Litseen

Irène Mathieu + special guests
2017-05-09 19:00 - 21:00 UTC | Green Apple Books, 506 Clement St, San Francisco , CA, 94118, United States
Irène Mathieu is a pediatrician, writer, and public health researcher. She is the 2016 winner of the Bob Kaufman Book Prize and author of the poetry chapbook the galaxy of origins (dancing girl press, 2014) and book orogeny (Trembling Pillow Press, 2017). Irène has been a Fulbright scholar and a Callaloo fellow, and her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize and Best of the Net. She is a poetry book reviewer for Muzzle Magazine, an editor for the humanities section of the Journal of General Internal Medicine, and a contributing author on the Global Health Hub blog. Irène holds a BA in International Relations from the College of William & Mary and a MD from Vanderbilt University.
Lisa Alden is a Mensan, WashU alum, and lecturer in creative writing at San Francisco State University. She lives in Berkeley with her sons.
Kimberly Reyes has received fellowships from the Poetry Foundation, Callaloo, and Columbia University, and is currently a William Dickey Fellow and MFA candidate in poetry at San Francisco State University. Her nonfiction has appeared in the Associated Press, Entertainment Weekly,Time.com, The New York Post, The Village Voice, Alternative Press, ESPN the Magazine, Jane, Honey, NY1 News, and The Best American Poetry blog. Her poetry has appeared or is forthcoming in The Feminist Wire, The Acentos Review, Columbia Journal Online, Moko Magazine, Yemassee, New American Writing, and Belleville Park Pages.
Fisayo Adeyeye has works published in Noble / Gas Qtrly, Nailed Magazine, The Birds We Piled Loosely, and work forthcoming in Print Oriented Bastards, New American Writing, and This Magazine. He is the former Poetry Editor of Fourteen Hills, a Co-Curator of the VelRo Graduate Reading Series. His chapbook Blackfish was a finalist for the 2015 Best Prize Chapbook Contest (Big Lucks). His first full length book Cradles is forthcoming from Nomadic Press in April 2017.

As always, this reading is free and welcome to all who’d like to attend.

EXIT Press Playwrights Panel
2017-05-10 19:00 - 20:00 UTC | Folio Books, 3957 24th St, San Francisco , CA, 94114, United States
San Francisco is a national epicenter of new theatre, but most “world premieres” languish in a limbo of one-off productions, never to be seen again. But local imprint EXIT Press is out to change that dynamic, publishing the works of local playwrights in order to give them life beyond their initial run, documenting our unique theatrical history one play at a time. Join a panel of EXIT Press playwrights and Lily Janiak, lead theatre critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, to discuss the process of playwriting–from page to stage to publication. With Allison Page, Aren Haun, Martin Schwartz, Stuart Bousel, and Terry Baum.

MPC Stump the Laureate: Dana Gioia
2017-05-10 19:00 - 21:00 UTC | Mill Valley Public Library, 375 Throckmorton Ave, Mill Valley , CA, 94941, United States
Stump the Laureate: Poetry Recitation with Dana Gioia

Marin Poetry Center is proud to co-sponsor this wonderful event with the Mill Valley Public Library.
Come and recite your favorite poem by a published author other than you. California Poet Laureate, Dana Gioia will match the audience poem for poem until we or he runs out of poems!
Mill Valley Public Library 375 Throckmorton Ave Mill Valley CA 94941
Book Sales and Signing Afterward

Dana Gioia Former Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, Dana Gioia is an internationally acclaimed and award-winning poet. Gioia has published three full-length collections of poetry, as well as eight chapbooks. Interrogations at Noon, won the 2002 American Book Award. An influential critic, Gioia’s 1991 volume Can Poetry Matter?, which was a finalist for the NBCC award, is credited with helping to revive the role of poetry in American public culture. Gioia has published many literary anthologies and his poems, translations, essays, and reviews have appeared in many magazines including The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Washington Post Book World, The New York Times Book Review, Slate, and The Hudson Review. Gioia has written two opera libretti and is an active translator of poetry from Latin, Italian, and German. In 2015, he was appointed the State Poet Laureate of California by Governor Jerry Brown.

Flash Fiction Forum Reading Series
2017-05-10 19:00 - 21:00 UTC | Works/San José, 365 S Market St, San Jose, CA, 95113, United States
Newest installment of the Flash Fiction Forum Reading Series.

José Gutiérrez + Dean Rader
2017-05-10 19:00 - 21:00 UTC | Book Passage Marin, 51 Tamal Vista Blvd. , Corte Madera, CA, 94925, United States
A World Less Away is a honeycomb, blackbox, dream codex and memory palace. These poems traffic in the interstices of our lives where the quotidian is imbued with meaning and hums with metaphysical unrest. By turns existential, surreal and elegiac, the poems in this collection take swerves that are sure to transport the reader to the oneiric side of reality while never losing sight that “flesh was the first simile/we were given,/to feel, conjure,/never truly inhabit.
José Gutiérrez is a San Francisco-based poet. His work has appeared in Eratio, Scythe, Margie, Poemeleon, DMQ, Kestrel, Thrush Journal, Jetfuel, Caliban, Gnarled Oak and the anthologies Mutanabbi Street Starts Here and 99 Poems for the 99 Percent and is forthcoming in Metonym, Public Pool, eleveneleven and Xavier Review, among others. He works as an interpreter and translator in the medical and legal fields in the Bay Area.
Wikipedia articles are never finalized. In Dean Rader’s energized and inventive new book, Self-Portrait as Wikipedia Entry, the poet considers identity of self and society as a Wikipedia page — sculpted and transformed by the ever-present push and pull of politics, culture, and unseen forces. And, in the case of Rader, how identity can be affected by the likes of Paul Klee’s paintings and the characters from the children’s stories about Frog and Toad. Rader’s cagey voice is full of humor and inquiry, warmly inviting readers to fully participate in the creation.
Born in Oklahoma, Dean Rader has published in the fields of poetry, American Indian studies, and popular culture. He is a professor of English at the University of San Francisco, and writes regularly on literature and politics for The San Francisco Chronicle.

Smut: An Unseemly Story (The Greening of Mrs. Donaldson)
2017-05-10 19:00 - 2017-06-11 23:30 UTC | Z Space, 450 Florida Street, San Francisco, CA, 94110, United States
One of England’s finest and most loved writers, Alan Bennett, explores the uncomfortable and tragicomic gap between people’s public appearance and their private desires in this tender and surprising story. In The Greening of Mrs. Donaldson, a recently bereaved widow finds interesting ways to supplement her income by performing as a patient for medical students, and renting out her spare room. Quiet, middle-class, and middle-aged, Mrs. Donaldson will soon discover that she rather enjoys role-play at the hospital, and the irregular and startling entertainment provided by her tenants.A master storyteller dissects a very English form of secrecy with this story of the unexpected in otherwise apparently ordinary lives. Directed by Amy Kossow.

Sarah Ladipo Manyika
2017-05-10 19:30 - 21:00 UTC | Green Apple Books on the Park, 1231 9th Ave, San Francisco , CA, 94122, United States
Sarah Ladipo Manyika in conversation with Vendela Vida about her new book, Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun.
Praise for Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun
“Dr. Morayo Da Silva is one of the most memorable characters you are likely to encounter on the page – intelligent, indomitable, author and survivor of a large life. In dreamlike prose, Manyika dips in and out of her present, her past, in a story that argues always for generosity, for connection, for a vigorous and joyful endurance.” —Karen Joy Fowler, author of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, shortlisted for 2014 Man Booker Prize
“If aging be a lamp, then Morayo, the protagonist in Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun is a mesmerising glow. Astute, sensual, funny, and moving.” —NoViolet Bulawayo, author of We Need New Names, shortlisted for 2013 Man Booker Prize
“From the instant you pick it up, you know that you will privy to the most intimate secrets. A beautiful, important new novel. ” —Peter Orner, author of Love and Shame and Love
About Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun
Morayo Da Silva, a cosmopolitan Nigerian woman, lives in hip San Francisco. On the cusp of seventy-five, she is in good health and makes the most of it, enjoying road trips in her vintage Porsche, chatting to strangers, and recollecting characters from her favourite novels. Then she has a fall and her independence crumbles. Without the support of family, she relies on friends and chance encounters. As Morayo recounts her story, moving seamlessly between past and present, we meet Dawud, a charming Palestinian shopkeeper, Sage, a feisty, homeless Grateful Dead devotee, and Antonio, the poet whom Morayo desired more than her ambassador husband.
A subtle story about ageing, friendship and loss, this is also a nuanced study of the erotic yearnings of an older woman.

Fireside Storytelling: Call of the Wild
2017-05-10 19:30 - 21:00 UTC | The Institute of Possibility, 3359 Cesar Chavez St, San Francisco , CA, 94110, United States
The wonders of nature … the unbridled power of nature’s wrath … in the end, we all know that no matter what we do, nature ultimately has the last say. This month we venture into the wild to hear stories from six storytellers about their brushes with nature, for better or worse. Join us at the next Fireside!
Storytellers
Scott Sanders
Dhaya Lakshminarayanan
Andy Sewell
Neshama Franklin
More TBD

Dani Shapiro
2017-05-10 19:30 - 21:30 UTC | Mrs. Dalloway’s Bookstore, 2904 College Ave, Berkeley, CA, 94705, United States
Dani Shapiro reads from Hourglass: Time, Memory, Marriage, the novelist’s most intimate and powerful work to date: a piercing, life-affirming memoir about marriage and memory, about the frailty and elasticity of our most essential bonds, and about the accretion, over time, of both sorrow and love.
“Reading this book was like skating across a perfect piece of ice and then slowly noticing the cracks. Dark, cold water shows through. We can’t see the depths. Be careful, Shapiro warns, be careful, but still she skates on in the fading light with remarkable beauty and grace.”–Jenny Offill

Lunada Literary Lounge & Free Me Fast
2017-05-10 19:30 - 21:30 UTC | Galería de la Raza, 2857 24th Street, San Francisco , CA, 94110, United States
Featuring Mireya Ixchel A.K.A. ‘Lil’ Deya, Aleja Cobarruviaz, Joey B. Gomez, singer/songwriter Astu, and Special Guests. Open Mic sign-up at 7:15pm.
LUNADA Literary Lounge & FREE ME FAST
At the height of Spring, under the full moon, Galeria de la Raza presents Lunada Literary Lounge in collaboration with Free Me Fast, for an evening of youth spoken word & community Open Mic, featuring:
~ MIREYA IXCHEL a.k.a. ‘LIL’ DEYA
~ ALEJA COBARRUVIAZ
~ JOEY B. GOMEZ
~ ASTU
LUNADA’s OPEN MIC invites poets, emcees, musicians, storytellers, laureates and first-timers to share their voices under the lunar spotlight. SIGN-UP 7:15PM: 8 spots on the list, 5 min. ea.
Hosted & curated by Sandra García Rivera & Maddy Clifford
Also featuring DJ Chris “L7” Cuadrado providing the musical backdrop, and artwork and free posters by fine artist and illustrator Ozi Magaña.
$5.00 ADMISSION
Free for youth under 18

GALERIA DE LA RAZA
2857 24th Street, at Bryant
SF, CA 94110
LUNADA is the Bay Area’s only full moon bilingual literary ritual & performance gathering devoted to spoken word, música, song, and story. Located in the heart of the Mission District at Galería de la Raza, and guest curated by some of the Bay Area’s most dynamic word slingers and artists, each LUNADA features community poets, local legends, visiting mystics, and other mero meros of the stage. Voted Best Literary Night of 2016 by the SF Bay Guardian.
FREE ME FAST is a project that highlights the voices and visions of incarcerated youth. Students at the San Francisco Juvenile Justice Center strengthened their writing skills in weekly literary arts workshops led by teaching artist MADDY CLIFFORD, a WritersCorps Teaching Artist in Residence* grant recipient. Inspired by the students’ poems, visual artist OZI MAGAÑA created unique paintings, which resulted in a poster series that celebrates the bravery and creative imagination of youth. Free Me Fast honors the arts as a vital resource that stretches our imagination, whether inside concrete walls or within our communities. (@freeme.fast on Instagram)
*The San Francisco Arts Commission’s WritersCorps Teaching Artist in Residence (WCTAIR) grant program supports teaching artists in community settings to teach free creative writing workshops to youth.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Mireya Ixchel, A.K.A. ‘Lil’ Deya, is a 14-year old singer, rapper, and songwriter, born and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area. She uses her music as a way to spread messages of hope to her people and express the experiences in her life. Mireya has been a featured performer for the Xicana Moratorium, The Courage Awards- Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice (CURYJ) 5-Year Gala, Reclaiming Cinco de Mayo, and the California Alliance for Youth and Community Justice Convening. She thrives to help build a better community around her and for future generations.
Home grown in the Bayview, Aleja Cobarruviaz is an 11th grade Queen in training. She finds solace in writing, rhyming, and producing. She is also a published author in two different publications. Her passions include: reading comic books, rapping, mixing and producing music as well as being a participant in the Artists as Activist Class at her high school. She is founder and co-leader of the Hip Hop is Culture Club at the Bay School of San Francisco. She wants to be a scriptwriter, director, and actor for DC Comics.
Joey B. Gomez is an 18 year-old aspiring artist. He’s in search of new opportunities in order to create a better way of living. He was born and raised in San Francisco and wishes to share past experiences with those who have faced similar situations. Making a difference in at least one person’s life is his main priority.
Astu is an Eritrean singer/songwriter debuting out of Oakland, CA. Her growing acclaim can be attested to her soulful r&b vocals and addictive melodies. Astu’s bold and honest lyrics explore her experiences of love, redemption and black womanhood. Astu is currently recording her premiere album to be released in the summer of 2017.
MADlines aka Maddy Clifford is a rapper, educator and activist. She has been teaching poetry workshops at the San Francisco Juvenile Justice Center for the past four years. She is also part of a band called FR333 and is co-founder of BrujaLyfe, a curatorial platform that throws concerts, leads workshops and facilitates healing forums. madlinesinfo.com
Ozi Magaña is a Bay Area fine artist and illustrator. He draws upon the energy, experience and aesthetic of his environment and community to create imaginative pieces. His work has appeared in galleries in Denver, Oakland and San Francisco. ozimagana.com
Chris “L7” Cuadrado is a poet, MC, hip hop producer, photographer, graphic artist, director, and community organizer from Inglewood CA, currently based in Santa Cruz, CA. L7 centers his community and oppressed people’s within his work and seeks to challenge and dismantle structures/systems of power that reproduce our oppression. Follow: Lsiete.tumblr.com & https://soundcloud.com/lsiete

Benjamin Ludwig
2017-05-11 13:00 - 15:00 UTC | Book Passage Marin, 51 Tamal Vista Blvd. , Corte Madera, CA, 94925, United States
Readers who loved Christopher from The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, Jack from Room, and Bee from Where’d You Go, Bernadette, will be thrilled to get to know Ginny Moon in this unforgettable debut that affirms of how fiction has the power to change the way we look at the world.
Told in an extraordinary and wholly unique voice that will candidly take you into the mind of a curious and deeply human character.
For the first time in her life, Ginny Moon has found her “forever home”-a place where she’ll be safe and protected, with a family that will love and nurture her. It’s exactly the kind of home that all foster kids are hoping for. So why is this 14-year-old so desperate to get kidnapped by her abusive, drug-addict birth mother, Gloria, and return to a grim existence of hiding under the kitchen sink to avoid the authorities and her mother’s violent boyfriends?
While Ginny is pretty much your average teenager-she plays the flute in the school band, has weekly basketball practice and studies Robert Frost poems for English class-she is autistic. And so what’s important to Ginny includes starting every day with exactly nine grapes for breakfast, Michael Jackson, bacon-pineapple pizza and, most of all, getting back to Gloria so she can take care of her baby doll.
A compulsively readable and touching novel, this story is about being an outsider trying to find a place to belong and making sense of a world that just doesn’t seem to add up.
Benjamin Ludwig lives in New Hampshire with his family and is a life-long teacher of English and writing. He holds an MAT in English Education and an MFA in Writing. Shortly after he and his wife married they became foster parents and adopted a teenager with autism.

Simon Wickhamsmith on Mongolian Poet Tseveendorjin Oidov
2017-05-11 18:00 - 20:00 UTC | Center for the Art of Translation office, 582 Market St #700, San Francisco, CA, 94104, United States
Join us for a conversation with Mongolian translator Simon Wickhamsmith and Scott Esposito about Wickhamsmith’s translation of Tseveendorjin Oidov’s The End of the Dark Era. Wickhamsmith was awarded a PEN/Heim Translation grant for his work on the book, and he’ll talk about how he became interested in Mongolian literature and the challenges of translating from the language.
Light snacks and drinks will be provided. Come prepared to join the conversation!

Voz Sin Tinta: Our monthly bilingual poetry series and open mic.
2017-05-11 18:30 - 21:00 (America/Los_Angeles)
Sponsored by Alejandro Murguia, curated by Marguerite Munoz and Rene Vaz.
This month’s readers TBD.

StageWrite presents Mirrors, Smoke, & Getting Woke: Short Plays by Short People
2017-05-11 18:30 - 21:00 UTC | Brava Theater Center, 2781 24th Street, San Francisco , CA, 94110, United States
Come see a multimedia production of original plays written by fifth graders from SFUSD, inspired by works of visual art at the de Young Museum, and performed as staged readings by professional actors with music by The Write-Ons.
Enter a world where… Mirrors reflect our nature, ideas have other ideas, the rebellion starts on Powell Street, legacies lurk in the shadows, and money falls out your wazoo!

David Weisberg discusses and signs "The American Plan"
2017-05-11 19:00 - 20:00 UTC | DIESEL, A Bookstore, 5433 College Ave, Oakland, CA, 94618, United States
DIESEL, A Bookstore in Oakland welcomes David Weisberg to the store to discuss and sign The American Plan, on Thursday, May 11th at 7:00 pm. This will be his West coast launch and all are welcome to attend.
A daring and disturbing tale of survival set in Cuba and South Florida during the 1950s and early 60’s, embracing both the breadth of historical fiction and the intimate intensity of a psychological suspense novel, The American Plan is a vertiginous ride through the mid-century American psyche.
Copies of The American Plan will be for sale at the event.

Dodie Bellamy + Kevin Killian
2017-05-11 19:00 - 21:00 UTC | City Lights Bookstore, 261 Columbus Ave, San Francisco , CA, 94133, United States
celebrating the release of
Writers Who Love Too Much: New Narrative 1977-1997
Edited by Dodie Bellamy and Kevin Killian
Published by Nightboat Books
In the twenty years that followed America’s bicentennial, narrative writing was re-formed, reflecting new political and sexual realities. With the publication of this anthology, the New Narrative era bounds back to life, ripe with dramatic propulsion and infused with the twin strains of poetry and Continental theory. Arranged chronologically, the reader will discover classic texts of New Narrative from Bob Glück to Kathy Acker, and rare materials including period interviews, reviews, essays, and talks combined to form a new map of late twentieth-century creative rebellion.
Dodie Bellamy is the author of numerous works of prose. Her latest book is When the Sick Rule the World. She teaches creative writing at San Francisco State University and California College of the Arts.
Kevin Killian is a San Francisco-based poet, novelist, playwright, and art writer. He is the author of fifteen books and co-wrote Poet Be Like God, a biography of the American poet Jack Spicer (1925-1965). City Lights published his novel Impossible Princess, winner of the 2010 Lambda Literary Award for Best Gay Erotica .

Marissa Moss
2017-05-11 19:00 - 21:00 UTC | Books Inc. Opera Plaza, 601 Van Ness, San Francisco , CA, 94107, United States
Award-winning author and illustrator Marissa Moss shares her touching memoir, Last Things: A Graphic Memoir of Loss and Love.
Last Things is the true and intensely personal story of how one woman coped with the devastating effects of a catastrophic illness in her family.
Using her trademark mix of words and pictures to sharp effect, Marissa Moss presents the story of how she, her husband, and her three young sons struggled to maintain their sense of selves and wholeness as a family and how they continued on with everyday life when the earth shifted beneath their feet.
After returning home from a year abroad, Marissa’s husband, Harvey, was diagnosed with ALS. The disease progressed quickly, and Marissa was soon consumed with caring for Harvey while trying to keep life as normal as possible for her young children. ALS stole the man who was her husband, the father of her children, and her best friend in less than 7 months.
This is not a story about the redemptive power of a terminal illness. It is a story of resilience–of how a family managed to survive a terrible loss and grow in spite of it. Although it’s a sad story, it’s powerfully told and ultimately uplifting as a guide to strength and perseverance, to staying connected to those who matter most in the midst of a bleak upheaval. If you’ve ever wondered how you would cope with a dire diagnosis, this book can provide a powerful example of what it feels like and how to come through the darkness into the light.

Why There Are Words: Suggestible
2017-05-11 19:15 - 21:15 UTC | Studio 333, 333 Caledonia Street, Sausalito , CA, 94965, United States
Join Why There Are Words (WTAW) on May 11, 2017, at Studio 333 in Sausalito as seven acclaimed authors explore the theme Suggestible. Doors open at 7pm; readings begin at 7:15. Entry fee is $10 at the door, though donations to WTAW, a 501(c)3 nonprofit are always welcome.
Jason Bayani is the author of Amulet from Write Bloody Press. He’s an MFA graduate from Saint Mary’s College, and a Kundiman fellow, and he works as the artistic director for Kearny Street Workshop. He performs regularly around the country and recently debuted his solo show, “Locus of Control” in 2016.
Jon Boilard was born and raised in Western Massachusetts, and has been living in Northern California since 1986. His award-winning short stories have appeared in some of the finest literary journals in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Asia. His debut short story collection, Settright Road (Dzanc Books, 2017), is preceded by two novels, The Castaway Lounge (Dzanc Books/2015) and A River Closely Watched (MacAdam Cage/2012), a finalist for the Northern California Book Award. He has participated in the Cork International Short Story Festival in Cork, Ireland, the Wroclaw Short Story Festival in Wroclaw, Poland, and LitQuake in San Francisco.
Alex Green is the author of the The Stone Roses (Bloomsbury Academic, 2006), Emergency Anthems (Brooklyn Arts Press, 2015), and the novel The Heart Goes Boom (Wrecking Ball, UK 2017). His music criticism has appeared in Magnet, CMJ New Music Monthly, HITS!, and Creem. Currently, he’s the Editor-In-Chief of the daily online music magazine Stereo Embers Magazine and he hosts the weekly radio show “The Heart Goes Boom” on Ireland’s Primal Radio. A known moderator in the Bay Area, he has conducted In Conversation interviews with Janice Cooke Newman, Maira Kalman, Joshua Mohr, Bruce Bauman, Kenneth Oppel, Laura Dave, Kazim Ali, and Lysley Tenorio. He teaches in both the graduate and undergraduate English programs at St. Mary’s College of California.
Henry Hoke is the author of Genevieves (winner of the Subito Press prose contest) and The Book of Endless Sleepovers (CCM). His stories appear in The Collagist, Electric Literature, Winter Tangerine, and Carve. He co-created and directs Enter>text: a living literary journal, and teaches at CalArts and the UVA Young Writers Workshop.
Sandra Hunter’s fiction has received the 2016 Gold Line Press Chapbook Prize, October 2014 Africa Book Club Award, 2014 H.E. Francis Fiction Award, and two Pushcart Prize nominations. She was a finalist for the 2016 Bridgeport Prize and is a 2017 MacDowell Fellow. Her debut novel, Losing Touch, was released in July 2014. Her fiction chapbook, Small Change, was published in August 2016. She’s just completed her second novel, The Geography of Kitchen Tables, and is now working on the sequel. Her favorite dessert: rose-flavored macaroons.
Paul T. Scheuring was born in Aurora, Illinois. He attended the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, and has written numerous projects for film and TV, including the Golden Globe-nominated series Prison Break, which has been declared the most anticipated series to return to television. Scheuring also wrote and directed The Experiment, and served as producer alongside Ridley Scott on Klondike, a series he created and co-wrote. The Far Shore (March 7, 2017) is his first novel. He resides in Northern California.
Zach Wyner is a writer and teacher who works with incarcerated youth in the San Francisco Bay Area through an organization called The Beat Within. He received an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of San Francisco and is a contributor to Curly Red Stories, The Good Man Project and Unbroken Journal. His debut novel, What We Never Had, published by Rare Bird Books, was released this past September. He lives in Oakland with his wife, stepdaughter, and infant son.

Evolving American Dream
2017-05-11 19:30 - 20:30 UTC | SHED, 25 North Street, Healdsburg, CA, 95448, United States
Two contemporary master story tellers, who focus on the immigrant experience, talk about how their novels and stories portray the current immigrant experience, at SHED, 25 North Street, Healdsburg, Thursday, May 11, 2017, 7-8:30 PM. Shanthi Sekaran, author of the best selling novel Lucky Boy, and Vanessa Hua, author of the acclaimed story collection Deceit and Other Possibilities, join Oscar Villalon, Managing Editor of the literary journal, Zyzzyva, in a conversation to map out the boundaries and barriers in the modern American immigrant scene. Your $15 admission gets you a seat for the conversation, tastes of Grey Stack Cellars stellar wines, some of the special bites prepared by SHED chef Perry Hoffman, and a chance to buy Shanthi’s and Vanessa’s books

Glori Simmons
2017-05-11 19:30 - 21:30 UTC | Green Apple Books on the Park, 1231 9th Ave, San Francisco , CA, 94122, United States
Glori Simmons discusses her new story collection, Suffering Fools, winner of the Spokane Prize for Short Fiction.

About Suffering Fools

A woman running a halfway house for paroled sexual predators is left wondering if her favorite has committed his most unthinkable crime yet. A groundskeeper who has just discovered that his ex is pregnant digs up an infant’s tombstone inscribed with his own name. A traumatic traffic collision sends an aging couple back into their decades long marriage. Whether it be a dying man spying on two teenage lovers or a new mother running from her colicky infant, the nine stories in Suffering Fools spring from the dark corners of our psyches, revealing the fears and contradictions that give shape to unconditional love. Suffering Fools is the winner of the Spokane Prize for Short Fiction.

Laura McBride
2017-05-11 19:30 - 21:30 UTC | Mrs. Dalloway’s Bookstore, 2904 College Ave, Berkeley, CA, 94705, United States
Laura McBride

reads from her new novel, ‘Round Midnight, a story that follows the interconnected lives of four women in Las Vegas, each of whom experiences a life-changing moment at a classic casino nightclub.
“Gorgeous, engrossing, moving, and at times wickedly funny, this brilliant novel pulled me in and didn’t let me go until the shattering final sentence. This is the novel you need to read right now.”–Joanna Rakoff, author of My Salinger Year and A Fortunate Age

Thursday, May 11, 2017 – 7:30pm

Spanning the six decades when Las Vegas grew from a dusty gambling town into the melting pot metropolis it is today, ‘Round Midnight is the story of four women–one who falls in love, one who gets lucky, one whose heart is broken, and one who chooses happiness–whose lives change at the Midnight Room.
June Stein and her husband open the El Capitan casino in the 1950s, and rocket to success after hiring a charismatic black singer to anchor their nightclub. Their fast-paced lifestyle runs aground as racial tensions mount.
Honorata leaves the Philippines as a mail order bride to a Chicago businessman, then hits a jackpot at the Midnight Room when he takes her on a weekend trip to Las Vegas.
Engracia, a Mexican immigrant whose lucky find at the Midnight Room leads to heartbreak, becomes enmeshed in Honorata’s secret when she opens her employer’s door to that Chicago businessman–and his gun.
Last is Coral, an African-American teacher who struggles with her own mysterious past. A favor for Honorata takes her to the Midnight Room, where she hits a jackpot of another kind.
Mining the rich territory of motherhood and community, ‘Round Midnight is a story that mirrors the social transformation of our nation. Full of passion, heartbreak, heroism, longing, and suspense, it honors the reality of women’s lives.
Laura McBride is also the author of the novel We Are Called to Rise. She lives in Las Vegas and teaches composition at the College of Southern Nevada.

Event address:

2904 College Avenue

Berkeley, CA 94705

Two Voices Salon: Simon Wickhamsmith
2017-05-11 20:00 UTC | Center for the Art of Translation office, 582 Market St #700, San Francisco, CA, 94104, United States
Two Voices Salon: Translator Simon Wickhamsmith on Mongolian Poet Tseveendorjin Oidov

Center for the Art of Translation | 582 Market Street, Suite 700 | San Francisco, CA

Doors at 5:30. Event will begin promptly at 6:00 p.m.

Join us for a conversation with Mongolian translator Simon Wickhamsmith and Scott Esposito about Wickhamsmith’s translation of Tseveendorjin Oidov’s The End of the Dark Era. Wickhamsmith was awarded a PEN/Heim Translation grant for his work on the book, and he’ll talk about how he became interested in Mongolian literature and the challenges of translating from the language.
Light snacks and drinks will be provided. Come prepared to join the conversation!

CONTACT:

Leslie-Ann Woofter
lwoofter@catranslation.org
415.512.8812

Rewrite Your Life
2017-05-12 17:30 - 2017-05-14 12:00 UTC | Grace Cathedral, 1100 California Street, San Francisco, 1100 California Street, San Francisco, CA, United States
REWRITE YOUR LIFE WEEKEND IMMERSIVE
A HEALING CREATIVE WRITING WORKSHOP
Learn how to write the book you’re meant to write in this weekend workshop. You’ll be introduced to the powerfully therapeutic value of creative writing and taught to transform your life experiences into healing fiction with the bones to be the next great American novel. Class size is limited.
In this 3-day intensive, you will be shown:

the science behind the healing power of transforming fact into fiction
a simple yet powerful model for sifting through pivotal life experiences to select the one you most need to write about

practical guidance in plumbing your past to create memorable characters and to craft a compelling plot
direction on how to use the power of smell, sound, taste, and touch memories to access your past as well as craft cinematic setting
the POP method, a wildly effective tool for pulling all your words together and crafting a novel in one year’s time
how to set and keep personal writing and self-improvement goals in your everyday life

StageWrite presents Mirrors, Smoke, & Getting Woke: Short Plays by Short People
2017-05-12 18:30 - 21:00 UTC | Brava Theater Center, 2781 24th Street, San Francisco , CA, 94110, United States
StageWrite presents Mirrors, Smoke, & Getting Woke: Short Plays by Short People
Come see a multimedia production of original plays written by fifth graders from SFUSD, inspired by works of visual art at the de Young Museum, and performed as staged readings by professional actors with music by The Write-Ons.
Enter a world where… Mirrors reflect our nature, ideas have other ideas, the rebellion starts on Powell Street, legacies lurk in the shadows, and money falls out your wazoo!

Christopher Bernard Reads from Chien Lunatique
2017-05-12 19:00 - 21:00 (America/Denver) | The Beat Museum, 540 Broadway, San Francisco , CA, 94133, United States
Love, Modernity, and the Internet Just who, or what, is le chien lunatique?
The poet driven out of his mind when faced with the catastrophe of the modern world? The modern world turned into a rabid canine when faced with the hopelessly idealistic poet? Or when it looks in the mirror and sees what it has become?
These poems – profound yet accessible, contemporary yet classical, eloquent and dynamic even when apparently most despairing – distill one poet’s somewhat jaundiced look at modernity, from the Renaissance and the philosophical revolutions of the seventeenth century to the nihilism of postmodernism, from the death of God to the bankruptcy of humanism, from the midnight of the Enlightenment to the immortalized barbarism of the internet. Yet behind all of these poems, supporting them like a hand, lies the passion that drives all of existence, old or new – the ferocious and uncompromising demands of love.
A rabid dog eventually bites itself to death. So is there hope pour ce pauvre chien lunatique? Maybe there is. Maybe there isn’t. Only the future knows. It sits at your feet. Growling.
Pre-publication Comments on
Christopher Bernard’s
CHIEN LUNATIQUE
“An extraordinary, and extraordinarily strange, accomplishment. It is bound to offend at least one of your friends.”
– Jack Foley
“. . . poems of diamond-like brilliance, filled with despair, passion, and surreal beauty. The poet . . . in an act of intellectual courage, climbs up on the rubble of western culture to speak truth to both power and powerlessness.”
– Mary Mackey, author of Sugar Zone and
the novel The Village of Bones
“Another entrancing book from a poet and novelist of visionary authority, whose imagination is at once brilliant and unsettling.”
– Ernest Hilbert, author of Caligulan
“An attempt to right the world . . . a generous collection.” – Simon Perchik
“ ‘The Wife of the Painter’ . . . takes my breath away . . . . ‘Midnight’ is . . . a masterpiece, yet so modest as to almost escape notice.”
– Curt Barnes
“In this provocative collection of poems, Christopher Bernard emerges as a maverick bucking current tastes and trends . . . balancing an unabashed prophetic fury with poems of great love and tenderness.”
– Philip Fried

Uptown Fridays Presents: Ariel Gore + Sara Marinelli
2017-05-12 19:00 - 21:00 UTC | Nomadic Press: Uptown, 2301 Telegraph Ave., Oakland, CA, 94612, United States
Join us for an Uptown Fridays reading you won’t forget, featuring readings by Ariel Gore and Sara Marinelli, with music by Nkechi.
Suggested donations of $5-25 collected at the door, but no one turned away for lack of funds.
Red wine and Red Bay coffee will be available.
Information about performers:
Ariel Gore is the editor & publisher of the Alternative Press Award-winning magazine Hip Mama and the author of eight books. Her latest, The End of Eve, chronicles her years spent caring for her dying mother. The memoir has been called “Terms of Endearment meets Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?”
Born in Naples, Italy, Sara Marinelli is a writer, translator, and educator. She earned her PhD in English from the University of Rome and an MFA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University. Her stories appear in New American Writing, Blue Mesa Review, Sparkle & Blink, and many Italian publications. For her fiction, she was awarded residencies at the Vermont Studio Center, Byrdcliffe Art Colony, and BANFF Center for the Arts. Sara teaches Comparative Literature at the University of San Francisco and San Francisco State University. She is working on a novel about family grief, set in a superstitious and religious Naples. She curates Hazel Reading Series, and all-women literary salon.
Nkechi is a singer-songwriter whose evocative voice explores a wide range of music territory, including acoustic soul, folk rock and pop in a signature inspirational and lyrical sound called soul rock. Nkechi’s rich vocal textures and knack for improvisation make live performances a dynamic one-of-a-kind experience. She delivers conscious messages through verse, rhyme and melody and has been blessed with an amazing roster of musicians who together form Nkechi Live! Band (NLB) the performing platform for her original soul rock music. NLB has performed at music venues and festivals on the west and east coasts. Nkechi is also a painter and performing actor in film and theater. The website for her creative happenings is http://www.nkechi.com.

THERE 15
2017-05-12 19:00 - 21:00 UTC | The Octopus Literary Salon, 2101 Webster St #170, Oakland , CA, 94612, United States
NEXT THERE: THERE 15 – Friday, May 12 , 2017 – award-winning East Bay author Cecile Barlier, local author Katie Moulton, and another writer TBA.
THERE (THe Eastbay Reading Extravaganza) is a reading series showcasing emerging and established writers from Oakland and Berkeley, with the occasional San Franciscan. Doug hosts it on the third Friday of each month at Octopus Literary Salon in Uptown Oakland. It also features a live original musical performance by a local musical artist at “halftime” of each month’s reading, and Doug’s famous original LitQuiz literary trivia contest. It’s from 7:00-9:00pm. THERE has been putting the there back in Oakland since 2015!

Anne Lammott: On Writing
2017-05-13 13:00 - 16:00 UTC | Book Passage Marin, 51 Tamal Vista Blvd. , Corte Madera, CA, 94925, United States
Join Anne Lamott, the bestselling author of Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, for an afternoon that includes an onstage interview, a lecture, and a Q&A session. Anne Lamott offers advice on the writing process, while also touching upon the experiences of the writer and the writing life. Writers working at all levels are encouraged to learn from one of the great writers of our time. Anne Lamott taught the first Book Passage writing class almost two decades ago. It’s a joy to welcome her back.

"Say her name!": Writing the poetry of witness
2017-05-13 13:30 - 16:00 UTC | Temescal Art Center, 511 48th Street, Oakland, 94609, United States
In this workshop, poets will study the poetic work of Aracelis Girmay, Patricia Smith, and Danez Smith as a way of tracing the trembling thread that these poets leave us through the intense witnessing of pain to human connection, creative response, and action. You will also read the news and be guided in the spiritual and humanizing practice necessary to write poetry of witness. At the end of the workshop, those who are ready, will be encouraged to record and submit their poems to Black Poets Speak Out or Voluble. This workshop is open to writers of all backgrounds and stripes, and at any stage of their process.
About the instructor, poet Raina J. León:
Raina J. León, member of the Carolina African American Writers Collective, Cave Canem, Macondo, and CantoMundo, has been published in numerous journals as a writer of poetry, fiction and nonfiction. She is the author of three collections of poetry, Canticle of Idols, Boogeyman Dawn, and sombra: (dis)locate(2016) and the chapbook, profeta without refuge (2016). She has received fellowships and residencies with Montana Artists Refuge, the Macdowell Colony, Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts, Vermont Studio Center, the Tyrone Guthrie Center in Annamaghkerrig, Ireland and Ragdale. She also is a founding editor of The Acentos Review, an online quarterly, international journal devoted to the promotion and publication of LatinX arts. Raina is an associate professor of education at Saint Mary’s College of California.
Reserving a Space: You may reserve a space by purchasing a ticket on a sliding scale, $5-10, first-come-first-serve. All proceeds will be donated to the ACLU. There are 15 five dollar tix available, and 15 ten dollar tix available. The class caps at 30, so reserve your space now!
Location: Temescal Art Center, 511 48th Street, Oakland, 94609. TAC studio can be accessed via wide ramps and also features a wide bathroom equipped with multiple handrails.

Butchertown Book Release Party!
2017-05-13 15:00 - 16:30 UTC | Stookey’s Club Moderne, 895 Bush St. at Taylor, San Francisco, CA, 94610, United States
BUTCHERTOWN BOOK RELEASE PARTY: At Stookey’s Club Moderne
“One Bad Weekend in One Bad Town . . . Butchertown.”
“A darkly fascinating novel. Butchertown is incendiary”— David Corbett, award-winning author of Mercy of the Night.
“Burchfield rounds up a great cast of gangsters and gunsels to bat his wide-eyed hero around.”—Don Herron, author of the Literary World of San Francisco and Its Environs and The Dashiell Hammett Tour
“A sexy, violent non-stop thrill ride deep into the seedy underbelly of post-World War I San Francisco!” Critic’s Report, The BookLife Prize, sponsored by Publishers Weekly.
Oakland, CA, 5/5/2017 – The first official book release party for Butchertown, Thomas Burchfield’s new novel set in 1920s gangland San Francisco Bay will be held this coming Saturday May 13, 2017 at Stookey’s Club Moderne, 895 Bush Street (at Taylor) from 3:00-4:30 PM, with doors opening at 2:30. The author will read from Butchertown, plus an excerpt from an upcoming novel and will provide signed copies of Butchertown for sale.
Butchertown tells the story of Paul Bacon, ex-Navy boxer, Jazz-Age playboy and junior city attorney, who’s moved to California expecting sunshine and sandy beaches. But all he’s found is lonely misery in the chilly fog-choked canyons of 1920s San Francisco.
Then, one foggy night, he meets Molly Carver. Alluring, irresistible, mysterious, she lures Paul across San Francisco Bay to her hometown of Evansville, to what she claims is the California promised in the travel brochures.
But Molly’s promise is only camouflage for a dangerous game. Evansville is no paradise but a whirling sewer of sin and perdition; a wilderness of slaughterhouses, factories, oil refineries, gambling dens, brothels, and speakeasies even more decadent than San Francisco. And within its grimy, gritty heart, a gang war smolders, ready for someone to throw a match.
They don’t call it Butchertown for nothing.
ABOUT THE VENUE: Stookey’s Club Moderne, located at 895 Bush at Taylor, between Nob Hill and Union Square, is a lounge evoking the style of post-prohibition San Francisco (1930-1940).
The bar’s classic cocktails and Streamline-Moderne design, brings its guests back in time and into the mood of Dashiell Hammett’s San Francisco.
Contact:
Thomas Burchfield
amblerhouse@att.net
(510) 817-4432
http://amblerhouse.blogspot.com/
