Our top picks for the week starting Monday, April 8, 2013. Suggest an event.

Monday, 4/8

The Nato Sessions w/ Gerard Jones: San Francisco’s favorite comedian, Nato Green, is back from New York (where he worked as a contributing writer for Totally Biased with W. Kamau Bell) with The Nato Sessions at the JCCSF, featuring talks from “famous smart people.” This session features Gerard Jones, author of the Eisner Award-winning Men of Tomorrow, The Beaver Papers, and more. Buy tickets here.

Gerard Jones at the Rumpus:

Nato Green snippet:

Tuesday, 4/9

Caroline Paul & Wendy McNaughton: Attention cat lovers: Caroline Paul and Wendy McNaughton are celebrating their launch party at The Booksmith for their collaborative book “Lost Cat: A True Story of Love, Desperation, and GPS Technology.” You may know McNaughton for her quirky and beautiful illustrations which have appeared in The New York Times, Juxtapoz, and Print Magazine, and her illustrated documentary series “Meanwhile” published by The Rumpus. Watch Wendy’s awesome two-part video series from KQED!

Wednesday, 4/10

Mills College: Anne Carson (Oakland): The Mills College Contemporary Writers Series presents Anne Carson: poet, essayist, translator, and professor of classics. A recipient of Guggenheim and MacArthur Fellowships, winner of a Lannan Literary Award, and the current Mohr Visiting Poet at Stanford University, Carson is widely respected as one of the more interesting and unclassifiable writers of our time. Here’s a great interview she did with The Paris Review.

Wednesday, 4/10

Joyce Carol Oates @ Mrs. Dalloway’s (Berkeley): In one of the last rounds of her rare San Francisco circuit, Joyce Carol Oates, author of over 50 novels, 30 collections of short stories, and innumerable volumes of poetry, plays, essays, and book reviews, will be visiting Mrs. Dalloway’s to read from her newest novel, “The Accursed.” The recipient of three Nobel Prize nominations and the 2012 PEN Center Award For Lifetime Achievement, Oates is one of the most influential and prolific writers of our time. Check out Charles Kruger’s review of her recent Mills College visit.

Thursday, 4/11

New California Writing 2013 Launch Party: For almost forty years, Heydey Books has been dedicated to the cultures of California. Their annual New California Writing series collects some of the best work published in literary journals, magazines, novels, and newspapers. To celebrate the third release of New California Writing 2013, Heydey will host rapid-fire readings from all fourteen of the book’s contributors. Also, there will be free food and booze for anyone that comes early. The last two years sold out, so make sure to buy your tickets early! 

Thursday, 4/11

Poetry Flash: Kjell Espmark & Mariela Griffor @ Moe’s: Poetry Flash presents Kjell Espmark, Swedish poet, novelist, literary historian, and chair of the Nobel Prize in Literature, who will read from his book of poems Outside the Calendar.  Also appearing is Chilean poet Mariela Griffor: translator, author of three books of poetry, and the founder of Marick Press. Here’s an interview with Mariela Griffor.

Saturday, 4/13

Poetry Projection @ YBCA: In celebration of National Poetry Month, WritersCorps presents Poetry Projection Project, a festival of short films based on youth writing screening at the Yerba Buena Poetry Center. Guest juror H.P. Mendoza will announce the winning entries of the festival. Come enjoy a screening of entries, presentation of awards, and reception. Read more about it here.

Poetry Projection Project festival trailer:

Saturday, 4/13

Saturday Afternoon Poetry @ Green Arcade: The Green Arcade is hosting the release party and reading for poet and scholar Susan Gevirtz, author of Coming Events (Collected Writings), and Frances Richard’s poetry collection Anarch. Come celebrate and chat with the authors on a lazy Saturday.

Saturday, 4/13

Tremors: New Fiction by Iranian American Writers: Tremors brings together twenty-seven authors from a wide range of experiences, in which the narratives capture the diversity of the Iranian diaspora. Readers include Shideh Etaat, Zohreh Ghahremani, Anita Amirrezvani, and more. Come celebrate with a wine/cheese reception and book signing after the reading.

Shideh Etaat at Quiet Lightning:

Saturday, 4/13

Writers With Drinks: Davidson, White, Brennan & Jaramillo: This month’s Writers With Drinks features a great group of writers- Jenny Davidson, Arisa White, Marie Brennan, and Luis Jaramillo. Writers With Drinks is always a raucous time. Read more here. 

Sunday, 4/14

The Little White Door: Half party, half poetry reading at the Little White Door, featuring readings from Brittany Perham, Matthew Siegel, and Kiki Vera Johnson. It’s BYOB and BYOC (chair!) and there will be cheap wine and limited seating, so come early to mingle, play flip cup, shoot Nerf guns, and hear some awesome writing.

Sunday, 4/14

Poetry World Series (Mill Valley): Emceed by Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket)! Two teams of Bay Area poets– Julie Bruck, Keith Ekiss, CJ Evans, Rebecca Foust, Dean Rader, and Melissa Stein–take turns batting at poem topics pitched to them by the audience. A panel of celebrity judges will score each “batter’s” reading. Register beforehand to enjoy the wine reception. Read more about the first Poetry World Series.

Melissa Stein at Quiet Lightning:

Dean Rader at ZYZZYVA:

Sunday, 4/14

Ending Hunger: Benefit for the SF Food Bank: Come to The Emerald Tablet for an evening of poetry benefiting the SF Food Bank, and help them end hunger here at home. Readers include Art Beck, Judith Ayn Bernhard, Neeli Cherkovski, Agneta Falk, Jack & Adelle Foley, Maketa Groves, Jack Hirschman, Clara Hsu, Ava Koohbor, and A.D. Winans. Please bring a shopping bag of non-perishable groceries or a cash donation!  

Adelle Foley @ Beyond Baroque:

Jack Hirschman @ Ambush Review:

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Michelle Greenberg is a Litseen intern and Creative Writing student at SFSU. She likes to play drums and write poetry in her free time, and is obsessed with Charles Bukowski, Mexican food, and cats. She wants to publish at least one book of her original poetry and/ or own a guinea pig farm when she grows up.