(Nicole McFeely)

Featured Event: Saturday, August 20th- Literary Death Match

Billed as the most exciting thing to ever cost nothing, this international reading series is heating up our weekend with an evening of free debauchery. Hosted by Bucky Sinister and Alia Volz at the beautiful Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Chinaka Hodge, Jonathon Keats, Caitlin Myer, and Susan Steinberg will all read works written especially for the show, which have been inspired by paintings in YBCA’s BAN6 Visual Art Exhibition. Did you get all of that? Something like this has only happened once before, and 750 people were there! Artists from the exhibition, Chris Sollars, Tony Labat, and Mica Sigourney, will be their judges. Sounds pretty awesome, right? Yeah, that’s because it is.

Also This Week:
Tuesday, August 16th starts off our week with The Word Party, a poetry open mic with jazz accompaniment provided by the talented folks of Nova Jazz [check it, and more recently, the supernova].

Good luck with Wednesday, August 17th. For First Person Singular, Josh Kornbluth will read Howl and other poems to horn accompaniment by the man himself, Mr. Ralph Carney. Lyrics & Dirges 1 Yr Anniversary show over in the East Bay is featuring a pretty exciting lineup, including Milani Pelley, Shawn Taylor, Daphne Gottlieb, Beth Lisick, and Camille Dungy. Or, join Litquake for their next Epicenter featuring Steven T. Jones, author of the new book Tribes of Burning Man: How an Experimental City in the Desert is Shaping the New American Counterculture.

If you can’t hang out with Litquake on Wednesday, there’s always Thursday, August 18th, where you can see Dennis Lehane in conversation with Eddie Muller. Or, consider checking out the poetry of Lenore Weiss and Jerry Ferraz at Thursdays at Readers. In the mood for some stories? InsideStoryTime presents Trips and Traps featuring Aneesha Capur, Alta Ifland, Stephen Kessler, Cary Tennis, and Timothy Crandle. You know about InsideStoryTime, right?

Friday, August 19th would be feeling a little lonely if it weren’t for Writing w/o Walls- Subterranean. This relatively new submission-based series is seriously worth its salt. Check out footage from show 1 and show 2, and get the roster here.

Speaking of things you should miss, head to Oakland on Saturday, August 20th to check out Corina Copp and Jean Day at the Condensery. Read about it here.