rejecting the Rules of Gender and Conformity (Seal 2007), That’s Revolting! Queer Strategies for Resisting Assimilation (Soft Skull 2004; 2008), Dangerous Families: Queer Writing on Surviving (Haworth 2004; Routledge) and Tricks and Treats: Sex Workers Write about Their Clients (Haworth 2000; Routledge), which now also appears in Italian (Effepi Libri 2007).
CAConrad is the author of Amanda Paradise (Wave Books, 2021). Their book While Standing in Line for Death won a 2018 Lambda Book Award. They also received a 2019 Creative Capital grant as well as a Pew Fellowship in the Arts Award, the Believer Magazine Book Award and the Gil Ott Book Award. They regularly teach at Columbia University in New York City, and at Sandberg Art Institute in Amsterdam. Please view their books, essays, recordings and the documentary The Book of Conrad (Delinquent Films) online at http://bit.ly/88CAConrad.
Connect
Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore – Website | Instagram | Twitter
CAConrad – Website | Instagram | Twitter
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Community Roundtable: Christmas Holiday
2020-12-09 01:00 - 14:00
Join the CHSA Community for a roundtable discussion on topics that impact our community on the 1st and 3rd Wednesdays of the month! Our goal is to keep the community united during the time apart through our online, roundtable discussions. We will be hosting online roundtables every-other-week with different topics to engage with the CHSA community.

Here is our upcoming schedule! Feel free to join all topics* of interest to you:

December 9th-Christmas Holiday. A hearty discussion about the Christmas holiday with the CHSA community and your favorite holiday memories.
January 13th-Miss Chinatown. A discussion about memories of the Miss Chinatown pageant in preparation for the Chinese New Year celebration.

Interested in joining? Click here to register!
Please note: this is an interactive event. We encourage everyone to check that their microphones and cameras are working so that they can engage in the discussion. Space is limited to encourage participation among attendees.
*Topics and discussion dates are subject to change depending on current events and interest.

Conversations with Authors - Paige Peterson (Virtual Event)
2020-12-09 16:00 - 18:00
Belvedere and Tiburon are located just across the Bay from San Francisco, but they seem to exist in another time. In Growing Up Belvedere-Tiburon, Paige Peterson’s memories of her magical childhood and the archival photographs that trace the history of these small, lovingly protected communities combine to transport readers to a real-life Brigadoon.
Paige is an American artist, author, and photojournalist who has written extensively about the Middle East. As a journalist, she has contributed to Marin Magazine, New York Social Diary, and the National Council on U.S. Arab Relations. As an illustrator, she has collaborated on A Christmas Carol, adapted by Jesse Kornbluth, and Blackie: The Horse Who Stood Still, which she co-authored with Christopher Cerf. She and her two grown children live in New York. She splits her time between New York City and Belvedere, California.
Jesse Kornbluth writes books and plays and edits a cultural concierge site. As a magazine journalist, he has been a contributing editor for Vanity Fair and New York, and a contributor to The New Yorker and The New York Times. As an author, his books include Highly Confident: The Crime and Punishment of Michael Milken, Pre-Pop Warhol, and two novels, Married Sex and JFK and Mary Meyer: A Love Story. His play about Henri Matisse, The Color of Light, has been produced in California and New York. On the Web, he co-founded Bookreporter.com. From 1997 to 2003, he was Editorial Director of America Online. In 2004, he launched HeadButler.com.

Poetry & the Senses Fellows’ Reading
2020-12-09 17:00 - 18:30 | YouTube
Please join the Arts Research Center in celebrating the 2020 Poetry Fellows with a year-end reading featuring: Menat Allah El Attma, Nathalie Khankan, Gracia Mwamba, Rusty Morrison, Beth Piatote, Jared Robinson, Alex Saum-Pascual, and Jenif(f)er Tamayo. This event is part of ARC’s Poetry and the Senses initiative generously sponsored by Engaging the Senses Foundation.
ARC’s Poetry fellows have spent the past 11 months in conversation, production, feedback, support, and critique; they will be sharing work produced during their fellowship. This remarkable cohort has weathered pandemic, political and social upheaval, and personal crises, and bravely continued to be present, hold space for their peers, and navigate their relationship to the work. When we think of what we want to carry forward or with us in an emergency, their voices are at the top of the list.
Poetry and the Senses creates meaningful opportunities for engagement, research, and collaboration. As a think tank for the arts at UC Berkeley, ARC acts as a facilitator and connector between the campus and the many flourishing regional poetry communities. This two-year initiative (Jan 2020 – Dec 2021) explores the relevance and urgency of lyrical making and storytelling in times of political crisis, and the value of engaging the senses as an act of care, mindfulness, and resistance.
The theme for 2020 was, aptly, emergency. Motivating questions have included, what kinds of poetic modes of address might be recruited in times of global catastrophe? How does poetry help us think through and within crisis? “Emergency” implies urgency, sudden harm, life-threatening violence, and extreme circumstances, but embedded within it is the word “emergence;” suggesting rebirth and new beginnings. How can we understand moments of emergency as catalysts for renewal, as ruptures that signal massive—if painful—change?

Fellows

Menat Allah El Attma
Undergraduate Student Fellow
Menat Allah El Attma is an Egyptian Muslim woman, educator, writer, and visual artist. Menat graduated from UC Berkeley with a BA in English literature and is pursuing her Master’s and credential at USC Rossier School of Education. She is a logophile and linguaphile, working to affect a similar love for words/languages in her students through the practice and art of storytelling. She believes art is in the telling of the story as much as the story itself.

Gracia Mwamba
Undergraduate Student Fellow
Gracia Mwamba is a visual artist, composer and writer from DRCongo, by way of South Africa. Currently in her final year of a BA in Art Practice, Gracia works interdisciplinarily to communicate through her work. Upon graduation, she hopes to pursue credentials to become a licensed Art Therapist and strong advocate for art as an accessible means of healing and social change.

Jared Robinson
Graduate Student Fellow
Jared Robinson is from Indianapolis, IN. He is a poet and scholar in the UC Berkeley English department. In his scholarship, he interrogates the relationship between the transatlantic slave trade and Enlightenment philosophy through careful attention to early African-American literature and its reception. In his poetry, he attempts an understanding of everything else. He does not care for this California weather. He is glad to greet you.

Jenif(f)er Tamayo
Graduate Student Fellow
Jenif(f)er Tamayo is a queer, migrant, formerly undocumented poet, essayist, and performer. Her poetry collections include [Red Missed Aches] (Switchback, 2011), YOU DA ONE (Noemi 2017) and her latest publication, TO KILL THE FUTURE IN THE PRESENT (Green Lantern Press, 2018). Currently, JT lives and works on Ohlone and Patwin lands and is pursuing her PhD in Performance Studies at the University of California Berkeley. Her research explores how contemporary Black and Indigenous poets use vocal practices to counternarrate histories of colonial violence.

Nathalie Khankan
Community Fellow
Nathalie Khankan is the author of quiet orient riot (Fall 2020), winner of Omnidawn’s 2019 1st/2nd Book Prize, selected by Dawn Lundy Martin. Her work appears in the Berkeley Poetry Review, jubilat, The Volta, and Crab Creek Review. Straddling Danish, Finnish, Syrian and Palestinian homes and heirlooms, Nathalie currently lives in San Francisco. She teaches Arabic language and literature in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at UC Berkeley.

Rusty Morrison
Community Fellow
Rusty Morrison is the co-founder and co-publisher of Omnidawn (www.omnidawn.com) since 2001. Her five books include After Urgency (won Tupelo’s Dorset Prize) & the true keeps calm biding its story (won Ahsahta’s Sawtooth Prize, James Laughlin Award, N.California Book Award, & DiCastagnola Award from PSA). Her recent book: Beyond the Chainlink (Ahsahta; finalist for the NCIB Award & NCB Award) She teaches in MFA programs as a visiting poet, workshops through Omnidawn and elsewhere. Offering private consultations. www.rustymorrison.com

Beth Piatote
Faculty Fellow
Beth Piatote is author of two books: a mixed-genre collection, The Beadworkers: Stories (Counterpoint 2019); and a scholarly monograph, Domestic Subjects: Gender, Citizenship, and Law in Native American Literature (Yale 2013), as well as numerous essays and short stories stories in journals and anthologies. Her recent work, The Beadworkers, has been long-listed for the Aspen Words Literary Prize and the PEN/Bingham Prize. She is currently associate professor of Native American Studies, where she specializes in Native American literature and law; Nez Perce language and literature; Indigenous Language Revitalization; and creative writing. She earned a PhD from Stanford University.

Alex Saum-Pascual
Faculty Fellow
Alex Saum-Pascual is a digital artist, poet and professor. She is Associate Professor of Spanish at the University of California, Berkeley, where she teaches Contemporary Spanish Literature and Culture (20th and 21st Centuries) and Electronic Literature (Digital Humanities). She is also part of the Executive Committee of the Berkeley Center for New Media and the board of directors of the Electronic Literature Organization. Her academic work on digital media and literature in the Spanish-speaking world has been published in Spain, Mexico and the United States. Her digital artwork and poetry has been exhibited in galleries and art festivals in the United States, Canada, Mexico, Spain, Norway and the UK.

This event is co-sponsored by the Engaging the Senses Foundation.

JENNA WORTHAM & KIMBERLY DREW
2020-12-09 18:00
JENNA WORTHAM & KIMBERLY DREW
in conversation with Ashley C. Ford
Wednesday, December 9, 2020
6:00pm Pacific Time

TICKETS

What does it mean to be Black and alive right now? Kimberly Drew and Jenna Wortham have brought together a new collection of work, entitled Black Futures—images, photos, essays, memes, dialogues, recipes, tweets, poetry, and more—to tell the story of the radical, imaginative, provocative, and gorgeous world that Black creators are bringing forth today.
Jenna Wortham is the co-host of The New York Times arts and culture podcast Still Processing, and a staff writer for The New York Times Magazine. Wortham was previously a tech writer for The New York Times, and now writes on a multitude of subjects ranging between arts and culture, technology, and social media, with a focus on the contributions of Black, queer women. Wortham is also a sound healer, reiki practitioner, herbalist, and community care worker oriented toward healing justice and liberation, and is working on a book about the body and dissociation for Penguin Press.
Kimberly Drew is a writer, curator, and activist. Drew received her B.A. from Smith College in Art History and African-American Studies. She first experienced the art world as an intern in the Director’s Office of The Studio Museum in Harlem. Her time there inspired her to start the Tumblr blog Black Contemporary Art, sparking her interest in social media. Drew’s writing has appeared in Vogue, Glamour, W, Teen Vogue, and Lenny Letter, and she has executed Instagram takeovers for Prada, The White House, and Instagram. Drew recently left her role as the Social Media Manager at The Met.
Ashley C. Ford is a writer, editor, and critic in Brooklyn by way of Indiana. Ford hosts The Chronicles of Now podcast, co-hosts The HBO companion podcast Lovecraft Country Radio, and is the former host of seasons one & three of Mastercard’s Fortune Favors The Bold, as well as the video interview series PROFILE by BuzzFeed News, and Brooklyn-based news & culture TV show, 112BK. Her memoir, Somebody’s Daughter, will be published in June 2021.
Pre-order Black Futures today from Marcus Books, the nation’s oldest Black-owned independent bookstore, celebrating its 60th year. All Bookshop orders ship directly to you. If you are interested in arranging in-person pickup please call Marcus Books at (510) 652-2344 or visit in Oakland, CA at 3900 Martin Luther King Jr. Way.

Author Scott James Discussing TRIAL BY FIRE
2020-12-09 19:00 - 20:00
Author Scott James Discussing TRIAL BY FIRE | Wed. 12/9 @ 7 PM PST | Virtual Author Chat on Zoom

Please join us on Wednesday, December 9, 2020 at 7 PM PST for an online discussion with author Scott James in conversation with journalist and author Frances Dinkelspiel discussing his Scott’s new book, TRIAL BY FIRE: A DEVASTATING TRAGEDY, 100 LIVES LOST, AND A 15-YEAR SEARCH FOR TRUTH.
Our discussion will be webcast on Zoom at https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85496974190.
(Order your copy of TRIAL BY FIRE at https://bit.ly/GGPTrialByFire.)
TRIAL BY FIRE reopens the case of The Station nightclub fire that killed 100 when the rock band Great White ignited fireworks inside a small roadside club in tiny Rhode Island. It’s one of the deadliest fires in American history, and it became of the nation’s deadliest criminal cases. But there were never any trials.
Author Scott James spent ten years investigating what happened, and discovered there was much more to the disaster than what the public had been led to believe.
Here’s what’s been said about TRIAL BY FIRE so far…
In a starred review, Publishers Weekly called it “Gripping… essential reading for true crime fans.”
And New York Times bestselling author Raj Patel said, quote, “This is journalism as it is meant to be. Scott James does for Rhode Island what Truman Capote did for Kansas.”
Scott James is a veteran journalist and the author of Trial by Fire. Since 2009 Scott’s reporting has appeared in The New York Times, and he is the recipient of three Emmy Awards for his work in television news. He’s also the author of two bestselling novels, SoMa and The Sower.
Frances Dinkelspiel is an award-winning veteran journalist, co-founder of the news organization Berkeleyside and author of two books, Towers of Gold and the New York Times bestseller Tangled Vines.

Great Good Gifts for the Holidays #5: Gifts for the Hard-To-Shop-For
2020-12-10 07:00 - 21:00, 2020-12-10 19:00 - 21:00
Please join us on Thursday, December 10, 2020 at 7 PM PST for staff recommendations on gifts for the hard-to-shop-for on your list in this last episode of our Great Good Gifts for the Holidays series.
The Zoom meeting will be at https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82851929183.
This is our fifth and lat recommendations night of the season. Mark your calendar for these events too:

11/5: Cook books and Gift Books;
11/12: Kids’ books and graphic novels
1219: Adult nonfiction
12/3: Adult Fiction

Location:

Zoom meeting: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82851929183

United States

SF Poet Laureate: Poem Jam - California Fire & Water
2020-12-10 18:00 - 19:00 | San Francisco Public Library – Virtual Library
This monthly poetry reading features poet and editor Molly Fisk and other writers in her acclaimed new book, California Fire & Water: A Climate Crisis Anthology. To help Californians face uncertainty and express their personal responses to the climate crisis, Molly Fisk sent poet-teachers from California Poets in schools throughout the state to teach five-session workshops on the climate crisis. California Fire & Water gathers work from these students, as well as adult poets. The authors hope to prompt discussion and action on behalf of the planet and provide solace for those suffering losses. Kim Shuck, the current Poet Laureate of San Francisco, will introduce the program.
Zoom Registration

SF Poet Laureate: Poem Jam - California Fire & Water
2020-12-10 18:00 - 19:00 | San Francisco Public Library – Virtual Library
This monthly poetry reading features poet and editor Molly Fisk and writers in her acclaimed new book, California Fire & Water: A Climate Crisis Anthology. To help Californians face uncertainty and express their personal responses to the climate crisis, Molly Fisk sent poet-teachers from California Poets in the Schools throughout the state to teach five-session workshops on the climate crisis. California Fire & Water gathers work from these students, as well as from adult poets. The authors hope to prompt discussion and action on behalf of the planet and to provide solace for those suffering losses. Kim Shuck, the current Poet Laureate of San Francisco, will introduce the program.
Zoom Registration

Ken Layne Creator of Desert Oracle on the hidden histories of the Mojave
2020-12-10 19:00 - 21:00
Ken Layne joins us from Joshua Tree to celebrate the publication of Desert Oracle Volume 1 (MCD/FSG), a collection of writing from his self-published periodical.
This event will be streamed on our Crowdcast channel.
REGISTER HERE
About Desert Oracle
For the past five years, Desert Oracle has existed as a quasi-mythical, quarterly periodical available to the very determined only by subscription or at the odd desert-town gas station or the occasional hipster boutique, its canary-yellow-covered, forty-four-page issues handed from one curious desert zealot to the next, word spreading faster than the printers could keep up with. It became a radio show, a podcast, a live performance. Now, for the first time—and including both classic and new, never-before-seen revelations—Desert Oracle has been bound between two hard covers and is available to you.
Straight out of Joshua Tree, California, Desert Oracle is “The Voice of the Desert”: a field guide to the strange tales, singing sand dunes, sagebrush trails, artists and aliens, authors and oddballs, ghost towns and modern legends, musicians and mystics, scorpions and saguaros, out there in the sand. Desert Oracle is your companion at a roadside diner, around a campfire, in your tent or cabin (or high-rise apartment or suburban living room) as the wind and the coyotes howl outside at night.
From journal entries of long-deceased adventurers to stray railroad ad copy, and musings on everything from desert flora, rumored cryptid sightings, and other paranormal phenomena, Ken Layne’s Desert Oracle collects the weird and the wonderful of the American Southwest into a single, essential volume.
About Ken Layne
Ken Layne is a professional high-speed typist, a broadcaster, and the editor/publisher of Desert Oracle, the pocket-size quarterly field guide to the strange and intriguing American deserts.

Virtual Class: Don George - Fine-Tune Your Travel Tale: Advanced Writing Workshop (via Zoom)
2020-12-11 12:00 - 14:00
This workshop is designed for writers who have an already finished travel story of up to 3,000 words that they would like to workshop and refine. Participants will be asked to send their story to Don George and all the workshop participants before the first class. In each workshop, we will closely discuss and critique three pieces. In addition to individual critiques, we will also discuss the art of great travel writing — how to lead into a piece, how to structure a story arc, how to bring a place and scene to life, and how to create a compelling close.
Don George is the author of The Way of Wanderlust: The Best Travel Writing of Don George and of Lonely Planet’s Guide to Travel Writing and the editor of ten anthologies, including A Moveable Feast, The Kindness of Strangers, Better Than Fiction, and An Innocent Abroad. George is Editor at Large for National Geographic Traveler, where he writes feature articles and the monthly Trip Lit column. He is also Editor of BBC Travel‘s literary travel column, Chance Encounters.

Zoom Forward! Andrew Fague, Dan Phillips & Pat Zylius
2020-12-11 17:00 - 19:00
VIRTUAL EVENT: Please join us for an online reading with Andrew Fague, Dan Phillips, and Pat Zylius, part of the Zoom Forward Reading Series hosted by poet, fiction writer, and essayist Jory Post. This series is presented by phren-Z, The Hive Poetry Collective, and Bookshop Santa Cruz to showcase writers, keep our cultural spirits high, and support Bookshop Santa Cruz.
The Zoom room will be open by 4:30, so come early in case you have technical difficulties. If you need assistance, send an email to jory@cruzio.com or hannah@santacruzwrites.org. Join the Santa Cruz Writes/phren-Z email list by subscribing here. Weekly Zoom links, including for this event, will be emailed to you.

How to Get Published in Recommended Reading
2020-12-11 18:00 - 19:00 | Crowdcast
About a third of the stories published in Recommended Reading are unsolicited submissions, which share space in the magazine with work by Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winners. Unlike some legacy lit mags, we really are reading all the work you send in, and we really do publish it. So how can you make your stories stand out among the thousands of submissions we receive every year? Recommended Reading’s editorial team—Halimah Marcus, Brandon Taylor, Erin Bartnett, and Alyssa Songsiridej—pull back the curtain on their decision-making process and offer invaluable advice to short story writers. A must-watch for anyone who is planning to submit. Q&A to follow. Presented by Reedsy.

https://www.crowdcast.io/e/how-to-get-published-in-rr/register

Andrea & Edmund Read You Art Out Loud
2020-12-11 18:00 - 19:00 | online
Andrea Passwater’s “We Sing” (The Rumpus) and Edmund Zagorin’s “Year Are Sentences” (Rabid Oak Review) are out soon in the anthology Best Small Fictions 2020.

To celebrate, we’re hosting a short live audio-only show to read aloud from our Best Small stories. No video, no faces. Put in your headphones, tune in and fold your laundry, knit yourself a tea cozy or finish polka-dotting your holiday face mask while you quiver your auricles to a chill literary delight.
Attendees will receive a link on December 11th, the day of the show. Fees for tickets to this reading will be donated to support Quiet Lightning, a Bay Area literary nonprofit that organizes inclusive community readings.

Arthur A. Levine on Instagram IGTV!
2020-12-12 11:00 - 13:00
reading The Hanukkah Magic of Nate Gadol, a new larger-than-life holiday hero who brings Hanukkah wonder and generosity to anyone in need! “A new, entertaining, and thoughtful addition to the Hanukkah canon.”–Kirkus Reviews
Join us on Instagram IGTV. Follow along @MRSDALLOWAYS. Videos disappear after 24 hours so be sure to watch!

Saturday, December 12, 2020 – 11:00am

Nate Gadol is a great big spirit with eyes as shiny as golden coins and a smile that is lantern bright. He can make anything last as long as it is needed, like a tiny bit of oil that must stretch for eight nights, a flower that needs to stay fresh to cheer up someone ailing, or a small lump of chocolate that grows to allow the Glasers to treat their children over the holiday and, during a harsh winter when medicine is needed more than sweets, spurs them to share what little they have with the O’Malleys. In this charming holiday hybrid story, well-known children’s author and editor Arthur A. Levine pairs with award-winning illustrator Kevin Hawkes to offer a mythical, magical take on the way Jewish families came to give and receive gifts over Hanukkah, just as their Christian neighbors do at Christmas, thanks to a loving spirit named Nate Gadol working behind the scenes–together with a certain jolly old soul.
Arthur A. Levine has been a children’s book editor for more than thirty years. He is also the author of many acclaimed picture books for children, including What a Beautiful Morning, illustrated by Katie Kath, and The Very Beary Tooth Fairy, illustrated by Sarah S. Brannen. He had his own eponymous imprint at Scholastic Press and has published many of the most exceptional children’s titles of all time, including J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series, Philip Pullman’s The Golden Compass, Shaun Tan’s The Arrival, and Peggy Rathmann’s Officer Buckle and Gloria.

Eastwind Book Club | She Weeps Each Time You're Born
2020-12-12 14:00 - 16:00
Eastwind Book Club is a community of readers connected by Asian and Asian American literature. Members gather once a month through a virtual meeting to discuss the month’s book selection. November/December’s book club pick is She Weeps Each Time You’re Born by Quan Barry.
The book club meeting will take place via Zoom on Saturday, December 12 at 2pm PST. Register to receive the meeting link.
Join our Book Club Facebook group to engage in conversation throughout the month: www.tinyurl.com/ewclub
Book Club members can use coupon code BOOKCLUB2020 for a 10% discount. Click here to purchase or visit www.asiabookcenter.com
About the book:
Vietnam, 1972: under a full moon, on the banks of the Song Ma River, a baby girl is pulled out of her dead mother’s grave. This is Rabbit, who is born with the ability to speak with the dead. She will flee from her destroyed village with a makeshift family thrown together by war. As Rabbit channels the voices of the dead, their chorus reconstructs the turbulent history of a nation, from the days of French Indochina and the World War II rubber plantations to the chaos of postwar reunification. Radiant, lyrical, and deeply moving, this is the unforgettable story of one woman’s struggle to unearth the true history of Vietnam while also carving out a place for herself within it.
About the author:
Born in Saigon and raised on Boston’s north shore, Quan Barry is a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and the author of four poetry books; her third book, Water Puppets, won the AWP Donald Hall Prize for Poetry and was a PEN/Open Book finalist. She has received NEA Fellowships in both fiction and poetry, and her work has appeared in such publications as Ms. and The New Yorker. Barry lives in Wisconsin.
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Eastwind Book Club is co-sponsored by OCA – Asian Pacific American Advocates Bay Area Chapters, Asian Pacific American Student Development (APASD) and AsAmNews (www.asamnews.com).

Patrick Earl Ryan in conversation with Jewelle Gomez
2020-12-12 15:00 - 16:00 | online
New Orleans native PATRICK EARL RYAN and writer, icon, and activist JEWELLE GOMEZ discuss writing, queerness, and If We Were Electric

Join us for a special virtual event – New Orleans native PATRICK EARL RYAN and writer, icon, and activist JEWELLE GOMEZ discuss writing, queerness, and Ryan’s award-winning debut short story collection, IF WE WERE ELECTRIC, winner of the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, the first selected by Roxane Gay as the new editor of the prestigious series.
Suggested donation of $5 to benefit the Bureau of General Services—Queer Division
All are welcome to join, with or without a donation

Praise for IF WE WERE ELECTRIC:
“IF WE WERE ELECTRIC, the debut short story collection from New Orleans’s native Patrick Earl Ryan is, indeed, fiercely electric. These twelve startling fictions have been crafted by a writer with an assured and absolutely original voice and a remarkable understanding of how place is as much a compelling character in a good story as the people who populate it. There are stories here about unrequited love and youthful yearning, the complexities of desire between men, the beginnings and ends of relationships, deaths both inevitable and untimely, the bitter ache of loneliness, the quiet horrors that unexpectedly befall us, and the magic of the ordinary world. With this outstanding collection, Patrick Earl Ryan makes his mark on Southern literature and wow!” – Roxane Gay
“Infused with all the mystique and mystery that New Orleans is known for comes this enchanting, hypnotic debut story collection from Patrick Earl Ryan… The stories feature outliers and miscreants trapped in situations that often feel claustrophobic but are impossible to ignore. Ryan is a true natural at weaving textured language and complex characterization into plots that are serpentine and saturated with emotional complexity. This quality is exceptional for a debut author and a definite determinant for a gilded literary career ahead. Addictively gorgeous and mesmerizing, Ryan’s collection of twelve literary gems are meant to be savored, re-read, and reflected upon as readers await his next creation.” – Jim Piechota, the Bay Area Reporter
PATRICK EARL RYAN was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana. He is the author of If We Were Electric, winner of the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction. His work has appeared in the Ontario Review, Pleiades, Best New American Voices, Men on Men: Best New Gay Fiction for the Millennium, and the James White Review. He was the founder and editor in chief of the LGBTQ literary journal Lodestar Quarterly.
JEWELLE GOMEZ, playwright, novelist, poet, and cultural worker, is the author of eight books, including the first Black Lesbian vampire novel, The Gilda Stories. In print more than 25 years, the novel will soon be a television mini-series. Jewelle’s fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared in over 100 anthologies. She is playwright-in-residence at the New Conservatory Theatre Center in San Francisco.

Conversations with Authors - Jane Smiley (Virtual Event)
2020-12-12 16:00 - 18:00
Jane Smiley’s latest novel, Perestroika in Paris, is a captivating, brilliantly imaginative story of three extraordinary animals—and a young boy—whose lives intersect in Paris.
Jane is the author of numerous novels, including A Thousand Acres, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, and more recently, the New York Times best-selling Last Hundred Years trilogy: Some Luck, Early Warning, and Golden Age. She is also the author of several works of nonfiction and books for young adults. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, she has also received the PEN Center USA Lifetime Achievement Award for Literature. Jane lives in Northern California.

Safety & The First Amendment – Holiday Fundraiser
2020-12-12 17:00 - 18:15 | online
The San Francisco International Arts Festival (SFIAF) will host its annual holiday fundraiser online this year and it is dedicated to the intriguing theme of Equal Protection Under the First Amendment. Funds raised from the event will be used for the organization’s Spring 2021 program and (if needs be) the continued cost of legal action against the City & County of San Francisco.
The Festival invites the public to join via Zoom for a packed and interactive program of poetry and spoken word presentations hosted by performance artist, Nkechi Emeruwa-Neuberg. Featured artists (curated by Kimi Sugioka, the Poet Laureate of the City of Alameda), will address different aspects of the First Amendment. Featured performers include: Kim Shuck, Jack Hirschman, Josiah Luis Alderete, James Cagney, Kimi Sugioka, Devorah Major, and Rosewater Vigilante. Total, there will FOUR poet laureates (three from San Francisco, one from Alameda) on the program.
In addition to outstanding performances, the evening will include “surprise” cameo appearances by several Bay Area luminaries, a sneak-preview of the Festival’s spring 2021 outdoor season and an in-person chat with the Festival’s legal team (Mark Rennie, Matt Kumin, and Bill Martinez) as they review the Festival’s First Amendment case against the city.

MandoMeet
2020-12-13 13:00 - 14:30
Join CHSA for a chance to learn Mandarin with specialist Kathy Yang! Kathy is an expert Mandarin teacher. For our MandoMeet sessions, all levels of adult learners are welcomed. New learners are always welcomed, check out our MandoMeet page for past lessons and learning materials.
To join, make sure to RSVP. As there is limited space is available for the class, only sign-up for MandoMeet if you are able to attend the session live. Recordings of the lesson are not available. Please contact CHSA if you have any questions about registration.
Choose between a free ticket or provide a donation to support free programming by the Chinese Historical Society of America. There is a suggested donation of $5.
Feel free to join the program at 12:50pm for a check-in with Kathy prior to the lesson beginning. Online access information will be sent out 2 hours and 10 minutes before the lesson begins.
While no materials are required for the lesson, colorful sticky notes and markers are highly encouraged. Similar writing material is also beneficial to participant learning. We also recommend learners check their microphones and cameras before coming to class.

VIRTUAL: Claire Marie Stancek with Dan Beachy-Quick & Jennifer Firestone / wyrd] bird
2020-12-13 14:00 - 16:00
Booksmith and The Bindery are very pleased to host a virtual event with Claire Marie Stancek for her new book of poems, wyrd] bird. She’s joined by Dan Beachy-Quick and Jennifer Firestone.
Free and all ages, but RSVP is required. Event link will be sent to everyone who registers.
You can order a copy of wyrd] bird here. We’re currently offering free shipping throughout San Francisco and the East Bay.
In times fraught with ecological and individual loss, Claire Marie Stancek’s wyrd] bird grapples with both the necessity and apparent impossibility of affirming mystical experience. It is at once a book-length lyric essay on the 12th-century German mystic Hildegard of Bingen, a dream journal, a fragmentary notebook, a collection of poems, and a scrapbook of photographic ephemera. Stancek follows Hildegard as she guides the poet through an underworld of climate catastrophe and political violence populated by literary, mythical, and historical figures from Milton’s Eve to the biblical Satan to Keats’s hand. The book deconstructs a Western tradition of good and evil by rereading, cross-questioning, and upsetting some of that tradition’s central poetic texts. By refusing and confusing dualistic logic, wyrd] bird searches for an expression of visionary experience that remains rooted in the body, a mode of questioning that echoes out into further questioning, and a cry of elegiac loss that grips, stubbornly, onto love.
In addition to wyrd] bird (Omnidawn Publishing), Claire Marie Stancek is the author of two previous poetry books, Oil Spell (Omnidawn Publishing) and MOUTHS (Noemi Press). She earned a Ph.D. in English Literature from University of California, Berkeley, where she currently works as a staff writer. With Jane Gregory and Lyn Hejinian, she co-edits Nion Editions, a chapbook press. Originally from outside Toronto, Ontario, she now lives in Oakland, California.
Dan Beachy-Quick is a poet, essayist, and translator. His most recent books include Arrows (Tupelo Press) and Stone-Garland (Milkweed Editions), a collection of translations from the ancient Greek. Recently long-listed for the National Book Award in Poetry, his work has been supported by the Monfort, Lannan, and Guggenheim Foundations. He teaches at Colorado State University, where he is an University Distinguished Teaching Scholar.
Jennifer Firestone is the author of five books of poetry: Story (Ugly Duckling Presse), Ten, (BlazeVOX [books]), Gates & Fields (Belladonna* Collaborative), Flashes (Shearsman Books) and Holiday (Shearsman Books). She is currently collaborating with Marcella Durand on a book about Feminist Avant-garde Poetics. Firestone is an Associate Professor of Literary Studies at the New School’s Eugene Lang College and is also the Director of their Academic Fellows pedagogy program.
This event is free and all ages, but RSVP is required.

Conversations with Authors - David Harris (Virtual Event)
2020-12-13 16:00 - 18:00
David Harris’s newest release, My Country ‘Tis of Thee: Reporting, Sallies, and Other Confessions is a wide-ranging and incisive anthology conveying the spirit of the 1960s and ’70s.
David Harris is a reporter, a clear-eyed idealist, an American dissident, and, as these selected pieces reveal, a writer of great character and empathy. Harris gained national recognition as an undergraduate for his opposition to the Vietnam War and was imprisoned for two years when he refused to comply with the draft. His writings trace a bright throughline of care for and attention to outsiders, the downtrodden, and those who demand change, and these eighteen pieces of long-form journalism, essays, and opinion writings remain startlingly relevant to the world we face today. This career-spanning collection of writings by an always-independent journalist follow Harris from his early days as a prominent leader of the resistance to the Vietnam War, through regular contributions to many publications, including Rolling Stone and the New York Times, and on into the twenty-first century.
Peter Coyote is the author of the 1960’s counter-culture memoir Sleeping Where I Fall, which received universally excellent reviews and has been in continuous print since 1999. His second book, The Rainman’s Third Cure: An Irregular Education, about mentors and the search for wisdom, was nominated as one of the top five nonfiction books published in California in 2015. His third book is forthcoming, Unmasking Your True Self (the Lone Ranger and Tonto Meet the Buddha), which combines 50 years of Buddhist practice and acting and uses masks and improv exercises to foster liberation experiences and teach people “how to get out of their own way.” Peter has performed as an actor in over 160 films for theaters and TV. He is a double Emmy-Award winning narrator of over 150 documentary films. An ordained Zen Buddhist priest and transmitted teacher, Peter is currently giving live weekly dharma talks on Facebook and preparing for a fourth book called Vernacular Buddhism.

How to Pitch Electric Lit
2020-12-14 18:00 - 19:00 | Crowdcast
For freelancers, writing an essay, feature, or opinion piece doesn’t start when you type the first line. It starts with the pitch. Having a topic and a talent isn’t enough; you also have to be able to package your idea in a way that catches an editor’s eye. But how do you get started writing a pitch? How long is too long—and how short is too short? What does a good pitch look like—and a bad one? And why does Electric Lit ask people to write a pitch, anyway? Electric Literature editor-in-chief Jess Zimmerman and contributing editor Jennifer Baker fill you in on everything you need to know when proposing nonfiction work to Electric Lit and other publications. Q&A to follow. Presented by Reedsy.

Eliot Weinberger and Forrest Gander: A celebration of Angels & Saints
2020-12-14 19:00 - 21:00
Eliot Weinberger, called “one of the world’s greatest essayists” by the New York Times, is joined in conversation by Pulitzer Prize winner Forrest Gander to celebrate the publication of Angels and Saints (New Directions).
This is a free event, though we encourage you to pay what you can or to order the book from us to support the bookstore during these challenging times.
REGISTER HERE
About Angels and Saints
Angels have soared through Western culture and consciousness from Biblical to contemporary times. But what do we really know about these celestial beings? Where do they come from, what are they made of, how do they communicate and perceive? The celebrated essayist Eliot Weinberger has mined and deconstructed, resurrected and distilled centuries of theology into an awe-inspiring exploration of the heavenly host.
From a litany of angelic voices, Weinberger’s lyrical meditation then turns to the earthly counterparts, the saints, their lives retold in a series of vibrant and playful capsule biographies, followed by a glimpse of the afterlife.
About the participants
ELIOT WEINBERGER “one of the world’s greatest essayists” (The New York Times), has been publishing books with New Directions since 1975, most recently The Ghosts of Birds.
FORREST GANDER, born in the Mojave Desert, lives in California. A translator and writer with degrees in geology and literature, he’s the recipient of numerous awards, among them the Pulitzer Prize, the Best Translated Book Award, and fellowships from the Library of Congress, the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, and United States Artists.

Alta Asks Live: Lynell George
2020-12-16 12:00 - 13:00
Alta Asks Live: Lynell George

Wednesday, December 16 at 12:30 p.m. Pacific time

Octavia E. Butler’s work is as relevant as ever, and her journey to success is a surprising and mostly private one—until now. Author and award-winning Alta contributor Lynell George’s extraordinary new book, A Handful of Earth, A Handful of Sky: The World of Octavia E. Butler​, examines Butler’s most intimate processes and inspirations. George sits down with Alta books editor David L. Ulin to explore the work, legacy, and world of Octavia E. Butler in this free digital discussion.
REGISTER
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lynell George​ is a journalist and essayist. ​After/Image: Los Angeles Outside the Frame​ was her first book of essays and photography, exploring the city where she grew up. As a staff writer for both the ​Los Angeles Times​ and ​L.A. Weekly​, she focused on social issues, human behavior, visual arts, music, and literature. She’s taught journalism at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, was named a USC Annenberg/Getty Arts Journalism Fellow in 2013, and received the Huntington Library’s Alan Jutzi Fellowship in 2017 for her studies of Butler. She’s a contributing arts and culture columnist for KCET | Artbound, and her commentary has also been featured in numerous news and feature outlets, including ​Alta, Boom: A Journal of California, Smithsonian, K​PCC’s​ the Frame, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Vibe, the Chicago Tribune, the Washington Post, Essence, Black Clock, and ​Ms.​ Her liner notes for ​Otis Redding Live at the Whisky a Go Go​ earned a Grammy Award in 2017.
ABOUT THE BOOK
​More than a biography, ​A Handful of Earth, A Handful of Sky​: The World of Octavia E. Butler is a collection of ideas about how a writer looks, listens, and breathes—how to ​be​ in the world. This book is about the creative process, but not on the page; its canvas is much larger. Lynell George not only engages the world that shaped Octavia E. Butler, but explores the very specific processes through which Butler, a MacArthur “genius,” shaped herself—her unique process of self-making. It’s about creating a life with what little you have—hand-me-down books, repurposed diaries, journals, stealing time to write in the middle of the night, making a small check stretch—bit by bit by bit. ​A Handful of Earth, A Handful of Sky​ draws the reader into Butler’s world, creating a sense of unmatched intimacy with the deeply private science-fiction writer.
There has been a great resurgence of interest in Butler’s work. Readers have been turning to her writing to make sense of contemporary chaos, to find a plot point that might bring clarity or calm. Her books have become the centerpiece of book group discussions, while universities and entire cities have chosen her titles to anchor Big Read, Freshman Read, and One Book/One City programs. ​A Handful of Earth, A Handful of Sky​ brings Butler’s prescient wisdom and careful thinking out of the novel and into the world.
A Handful of Earth, A Handful of Sky​ will be beloved by both scholars and fans of Butler, as well as aspiring writers and creatives who are looking for a model or a spark of inspiration. It offers an album of a creative life—a map that others can follow. Butler once wrote that science fiction was simply “a handful of earth, a handful of sky, and everything in between.” This book offers a slice of the ​in between.​

Conversations with Authors - Ruby Bridges (Virtual Event)
2020-12-16 16:00 - 18:00
From civil rights activist and icon Ruby Bridges comes a powerful new book, This Is Your Time—the first book from Bridges in over twenty years, released to coincide with the sixtieth anniversary of her becoming the first Black student to attend the all-white William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans on November 14, 1960, as a six-year-old. Inspired by the recent wave of activism for racial justice led by young people, Ruby Bridges has penned a powerful letter of encouragement to readers, recounting her
experience integrating the New Orleans public school system and culminating in a call to action for a new generation of young activists and adults to unite. Ruby’s honest and impassioned words, imbued with love and grace, serve as a moving reminder that “what can inspire tomorrow often lies in our past.” This Is Your Time will electrify people of all ages as the struggle for liberty and justice for all continues and the powerful legacy of Ruby Bridges endures.
Ruby Bridges is a civil rights activist who at the age of six was the first Black student to integrate an all-white elementary school in New Orleans. She was born in Mississippi in 1954, the same year the United States Supreme Court handed down its landmark decision ordering the integration of public schools. Her family later moved to New Orleans, where on November 14, 1960, Bridges began attending William Frantz Elementary School, single-handedly initiating the desegregation of public education in New Orleans. Her walk to the front door of the school was immortalized in Norman Rockwell’s painting The Problem We All Live With, in Robert Coles’s book The Story of Ruby Bridges, and in the Disney movie Ruby Bridges. This Is Your Time is her first book in over twenty years, following the publication of her award-winning autobiography, Through My Eyes. She established the Ruby Bridges Foundation to provide leadership training programs that inspire youth and community leaders to embrace and value the richness of diversity. Bridges is the recipient of numerous awards, including the NAACP Martin Luther King Award, the Presidential Citizens Medal, and honorary doctorate degrees from Connecticut College, College of New Rochelle, Columbia University Teachers College, and Tulane University.

How to Get Published in The Commuter
2020-12-16 18:00 - 19:00 | Crowdcast
Unlike most literary magazines, The Commuter chooses its weekly piece of poetry, flash, graphic, or experimental narrative almost exclusively from unsolicited submissions—9 out of 10 issues are drawn from the so-called “slush.” (We don’t think it’s slush!) Work published in The Commuter has been recognized by Best American Poetry and Comics, the Wigleaf Top 50, and Best Small Fictions. But we get thousands of submissions every year, and only publish 52 issues. So how can you help your work get recognized? Commuter editors Halimah Marcus, Kelly Luce, and Ed Skoog invite you behind the scenes for a frank editorial discussion that is a must-watch for anyone planning to submit. Q&A to follow. Presented by Reedsy.

WALTER MOSLEY IN CONVERSATION WITH CBC HOST JOHN FREEMAN
2020-12-18 17:00 - 19:00
Devil in a Blue Dress
BY WALTER MOSLEY

Mosley’s celebrated 1990 novel introduces readers to Ezekiel “Easy” Rawlins, a World War II veteran who turns to detective work to make a living. Rooted in Watts, a historically African American neighborhood of Los Angeles, the story reinvigorated the hard-boiled mystery genre, populating it with rarely seen nonwhite characters. The book’s success led to a bestselling series of Easy Rawlins mysteries that follow the character into the 1960s (and to a 1995 film adaptation of Devil in a Blue Dress, directed by Carl Franklin and starring Denzel Washington).
