Litquake: Full Schedule

Welcome to Litquake, San Francisco’s literary festival, now in our 17th year. Festival dates are October 7-15, 2016. Events are all-ages unless noted otherwise. Book sales are offered when and where appropriate. Events without ticket reservations are first-come first served. Click the phone icon to the right below, to download our new mobile app version!

10:00am PDT

Kidquake: Early Elementary School Program

Join acclaimed children’s book authors, illustrators, poets, and workshop leaders for a morning of readings, discussion, and special workshops designed to help fuel the imagination of kids from kindergarten to 2nd grade. Book sales and signing to follow. Free for school groups, teachers must enroll in advance at litquake.org/kidquake. FREE

Participants

Dr. F. Isabel Campoy

Transformative Education Institute

F. ISABEL CAMPOY is the author of numerous children’s books in the areas of poetry, theatre, stories, biographies, and art. As a researcher she has published extensively bringing to the curriculum an awareness of the richness of the Hispanic culture. She is an educator specialized... Read More →

Katrina Goldsaito

Author, Little, Brown and Company

Florencia Milito

Born in Argentina, Florencia Milito spent her early childhood in Venezuela and has lived in the U.S. since she was nine. She is a bilingual poet, essayist, and translator whose work has appeared (or is forthcoming) in ZYZZYVA; Indiana Review; Catamaran; Entremares; Digging through... Read More →

Gwen Minor

Gwen Minor (Read Aloud Plays: The Iliad, The Odyssey, and The Aeneid, Scholastic), has been profiled on NPR and her podcasts have a world-wide following. A teacher and writer specializing in Shakespeare and ancient epic, she's also been a literary events coordinator, a freelance columnist... Read More →

Maggie Tokuda-Hall

Maggie Tokuda-Hall has an MFA in writing from the University of San Francisco and a tendency to spill things. As a longtime children's bookseller she has read her fair share of stories, and she is always hungry for more. Her favorite animal is an octopus, or else an elephant.

Robert Trujillo

Thursday October 6, 2016 10:00am - 12:15pm PDT
Koret Auditorium at the San Francisco Public Library

Kids or Teens, free | Type: Storytelling, free

Tags FREE

10:00am PDT

Kidquake: Upper Elementary Program

Join acclaimed children’s book authors, illustrators, poets and workshop leaders for a morning of readings, discussion, and special workshops designed to help fuel the imagination of kids in 3rd through 5th grade. Book sales and signing to follow. Free for school groups, teachers must enroll in advance at litquake.org/kidquake. FREE

Participants

Alex Gino

Alex Gino is an American children's book writer. Gino's debut book, George, was the winner of the 2016 Stonewall Book Award as well as the 2016 Lambda Literary Award in the category of LGBT Children's/Young Adult... Read More →

Gendell Hing-Hernandez

Gendell Hing-Hernandez has worked as an actor for Berkeley Rep, Word for Word, TheatreWorks, Camposanto, San Jose Rep, Center Rep, New Pickle Circus, and many others. Productions include Around The World In 80 Days, The Cook, Blood Wedding, Oil!, Food Stories, House on Mango Street... Read More →

Naomi Kinsman-Downing

Author, Executive Director, Society of Young Inklings

Build Your Own Imagined World Map- Naomi KinsmanWriters will develop the landscape, lifestyle, culture, and government of a fictional world, in order to create possibilities for character, conflict, and plot. You'll finish the workshop with a map, a character brainstorm and a couple... Read More →

Laura Marlin

Kate Schatz

Kate Schatz is a feminist writer, educator, editor + activist. She's the author of the the NYT-bestseller Rad American Women A-Z, its sequel Rad Women Worldwide, and the 33 1/3 book Rid of Me: A Story.

Susan Terence

Susan Terence, San Francisco Area Coordinator and poet teacher for Calif. Poets in the Schools, is a writer and performer who has been published in: SF Bay Guardian, SF Chronicle, S. Poetry Review, Nebraska Rev., Americas Rev., St. Petersburg Rev., District 11, and has been a winner... Read More →

Judd Winick

Cartoonist. Pinko. Reality TV has-been. *cough* bestselling author.

Friday October 7, 2016 10:00am - 12:15pm PDT
Koret Auditorium at the San Francisco Public Library

Kids or Teens Type: Storytelling

Tags wheelchair accessible, FREE

8:00pm PDT

Shakespeare @ 400: Litquake's Opening Night Gala

Ticket Link

NOTE: Advance sales have ended, but tickets are still available at the door!

Co-presented by San Francisco Shakespeare Festival

What better way to kick off 17 years of Litquake, than to celebrate 400 years of the world's most influential poet and dramatist, at the elegant chandeliered Green Room overlooking San Francisco City Hall. With hosted bar and catered light bites and dessert, and appearances by poet Gary Soto, Celtic harpist Shelley Phillips, and a special "off-color" performance from members of SF Shakes. Dramatic accessories encouraged!
$30 advance, $35 at the door

Mingle with Litquake authors, friends and supporters, pick up a copy of our Festival Guide, and hear poetry from Gary Soto, author of the new collection You Kiss by th' Book (each poem begins with a line from Shakespeare). Sample craft lagers from Sudwerk Brewery Co., and themed cocktails from Shakespeare Vodka, as you plan your Litquake week.

Participants

San Francisco Shakespeare Festival

Founded in 1983, the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival brings Shakespeare's greatest works to over 30,000 in the Bay Area each summer with Free Shakespeare in the Park. This series has become as much a part of summer in the Bay Area as a backyard barbecue — bringing professional... Read More →

Shelley Phillips

Shelley Phillips (folk harp, oboe, cor anglais, and flutes) and her husband Barry (cello) have played with many professional folk musicians in America, Ireland, and the UK. Shelley is director of the Santa Cruz Community Music School, where she runs Celtic music camps for children and teens, maintains a private studio, and presents concerts and workshops with visiting musicians of the highest caliber.She received her master’s in music from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and has studied Irish and Scottish flute styles, shehnai, dizi, and willow flute. She p... Read More →

Gary Soto

Gary Soto is the author of eleven poetry collections for adults, most notably New and Selected Poems, a 1995 finalist for both the Los Angeles Times Book Award and the National Book Award. His poems have appeared in many literary magazines, including Ploughshares, Michigan Quarterly... Read More →

Friday October 7, 2016 8:00pm - 10:30pm PDT
Green Room

Venue: 21+ Venue: Ticketed

10:00am PDT

Litquake San Rafael

San Francisco’s literary legacy has always held a strong North Bay connection, dating back to the Beats, Jack London, and Mark Twain.

Litquake San Rafael returns to the downtown 4th Street corridor of cafés, restaurants, and shops, featuring Bay Area writers in this day-long series of free readings and open-mic events. FREE

Click here or below, for the complete schedule:
https://litquakesanrafael2016.sched.org

Co-sponsored by the Downtown San Rafael Business Improvement District, Marin Poetry Center, Friends of the San Rafael Library, Jack Hunt Automotive, Bank of Marin, Pint Size Lounge, Book Passage, Falafel Hutm PS Print, and Rebound Bookstore

Saturday October 8, 2016 10:00am - 7:15pm PDT
San Rafael

For Aspiring Authors Venue: Free Event Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

11:30am PDT

OTRS - Jungle of Stone: Discovering the Maya with William Carlsen

Off the Richter Scale Series:

Pulitzer Prize finalist William Carlsen discusses his recent book Jungle of Stone: The True Story of Two Men, Their Extraordinary Journey, and the Discovery of the Lost Civilization of the Maya. With journalist and documentary filmmaker Mary Jo McConahay (Maya Roads). FREE

Bookish says, "Armchair explorers, history buffs, and anyone who loves a good journey: Don’t miss this book." Ideal for fans of Lost City of Z and In the Kingdom of Ice.

Complimentary coffee provided by Nomadic Ground.

Moderators/Hosts

Mary Jo McConahay

Mary Jo McConahay is the author of the award-winning Maya Roads, One Woman’s Journey among the People of the Rainforest. She is an award-winning journalist and documentary filmmaker whose coverage of war, politics and international justice issues has appeared on PBS and in Time... Read More →

Participants

William Carlsen

William Carlsen was a reporter for two decades at the San Francisco Chronicle, where he was a finalist for the 1999 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting. He has also worked for the New York Times and taught journalism at the University of California, Berkeley. He and his wife... Read More →

Saturday October 8, 2016 11:30am - 12:30pm PDT
Mechanics' Institute Library

Nonfiction Type: Book Sales & Signing Type: Panel Discussion Venue: Free Event Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

12:45pm PDT

OTRS - Anon Was a Woman: A Celebration of Female Poets

Off the Richter Scale Series:

Five award-winning female poets share from their recent collections: Teow Goh, Emilia Phillips, Margaret Ross, Solmaz Sharif, and Tess Taylor. FREE

“I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.”—Virginia Woolf, A Room of One’s Own

Complimentary coffee provided by Nomadic Ground.

Participants

Teow Lim Goh

Teow Lim Goh is the author of Islanders (Conundrum Press, 2016), a volume of poems on the history of the Angel Island Immigration Station. She lives in Denver.

Emilia Phillips

Margaret Ross

Margaret Ross is the author of A Timeshare, selected by Timothy Donnelly for the Omnidawn Poetry Book Prize. Her poems have appeared in Boston Review, Fence, The New Republic and The New Yorker and have been recognized by scholarships and fellowships from the Fulbright Program... Read More →

Solmaz Sharif

Born in Istanbul to Iranian parents, Solmaz Sharif holds degrees from U.C. Berkeley, where she studied and taught with June Jordan’s Poetry for the People, and New York University. Her work has appeared in The New Republic, Poetry, The Kenyon Review, jubilat, Gulf Coast, Boston... Read More →

Tess Taylor

Poet

A widely published critic, poet and essayist, and on-air poetry reviewer for NPR’s All Things Considered, Tess Taylor’s five books of poems blend the lyric and the reportorial in unexpected ways, leading to what Nate Dixon of the Georgia Review recently hailed as “rich investigative... Read More →

Saturday October 8, 2016 12:45pm - 1:45pm PDT
Mechanics' Institute Library

Type: Book Sales & Signing Type: Panel Discussion Venue: Free Event Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

2:00pm PDT

OTRS - Debut Fiction: Daring and Inventive First-Time Novelists

Off the Richter Scale Series:

These first-time novelists have collectively already won an Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award, fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a PEN Robert W. Bingham Prize: Cassandra Dunn, Antonia Hayes, Midge Raymond, Robert Thomas, Shawn Vestal, and Variny Yim. FREE

Complimentary coffee provided by Nomadic Ground.

Participants

Cassandra Dunn

Cassandra Dunn is the author of The Art of Adapting (Touchstone/Simon & Schuster). She received her MFA in creative writing from Mills College. She was a semifinalist for the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award and a finalist in Glimmer Train’s Short Story Award for New Writers. Her... Read More →

Midge Raymond

Midge Raymond is the author of MY LAST CONTINENT (Scribner, June 2016), a novel about two penguin researchers, set in Antarctica, and what happens when one of their ships strikes ice in the Southern Ocean. Midge is also the author of the award-winning short story collection FORGETTING... Read More →

Robert Thomas

Robert Thomas’s BRIDGE (BOA Editions) received the 2015 PEN Center USA Literary Award for Fiction. Frances Lefkowitz said in the San Francisco Chronicle: “The rushing thoughts, sense impressions, quirky language and crumbling boundaries all work to convey agonizing universal truths... Read More →

Shawn Vestal

Shawn Vestal’s debut novel, Daredevils, was published in spring 2016 by Penguin Press. Liesl Schillinger called the novel "breathtaking and brash," and wrote: "Vestal sends his characters soaring across the gulf that separates the identity that confines them and the identity they would choose, letting them land roughly b... Read More →

Variny Yim

Variny Yim is a first generation, Cambodian-American author who brings over 20 years of experience in the fields of communications, nonprofit management, coalition building, and financial education. Variny began her career as a print and broadcast journalist at USA WEEKEND, USA... Read More →

Saturday October 8, 2016 2:00pm - 3:00pm PDT
Mechanics' Institute Library

Type: Book Sales & Signing Type: Panel Discussion Venue: Free Event Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

2:00pm PDT

Ghosts, Bones, and Dust: Novels of Life and Death

Co-presented by the Women’s National Book Association: SF Chapter

Celebrate National Reading Group Month with bestselling authors Cara Black, Jessica Chiarella, Patricia V. Davis, Mary Mackey, and Mary Volmer. Moderated by Laurie R. King. Free book club materials, and refreshments from Max’s Opera Café next door. FREE

Moderators/Hosts

Laurie R. King

Laurie R. King is the New York Times bestselling author of 27 novels and other works, including the Mary Russell-Sherlock Holmes stories. She is probably the only writer to have both an Edgar and an honorary doctorate in theology.

Participants

Cara Black

Cara Black is the New York Times bestselling author of 16 books in the Private Investigator Aimée Leduc series, which is set in Paris. Cara has received numerous accolades for her novels, including multiple nominations for the prestigious Anthony and Macavity Awards, a Washington... Read More →

Jessica Chiarella

Jessica Chiarella grew up in the Chicago area and has a master’s in writing and publishing from DePaul University. She recently graduated from Riverside’s Creative Writing MFA program at the University of California and currently lives in the Chicago area. AND AGAIN is her... Read More →

Patricia V. Davis

Patricia V. Davis is the author of COOKING FOR GHOSTS, SPELLS & OREGANO, and DEMONS, WEEL-SEASONED, a trilogy of magical realism novels set aboard the haunted RMS Queen Mary. The audiobook versions were released in 2020 by Tantor Media. Patricia wrote and produced the screenplay... Read More →

Mary Mackey

Mary Mackey is the New York Times bestselling author of fourteen novels including The Village of Bones, and seven volumes of poetry including Sugar Zone, winner of the 2012 PEN Oakland Award.

Mary Volmer

Mary Volmer was born in Grass Valley, California, and now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. She earned an MFA in Creative Writing from Saint Mary’s College and a master’s degree from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, where she was a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar. She has... Read More →

Saturday October 8, 2016 2:00pm - 4:00pm PDT
Books Inc., Opera Plaza

Fiction For Aspiring Authors Type: Panel Discussion Venue: Free Event Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

3:15pm PDT

OTRS - Each Unhappy Family: Helen Klein Ross and Elizabeth Percer

Off the Richter Scale Series:

Helen Klein Ross (What Was Mine) and Elizabeth Percer (All Stories Are Love Stories) discuss their recent novels, and the overlapping themes of love, loss, and resilience. Moderated by Anne Germanacos. FREE

Claire Messud: "Helen Klein Ross takes a shocking premise and uses it to illluminate our human condition." Eden Lepucki describes All Stories as "a love letter to San Francisco and a compassionate and thoughtful look into its characters’ lives and secret hearts."

Complimentary coffee provided by Nomadic Ground.

Participants

Anne Germanacos

Anne Germanacos is the author of the short-story collection In the Time of the Girls (BOA Editions, 2010) and Tribute (Rescue Press, 2014). Together with her husband, Nick Germanacos, she ran the Ithaka Cultural Studies Program on the islands of Kalymnos and Crete. She runs the... Read More →

Elizabeth Percer

Elizabeth Percer is the author of All Stories Are Love Stories (HarperCollins, 2016), a novel that follows three survivors in the aftermath of two devastating earthquakes hitting modern day San Francisco. Named a Best Book of 2016 by Amazon, All Stories Are Love Stories is "a moving... Read More →

Helen Klein Ross

Helen Klein Ross is a poet and novelist whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, and The Iowa Review where it won The Iowa Review 2014 award in poetry. She is author of What Was Mine (Simon & Schuster/Gallery, 2016) and editor of Traveler's Vade Mecum, an... Read More →

Saturday October 8, 2016 3:15pm - 4:15pm PDT
Mechanics' Institute Library

Type: Book Sales & Signing Type: Panel Discussion Venue: Free Event Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

3:30pm PDT

Teenquake + SFPL: Lit Swap

We've got free books. You know you want 'em. Here's how to get 'em. Meet us in The Mix where there will be stacks of books up for grabs—some new, some old, some not even published yet. You scan for one you'd like to keep and in exchange write us a review of a book you loved that we'll share with the world. No spoilers allowed! For ages 12-18. FREE

Saturday October 8, 2016 3:30pm - 5:00pm PDT
San Francisco Public Library

Kids or Teens Venue: Free Event

6:00pm PDT

Writers on the Verge: Litquake's Writing Contest Winners

Join us for readings of poetry, short fiction, nonfiction, and short scenes, from Litquake's second annual writing contest winners for 2016. FREE

POETRY
First: Christine No, “This Is the Way It Has Always Been”
Second: Farnaz Fatemi, “The Woman in the White Chador”
Third: Ingrid Keir, “The Choreography of Nests”

ESSAY
First: Alexis Wright “Which One is the Lifeline?”
Second: Emily Silverman, “Progress - Glitter - Two Deaths”
Third: Jennifer Kaplan, “Medicine”

SHORT FICTION
First: Scott Russell Duncan, “How My Hide Got Color”
Second: Soseh Kevorkian, “Bills”
Third: Tanvi Chawla Buch, “Déjà Vécu”

SHORT SCENE
First: Daniela Province: scene from “London Loves” screenplay

Moderators/Hosts

Darothy Durkac

Darothy Durkac is a Litquake producer and proud member of Litquake's Executive Committee, now in her seventh year. She is excited to host Litquake's Writing Contest winners at Samovar, during the first phase of Lit Crawl, 5:00-6:00, Saturday, October 14!

Jamie L. Real

Managing Director, Litquake

Jamie L. Real is a writer, editor, and traveler from the Bay Area. She’s lived in Hungary and Poland as an English teacher and New Zealand as a bookseller and publishing assistant. She was raised on Patsy Cline, home-cooked food, and Stephen King novels. She is currently a freelance... Read More →

Participants

Scott Duncan

Senior Editor, Somos en escrito

Farnaz Fatemi

Farnaz Fatemi is an Iranian American writer and editor in Santa Cruz, CA. She is a founding member of The Hive Poetry Collective, which presents a weekly radio show and podcast in Santa Cruz County and hosts readings and poetry-related events, and was recently named Santa Cruz County... Read More →

Soseh Kevorkian

Soseh Kevorkian is currently working on a memoir about growing up in an Oakland girl gang, entitled Bitches Galore. She's been awarded residencies at both Squaw Valley and the Helene Wurlitzer Foundation with excerpts from Bitches Galore. She has recently published in Forth Magaz... Read More →

Christine No

Christine No is a Korean American poet, essayist and producer. She is a Sundance Alum, VONA Fellow, two time Pushcart Prize nominee, and Best of the Net Nominee. You can find her work in: The Rumpus, sPARKLE+bLINK, Columbia Journal, Story Online, Apogee, Atlas and Alice, and various... Read More →

Daniela Province

Daniela Province is a senior copywriter at Adobe and a freelance writer for the San Francisco Chronicle Style section. She graduated from Boston University with a degree in Journalism and lives in San Francisco with her husband Anthony.

Emily Silverman

Resident physician, UCSF

Emily Silverman is a resident physician in internal medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). She is interested in harnessing the power of narrative to improve the doctor-patient relationship, improve health outcomes, build community, reduce physician burnout... Read More →

Alexis Wright

English Teacher, The Urban School

Alexis Wright is a high school English teacher and received her MFA from USF. When she’s not teaching students how to think critically and write with intention, she tries (optimistically) to practice what she preaches.

Saturday October 8, 2016 6:00pm - 7:30pm PDT
Elbo Room

For Aspiring Authors Type: Reading Venue: Free Event Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

7:00pm PDT

Chaos Monkeys of Silicon Valley

Ticket Link

Liar's Poker meets The Social Network in this irreverent exposé of life inside the tech bubble, from industry provocateur Antonio García Martínez, a former Twitter advisor, Facebook product manager, and startup founder/CEO. With Peter Hartlaub (San Francisco Chronicle). $15 advance or at the door

In Chaos Monkeys, the author unravels the chaotic evolution of social media and online marketing and reveals how it is invading our lives and shaping our future. Weighing in on everything from startups and credit derivatives to Big Brother and data tracking, social media monetization and digital "privacy," García Martínez shares his scathing observations and outrageous antics, taking us on a humorous, subversive tour of the fascinatingly insular tech industry.

Moderators/Hosts

Peter Hartlaub

Press, San Francisco Chronicle

Peter Hartlaub is pop culture critic for the San Francisco Chronicle. He reviews movies and concerts, writes profiles and works on multimedia projects. He has worked as a courtroom reporter in Los Angeles, a sports writer in Santa Maria and his first Chronicle job was as a paperboy... Read More →

Participants

Antonio García Martínez

Antonio García Martínez has been an advisor to Twitter, a product manager for Facebook, the CEO/founder of AdGrok (a venture-backed startup acquired by Twitter), and a strategist for Goldman Sachs. He is still officially on leave from his Berkeley PhD program, and lives on a forty-foot... Read More →

Saturday October 8, 2016 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT
American Bookbinders Museum

Nonfiction Type: Author Conversation Venue: Ticketed Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

7:30pm PDT

i thought it sucked: One-Star Reviews of Best-Loved Books

Ticket Link

All-star Bay Area writers, readers, and performers present dramatic readings of one-star reviews that trash the world’s most treasured literary masterpieces. Thanks to online communities like Amazon and Yelp, not only is everyone a critic, their snarky, ill-founded comments can now live on forever. Tonight we celebrate these critics by showcasing their most timeless reviews in all their spiteful glory. Relish in these misguided and often perplexing takedowns of acclaimed novels and poetry. $5-10 sliding scale

Moderators/Hosts

Lauren Parker

Lauren Parker is a writer based in Oakland. She is the cohost of GLOW the Distance: a Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling podcast, and a graduate of Hiram College’s Creative Writing program. She has written for the Toast, the Tusk, Ravishly, The Bold Italic, Harlot Magazine, Hoodline... Read More →

Participants

Kelly Anneken

Kelly Anneken is what happens when Kim Kardashian looks like Bette Midler and tweets like Roseanne. This Oakland-based funny person and all-around swell gal performs standup comedy and is a regular at the Punch Line San Francisco, Cobb’s and Rooster T. Feathers. Kelly has appeared... Read More →

Chris Collision

Co-Host, I Don't Even Own a Television

Collision is a writer, bike rider, HEAVY TUNES enthusiast, and worker in Oakland, California. He likes his girlfriend Noodles, coffee, beer, bikes, cities, mezcal, loud music, Star Trek, (doing) the Jumble, (using) the text editor VIM, the politics of liberation, hockey, basketball... Read More →

J. W. Friedman

Co-Host / Producer, I Don't Even Own a Television

I'm one of the two hosts of a comedy podcast about bad books called "I Don't Even Own a Television". When I'm not forcing myself to plow through a horrible novel about internet ephemera, I can also be found performing or producing hip-hop music, or having very deep thoughts about... Read More →

Janine Kovac

co-founder, Moxie Road Productions

Janine Kovac is the author of SPINNING: Choreography for Coming Home, a memoir about the death of a career but the birth of miracle twins and a 2017 semifinalist for Publisher Weekly's BookLife Prize and the 2019 memoir winner of the National Indie Excellence Awards. A former ballet... Read More →

Lydia Popovich

Jamie L. Real

Managing Director, Litquake

Na'amen Gobert Tilahun

Attendee

Na’amen Gobert Tilahun is a freelance writer who made the bicoastal move from West to East. He loves every subgenre of SF/F especially when two or more of them are mashed together. He holds a B.A. in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University and an M.F.A. in Fiction and... Read More →

Saturday October 8, 2016 7:30pm - 9:30pm PDT
Elbo Room

Type: Reading Venue: 21+ Venue: Ticketed Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

8:00pm PDT

GONZO: 50 Years of Hunter S. Thompson

Ticket Link

Co-presented by The Beat Museum

Marking 50 years since his first book Hell's Angels, Litquake pays tribute to the original Doctor of Gonzo and his contributions to American letters. Special guests: editor Alan Rinzler (Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail), Ron Turner (publisher of the upcoming anthology Who Killed Hunter S. Thompson? by Warren Hinckle), and Juan Thompson (Stories I Tell Myself: Growing Up with Hunter S. Thompson). Includes Bay Area premiere screening of Gonzo @ The Derby, a new ESPN short film by Michael D. Ratner, featuring Ralph Steadman and Sean Penn. With writers Gary Kamiya and Cintra Wilson, and editor/sexpert Susie Bright, sharing her collection of voicemails from Hunter Thompson. Hosted by Jack Boulware. $20 advance, $25 at the door

“We are really just a nation of 220 million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns, and no qualms at all about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable.” —Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail

Participants

Susie Bright

Best-selling author Susie Bright, the country’s preeminent feminist sex writer, is one of the world’s most respected voices on sexual politics, as well as an award-winning author and editor who’s produced and published thousands of the finest writers and journalists working... Read More →

Gary Kamiya

Gary Kamiya is author of Cool Gray City of Love: 49 Views of San Francisco. He was a co-founder of Salon.com, with David Talbot. He is currently executive editor of San Francisco magazine and writes a weekly history column for the San Francisco Chronicle, “Portals of the Pa... Read More →

Alan Rinzler

Self-Employed, Alan Rinzler Editorial

Book editor since 1962, working at Simon & Schuster, Bantam, Grove, Press, Macmillan, Holt, Rolling Stone and Straight Arrow Books, editing and publishing Toni Morrison, Hunter S. Thompson, Tom Robbins, Robert Ludlum, Clive Cussler, Shirley MacLaine, Andy Warhol, Bob Dylan and ot... Read More →

Juan F. Thompson

Juan F. Thompson was born in 1964 outside of San Francisco, California, and grew up in Woody Creek, Colorado. He graduated from Tufts University and lives in Denver, Colorado, where he performs computer magic in the healthcare IT industry. He is the author of Stories I Tell Myself... Read More →

Ron Turner

I am the founder of Last Gasp and I've been an outspoken supporter of artists, writers, and various misfits for over four decades. You may know me as "Baba Ron" in SF, and I've been fortunate enough to be a part of the past 50 years of local underground history including the "Summer... Read More →

Cintra Wilson

Cintra Wilson is a playwright, novelist, and a past columnist for the San Francisco Examiner, Salon, and The New York Times. She lives in New York City.

Saturday October 8, 2016 8:00pm - 10:00pm PDT
Swedish American Hall

Venue: 21+ Venue: Ticketed Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

11:00am PDT

Poetry in Parks: An All-Day Celebration on Mt. Tamalpais

Co-presented by Quiet Lightning, California State Parks, and Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy

This all-day installation of Poetry in Parks takes place in the historic Cushing Memorial-Mountain Theater in Mt. Tamalpais State Park, celebrating Quiet Lightning's 100th show, the centennial of the National Parks, and the connection between the wilderness experience and the inspiration parks provide to everyone. FREE

Featured readers include Dana Gioia, Kay Ryan, Jane Hirshfield, Alejandro Murguía, Kim Stanley Robinson, and Matthew Zapruder, with Barbara Jane Reyes, Tongo Eisen-Martin, Brynn Saito, Arisa White, Charlie Getter, and Andrew Paul Nelson. Also includes a submission-based literary mixtape, youth poetry readings curated by Marin County Poet Laureate Prartho Sereno, and performances by San Francisco’s Classical Revolution and postmodern dance pioneer Anna Halprin. With children's activities, local food and beverage booths. For full lineup, free shuttle service, directions, and more info: quietlightning.org/tam.

Participants

Tongo Eisen-Martin

Originally from San Francisco, Tongo Eisen-Martin is a poet, movement worker and educator. He has taught in detention centers from New York's Rikers Island to California county jails. He designed curricula for oppressed people’s education projects from San Francisco to South Africa... Read More →

Charlie Getter

Charlie Getter rides his bicycle around San Francisco with a bag of tools with which he fixes cars. His oft delayed book, How to Arrange Physics and Geography to your Advantage was released in late September by Seventh Tangent Press. A frequent contributor to Quiet Lightning, you... Read More →

Dana Gioia

Dana Gioia is Poet Laureate of California. An internationally recognized poet and critic, he is the author of five collections of poetry, including Interrogations at Noon (2001), which won the American Book Award, and 99 Poems: New & Selected (2016). His critical collections include... Read More →

Anna Halprin

Over her long career Anna has created more than 150 dance theater works and written three books.Since the late 1930s Anna Halprin has been creating revolutionary directions for dance, inspiring artists in all fields. Richard Schechner, editor of TDR: The Drama Review, calls her “one... Read More →

Jane Hirschfield

Jane Hirshfield’s newest books are The Beauty (poems) and Ten Windows: How Great Poems Transform the World. Her many honors include fellowships from the Guggenheim and Rockefeller foundations, NEA, and the Academy of American Poets. A current chancellor of The Academy of American... Read More →

Alejandro Murguía

Alejandro Murguía is the author of Southern Front and This War Called Love (both winners of the American Book Award). His nonfiction book The Medicine of Memory highlights the Mission District in the 1970s during the Nicaraguan Solidarity movement. He is a founding member and... Read More →

Andrew Paul Nelson

Barbara Jane Reyes

Barbara Jane Reyes was born in Manila and raised in the Bay Area. She is the author of To Love as Aswang, Diwata, Poeta en San Francisco, and Gravities of Center. She teaches at University of San Francisco and San Francisco State University, and lives with her husband Oscar Bermeo... Read More →

Kim Stanley Robinson

Kim Stanley Robinson is an American science fiction writer who lives with his wife and family in Davis, California. He is the author of Three Californias, the Mars trilogy, Galileo’s Dream, 2312, Shaman, Aurora, and other books. He was sent by the National Science Foundation to... Read More →

Kay Ryan

Kay Ryan, United States Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner, was born in California in 1945 and grew up in the small towns of the San Joaquin Valley and the Mojave Desert. She has lived in Marin County in Northern California since 1971. Ryan’s collections of poetry include most... Read More →

Brynn Saito

Brynn Saito is the author of two books of poetry, Power Made Us Swoon (2016) and The Palace of Contemplating Departure (2013), which won the Benjamin Saltman Poetry Award from Red Hen Press and was a finalist for the Northern California Book Award. She also co-authored, with Traci... Read More →

Arisa White

Cave Canem fellow Arisa White received her MFA from UMass, Amherst, and is the author of Black Pearl, Post Pardon, Hurrah’s Nest, and A Penny Saved. She teaches at Goddard College in Vermont. You’re the Most Beautiful Thing that Happened is her newest collection from Augury B... Read More →

Matthew Zapruder

Matthew Zapruder is the author of four collections of poetry, most recently Come On All You Ghosts (Copper Canyon 2010), a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and Sun Bear (Copper Canyon, 2014), as well as a book of prose, Why Poetry (Ecco Press, 2015). He is also co-translator... Read More →

Sunday October 9, 2016 11:00am - 5:00pm PDT
Cushing Memorial-Mountain Theater

Kids or Teens Poetry Type: Book Sales & Signing Type: Reading Venue: Free Event

11:00am PDT

Eat, Drink, and Be Literary

Ticket Link

Litquake’s Eat, Drink, and Be Literary celebrates a range of ideas in food and writing. Throughout the day, nationally acclaimed chefs and food writers debate and explore the latest developments in food culture, sustainability, culinary trends, and the fundamental relationship between people and food. Attendees can interact with chefs, food media, culinary organizations, TV hosts, gluten-free experts, sea foragers, artisanal craft distillers, and a 7-time champion at the Grilled Cheese Invitational.

An exhibition hall features food and beverage tastings from the Bay Area’s most innovative producers, including Save Me San Francisco Wine Company, Broadside Wines, Sudwerk Brewing Co., and much more. Book sales and signings ongoing. $35 advance, or $40 at the door

Sponsored in part by:
ChefsFeed, Friends of the San Francisco Library, Guittard Chocolate Company, Hodo Soy, Moleskine, Runa Tea, Save Me San Francisco Wine Co., Semifreddi's, Shakespeare Vodka, Sudwerk Brewing Co.

SCHEDULE

11:00 am — Doors open

11:30 am–12:15 pm — New Vegetarian: Seeking Satiety in a Meat-Free Universe, moderated by Tara Duggan (San Francisco Chronicle), with Colleen Patrick-Goudreau, Miyoko Schinner, and Jason Wrobel

12:30 pm–1:00 pm — Welcome Address, Rich Maggiotto (ChefsFeed)

1:15 pm–2:00 pm — The Truth about Gluten: Redefining Our Daily Loaf, moderated by Irvin Lin with Sophie Egan, Stanley Ginsberg, and Alanna Taylor-Tobin

2:15 pm–3:00 pm — Culinary Memoirs: Why We Write about Food, moderated by Margo True (Sunset Magazine), with Georgeanne Brennan, Jessica Fechtor, Dayna Macy, and Alex Prud'homme

3:15 pm–3:45 pm — Chef Ryan Scott, Top Chef alum, whose book, One to Five, and restaurant Finn Town debut in late October, 2016

4:00 pm–4:45 pm — Beyond Sustainability: Connecting with the Food We Eat More Deeply, moderated by Anne Schukat (The Economist) with Novella Carpenter, Anya Fernald, Sarah Henry, and Michelle McKenzie

Featured author stations throughout the day:

Capra Press, Distilled Stories: California Artisans Behind the Spirits
Martin and Rebecca Cate, Smuggler's Cove: Exotic Cocktails, Rum, and the Cult of Tiki
Frances Dinkelspiel, Tangled Vines: Greed, Murder, Obsession, and an Arsonist in the Vineyards of California
Heidi Gibson, Grilled Cheese Kitchen: Bread + Cheese + Everything in Between
Kirk Lombard, The Sea Forager's Guide to the Northern California Coast
Carolyn Phillips, Dim Sum Field Guide and All Under Heaven: Recipes from the 35 Cuisines of China

Vendors and Exhibitors:

Alter Eco, Broadside Wine, CocoTutti Chocolates, Edible Excursions, Good Eggs, KeVita kombucha, Miyoko's Kitchen, NOSH, Peter's Kettle Corn, Runa Tea, Shades of Sugar Bakeshop, Sudwerk Brewing Company, Shakespeare Vodka, and more.

Moderators/Hosts

Tara Duggan

Tara Duggan is a James Beard award–winning journalist and cookbook author. A staff food writer at The San Francisco Chronicle, Tara has published work in Food & Wine, The New York Times, Sunset, and the Chicago Tribune. Trained as a chef at San Francisco’s California Culinary... Read More →

Irvin Lin

Irvin Lin, the man behind the nationally recognized blog "Eat the Love" is a graphic designer and art director turned IACP award-winning photographer, food writer, recipe developer, baker, public speaker and occasional social media consultant. His work has been featured in Best Food... Read More →

Anne Schukat

Margo True

Margo True is the food editor at Sunset magazine. Before Sunset, she was executive editor at Saveur magazine, and before that, a senior editor and writer at Gourmet. True was the main editor of The Sunset Cookbook and, along with several Sunset colleagues, the author of The... Read More →

Participants

Georgeanne Brennan

Georgeanne Brennan is an award-winning cookbook author, journalist, and entrepreneur who is nationally recognized for her work. Her expertise ranges from cooking to farming and agriculture to history and food lore. In addition to her numerous books, Brennan’s work has appeared in... Read More →

Novella Carpenter

Novella Carpenter is the author of two books: Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer, Gone Feral: Tracking My Dad through the Wild; and co-author of The Essential Urban Farmer. She runs GhostTown Farm in Oakland, and teaches urban agriculture at University of San Francisco.

Martin Cate

Martin Cate is a rum and exotic cocktail expert and the owner and creator of Smuggler’s Cove in San Francisco. Smuggler’s Cove features the largest rum selection in the United States and features cocktails from over three centuries of rum history. The Sunday Times of London has named Smuggler’s Cove one of the 50 Greatest Bars on Earth. In a global industry survey... Read More →

Frances Dinkelspiel

Frances Dinkelspiel is an award-winning journalist and co-founder of the news site, Berkeleyside. She is the author of two books, the New York Times bestseller Tangled Vines: Greed, Murder, Obsession and an Arsonist in the Vineyards of California, and the San Francisco Chronicle... Read More →

Sophie Egan

Sophie Egan is the director of programs and culinary nutrition for the Strategic Initiatives Group at The Culinary Institute of America. Based in San Francisco, Egan is a contributor to The New York Times' Well blog, and has written about food and health for KQED, Time, The Wall Street... Read More →

Jessica Fechtor

Jessica Fechtor is author of Stir: My Broken Brain and the Meals that Brought Me Home, which chronicles her recovery from a ruptured brain aneurysm at 28, and how she reclaimed her life through food and cooking. A New York Times bestseller and winner of the 2015 Living Now Book... Read More →

Anya Fernald

Anya Fernald is a sustainable food expert and CEO and co-founder of Belcampo Inc., a group of agricultural ventures in California and Belize. She was the Executive Director of Slow Food Nation and founded the non-profit Food Craft Institute, which hosts the annual Eat Real Festival... Read More →

Heidi Gibson

Heidi Gibson, a MIT-trained engineer, opened the first American Grilled Cheese Kitchen with her husband and partner Nate in 2010. As a 7-time champion at the Grilled Cheese Invitational, Heidi is thrilled to share the secrets to grilled cheese perfection in her first cookbook, Grilled... Read More →

Stanley Ginsberg

Stanley Ginsberg, author of the upcoming The Rye Baker (W.W. Norton & Co., Sept. 2015), is owner-proprietor of The New York Bakers (www.nybakers.com), an online purveyor of professional baking ingredients, supplies and equipment to home and hobbyist bakers. His first book, Inside... Read More →

Sarah Henry

Sarah Henry is a freelance writer and author of Farmsteads of the California Coast (Yellow Pear Press, April 2016). Henry’s food stories have appeared in Lucky Peach, Modern Farmer, Civil Eats, Washington Post, and San Francisco Chronicle. Featured in Best Food Writing (Da Capo... Read More →

Kirk Lombard

Kirk Lombard, the singing fisherman and monkeyface eel champion, founded Sea Forager, the CSF sustainable fish delivery business and sea foraging tour guide business in San Francisco. A Sea Forager’s Guide to the Northern California Coast is forthcoming from Heyday in 2016.

Dayna Macy

Dayna Macy is the author of the critically acclaimed memoir Ravenous: A Food Lover's Journey from Obsession to Freedom. Her essays have appeared in several anthologies and in Salon, Self, Yoga Journal, and other publications. Macy has been the head of publicity for many west coast... Read More →

Rich Maggiotto

ChefsFeed

Rich Maggiotto is the CEO of ChefsFeed, and serves as an advisor to numerous of digital media and publishing startups. Previous to leading the first ever chef-powered food media company, Rich co-founded and served as President & CEO of Zinio, whose top-grossing mobile applications in... Read More →

Michelle McKenzie

Michelle McKenzie is the program director at 18 Reasons, a nonprofit community cooking school in San Francisco's Mission District. She has worked at some of the best restaurants in the country, has been featured on the Cooking Channel, and has been a contributor for publications such... Read More →

Alice Medrich

Alice Medrich is the winner of five James Beard Foundation Awards, most recently Best Baking & Dessert Book of the Year for her tenth cookbook, Flavor Flours (Artisan Books, November 2014). She received her formal training at the prestigious École Lenôtre in France and is widely... Read More →

Colleen Patrick-Goudreau

Colleen Patrick-Goudreau is a bestselling author of seven books, including The Joy of Vegan Baking and The 30-Day Vegan Challenge. She is also a podcaster, international speaker, and passionista for compassion. Her mission is to empower people to reflect their deepest values in... Read More →

Carolyn Phillips

Carolyn Phillips is a food writer, scholar, and artist. Her work has appeared in numerous places, including Best Food Writing 2015, Lucky Peach, Gastronomica, BuzzFeed, Alimentum, Huffington Post, ZesterDaily, Food52, and at the 2013 MAD Symposium in Copenhagen, as well as her... Read More →

Capra Press

Capra Press and the California Artisanal Distillers Guild (http://www.cadistillers.org) have collaborated on a book titled Distilled Stories: California Artisans Behind the Spirits. It’s the backstory of many of the California artisanal craft distillers and how they found their... Read More →

Alex Prud'homme

Alex Prud'homme, author of The French Chef in America, is Julia Child's great-nephew and the coauthor of her autobiography My Life in France, which was adapted into the movie Julie & Julia. He is also the author of The Ripple Effect: The Fate of Freshwater in the Twenty-First Century... Read More →

Miyoko Schinner

Miyoko Schinner is author of five cookbooks, including The Homemade Vegan Pantry: The Art of Making Your Own Staples, and Artisan Vegan Cheese. A passionate vegan chef and serial entrepreneur, in 2014 she launched an artisan vegan cheese company, Miyoko’s Kitchen, which quickly... Read More →

Ryan Scott

Ryan Scott is a chef, restauranteur, and an Emmy-Award winning food host. He appears regularly on national television, including Today and Rachael Ray, and is host of The Ryan Scott Show, a weekly radio show. Ryan is chef and owner of Finn Town in San Francisco. His new book, One... Read More →

Alanna Taylor-Tobin

Founder, The Bojon Gourmet

Alanna is a food stylist, photographer, and trained pastry chef who has worked in the food industry for over a decade. In 2009, she began the acclaimed recipe blog The Bojon Gourmet (bojon=no job, backwards). Her recipes and food photography have been featured across the web (Food52... Read More →

Sean Timberlake

Master of Ceremonies Sean Timberlake has written professionally for 20 years. He started his personal blog, Hedonia, in 2006, and launched Punk Domestics, a community for DIY and food preservation enthusiasts, in 2010. His work has appeared in Sunset Magazine, Make:Magazine, Cooking... Read More →

Jason Wrobel

Jason Wrobel is a graduate of the Living Light Culinary Institute and was host of How to Live to 100, the first vegan primetime cooking series on Cooking Channel. He hosts the popular YouTube channel The J-Wro Show, and is author of the new Hay House cookbook, Eaternity. He... Read More →

Sunday October 9, 2016 11:00am - 5:30pm PDT
The Chapel

Nonfiction Type: Book Sales & Signing Type: Panel Discussion Venue: 21+ Venue: Ticketed Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

11:30am PDT

OTRS - That Really Happened: Four Memoirists Share Stories

Off the Richter Scale Series:

From prison kitchens to punk bands, from the streets of London to the streets of the Tenderloin, Joshua Mohr moderates discussion with Bill Bonham, Michelle Cruz Gonzales, Tracey Helton Mitchell, and J.M. Tyree. FREE

Complimentary coffee provided by Nomadic Ground.

Moderators/Hosts

Joshua Mohr

Author

Joshua Mohr is the author of the memoir "Sirens" (2017), as well as five novels including "Damascus", which The New York Times called "Beat-poet cool." He’s also written "Fight Song" and "Some Things that Meant the World to Me," one of O Magazine’s Top 10 reads of 2009 and a San... Read More →

Participants

Bill Bonham

Prisoner in the kitchen

Born and raised in Seattle, William Bonham spent the first fifteen years of his working life as a professional cook. One of those years was as a cook, on staff, at Montana State Prison. At the age of thirty-one, while working in a restaurant in San Francisco, he almost literally stumbled... Read More →

Michelle Cruz Gonzales

English Professor, Las Positas College

Michelle Cruz Gonzales is the author of The Spitboy Rule: Tales of a Xicana in a Female Punk Band. Gonzales has published in Longreads, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and Latino Rebels. She has work in two upcoming anthologies Hexing the Patriarchy (Seal) and All Of Me: Love Anger... Read More →

Tracey Helton Mitchell

Tracey Helton Mitchell is a recovering heroin addict. After completing rehab in 1998, she dedicated her life to the care and treatment of heroin users. Tracey entered school through an ex-offender's program where she earned a bachelors of business administration and masters of public... Read More →

J.M. Tyree

Sunday October 9, 2016 11:30am - 12:30pm PDT
Mechanics' Institute Library

Nonfiction Type: Book Sales & Signing Type: Panel Discussion Venue: All Ages Venue: Free Event Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

12:45pm PDT

OTRS - Making Literature Now: The Art and Business of Contemporary Lit

Off the Richter Scale Series:

How does new writing come to count as “literature" today? Amy Hungerford (Making Literature Now) moderates this discussion on the art and business of contemporary literary publishing both print and online, with writer/editor Eli Horowitz, poets Juliana Spahr and Chiyuma Elliott, and novelist Emily Barton. FREE

Complimentary coffee provided by Nomadic Ground.

Moderators/Hosts

Amy Hungerford

Amy Hungerford is Professor of English and Divisional Director of Humanities at Yale. She specializes in 20th- and 21st-century American literature, especially the period since 1945. Her new monograph, Making Literature Now (Stanford, 2016) is about the social networks that support... Read More →

Participants

Emily Barton

Writing fiction, writing novels, plot plot plot, alternative structures in fiction, alt-history, steampunk, dieselpunk, feminism, women in lit, Jewish themes in contemporary lit

Chiyuma Elliott

Chiyuma Elliott is Assistant Professor of African American Studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Her scholarly work and teaching focus on poetry and poetics, visual culture, and intellectual history from the 1920s to the present. Before joining the Berkeley faculty, Elliott... Read More →

Eli Horowitz

Eli Horowitz is the co-creator of The Silent History, a digital novel; The Clock Without a Face, a treasure-hunt mystery; andEverything You Know Is Pong, an illustrated cultural history of table tennis. He was the managing editor and then publisher of McSweeney’s; his design work... Read More →

Juliana Spahr

Juliana Spahr edits the book series Chain Links with Jena Osman and the collectively funded Subpress with nineteen other people and Commune Editions with Joshua Clover and Jasper Bernes. With David Buuck she wrote Army of Lovers. She has edited with Stephanie Young A Megaphone: Some... Read More →

Sunday October 9, 2016 12:45pm - 1:45pm PDT
Mechanics' Institute Library

Fiction For Aspiring Authors Nonfiction Type: Panel Discussion Venue: All Ages Venue: Free Event Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

1:00pm PDT

LGBTQ Spotlight: Litquake in the Castro

Co-presented by Castro/Upper Market Community Benefit District

Outstanding writers from the LGBTQ community present their work outdoors in the heart of the world’s gay mecca: Rabih Alameddine, Meliza Bañales, Julie Blair, Roberto F. Santiago, James Siegel, and Willy Wilkinson. Wine reception and book sales follows at Dog Eared Books, 489 Castro St. FREE

Participants

Rabih Alameddine

Rabih Alameddine is the author of the novels Koolaids, and I, the Divine, The Hakawati, An Unnecessary Woman, the story collection, The Perv, and most recently, The Angel of History. He divides his time between San Francisco and Beirut.

Meliza Bañales

Meliza Bañales aka Missy Fuego is the author of three books and was a 2016 Lambda Literary Award Finalist for Best LGBT Debut Fiction for her novel Life Is Wonderful, People Are Terrific. She was a fixture in the spoken-word, slam, and Queer artist communities of the San Francisco... Read More →

Julie Blair

Julie Blair is a Lambda, Goldie, and Rainbow award winning author of lesbian romances. A lover of wine, coffee, and gardening, she lives in the Santa Cruz Mountains with her partner and their dogs.

Roberto F. Santiago

Roberto F. Santiago received his MFA from Rutgers University, and BA from Sarah Lawrence College. He is a 2016 Community of Writers Fellow, 2015 Sarah Lawrence Fellow, 2014 Lambda Literary Fellow, the recipient of the Alfred C. Carey Poetry Prize, and his debut book of poetry was... Read More →

James Siegel

Dragonfly Community Arts

James J. Siegel is the author of the poetry collection "How Ghosts Travel" from Spuyten Duyvil Press, which was a finalist for the Ohioana Library Book Award. He hosts and curates the monthly Literary Speakeasy show at Martuni's, always held on the last Thursday of every month, which... Read More →

Willy Wilkinson

Writer and Public Health Consultant, LGBTQ ACCESS

Willy Wilkinson, MPH is an award-winning writer, public health consultant, cultural competency trainer, public speaker, and spoken word performer. He is the author of the Lambda Literary Award-winning book Born on the Edge of Race and Gender: A Voice for Cultural Competency, which... Read More →

Sunday October 9, 2016 1:00pm - 2:30pm PDT
Jane Warner Plaza, The Castro

LGBT Type: Reading Venue: Free Event Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

1:00pm PDT

Bikes to Books: A Two-Wheeled Tour of the City

Join urban mappers and literary enthusiasts Burrito Justice and Nicole Gluckstern for this seven-mile bike tour of city neighborhoods and authors who made San Francisco an international literary hub. Meet at 12:45 pm at Jack London Alley at South Park. Ride ends at 4 pm in North Beach, outside City Lights Books. Bring bikes with gears, snacks, and enthusiasm. Age 16 and older recommended. FREE

Participants

Nicole Gluckstern

The daughter of a bookseller and an editor, Nicole Gluckstern learned to read and write long before she learned to tie her shoes. Actually she still doesn’t know how to tie her shoes. She’s lived, worked, and traveled in over thirty countries on five continents, but has called... Read More →

Burrito Justice

Sunday October 9, 2016 1:00pm - 4:00pm PDT
Jack London Alley

Type: Storytelling Venue: Free Event

2:00pm PDT

OTRS - Equality or Progress: Urban Development in the Bay Area

Off the Richter Scale Series: Co-presented by Oakland Book Festival

Beneath the arguments over Bay Area gentrification and housing shortages, there lies a deeper, even global, conflict. Is it possible for cities to foster wealth and accommodate growth without bulldozing the past and deepening inequality? This panel examines what a city that promotes cosmopolitan interests alongside the rights of all its citizens, rich and poor, might look like. FREE

Complimentary coffee provided by Nomadic Ground.

Moderators/Hosts

Rebekah Otto

Chair, Literary Council, Oakland Book Festival

Rebekah Otto is the Chair of the Literary Council for the Oakland Book Festival. She lives in Oakland with her family and works in online content.

Participants

Sarah Burke

Managing Editor, East Bay Express

Sarah Burke is an art critic, culture writer, and occasional curator who lives and works in Oakland, California. She is the Managing Editor at the East Bay Express, where she reports on the East Bay’s affordability crisis, shifting demographics and social justice through the lens... Read More →

Malo Andre Hutson

Chancellors Professor of City and Regional Planning, University of California at Berkeley

Malo André Hutson is an academic scholar and practitioner in the areas of community development and urban sustainability/equity; racial and ethnic inequalities and urban policy (metropolitan fragmentation, segregation and health); built environment and health. He is currently an... Read More →

Sonja Trauss

founder, YIMBY Party or CaRLA

Sonja Trauss is the founder of the Bay Area Renter's Federation, a pro-housing advocacy organization that recently sued the city of Lafayette after downzoning a planned housing development.

Sunday October 9, 2016 2:00pm - 3:00pm PDT
Mechanics' Institute Library

Nonfiction Type: Panel Discussion Venue: All Ages Venue: Free Event Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

3:00pm PDT

Graphically Inclined: Books to Look At

Co-presented by the Contemporary Jewish Museum

Publishers continue to expand the concept of what is possible for the book as a physical object of visual beauty. Daniel Harmon, Alan Kaufman, and Andy Warner present their latest releases. Free with museum admission ($15)

Participants

Daniel Harmon

Daniel Harmon is a former staff writer for Brokelyn.com, an occasional essayist on the topic of Tommy Wiseau’s film The Room, the author of Super Pop! Pop Culture Top Ten Lists to Help You Win at Trivia, Survive in the Wild, and Make It Through the Holidays, and the co-author of Plotted: A Literary Atlas. Daniel loves free podcasts... Read More →

Alan Kaufman

Alan Kaufman is an American novelist, memoirist and poet. He is the author of the memoirs Jew Boy and Drunken Angel, the novel [Matches], and is listed as editor of The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry. He is also listed as co-editor of The Outlaw Bible of American Literature... Read More →

Andy Warner

Cartoonist

Andy Warner's comics have been published by Slate, Fusion, American Public Media, The Nib, Symbolia, Medium, KQED, popsci.com, The Showtime Network's Years of Living Dangerously, IDEO.org, The Center for Constitutional Rights, UNHCR, UNRWA, UNICEF, and Buzzfeed. He is a contributing... Read More →

Sunday October 9, 2016 3:00pm - 4:30pm PDT
Contemporary Jewish Museum

Type: Book Sales & Signing Type: Panel Discussion Type: Reading Venue: Ticketed Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

3:15pm PDT

OTRS - Latina Fiction: Politics, Social Justice, and Sexuality

Off the Richter Scale Series:

These Bay Area Latina novelists from Argentina, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Uruguay engage complex political and sexual landscapes across centuries. With Yalitza Ferreras, Aya de Leon, Maria Poblet, and Carolina de Robertis. FREE

Complimentary coffee provided by Nomadic Ground.

Moderators/Hosts

María Poblet

María Poblet (@mariadelpueblo) is Executive Director of Causa Justa :: Just Cause (www.cjjc.org). She is Chicana and Argentine, with extensive Latino community organizing experience. She led the strategic mergers that built Causa Justa, aggregating the power of 3 different neighborhood-based... Read More →

Participants

Yalitza Ferreras

Yalitza Ferreras was recently a Steinbeck Fellow in Creative Writing at San Jose State University. Her writing is forthcoming in Best American Short Stories 2016 and appears in Colorado Review, and the anthologies: Wise Latinas: Writers on Higher Education and Daring to Write... Read More →

Aya de Leon

Aya de León directs the Poetry for the People program at UC Berkeley. Kensington Books publishied her debut feminist heist novel, UPTOWN THIEF, in July 2016, followed by the 2nd book in the series, THE BOSS in June 2017. Her writing and performance work has received acclaim in the Village... Read More →

Carolina de Robertis

Carolina De Robertis is the internationally bestselling author of the the novels The Gods of Tango, Perla, and The Invisible Mountain. Her books have been translated into seventeen languages. She is the recipient of a Stonewall Book Award, the Italian Rhegium Julii Prize, and... Read More →

Sunday October 9, 2016 3:15pm - 4:15pm PDT
Mechanics' Institute Library

Type: Panel Discussion Venue: Free Event Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

3:30pm PDT

New Normal: The Politics of Parenting

Co-presented by Write on Mamas

In the 21st century "new normal," today’s families are blended, adoptive, and multi-cultural, and include children with a variety of special talents and needs. Can we make America great again by raising our kids to be compassionate and independent? Five experts weigh in. FREE

Moderators/Hosts

Jeremy Adam Smith

Jeremy Adam Smith edits Greater Good Magazine and is the author or co-editor of four books, including The Daddy Shift, Rad Dad, and Are We Born Racist? His coverage of racial and economic segregation in San Francisco schools has won numerous honors, including the Sigma Delta Chi Award... Read More →

Participants

Joshua Gamson

Joshua Gamson is Interim Associate Dean of Social Sciences and Professor of Sociology at the University of San Francisco and author of a lot of articles (academic and non), and a few books, including The Fabulous Sylvester, and Modern Families: Stories of Extraordinary Journeys to... Read More →

Diane Ehrensaft, PhD

Developmental and Clinical Psychologist, University of California San Francisco

Dr. Diane Ehrensaft is an associate professor of Pediatrics at the University of California San Francisco and a developmental and clinical psychologist with a private practice in Oakland, California. Along with her private practice, she is an attending psychologist at the Child and... Read More →

Erica Reischer

Erica Reischer, Ph.D. is a psychologist, author, and parent educator. She earned a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in Psychology / Human Development, and currently has a private practice in Oakland, California.A former consultant with McKinsey & Company, Dr. Reischer sits on... Read More →

Anne K Ross

Anne K. Ross has worked as a Bay Area school psychologist for over 30 years. She is the author of Beyond Rain Man: What One Psychologist Learned Raising a Son on the Autism Spectrum, which is endorsed by Temple Grandin, Tony Attwood, Simon Baron-Cohen and other experts in the field... Read More →

Sunday October 9, 2016 3:30pm - 4:30pm PDT
Creekside Room, Mill Valley Library

Nonfiction Type: Book Sales & Signing Type: Panel Discussion Type: Reading Venue: Free Event Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

4:30pm PDT

Litquake in the Bookstore: Smooth Toad Literary and Musical Revue

Smooth Toad presents the dusty American folk ragas of surrealist/dada poet G. P. Skratz, romantic fiddler/bard Hal Hughes, and legendary theater artist Bob Ernst. FREE

The trio weaves an authentic collaboration that conjures original hymns wherein Captain Beefheart meets Lord Byron. Their words and tunes explode into a whole new art form--think nightingale on a branch overlooking the RNC. Each has published and performed poems, done theater, and played arcane American music. Together, they've been Smooth Toad for a good stretch.

Skratz taught at Naropa on Allen Ginsburg's invitation. Ernst was a founding member of the Blake Street Hawkeyes, a legendary East Bay theater troupe that included Whoopi Goldberg and John O'Keefe. Hughes has been with Subterranean Shakespeare, North Beach Beckett, and much more.

Participants

Bob Ernst

He is the founder of the legendary theatrical company, The Blake Street Hawkeyes (out of which emerged George Coates & Whoopi Goldberg, among others). In 1987, he beat the Guinness World Record for solo theatrical performance in an over 24 hour-long tour-de-force: the last half-hour... Read More →

Hal Hughes

Hal was a founding member of the Blue Dolphin, a collectively run venue for improvised music in San Francisco, and has worked in music, dance, and theater with Tumbleweed, Overtone Theater, Subterranean Shakespeare, and Nightletter Theater, which produced his play, “The Fisherman's... Read More →

G. P. Skratz

Skratz is the author of Fun, recent poems (Philos Press, Lacey, WA), the prose-poem collection, The Gates of Disappearance(Konglomerati, Gulfport, FL), & ghost-writer of the 3 Stooges bio, Larry, The Stooge In The Middle (Last Gasp, San Francisco). He taught poetry at Naropa... Read More →

Sunday October 9, 2016 4:30pm - 6:30pm PDT
Bird & Beckett Books and Records

Poetry Venue: All Ages Venue: Free Event Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

6:00pm PDT

Molotov Editions: The Death of Teddy Ballgame by Robert Mailer Anderson

Molotov Editions Press presents a table reading of scenes from its new release, the play The Death of Teddy Ballgame by Robert Mailer Anderson, bestselling author of the novel Boonville. With jazz improvisation from SFJAZZ Collective, and special guest readers Les Claypool (Primus), Jonathan Moscone, and Domenic Stansberry. Bourbon, wine, and coffee available. FREE

The last patrons of Caffe Dante gather for their morning coffee during what may be the final days of civilization. Apocalyptic events disrupt the routine of their lives and they are forced to take responsibility for a darkly comic reckoning which questions their faith in God, love, culture, family, humanity, and each other. It’s Beckett meets Mamet meets O’Neill over a double jolt of espresso!

Molotov Editions is a new publishing imprint based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Participants

Robert Mailer Anderson

Robert Mailer Anderson is the author of the best-selling novel "Boonville," which was highly-acclaimed by critics and writers, including Norman Mailer, Carl Hiaasen, Jonathan Lethem, William Gibson, Naomi Wolf, Martin Cruz Smith, and Jonathan Yardley. It was the #1 fiction book in... Read More →

Sunday October 9, 2016 6:00pm - 7:30pm PDT
Joe Henderson Lab, SFJAZZ Center

Type: Reading Venue: 21+ Venue: Free Event Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

7:00pm PDT

Riding Out Doomsday: Michelle Tea with Daniel Handler

Ticket Link

Co-presented by RADAR Productions

Award-winning novelist, memoirist, poet, editor, arts organizer, teacher, performer—what has Michelle Tea NOT accomplished? She may have moved to Los Angeles, but tonight she returns to San Francisco to share stories and discuss her latest book, Black Wave, with the inimitable Daniel Handler. $15 in advance or $20 at the door

“I think people are waking up to the fact that Michelle Tea is a major writer and a titanic figure in the Bay Area lit scene,” says Handler. “It’s one of the few things I’ve been right about in the past 20 years.” —Daniel Handler

"Brave and unexpectedly wise...Michelle Tea is a goddess." —San Francisco Examiner
“Raucous…[and] unapologetically raw.” —The New York Times

Participants

Daniel Handler

Daniel Handler is an American writer and journalist. He is best known for his work under the pen name Lemony Snicket, having published children's series A Series of Unfortunate Events and All the Wrong Questions under this pseudonym.

Michelle Tea

Michelle Tea’s memoirs include The Passionate Mistakes, The Chelsea Whistle, Rent Girl, and Valencia, winner of a Lambda Literary Award for Best Lesbian Fiction. Valencia was also made into a feature-length film and toured film festivals globally, and the book was translated... Read More →

Sunday October 9, 2016 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT
American Bookbinders Museum

LGBT Type: Author Conversation Type: Book Sales & Signing Venue: Ticketed Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

7:00pm PDT

Barely Published Writers

Litquake’s long-running annual series presents readings by up-and-coming local authors, at the Make-Out Room. Hosted by James Warner. FREE

Participants

Tomiko Breland

Tomiko Breland is an author, editor, and graphic designer hailing from Monterey. She won the 2014 Ploughshares Emerging Writer’s Contest and had her fiction selected for the 2015 Best American Mystery Stories. Tomiko is polishing up her first novel.

Rajshree Chauhan

Editor

I am a San Francisco storyteller and writer of emotive prose, poetry, and fiction who empowers and supports others through collaboration. My work has appeared in Red Wheelbarrow editions, Sparkle & Blink, and Matrices Origins. I'm currently working on my first novel and seeking an... Read More →

Rosa del Duca

Rosa del Duca is a writer, journalist, teacher and musician. She grew up a tomboy in rural Montana, where she joined the Army National Guard when she was seventeen. During her six-year contract, she became not only a conscientious objector, but a feminist and unlikely rebel. That... Read More →

Ant Fraser Fujinaga

Translator, Accademia Italiana della Cucina

Antonia Fraser Fujinaga, half Scots and half Italian, has no publications other than a dry scholarly tract about post-revolutionary Iranian law. However, she resorted to writing short stories when trapped in an office job without enough drudgery to fill eight hours. She has sung in... Read More →

R.T. Jamison

R.T. Jamison is a freelance tech writer whose fiction has appeared in the Kenyon Review, Bellevue Literary Review, and ZYZZYVA, among others. A two-time Pushcart nominee, Jamison is the 2014 recipient of UCLA’s James Kirkwood Literary Prize, a 2015 alumnus of the Squaw Valley Writers... Read More →

Raul Abraham Ruiz

Raul Abraham Ruiz is a poet and amateur musician. He has worked with writers at San Quentin State Prison and has served twice as writer-in-residence at Ruth Asawa School of the Arts.

Pattabi Seshadri

The son of a Jewish mother and an Indian immigrant father who grew up in Texas, Pattabi Seshadri explores how poetry might create an alien space where we can all feel included. His work has been published in Beloit Poetry Journal, Pleiades, BlazeVOX, American Letters and Commentary... Read More →

Teck Sway-Bien

I am a writer based in the East Bay. I have been featured on Wattpad.com, the world’s largest writing community, and in 2016 won a Watty, one of its annual prizes. I write fiction and non-fiction, and am currently working on a novel titled Memoirs of a Gaysian.

Sunday October 9, 2016 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT
Make-Out Room

Type: Reading Venue: 21+ Venue: Free Event Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

7:00pm PDT

Arisa White and Robin Coste Lewis in Conversation

Award-winning poet and teacher Arisa White, author of the new collection You’re the Most Beautiful Thing That Happened, discusses poetry, race, and the body politic with National Book Award recipient Robin Coste Lewis (Voyage of the Sable Venus). FREE

“In verse that is exhilarating and unexpected, Arisa White writes of race, of women loving women, of these all too human bodies we wear, of cities, of landscape” —cultural critic Roxane Gay

"Altogether new, open, experimental and ground-breaking, Robin Coste Lewis privileges real life in all its complications, surprises and triumphs over the frames that have locked down the scale of black womanhood.” —Claudia Rankine

Participants

Robin Coste Lewis

Univesity of Southern California

Robin Coste Lewis is a Provost’s Fellow in English and Visual Studies at USC. A Cave Canem Fellow, she received her MFA from New York University’s Creative Writing Program where she was a Goldwater Fellow in poetry. She also holds a Master's of Theological Studies degree in Sanskrit... Read More →

Arisa White

arisa white photo by samantha florio 2 jpg

Sunday October 9, 2016 7:00pm - 9:00pm PDT
San Francisco Center for the Book

Poetry Type: Author Conversation Type: Book Sales & Signing Type: Reading Venue: Free Event Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

5:00pm PDT

Atlas Obscura: An Explorer's Guide to the World's Hidden Wonders

THIS EVENT IS FILLED TO CAPACITY, SORRY!

San Francisco launch of this utterly unique guide which combines compelling descriptive writing with arresting full-color photographs, maps, and charts to share over 600 of the most unusual, fascinating, and mysterious bucket-list destinations across all eight continents. With editor Ella Morton and special guests. FREE

When Joshua Foer, Ella Morton, and Dylan Thuras set out to write Atlas Obscura: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Hidden Wonders, their goal was to create a catalog of all the places, people, and things that inspire our sense of wonder (after all, when you can buy a plane ticket and be in Borneo in less than a day, the world can feel awfully small).

From the secret apartment Gustave Eiffel built high atop the Eiffel Tower, to the spectacular New Zealand caves lit by glowworms, to the World’s Quietest Room, each entry in the book includes location information, GPS coordinates, and tips on when and how best to get there—and how much to bribe the guard to get you inside. An arresting cabinet of curiosities that inspires wonderlust as much as wanderlust, Atlas Obscura proves that the world is vast and there are marvelous treasures behind every corner—if you just know where to look.

Participants

Ella Morton

Ella Morton is a New Zealand-born, Australian-raised, Brooklyn-based writer, focusing on overlooked aspects of history and culture. After covering consumer technology at CNET she hosted Rocketboom NYC, a web show about New York's quirkier people and places. Her most popular interview... Read More →

Monday October 10, 2016 5:00pm - 7:30pm PDT
Book Club of California

Nonfiction Type: Book Sales & Signing Venue: Free Event Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

6:30pm PDT

Litquake in the Bookstore: Mary Ellen Hannibal

Co-presented by Nature in the City

Award-winning writer Mary Ellen Hannibal (Citizen Scientist) combines original reporting, meticulous research, and memoir, and traces today’s tech-enabled citizen science movement to its roots: the centuries-long tradition of amateur observation by writers and naturalists. FREE

Participants

Mary Ellen Hannibal

Mary Ellen Hannibal is an emerging voice in environmentalism and a sought-after speaker connecting the scientific community to the concerned public. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Esquire, and Elle, among many others. She is an Alicia Patterson... Read More →

Monday October 10, 2016 6:30pm - 8:00pm PDT
The Green Arcade

Nonfiction Type: Book Sales & Signing Venue: Free Event Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

7:00pm PDT

Game On: Writing the New Narrative

Ticket Link

As technology changes, so does the way people experience narrative storytelling. Gaming journalist Douglass Perry talks to game makers and players about the evolution of games into rich narratives. $5-10 sliding scale.

Moderators/Hosts

Douglass Perry

Director of Public Relations, Reverb Communications

I have immersed myself in the business of writing about video games since 1994, starting as the managing editor of Next Generation, EIC of five IGN channels, and later as a freelancer for Kotaku, EGM, VentureBeat, CNN, and more. Favorite all-time games: Limbo, BioShock, 80 Days, Sid... Read More →

Participants

Roland Li

Author, Good Luck Have Fun: The Rise of eSports

I'm the author of a new book that explores the history and growth of eSports, or competitive video gaming, from bedrooms to arenas. I'm also a reporter at San Francisco Business Times, covering real estate and economic development. I'm an avid fan of DOTA 2, and I also enjoy single-player... Read More →

Nicole Martinez

Lead Writer, Telltale Games

Nicole Martinez is a writer at Telltale Games. She's currently working on Batman: The Telltale Series and previously wrote for The Wolf Among Us, Game of Thrones, and The Walking Dead: Michonne. When not working on games Nicole enjoys writing short stories and screenplays.

Rob Smith

Consultant, Robroom

Over 20 years of experience in videogame enthusiast press, variously as Editor-in-Chief of PC Gamer, OXM, PTOM, and Machinima. Author of Rogue Leaders: The Story of LucasArts (Chronicle Books), a history of one of the most influential videogame development studios of all time. Currently... Read More →

Meghan Thornton

Studio Lead Writer, Fogbank Entertainment

Meghan Thornton is a WGA award-nominated writer of video games, poetry, short stories, and novels. She wrote for Telltale Games on Game of Thrones, Walking Dead, Batman, and Guardians of the Galaxy. She is currently writing and editing interactive graphic novels for the mobile story... Read More →

Monday October 10, 2016 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT
Make-Out Room

Fiction For Aspiring Authors Type: Panel Discussion Venue: 21+

7:00pm PDT

The Girls: An Evening with Emma Cline

Ticket Link

Co-presented by Jewish Community Center of San Francisco

This stunning first novel by Emma Cline, based in part on the Charles Manson history, paints an indelible portrait of girls, the women they become, and that moment in life when everything can go horribly wrong. In conversation with Ellen Sussman. $28-48

Northern California, during the violent end of the 1960s. At the start of summer, a lonely and thoughtful teenager, Evie Boyd, sees a group of girls in the park, and is immediately caught by their freedom, their careless dress, their dangerous aura of abandon. Soon, Evie is in thrall to Suzanne, a mesmerizing older girl, and is drawn into the circle of a soon-to-be infamous cult and the man who is its charismatic leader. Hidden in the hills, their sprawling ranch is eerie and run down, but to Evie, it is exotic, thrilling, charged—a place where she feels desperate to be accepted. As she spends more time away from her mother and the rhythms of her daily life, and as her obsession with Suzanne intensifies, Evie does not realize she is coming closer and closer to unthinkable violence.

Moderators/Hosts

Ellen Sussman

co-founder, co-director, Sonoma County Writers Camp

Ellen Sussman is the New York Times bestselling author of four novels, A Wedding in Provence, The Paradise Guest House, French Lessons, and On a Night Like This. She is the editor of two critically acclaimed anthologies, Bad Girls: 26 Writers Misbehave and Dirty Words: A Literary... Read More →

Participants

Emma Cline

Emma Cline is from California. Her fiction has appeared in Tin House and The Paris Review, and she was the recipient of the 2014 Paris Review Plimpton Prize. The Girls is her first novel.

Monday October 10, 2016 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT
Jewish Community Center of San Francisco

Fiction Type: Author Conversation Type: Book Sales & Signing Venue: Ticketed

7:00pm PDT

Five Presidents: A Life in the Secret Service

Ticket Link

A #1 New York Times bestselling author, Secret Service agent Clint Hill brings history intimately and vividly to life as he reflects on his 17 years protecting Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard M. Nixon, and Gerald R. Ford, seeing them through a long, tumultuous era of war, assassination, and scandal. In conversation with co-author Lisa McCubbin. $10 advance or at the door

Participants

Clint Hill

Clint Hill is the New York Times bestselling author of Mrs. Kennedy and Me and Five Days in November. A former Secret Service agent who was in the presidential motorcade during the John F. Kennedy assassination, Hill remained assigned to Mrs. Kennedy until after the 1964 election... Read More →

Lisa McCubbin

Lisa McCubbin is an award-winning journalist who has been a television news anchor and reporter, hosted her own radio show, and spent more than five years in the Middle East as a freelance writer. She is the coauthor of Mrs. Kennedy and Me, Five Days in November, and The Kennedy... Read More →

Monday October 10, 2016 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT
San Francisco Center for the Book

Nonfiction Type: Author Conversation Type: Book Sales & Signing Venue: Ticketed

7:00pm PDT

Science Fact: Better than Fiction

Ticket Link

Fiction doesn’t have the market cornered on fantastical tales. How about homemade rockets firing into the stratosphere? Robots that may eventually enslave us? Bathrooms that require neither plumbing nor sewage? These authors discuss: Julian Guthrie (How to Make a Spaceship), Jonathon Keats (You Belong to the Universe), and John Markoff (Machines of Loving Grace), and Greg Milner (Pinpoint: How GPS Is Changing Technology). $10 advance or $15 at the door

Moderators/Hosts

Susan Freinkel

Susan Freinkel is the author of Plastic: A Toxic Love Story, which was named a Best Book of 2011 by the Boston Globe, and American Chestnut: The Life, Death and Rebirth of a Perfect Tree, which won a 2008 National Outdoor Book Award. Freinkel is also a science writer whose work has... Read More →

Participants

Julian Guthrie

Julian Guthrie is a veteran journalist and has won numerous awards, including the Best of the West Award and Society of Professional Journalists’ Public Service Award. She spent 20 years at the San Francisco Chronicle and has also been published by The Wall Street Journal, The... Read More →

Jonathon Keats

Jonathon Keats is a writer, experimental philosopher, and artist based in San Francisco and Northern Italy. He is the author of six books, including The Book of the Unknown. published by Random House and awarded the American Library Association's Sophie Brody Medal in 2010, and You... Read More →

John Markoff

Writer, Author, The New York Times

Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter John Markoff (2013, for Explanatory Reporting) covers science and technology for The New York Times and has been writing about Silicon Valley since the 1980s. In 1993 wrote one of the first articles on the World Wide Web. He is the co-author of The... Read More →

Greg Milner

Greg Milner is the author of Pinpoint: How GPS Is Changing Technology, Culture, and Our Minds, and Perfecting Sound Forever, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. His writing has appeared in Wired, New York, Slate, Village Voice, Salon, Spin, and Rolling... Read More →

Monday October 10, 2016 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT
American Bookbinders Museum

Nonfiction Type: Book Sales & Signing Type: Panel Discussion Type: Reading Venue: Ticketed Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

7:00pm PDT

Woman Warrior: Word for Word Does Maxine Hong Kingston

Ticket Link

San Francisco’s legendary Word for Word Performing Arts Company ("the best friend a short story ever had" —Chad Jones, San Francisco Examiner) stages excerpts from Litquake Barbary Coast Award honoree Maxine Hong Kingston's books The Woman Warrior and China Men. Directed by Eugenie Chan, with audience conversation to follow. Please reserve in advance as seating is limited. $15 suggested donation.

Monday October 10, 2016 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT
Z Space

Type: Reading Venue: Ticketed Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

7:00pm PDT

Tenderloinism: Tales from the 'Hood

Gritty tales from the city's most misunderstood neighborhood, with Alan Black, Paula Hendricks, Gary Kamiya, David Henry Sterry, and Carolyn Terry. FREE

Participants

Alan Black

made in Glasgow. unmade in California.

Paula Hendricks

manages an 81 unit apartment building in the TL, writes poetry, and designs books. Author of September in Corrales and The Tire House Book, Paula is interested in the mystery of the everyday... things that are right in front of her eyes, that often go unseen or under-appreciated... Read More →

Gary Kamiya

David Henry Sterry

Big Kahuna, Kismet

David Henry Sterry is the best-selling author of 16 books, a performer, muckraker, producer, and activist. His memoir Chicken:Self-Portrait of a Man for Rent, has been translated into a dozen languages. His anthology Hos, Hookers, Call Girls and Rent Boys was featured on the front... Read More →

Carolyn Terry

Monday October 10, 2016 7:00pm - 9:00pm PDT
Tenderloin Museum

Type: Book Sales & Signing Type: Reading Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

8:00pm PDT

Life During Wartime: A Night of Porchlight Storytelling

Litquake’s edition of the Bay Area’s long-running Porchlight series returns to the festival for a special storytelling night of authors and writers. Our theme is ripped from the Talking Heads song “Life During Wartime,” and involves tales of explosive scenarios, epic struggles, and living each day like it could be your last. With Greg Milner, Laurie Notaro, D. Watkins, Jack Boulware, Eric Spitznagel, Bucky SInister, and Pamela Alma Weymouth. Hosted by Arline Klatte and Beth Lisick, with music by Marc Capelle. Doors open at 7 pm. $20 in advance, $25 at the door.

Moderators/Hosts

Marc Capelle

Marc Capelle is a composer, arranger, and musician, leads the all-star soul band Marc & the Casuals, and is musical director and pianist for the Porchlight Storytelling series.

Arline Klatte

I play the bad cop, Porchlight SF Storytelling

Arline Klatte is the co-host of the successful San Francisco-based storytelling show, Porchlight. Leaves you wanting more, right?

Beth Lisick

Beth Lisick is an actress, comedian, and author of five books: the memoir collection Yokohama Threeway and Other Small Shames, the New York Times bestselling comic memoir Everybody Into the Pool, the gonzo self-help manifesto Helping Me Help Myself, the story collection This... Read More →

Participants

Jack Boulware

Jack Boulware is a San Francisco Library Laureate, journalist, and author of three books, including the Bay Area punk oral history Gimme Something Better. He is the co-founder and Executive Director of San Francisco’s Litquake literary festival.

Greg Milner

Laurie Notaro

Laurie Notaro was a reporter and columnist for The Arizona Republic. She is the New York Times bestselling author of The Idiot Girls’ Action Adventure Club, Autobiography of a Fat Bride, I Love Everybody and Other Atrocious Lies, We Thought You Would Be Prettier, Idiot Girls... Read More →

Bucky Sinister

Bucky Sinister is the author of Get Up: A 12-Step Guide to Recovery for Misfists, Freaks, and Weirdos. Black Hole is his most recent book.

Eric Spitznagel

Eric Spitznagel is an Executive Writer at Men's Health Magazine, and frequent contributor to mags like Playboy, Esquire, Vanity Fair and the New York Times Magazine, among others. He is author of seven books, including his latest, Old Records Never Die, about his attempts... Read More →

Alia Volz

Alia Volz is the author of Home Baked: My Mom, Marijuana, and the Stoning of San Francisco, winner of the 2020 Golden Poppy Award for nonfiction from the California Independent Booksellers Alliance. Her work has appeared in The Best American Essays, The New York Times, Bon Appetit... Read More →

Pamela Weymouth

Pamela Alma Weymouth writes for Truthdig, Justmeans and the HuffingtonPost. She teaches humor writing in San Francisco and tells stories on any stage that will have her. She lives with 1.5 puppies, a flock of hens and 2 boys, which explains why her columns are not as regular as Jack... Read More →

Monday October 10, 2016 8:00pm - 10:30pm PDT
Verdi Club

Type: Book Sales & Signing Type: Storytelling Venue: 21+ Venue: Ticketed Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

12:30pm PDT

Poetic Tuesday

Co-presented by Yerba Buena Gardens Festival

Enjoy line breaks during your lunch break, as some of the Bay Area's best poets and musicians share their work in the great outdoors. FREE

Participants

J. Scott Brownlee

J. Scott Brownlee is the author of REQUIEM FOR USED IGNITION CAP, which won the 2015 Orison Poetry Prize and 2016 Bob Bush Award for Best First Book of Poetry from the Texas Institute of Letters, as well as three prize-winning chapbooks: HIGHWAY OR BELIEF, ASCENSION, and ON THE OCCASION... Read More →

Jennifer S. Cheng

Jennifer S. Cheng’s work includes poetry, lyric essay, and image-text forms. She is the author of MOON: LETTERS, MAPS, POEMS (2018), selected by Bhanu Kapil for the Tarpaulin Sky Book Award; HOUSE A (2016), selected by Claudia Rankine for the Omnidawn Poetry Book Prize; and INVOCATION... Read More →

Erma Kyriakos

Martin Rock

Martin Rock is the author of Residuum (2015 Editor’s Choice Award, Cleveland State University Poetry Center) and two chapbooks: Dear Mark (Brooklyn Arts Press, 2013) and Fish, You Bird (Pilot, 2010, co-written with Phillip D. Ischy). With Kevin Prufer and Martha Collins, he co-edited... Read More →

Mahtem Shiferraw

Tuesday October 11, 2016 12:30pm - 1:30pm PDT
Jessie Square

Venue: Free Event Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

3:00pm PDT

Get Your Book Published: First-Time Authors Reveal All

There are so many ways to be published these days. These debut authors share their journeys. One took a hobby and turned it into a book deal with a major publisher, another won a contest that led to a breakthrough, and others have inspiring tales of perseverance. Get the inside scoop and learn which will be the best path for you. FREE

Participants

Bill Bonham

Prisoner in the kitchen

Tim Floreen

Author of YA Fiction

Tim Floreen writes young adult fiction. The New York Public Library named his first novel, Willful Machines, one of the best teen books of 2015, and in a starred review, Kirkus called it "gothic, gadgety, and gay," which is an accurate assessment. Booklist called his second novel... Read More →

Carmen Lau

Carmen Lau is the author of The Girl Wakes (Alternating Current, 2016). Her stories have appeared in Wigleaf, Fairy Tale Review, The Collagist, Catapult and other journals. Carmen graduated from UC Davis with an MA in Creative Writing in 2009 and has resided around the world since... Read More →

Irvin Lin

Anna Pulley

Press, AfterEllen

Author of The Lesbian Sex Haiku Book (with Cats!). Talk to me about lesbians, sex, haikus, or cats. Or even books. WHY NOT.

Tuesday October 11, 2016 3:00pm - 4:30pm PDT
Koret Auditorium at the San Francisco Public Library

For Aspiring Authors Type: Panel Discussion Venue: Free Event Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

5:00pm PDT

Hot Off the Press: Latest from the Publishing Pros

Working on a book? Have dreams of becoming a published author? This panel of book publishing professionals discuss the latest ways to get your work out into the world to connect with readers, from do-it-yourself to top publishing houses. Bring questions. FREE

Participants

Rolph Blythe

Rolph Blythe began his career as a bookseller, and then worked in marketing for several publishers. Most recently he was publisher of Counterpoint and Soft Skull Press.

Claudia Boutote

Claudia Riemer Boutote is SVP, Publisher of HarperElixir, a new line of conscious living books from HarperOne, the west coast imprint of HarperCollins.Prior to joining HarperOne, she held management positions at a variety of major New York publishing companies including Workman Publishing... Read More →

Kimberley Cameron

President, Kimberley Cameron & Associates

Looking for new voices and hopefully enhancing the publishing quest!

Calvin Crosby

Calvin Crosby has been named the new executive director of the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association. In addition to a 10-year stint on the NCIBA board that included a term as president, Crosby's background includes more than two decades working at both Book Passage and Books Inc. in all aspects of bookstore operations. He has also been committed to bookseller education, having... Read More →

Cynthia Shannon

Author Marketing Specialist, Goodreads

Book Marketing Specialist Cynthia Shannon helps authors and publishers effectively integrate Goodreads into their marketing campaigns. Before joining Goodreads in 2013, Cynthia worked as a book publicist at Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Wiley/Jossey-Bass, and Other Press. She graduated... Read More →

Tuesday October 11, 2016 5:00pm - 6:00pm PDT
Koret Auditorium at the San Francisco Public Library

For Aspiring Authors Type: Panel Discussion Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

6:00pm PDT

Silent Reading Party: Litquake Edition

Co-presented by Lemony Snicket and Radio Silence

Bring a book to read in absolute silence. Cocktails and food will be available. Proceeds from drink sales will benefit an under-resourced San Francisco Public School Library. Sign up to receive emails about upcoming Silent Reading Parties: http://eepurl.com/bZXqKb FREE

Participants

Daniel Handler

Tuesday October 11, 2016 6:00pm - 7:30pm PDT
Hotel Rex

Venue: Free Event Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

6:00pm PDT

Teenquake: Haiku-a-thon at Moleskine

Write inspired haikus and compete for prizes, enter a raffle to win the "Moleskine Ultimate Writer Set", nibble on food and refreshments, and hang out with fellow writers and literary lovers in the beautiful downtown Moleskine store. All teens welcome. Free

Moderators/Hosts

Sarisha Kurup

Litquake Intern, Litquake

Jamie L. Real

Managing Director, Litquake

Tuesday October 11, 2016 6:00pm - 8:00pm PDT
Moleskine

For Aspiring Authors Kids or Teens Poetry Venue: Free Event Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

6:00pm PDT

RADAR Queer Reading Series at the Library

RADAR Productions gives voice to innovative queer and outsider writers and artists whose work authentically reflects the LGBTQA community’s diverse experiences. This Litquake edition spotlights four incredible artists, hosted by RADAR artistic director Juliana Delgado Lopera, and followed by audience discussion and cookies. FREE

Moderators/Hosts

Juliana Delgado Lopera

Juliana Delgado Lopera is an award-winning Colombian writer, historian based in San Francisco. The recipient of the 2014 Jackson Literary award, and a finalist of the Clark- Gross Novel award, she’s the author of ¡Cuéntamelo! an illustrated bilingual collection of oral histories... Read More →

Participants

Shideh Etaat

I see stories everywhere I go. I have written for both print and on-line publications specializing in personal essays, interviews, and arts&culture, and have published my poetry and fiction in various spaces. Words have the power to change lives and as a credentialed educator, teaching... Read More →

Ramona Garcia

S. Kay

S. Kay zaps tweet-sized tales in series that combined tell larger narratives. She is the author of RELIANT (tNY.Press. 2015), JOY (Maudlin House, 2016), and LOST IN THE LAND OF BEARS (Reality Hands, 2016). She's a queer Canadian married to a San Franciscan. Follow her on Twitter at... Read More →

Natalia Vigil

Tuesday October 11, 2016 6:00pm - 8:00pm PDT
San Francisco Public Library, Latino/Hispanic Room A

LGBT Type: Panel Discussion Type: Reading Venue: Free Event Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

7:00pm PDT

Litquake in the Bookstore: Alexandra Horowitz

Alexandra Horowitz, author of the lively, highly informative New York Times bestselling blockbuster Inside of a Dog, launches her newest, Being a Dog, Following the Dog Into a World of Smell. She explains how dogs perceive the world through their most spectacular organ—the nose—and how we humans can put our under-used sense of smell to work in surprising ways. FREE

Participants

Alexandra Horowitz

Alexandra Horowitz is author of the bestselling Inside of a Dog: What Dogs See, Smell, and Know, and On Looking: A Walker’s Guide to the Art of Observation. Her newest is Being a Dog, Following the Dog Into a World of Smell. She teaches psychology, animal behavior, and canine... Read More →

Tuesday October 11, 2016 7:00pm - 8:00pm PDT
Books Inc., Berkeley

Nonfiction Type: Book Sales & Signing Venue: Free Event Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

7:00pm PDT

Size Counts: Writers Talk Short Fiction

Ticket Link

Short story writers read from their works, and discuss the challenges and rewards unique to short-form fiction. With Daphne Gottlieb, Kait Heacock, Vanessa Hua, Martin Pousson, Anne Raeff, Sumiko Saulson, and Nick Matamas (moderator). $5-10 sliding scale

Moderators/Hosts

Nick Mamatas

Nick Mamatas is the author of several novels including The Last Weekend, I Am Providence, and the forthcoming Hexen Sabbath. His short fiction has appeared in Best American Mystery Stories, and he is also an award-winning anthologist, most recently with Mixed Up, a hybrid cocktail... Read More →

Participants

Daphne Gottlieb

Daphne Gottlieb is a San Francisco-based performance poet.She is the winner of the Acker Award for Excellence in the Avant-Garde, the Audre Lorde Award for Poetry, the Firecracker Alternative Book Award, and a five-time finalist for the Lambda Literary Award... Read More →

Kait Heacock

Kait grew up in the same city as her literary idol, Raymond Carver, and hopes this means something. Her debut short story collection, Siblings and Other Disappointments, comes out on October 11th, 2016. Her fiction has appeared in, Esquire, Joyland, KGB Bar Lit Mag, Portland Review... Read More →

Vanessa Hua

Vanessa Hua is a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle and the author of a short story collection, Deceit and Other Possibilities, and a debut novel, A River of Stars. For two decades, she has been writing, in journalism and fiction, about Asia and the diaspora. She has received... Read More →

Anne Raeff

Anne Raeff’s stories and essays have appeared in New England Review, ZYZZYVA, and Guernica among other places. Her first novel CLARA MONDSCHEIN’S MELANCHOLIA was published in 2002 (MacAdam/Cage). Her short story collection, THE JUNGLE AROUND US won the 2015 Flannery O'Connor... Read More →

Sumiko Saulson

Social Media Manager, Horror Writers Association

Sumiko Saulson, authorWriter of Dark Speculative Fictionwwww.SumikoSaulson.comPronouns: ze/hir/hirsSumiko Saulson is a Bram Stoker and Elgin nominated poet and award-winning author of Afrosurrealist and multicultural sci-fi and horror. Author of the Bram Stoker nominated The Rat... Read More →

Tuesday October 11, 2016 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT
San Francisco Center for the Book

For Aspiring Authors Type: Book Sales & Signing Type: Panel Discussion Type: Reading Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

7:00pm PDT

Ghostland: Colin Dickey at Winchester Mystery House

Ticket Link

San Jose's legendary Winchester Mystery House hosts this one-of-a-kind book launch of Ghostland, by Colin Dickey. With the author's own fascination piqued by a house hunt in Los Angeles that revealed derelict foreclosures and "zombie homes," Dickey embarks on a journey across the continental United States to decode and unpack the American history repressed in our most famous haunted places. With author Emer Martin. $15

With boundless curiosity, Dickey conjures the dead by focusing on questions of the living--how do we, the living, deal with stories about ghosts, and how do we inhabit and move through spaces that have been deemed, for whatever reason, haunted? Paying attention not only to the true facts behind a ghost story, but also to the ways in which changes to those facts are made--and why those changes are made--Dickey paints a version of American history left out of the textbooks, one of things left undone, crimes left unsolved. Spellbinding, scary, and wickedly insightful, Ghostland discovers the past we're most afraid to speak of aloud in the bright light of day is the same past that tends to linger in the ghost stories we whisper in the dark.

Note: This event is held in the Winchester Room.

Moderators/Hosts

Emer Martin

Emer is a Dubliner who has lived in Paris, London, the Middle East, and various places in the U.S. Her first novel Breakfast in Babylon won Book of the Year 1996 in her native Ireland at the prestigious Listowel Writers Week. Houghton Mifflin released Breakfast in Babylon in the U.S... Read More →

Participants

Colin Dickey

Colin Dickey grew up in San Jose, California, a few miles from the Winchester Mystery House, the most haunted house in America. As a writer, speaker, and academic, he has made a career out of collecting unusual objects and hidden histories all over the country. He’s a regular contributor... Read More →

Tuesday October 11, 2016 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT
Winchester Mystery House

Nonfiction Type: Author Conversation Type: Book Sales & Signing Type: Reading Venue: Ticketed

7:00pm PDT

One City One Book: Carey Perloff

An evening celebrating San Francisco Public Library's 12th Annual One City One Book selection, the memoir Beautiful Chaos: A Life in the Theater, by A.C.T. Artistic Director Carey Perloff. The author discusses her personal and professional journey—her life as a woman in a male-dominated profession, as a wife and mother, a playwright, director, producer, arts advocate, and citizen in a city erupting with enormous change. With author Joshua Mohr. FREE

Moderators/Hosts

Joshua Mohr

Author

Participants

Carey Perloff

Carey Perloff is a playwright and current artistic director of American Conservatory Theater (A.C.T.) in San Francisco. Perloff writes and lectures regularly about the American theater and about issues in culture and contemporary life that are close to her heart. She and her husband... Read More →

Tuesday October 11, 2016 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT
City Lights Booksellers & Publishers

Nonfiction Type: Book Sales & Signing Venue: Free Event

7:00pm PDT

Prestigious Prose: Pulitzer Conversations

Ticket Link

Co-presented by California Humanities

In honor of the centennial of the Pulitzer Prizes, Litquake hosts two conversations with four recipients: Jane Smiley (1992, fiction) with Robert Hass (2008, poetry); and Richard Rhodes (1986, nonfiction) with T.J. Stiles (2010, biography; 2016, history). Topics certain to be covered include: what is the intersection between fiction and poetry? How much research is enough, and is there ever too much? And how did winning the highest literary prize in the U.S. change their lives? $10 advance or $15 at the door

Participants

Robert Hass

Robert L. Hass is an American poet. He served as Poet Laureate of the United States from 1995 to 1997. He won the 2007 National Book Award and shared the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for the collection Time and Materials: Poems 1997-2005.In 2014 he was awarded the Wallace Stevens... Read More →

Richard Rhodes

Richard Rhodes is the author or editor of twenty-five books including The Making of the Atomic Bomb, which won a Pulitzer Prize in Nonfiction, a National Book Award and a National Book Critics Circle Award; Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb, which was shortlisted for a... Read More →

Jane Smiley

Jane Smiley won the Pulitzer Prize for her novel, A Thousand Acres, and was shortlisted for the Orange Prize for Horse Heaven. She is the author of thirteen novels for adults, five novels for young adults, and five works of non-fiction, including The Man Who Invented the Computer... Read More →

T.J. Stiles

T.J. Stiles, called “a superb researcher” by the Washington Post, won the 2010 Pulitzer for Biography and the 2009 National Book Award for Nonfiction for The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius Vanderbilt. His new book is Custer's Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New... Read More →

Tuesday October 11, 2016 7:00pm - 9:00pm PDT
American Bookbinders Museum

Fiction Nonfiction Poetry Type: Author Conversation Type: Book Sales & Signing Venue: Ticketed Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

7:00pm PDT

Yaa Gyasi at The Octopus

Co-presented by THERE Reading Series and Museum of the African Diaspora

Yaa Gyasi discusses and reads from her new book Homegoing, a story of breathtaking sweep and emotional power that traces three hundred years in Ghana, and along the way also becomes a truly great American novel. FREE

Extraordinary for its exquisite language, its implacable sorrow, its soaring beauty, and for its monumental portrait of the forces that shape families and nations, Homegoing heralds the arrival of a major new voice in contemporary fiction.

“Homegoing is an inspiration.” —Ta-Nehisi Coates

Moderators/Hosts

Aaron Bady

Aaron Bady is a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Texas, teaching African literature. He writes the blog zunguzungu.

Participants

Yaa Gyasi

Yaa Gyasi is an author whose debut novel, Homegoing,weaves three centuries of slavery and colonialism into the fabric of America. Born in Ghana and raised in Huntsville, Alabama, Gyasi holds a BA in English from Stanford University and an MFA from the Iowa Writers’ Worksh... Read More →

Tuesday October 11, 2016 7:00pm - 9:00pm PDT
The Octopus Literary Salon

Fiction Type: Author Conversation Type: Book Sales & Signing Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

7:00pm PDT

Mission Bookstores: United We Stand

Ticket Link

A words-and-music celebration hosted by the independent bookstore coalition working to preserve and serve the longstanding community and creative interests of the historic Latino Cultural District. Adobe Books, Alley Cat Books, Dog Eared Books, and Modern Times Bookstore Collective join to honor the authors, poets, musicians, and activists who make their culturally diverse spaces hum. Hosted by Denise Sullivan and Kate Rosenberger. Music by Preston Swirnoff and special guest. Scheduled to appear: Ian Brennan, MK Chavez, Freddy Gutierrez, Victor Krummenacher, Alejandro Murguía, Natasha Muse, Po Poets, Kate Schatz, Miriam Klein Stahl, David Talbot, and Katie Tomzynski. $5-10 sliding scale

Benefiting Litquake and the United Booksellers, who welcome new member Dog Eared Castro and honor the restructured Modern Times on its 45th anniversary, these bookstores proudly continue to hold space, despite the odds.

Participants

Kate (Rosenberger) Akimbo

Kate (Rosenberger) Akimbo has been opening and running book shops in San Francisco for the past 30 years:Phoenix Books (Noe Valley 1985-2013), Red Hill/Badger Books, (Bernal Heights 2004-2013), and currently Alley Cat Books and Dog Eared Books in the Mission and Dog Eared Books... Read More →

Ian Brennan

Ian Brennan, a Grammy-winning record producer (Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Bill Frisell), travels the globe in search of music. Since 1993, he has lectured internationally over one hundred times a year regarding violence prevention and is the author of two books on the subject, Anger... Read More →

MK Chavez

MK Chavez is the author of Mothermorphosis, and Dear Animal. She is a recipient of the 2017 Pen Oakland Josephine Miles Award and Alameda County Arts Leadership Award. Her latest publications can be found in bags of coffee from Nomadic Coffee and online at Academy of American Poets... Read More →

Tiny Gray-Garcia

co-founder, POOR Magazine

Tiny (aka Lisa Gray-Garcia) is a formerly unhoused, incarcerated poverty scholar, revolutionary journalist, lecturer, poet, visionary, teacher and single mama of Tiburcio, daughter of a houseless, disabled mama Dee, and the co–founder of POOR Magazine/Prensa POBRE/PoorNewsNetwork... Read More →

Freddy Gutierrez

Freddy Gutierrez, vato de aquellos, MFA, Oakland based Writer, Teaching Artist, and Cultural Worker. Freddy inspires and nurtures writers to move from the page to the stage and the street. Freddy has taught with Youth Speaks, Chapter 510, and the Oakland Public Library. He facilitates... Read More →

Victor Krummenacher

Victor Krummenacher is a musician and founding member of the alternative rock band Camper Van Beethoven. He helped form the bands Monks of Doom, Camper Van Chadbourne, McCabe & Mrs. Miller and has pursued a solo career as a singer-songwriter. He also played bass with Cracker for several... Read More →

Alejandro Murguía

Natasha Muse

Natasha Muse is like the C3P0 of San Francisco comedy: a bunch of small bears once mistook her for a golden god but in reality she’s a bumbling robot (as well as a mom, a transsexual, and a firm agnostic). The SF Weekly once declared her a “Comedian to Watch” in 2014, and in... Read More →

Kate Schatz

Miriam Klein Stahl

Miriam Klein Stahl is an artist, educator, and activist. She is the illustrator of Rad American Women A-Z and Rad Women Worldwide.

Denise Sullivan

Denise Sullivan writes on music, arts and culture. Author of five published titles including Keep on Pushing, Black Power Music From Blues to Hip Hop, she is editing an anthology of San Francisco stories and writing Compared To What, the authorized biography of a classic jazz-protest... Read More →

Preston Swirnoff

California-based musician and composer Preston Swirnoff will play music from his solo project ‘Haunted Sea Songs of Bahia’ - dark, eerie folk ballads about the power of the ocean, disappearing fishermen, and lost love. Features versions of songs from the 1940’s by the legendary... Read More →

David Talbot

David Talbot is an author, journalist, media entrepreneur, and book publisher. He is founder and former editor-in-chief of Salon.com, and is author of the bestsellers Season of the Witch and Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years, and the illustrated pulp history Devil... Read More →

Katie Tomzynski

Katie Tomzynski lives and writes in a yellow house in San Francisco. She is the co-founder & editor of Just Chugged Four Beers magazine.

Tuesday October 11, 2016 7:00pm - 9:00pm PDT
Make-Out Room

Poetry Type: Book Sales & Signing Type: Reading Venue: 21+ Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

12:00pm PDT

Lifelong Learning: A Berkeley Brown Bag Lunch

Co-presented by Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at U.C. Berkeley

This lunchtime reading in Berkeley's downtown district features faculty and members from the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute @Berkeley writing programs. FREE

OLLI @Berkeley offers an ongoing program of six-week courses, weekly lecture series, and special events for the community and provides a creative forum for new ideas and expressions. The OLLI classroom is a place where Berkeley's distinguished faculty and other leading experts share their research and interests.

Participants

Anthony Clarvoe

Anthony is an award-winning playwright from San Francisco recently returned to the Bay Area. Some of his plays are Pick Up Ax, The Living, Let's Play Two, The Brothers Karamazov, Ambition Facing West, Ctrl+Alt+Delete and The Art Of Sacrifice, published by Broadway Play Publishing... Read More →

Judith Coburn

Judith Coburn, after decades as a journalist writing for the Village Voice, Mother Jones, the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times and TomDispatch, among other media outlets, became a private eye 10 years ago, specializing in death penalty cases... Read More →

Barbara Freeman

Barbara Claire Freeman is a literary critic and professor of literature who has recently turned her full attention to writing poetry. She is the author of The Feminine Sublime: Gender and Excess in Women’s Fiction (University of California Press), among many other works of literary... Read More →

Matt Shears

Dashka Slater

I'm a journalist, novelist, essayist, and children's book author.

Wednesday October 12, 2016 12:00pm - 1:00pm PDT
Freight & Salvage Coffeehouse

Type: Book Sales & Signing Type: Reading Venue: Free Event Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

12:00pm PDT

Literary Lunch: Miguel de Cervantes

Co-presented by Stanford Humanities

This year marks the 400th anniversary of the death of Miguel de Cervantes, whose Don Quixote is considered the world's first modern novel. Litquake's inaugural brown-bag lunch lecture features Stanford professor Roland Greene, speaking on the Renaissance and baroque worlds of Miguel de Cervantes. FREE

Participants

Roland Greene

Roland Greene is the author and editor of several books, most recently Five Words: Critical Semantics in the Age of Shakespeare and Cervantes (2013). He teaches at Stanford University, and until January 2016 served as President of the Modern Language Association of America.

Wednesday October 12, 2016 12:00pm - 1:30pm PDT
Mechanics' Institute Library

Venue: All Ages Venue: Free Event Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

6:30pm PDT

In My Humble Opinion: Peter Orner and Mark Greif

Ticket Link

Provocative conversation with two masters of the essay form: authors Peter Orner (Am I Alone Here?: Notes on Living to Read and Reading to Live), and n + 1 Magazine founder Mark Greif (Against Everything). Moderated by San Francisco Chronicle books editor John McMurtrie. Doors open at 6 pm. $15 advance or at the door; $10 for Mechanics' members

Participants

Mark Greif

As the New York Times wrote of his new book, Against Everything, "[Mark Greif] embodies a return to the pleasures of critical discourse at its most cerebral and personable… writing about the culture with a reverence for language and a passion for what has come before." Greif received... Read More →

Peter Orner

Peter Orner is the author of two collections of stories, Last Car Over the Sagamore Bridge and Esther Stories, and two novels, Love and Shame and Love and The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo. His stories have appeared in many periodicals, including the Atlantic Monthly, The New York... Read More →

Wednesday October 12, 2016 6:30pm - 7:30pm PDT
Mechanics' Institute Library

Nonfiction Type: Author Conversation Type: Book Sales & Signing Venue: Ticketed Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

7:00pm PDT

America the Ingenious: Kevin Baker in Conversation

Ticket Link

Author Kevin Baker (America the Ingenious) explores 76 of the most intriguing, important, and ingenious inventions realized in America, from the Panama Canal, the Hoover Dam, the Golden Gate Bridge, and Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater to the oil rig, the electric sewing machine, and the telephone. In conversation with author and Arc Programs CEO David Ewing Duncan.
$10 in advance or $15 at the door

Moderators/Hosts

David Ewing Duncan

David Ewing Duncan is Co-Founder and CEO of Arc Programs. He is an award-winning best-selling author of eight books published in 19 languages; he is a journalist and a television, radio and film producer and correspondent. His most recent book is When I’m 164: The new science... Read More →

Participants

Kevin Baker

Kevin Baker is a novelist, historian, and journalist whose books include Dreamland and the New York Timesbestseller Paradise Alley. He authored America: The Story of Us, the companion volume to the groundbreaking A&E television show of the same name, and was the chief historical... Read More →

Wednesday October 12, 2016 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT
American Bookbinders Museum

Nonfiction Type: Author Conversation Type: Book Sales & Signing Venue: Ticketed Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

7:00pm PDT

Straight, No Chaser: Writers at the Bar

Hallowed North Beach watering hole Vesuvio Café once again opens its doors to Litquake for an edgy and hilarious evening reading. A rare opportunity to glimpse authors performing new work in their natural habitat. Get here early, it fills up fast. FREE

Moderators/Hosts

Alia Volz

Alia Volz is a daughter of this town. Her fiction and essays appear in Tin House, Threepenny Review, New York Times, Utne Reader, New England Review, Huizache, The Rumpus, Narratively, ZYZZYVA, and the 2016 anthology Dig if You Will The Picture: Remembering Prince published... Read More →

Participants

Charlie Jane Anders

Attendee

Charlie Jane Anders is the author of the forthcoming Victories Greater Than Death, the first book in a young adult trilogy. Plus an upcoming short story collection, Even Greater Mistakes. And a collection of essays about how to make up stories during tough times, called Never Say You Can't Survive. With Annalee Newitz, she co-hosts the Hugo Award-winning podc... Read More →

Christian Kiefer

Christian Kiefer’s first novel, The Infinite Tides (Bloomsbury), appeared on best of the year lists from Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, and Booklist. His second novel, The Animals (Liveright / W.W. Norton), was a best book of the year from Amazon.com and was praised by Richard Ford... Read More →

Joshua Mohr

Author

Zahra Noorbahksh

#GoodMuslimBadMuslim podcast

Zahra Noorbakhsh is a Feminist Muslim, Iranian-American comedian and cohost of the award winning podcast, #GoodMuslimBadMuslim. The podcast was recently invited to record at the White House and featured in Oprah Magazine. Her one woman show, "All Atheists are Muslim: a romantic comedy... Read More →

Alia Volz

Wednesday October 12, 2016 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT
Vesuvio Café

Type: Reading Venue: 21+ Venue: Free Event Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

7:00pm PDT

Poetry World Series: Litquake Edition

Ticket Link

Seattle’s John Roderick emcees this rowdy, fast-paced reading. Two teams of award-winning poets take turns batting at topics pitched by the audience. Fastballs, curveballs, knuckleballs: these poets won't know what's coming next! Judges D. A. Powell, Beth Nguyen, Katie Peterson score each performance, and the winning team takes the series title. Hilarity—and top-notch poetry—guaranteed! Book sales/signings to follow. Doors open at 6:30 pm. Don't forget to bring a topic to stump the poets! $5 in advance or $10 at the door

As poet Marianne Moore wrote, “Writing is exciting / and baseball is like writing. / You can never tell with either / how it will go.”

Emcee:
John Roderick

Judges:
D.A. Powell

Players:
Kim Addonizio
Malachi Black
Douglas Kearney
Raina J. León
Julia Levine
Javier Zamora

Timekeeper:
Roy Mash

Music and sound effects:
Mixed by Kristen Clark of Mill Valley

Series Organizers:
Rebecca Foust
Melissa Stein

Moderators/Hosts

John Roderick

John Roderick is a musician, writer, champion podcaster, and erstwhile political candidate. The songwriter and singer/guitarist of The Long Winters, he helms the podcast "Roderick on the Line." He lives in Seattle.

Participants

Kim Addonizio

Kim Addonizio's books include My Black Angel: Blues Poems and Portraits. Her newest releases are the poetry collection, Mortal Trash, and the memoir Bukowski in a Sundress.

Malachi Black

Malachi Black is the author of Storm Toward Morning (Copper Canyon Press, 2014), a finalist for the Poetry Society of America’s Norma Farber First Book Award. He teaches at the University of San Diego.

Rebecca Foust

Rebecca Foust’s books include Paradise Drive and All That Gorgeous Pitiless Song. She is the recipient of fellowships from The Frost Place, MacDowell, and Sewanee.

Douglas Kearney

Douglas Kearney is a poet, performer, librettist, and educator. His sixth book, Buck Studies (Fence Books), will be available this fall. He teaches at CalArts and lives in Saugus, CA, with his family.

Julia Levine

Julia B. Levine has won numerous awards for her work, including the 2015 Northern California Book Award in Poetry for her latest collection, Small Disasters Seen in Sunlight (LSU press 2014). She works and lives in Davis, CA.

Raina J. León

Raina J. León is a Cave Canem graduate fellow, CantoMundo fellow, and member of the Carolina African American Writers Collective. Her collections of poetry include Canticle of Idols, Boogeyman Dawn, and sombra: (dis)locate (February 2016). She teaches at Saint Mary's College... Read More →

Roy Mash

Roy Mash is the author of Buyer’s Remorse (Cherry Grove, 2014) and recipient of the Atlanta Review International Publication Award. His poems appear widely in journals including AGNI, Barrow Street, Nimrod, Poetry East, and River Styx.

Beth Minh Nguyen

Bich Minh Nguyen, who also goes by Beth, is the author of three books: the memoir Stealing Buddha’s Dinner, which received the PEN/Jerard Award, the novel Short Girls, which received an American Book Award, and most recently the novel Pioneer Girl. She teaches in and directs... Read More →

Katie Peterson

Katie Peterson is the author of three collections of poetry, The Accounts (2013), Permission (2013), and This One Tree (2006). She teaches at the University of California at Davis.

D. A. Powell

D. A. Powell's books include Repast (Graywolf, 2012) and Useless Landscape, or A Guide for Boys (Graywolf, 2014), recipient of the National Book Critics Circle Award in Poetry. He teaches at University of San Francisco.

Melissa Stein

Melissa Stein is the author of the poetry collection Rough Honey, winner of the APR/Honickman First Book Prize; her second book, Terrible Blooms, will be published by Copper Canyon Press in spring 2018 . She's a freelance editor in San Francisco.

Javier Zamora

Born in El Salvador, Javier Zamora is a 2016-18 Wallace Stegner Fellow and Ruth Lilly Award recipient with fellowships from CantoMundo, Colgate University, MacDowell, NEA, and Yaddo. His first book is forthcoming from Copper Canyon Press.

Wednesday October 12, 2016 7:00pm - 9:00pm PDT
Make-Out Room

Poetry Type: Book Sales & Signing Type: Reading Venue: 21+ Venue: Ticketed Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

7:00pm PDT

Writing Indigenous Experiences

Ticket Link

Indigenous, First Nations, Native Americans, or American Indian—whichever words you use, a new wave of literature is bringing their issues to the forefront. Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Dina Gilio-Whitaker, Alison Owings, Kim Shuck, Lindsie Bear, and Greg Sarris discuss the unique challenges faced by writers who communicate indigenous realities for a wider audience. $10

Moderators/Hosts

Lindsie Bear

Director of Nature and Environmental Publishing, Heyday

Participants

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz

Professor, California State University

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz is a writer, historian, and socialist activist. The stories of her grandfather inspired her to lifelong social justice activism. Her account of life up to leaving Oklahoma is recorded in Red Dirt: Growing Up Okie. Doctorate in History from University of California... Read More →

Dina Gilio-Whitaker

American Indian Studies Lecturer, California State University San Marcos

I am a Native American studies scholar and writer who lives in a Southern California beach town and surfs. You can talk to me about anything relating to indigenous cultures/politics and surfing. I co-authored a book titled "'All the Real Indians Died Off' and 20 Other Myths about... Read More →

Alison Owings

The title of Alison Owings's latest book, Indian Voices/Listening to Native Americans, reflects her inclination to conduct lengthy interviews with people who are marginalized, stereotyped, or disregarded. The voices in Indian Voices include Passamaquoddy, Lumbee, Hopi, Yupik, and... Read More →

Greg Sarris

Greg Sarris received his Ph.D. in Modern Thought and Literature from Stanford University, where he was awarded the Walter Gore Award for excellence in teaching. He has published several books, including Grand Avenue (1994), an award-winning collection of short stories, which he adapted... Read More →

Kim Shuck

Urban Native identities, definitions of culture, poetry, indiginerds.

Wednesday October 12, 2016 7:00pm - 9:00pm PDT
San Francisco Center for the Book

Type: Book Sales & Signing Type: Panel Discussion Type: Reading Venue: Ticketed Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

7:30pm PDT

Saving Twilight: A Tribute to Julio Cortázar

Co-presented by City Lights and Center for the Art of Translation

Argentine novelist, short story writer, and essayist Julio Cortázar (1914-1984) was known as a founder of the Latin American Boom, and influenced an entire generation of Spanish-speaking readers and writers in the Americas and Europe ("The Simón Bolívar of the novel"—Carlos Fuentes). Translator Stephen Kessler and special guests discuss Cortázar's life and read from his work. FREE

"Anyone who doesn't read Cortazar is doomed. Not to read him is a serious invisible disease which in time can have terrible consequences. Something similar to a man who has never tasted peaches. He would quietly become sadder...and, probably, little by little, he would lose his hair." —Pablo Neruda

Participants

Lewis Buzbee

Lewis Buzbee is author of The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop, Blackboard, Steinbeck's Ghost, The Haunting of Charles Dickens, and Bridge of Time.

Mauro Javier Cardenas

Mauro Javier Cardenas is author of the novel The Revoutionaries Try Again. He grew up in Guayaquil, Ecuador, and graduated with a degree in economics from Stanford University. His fiction has appeared in Conjunctions, Guernica, ZYZZYVA, Witness, BOMB, and the Antioch Review. His interviews... Read More →

Stephen Kessler

Stephen Kessler is a poet, prose writer, translator, and editor. His award-winning translations of the Spanish poet Luis Cernuda include Forbidden Pleasures, Desolation of the Chimera, and Written in Water. He is also editor and principal translator of The Sonnets by Jorge Luis... Read More →

Silvia Oviedo-López

Silvia Oviedo-López is a Spanish poet and translator based in San Francisco. Her work has appeared in different anthologies and journals on both sides of the Atlantic. She is the founder of Desbandada, a journal of original and translated poetry.

Katherine Silver

Katherine Silver’s translation of Literature Classes, by Julio Cortázar, will be published by New Directions in 2017. Her most recent translations include works by Martín Adán, Daniel Sada, Horacio Castellanos Moya, César Aira, and Jorge Luis Borges. She is currently translating... Read More →

Wednesday October 12, 2016 7:30pm - 9:30pm PDT
Green Apple Books on the Park

Fiction Nonfiction Type: Author Conversation Type: Book Sales & Signing Type: Panel Discussion Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

8:00pm PDT

An Evening with John Doe

Ticket Link

Co-presented by Noise Pop

Musician, writer, actor, and frontman of the L.A. punk band X, John Doe celebrates release of his book Under the Big Black Sun, which explores the nascent Los Angeles punk rock movement from 1977-1982. In conversation with Peter Maravelis (City Lights), with book sales and signing to follow. $15 advance or at the door

Compiled with Tom DeSavia, Under the Big Black Sun shares chapter-length tales from the authors along with personal essays from famous (and infamous) players in the scene, from Exene Cervenka (X), to Henry Rollins (Black Flag), Mike Watt (The Minutemen), Jane Wiedlin and Charlotte Caffey (Go-Go's), Dave Alvin (The Blasters), Chris D. (The Flesh Eaters), Robert Lopez (The Zeros, El Vez), Jack Grisham (T.S.O.L.), Teresa Covarrubias (The Brat), and many more.

Through interstitial commentary, John Doe "narrates" this journey through the land of film noir sunshine, Hollywood back alleys, and suburban sprawl, the place where he met his artistic counterparts Exene, DJ Bonebrake, and Billy Zoom and formed X, the band that became synonymous with, and in many ways defined, L.A. punk.

Focusing on punk's evolutionary years, Under the Big Black Sun shares stories of friendship and love, ambition and feuds, grandiose dreams and cultural rage, all combined with the tattered, glossy sheen of pop culture weirdness that epitomized the operations of Hollywood's underbelly. Readers will travel to the clubs that defined the scene, as well as to the street corners, empty lots, apartment complexes, and squats that served as de facto salons for the musicians, artists, and fringe players that hashed out what would become punk rock in Los Angeles.

“The true story of the Los Angeles punk scene…A set of vivid personal essays…The most artist-centered look yet at a scene that helped define the future of a music whose rallying cry was ‘no future.'" —Rolling Stone

“Written with immediacy and brio, the book is suffused with the heady feeling of finding your tribe.” —San Francisco Chronicle

"A collection of essays by a fraternity of key members of L.A.'s early punk scene between 1977 and 1982, before any of them experienced major-label interest and mainstream success…Stories of hardscrabble living, house parties and shambolic shows…Includes loads of photos and vintage gig fliers.” —LA Weekly

“The scene was very, very diverse. It accepted women, it accepted gays, it accepted straights, you had a lot of phony anarchists and communists, you even had one or two Republicans. Every race, every gender, every political persuasion, every everything was united by the music and that was a great thing.” —Dave Alvin

Moderators/Hosts

Peter Maravelis

Peter Maravelis is a native San Franciscan with a life-long involvement in the art and literary scenes. He programs the events calendar at City Lights Bookstore and is editor of both San Francisco Noir and San Francisco Noir 2: The Classics. He is executive producer of the Dada... Read More →

Participants

John Doe

John Doe has worked as a roofer, an aluminum siding mechanic, a manager of poetry readings, a musician, and an actor. He met Exene Cervenka at the Venice poetry workshop in 1976 and started working with Billy Zoom around the same time. When DJ Bonebrake joined X in mid-1977, the lineup... Read More →

Wednesday October 12, 2016 8:00pm - 10:00pm PDT
Swedish American Hall

Type: Author Conversation Type: Book Sales & Signing Venue: 21+ Venue: Ticketed

8:30pm PDT

Who's Laughing Now? A Night of Funny Females

Ticket Link

NOTE: Due to unforseen circumstances, Phoebe Robinson will not be able to appear at this show. Additional tickets are now available. Thank you!

Co-presented by SF Sketchfest

Women humorists invade the former Purple Onion comedy club (Maya Angelou, Phyllis Diller, Richard Pryor) and rock the rafters. Featuring novelist Jade Chang (The Wangs vs. the World), comedians Karinda Dobbins and Caitlin Gill, and writer/performer Beth Lisick. Hosted by Audible's Kelly Anneken. $20 advance or at the door

Moderators/Hosts

Kelly Anneken

Participants

Jade Chang

Jade Chang has covered arts and culture as a journalist and editor. She is the recipient of a Sundance Fellowship for Arts Journalism, the AIGA/Winterhouse Award for Design Criticism, and the James D. Houston Memorial scholarship from the Squaw Valley Community of Writers. The Wangs... Read More →

Karinda Dobbins

Karinda Dobbins has performed on NickMom Night Out and opened for Greg Proops and W. Kamau Bell. Bitch Magazine said she is one of "Six Hilarious Female Comedians You Don't Know Yet—But Should." A Motor City native, Karinda is a well-known standup at clubs and theaters in the San... Read More →

Caitlin Gill

ME ABOUT ME IN THE THIRD PERSON: People are talking about Caitlin Gill. Most of what they’re saying has to do with how funny she is. Caitlin has performed for Flophouse on Viceland, at the Oddball Comedy Tour, the Outside Lands Festival, SF Sketchfest, Bridgetown Comedy Festival... Read More →

Beth Lisick

Wednesday October 12, 2016 8:30pm - 10:00pm PDT
Doc's Lab

Type: Book Sales & Signing Type: Reading Venue: 21+ Venue: Ticketed Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

6:30pm PDT

Literary Science: The Good, the Bad, and the Bestseller

Why do you like some books, but not others? Can critics predict your taste? And why do millions of people sometimes love books that you hate? Isn’t art subjective? We'll ask these questions and yours to a literary critic, a veteran publisher, a bookseller-turned literary agent, and a UC Berkeley Neuroanthropologist—moderated by a scientist and novelist. Doors open at 6 pm. FREE

Moderators/Hosts

Ransom Stephens

Ransom Stephens’ novels mix science and religion, environmentalism and technology, oligarchy and anarchy, and his latest, Too Rich to Die, is set at the intersection of love and money. www.ransomstephens.com

Participants

Leilani Clark

Leilani Clark writes about books for KQED Arts. Her journalism and essays have been published at Mother Jones, The Guardian, Civil Eats, The Rumpus, and other places. She is also the editor of Made Local Magazine, a print publication all about the Sonoma County food system.

Terrence Deacon

Terrence Deacon is a professor of biological anthropology at UC Berkeley. His research combines human evolutionary biology and neuroscience with the aim of investigating the evolution of human cognition: Brain development and evolution, origins of language, bio-cultural evolution... Read More →

Andy Ross

Andy Ross is a bookseller turned literary agent in Oakland. For 30 years Andy owned the legendary Cody's Books in Berkeley. He's now a literary agent who represents books in a wide range of non-fiction genres: narrative non-fiction, science, journalism, history, popular culture... Read More →

Jacob Weisman

Publisher, Tachyon Publications

Jacob Weisman is the editor and publisher at Tachyon Publications, which he founded in 1995. He has been nominated for the World Fantasy Award three times for his work at Tachyon and is the series editor of Tachyon’s Hugo, Nebula, Sturgeon, and Shirley Jackson Award-winning novella... Read More →

Thursday October 13, 2016 6:30pm - 8:30pm PDT
Mechanics' Institute Library

Nonfiction Type: Book Sales & Signing Type: Panel Discussion Venue: Free Event Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

7:00pm PDT

Litquake in the Bookstore: Ron Hansen

Ron Hansen, award-winning author of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, launches his newest novel, The Kid, about an iconic American criminal of the old West. Billy the Kid's spree of crimes and murders has been immortalized in dime westerns, novels, and movies. But the whole story of his short, epically violent life has never been told as it has been here. FREE

Participants

Ron Hansen

Ron Hansen is the author of ten novels—including Mariette in Ecstasy, Desperadoes, and A Wild Surge of Guilty Passion—and two short story collections, among them She Loves Me Not. His novel The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner... Read More →

Thursday October 13, 2016 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT
Book Passage Corte Madera

Fiction Type: Book Sales & Signing Venue: Free Event Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

7:00pm PDT

TV Tales: Stories from the Writers' Room

Ticket Link

Co-presented by Writing Pad

We are living in what has been dubbed the third Golden Age of Television. In this one-hour session, writers and actors perform and share stories from the front lines of this scintillating netherworld, giving attendees a window into the inner workings of one of the most competitive, complex and collaborative literary art forms. Join actress/memoirist Lauren Weedman (HBO’s Looking, Hung), TV writer/YA author David Iserson (Mr. Robot, Mad Men, New Girl), and showrunner/playwright Gloria Calderon Kellett (One Day At A Time, How I Met Your Mother) as they offer a rare view into the chaotic and fast-paced world behind TV’s most memorable dramas and comedies. $10 Let us know if you can come at https://www.facebook.com/events/555918134592351

Participants

David Iserson

David Iserson began his television writing career on “Saturday Night Live.” Since then, he has zig-zagged between comedies and dramas, serving as supervising producer for USA’s Mr. Robot (WGA award winner), supervising producer for Epix’s “Graves”, co-producer for AMC’s... Read More →

Gloria Calderón Kellett

Gloria Calderón Kellett is the Executive Producer and Co-showrunner of "One Day At A Time" scheduled to premiere on Netflix on January 6, 2017. She has written and produced on such shows as CW's "iZombie", ABC's “Mixology”, Lifetime's "Devious Maids", CBS's "Rules of Engagement... Read More →

Lauren Weedman

Lauren Weedman is an award-winning comedic actress, playwright and author. She has written and performed 9 solo plays. (“Homecoming”, “Amsterdam”, “If Ornaments Had Lips”, “Huu”, “Rash”, “Wreckage”, “Bust”, “No You. . .Shutup”, “What Went Wrong... Read More →

Thursday October 13, 2016 7:00pm - 9:00pm PDT
Make-Out Room

For Aspiring Authors Type: Author Conversation Type: Book Sales & Signing Type: Reading Type: Storytelling Venue: 21+ Venue: Ticketed Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

7:00pm PDT

Teenquake & NYMBC present: Sci-Fi vs. Fantasy

Co-presented by Not Your Mother's Book Club™

What's the real difference between sci-fi and fantasy, and which fans are more awesome? Two sci-fi authors and two fantasy authors battle it out for the win. Come for a reading, stay for a conversation about craft and book signing. With Traci Chee, Tricia Stirling, Parker Peevyhouse, and Tim Floreen. FREE

Not Your Mother’s Book Club™ is a monthly literary salon for teenagers in the Bay Area, which offers online author interviews, online contests, and in-school author events. Follow them on Twitter @NYMBC.

Participants

Traci Chee

Traci Chee is a best-selling and award-winning author of books for young people, including the instant New York Times best seller and Kirkus Prize Finalist The Reader and Printz Honor Book, Walter Award Honoree, and National Book Award Finalist We Are Not Free. Her forthcoming title... Read More →

Tim Floreen

Author of YA Fiction

Parker Peevyhouse

Parker Peevyhouse teaches part-time at a tutoring center and a K 8 school. She loves puzzles, games, and riddles of all kinds and can't pass up a chance to take in California's amazing scenery. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her family. "Where Futures End" is her debut... Read More →

Tricia Stirling

Tricia Stirling earned her M.A. in creative writing and has been published in Literary Mama, The Angler, and Syntax. She lives in Sacramento, California, with her family. WHEN MY HEART WAS WICKED is Tricia's first novel.

Thursday October 13, 2016 7:00pm - 9:00pm PDT
Sports Basement

Kids or Teens Type: Reading Venue: Free Event Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

7:00pm PDT

Striking Distance: Bruce Lee in the Bay Area

Ticket Link

Even today, the legend of San Francisco-born Bruce Lee still resonates around the world, his image as popular as Bob Marley or Che Guevara. Journalist Charles Russo speaks and shows rare photos from Striking Distance, which chronicles a widely unknown history of Bruce Lee and the Bay Area's pioneering 1960s martial arts scene. $10

In the spring of 1959, 18-year-old Bruce Lee returned to San Francisco, the city of his birth, and quickly inserted himself into the West Coast’s fledgling martial arts culture. Even though Asian fighting styles were widely unknown to mainstream America, Bruce encountered a robust fight culture in a Bay Area that was populated with talented and trailblazing practitioners such as Lau Bun, Chinatown’s aging kung fu patriarch; Wally Jay, the innovative Hawaiian jujitsu master; and James Lee, the no-nonsense Oakland street fighter. Regarded by some as a brash loudmouth and by others as a dynamic visionary, Bruce spent his first few years back in America advocating a more modern approach to the martial arts and showing little regard for the damaged egos left in his wake.

In the Chinese calendar, 1964 was the Year of the Green Dragon. It would be a challenging and eventful year for Bruce. He would broadcast his dissenting view before the first great international martial arts gathering and then defend it by facing down Chinatown’s young ace kung fu practitioner in a legendary behind-closed-doors high noon–style showdown.

Participants

Charles Russo

Charles Russo is an award-winning journalist who lives in San Francisco.

Thursday October 13, 2016 7:00pm - 9:00pm PDT
American Bookbinders Museum

Nonfiction Type: Author Conversation Type: Book Sales & Signing Type: Storytelling Venue: Ticketed Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

7:00pm PDT

Flight of Poets

Ticket Link

Wine and poetry have always made a delicious duet. At this reading, curated by Hollie Hardy and Tess Taylor, internationally renowned sommelier Christopher Sawyer pairs six talented poets with six exquisite wines carefully selected to illuminate their work. Admission includes wine flight of six tastes. $25

Moderators/Hosts

Hollie Hardy

Hollie Hardy is the author of How to Take a Bullet, And Other Survival Poems, winner of the 2016 annual Poetry Center Book Award. She teaches writing classes at the SF Creative Writing Institute and Berkeley City College, hosts Saturday Night Special, An East Bay Open Mic and produces... Read More →

Tess Taylor

Poet

Participants

Tony Barnstone

Tony Barnstone is Albert Upton Professor of English at Whittier College and author of 16 books, including Beast in the Apartment, Tongue of War, and From Pearl Harbor to Nagasaki.

Cassandra Dallett

Cassandra Dallett lives in Oakland, CA. She is a Pushcart nominee and has published online and in many print magazines. Dallett has authored eight books of poetry and reads often around the Bay Area.

Natalie Diaz

Natalie Diaz was grown on the Fort Mojave Indian Reservation along the banks of the Colorado River. She has a velvety jumpshot and smooth finish. Her first book is When My Brother Was an Aztec.

Adam Fitzgerald

Adam Fitzgerald is the author of The Late Parade and George Washington, both published by W. W. Norton's historic Liveright imprint. He teaches at Rutgers, NYU and Yale and organizes The Home School. He lives in New York City.

Brynn Saito

Chris Sawyer

Christopher Sawyer is an internationally renowned sommelier, wine consultant, critic, public speaker, and elite wine competition judge, and has been personal sommelier for an array of luminaries, from the Getty family to the Gorbachevs.

Robin Beth Schaer

Robin Beth Schaer is the author of the poetry collection Shipbreaking. She teaches writing in New York City and worked as a deckhand aboard the Tall Ship Bounty, a 180-foot ship lost in Hurricane Sandy.

Thursday October 13, 2016 7:00pm - 9:00pm PDT
Hotel Rex

Poetry Type: Book Sales & Signing Type: Reading Venue: 21+ Venue: Ticketed Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

7:30pm PDT

Litquake in the Bookstore: Nell Zink

Nell Zink exquisitely captures the clash between Baby-Boomer idealism and Millennial pragmatism, between the have-nots and want-mores, in this riotous yet tender novel that brilliantly encapsulates our time. A story of obsession, idealism, and ownership, centered around a young woman who inherits her bohemian late father's childhood home. FREE

Participants

Nell Zink

Nell Zink grew up in rural Virginia. She has worked in a variety of trades, including masonry and technical writing. In the early 1990s, she edited an indie rock fanzine. Her writing has also appeared in n+1. Her debut novel, The Wallcreeper, was published in 2014. She lives near... Read More →

Thursday October 13, 2016 7:30pm - 9:00pm PDT
The Booksmith

Fiction Type: Author Conversation Type: Book Sales & Signing Type: Reading Venue: Free Event Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

8:00pm PDT

Litquake's Barbary Coast Awards

Ticket Link

For the first time, Litquake’s annual Barbary Coast Award is plural. With so many deserving individuals and organizations warranting public acclaim, how could we choose just one? This year’s Literary Legend honorees are Maxine Hong Kingston (Woman Warrior) and San Francisco poet laureate Alejandro Murguia. Other recipients are Thomas Sanchez (California Classics, Rabbit Boss), Jewelle Gomez (Castro Vanguard Award), KQED's Michael Krasny (Kathi Kamen Goldmark Award for community impact), The Threepenny Review (Literary Publication), The Bancroft Library (Literary Institution), Paul Yamazaki (Bookstore Hero), and the late poet Justin Chin (In Memoriam). Hosted by Will Durst, with special guest presenters, and live music from the Patrick Wolff Quartet. $30 general admission, $50 preferred seating

Use ticket link to purchase online, or charge-by-phone at 415-392-4400. Tickets available at City Box Office, 180 Redwood St., San Francisco, CA 94102.

Moderators/Hosts

Will Durst

Acknowledged by peers and press alike as one of the premier political satirists in the country, Will Durst has patched together a comedy quilt of a career, weaving together columns, books, radio and television commentaries, acting, voiceovers, and most especially, standup comedy... Read More →

Participants

Justin Chin

Poet, essayist, and performance artist Justin Chin (1969-2015) was born in Malaysia and educated in Singapore and at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. With humor and raw vulnerability, Chin’s poems interrogate the personal, political, and commercial implications of claiming... Read More →

Jewelle Gomez

Jewelle Gomez, (Cape Verdean/Wampanoag/Ioway), is the author of eight books including the first Black Lesbian vampire novel, THE GILDA STORIES, winner of two Lambda Literary Awards; now available as an eBook and on AUDIBLE.The novel was recently optioned for a television mini-series by Cheryl Dunye (Queen Sugar). Her play based on the novel, “Bones and Ash,” was commissioned and performed by Urban Bush Women Comp... Read More →

Maxine Hong Kingston

Maxine Hong Kingston, an eminent memoirist and a celebrated Chinese-American autobiographer, is best known for The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts (1976) and its companion volume, China Men (1980). The Woman Warrior won the National Book Critics Circle Award... Read More →

Michael Krasny

Michael Krasny, Ph.D., is host of KQED's award-winning Forum, a news and public affairs program that concentrates on the arts, culture, health, business, and technology. Forum is one of KQED's most-popular shows and one of the nation's most-listened-to locally produced public radio... Read More →

Bancroft Library

The Bancroft Library is the primary special collections library at the University of California, Berkeley. One of the largest and most heavily used libraries of manuscripts, rare books, and unique materials in the United States, Bancroft supports major research and instructional activities... Read More →

Alejandro Murguía

Patrick Wolff Quartet

Patrick Wolff is a saxophonist rooted in the bebop tradition, with a long history in the New York City jazz scene. Since moving to San Francisco in 2009, Wolff has appeared regularly with Marcus Shelby, Adam Shulman, and Diana Gameros. He is making his mark as a composer and bandleader... Read More →

The Threepenny Review

The Threepenny Review is a quarterly literary and arts magazine, founded in 1980 in Berkeley, California by its editor, Wendy Lesser. Threepenny publishes criticism, memoir, fiction and poetry as well as reviews of the performing and visual arts. Recent contributors include Roberto... Read More →

Thomas Sanchez

Thomas Sanchez is a fifth-generation Californian born days before his father was killed in World War II, and spent his early years at an orphanage and boarding school with native, black, white and Latino Americans. He participated in many iconic 1960s events, from farm workers strikes... Read More →

Paul Yamazaki

Paul Yamazaki has been a bookseller since 1970, and has been the principle buyer at City Lights Booksellers for over 30 years. He has served on the board of directors of several literary and community arts organizations, including the Council of Literary Magazines & Presses (CLMP... Read More →

Thursday October 13, 2016 8:00pm - 10:00pm PDT
Herbst Theatre

Fiction Nonfiction Poetry Type: Book Sales & Signing Type: Reading Venue: Ticketed Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

8:00pm PDT

Goodreads LitQuiz

Co-presented by Goodreads

How big of a bookworm are you? Goodreads LitQuiz returns to Litquake to test your bookish knowledge with a free literary pub quiz to end all pub quizzes, hosted by Jade Chang. Field a team, or join one when you arrive. Drink tickets and seating are first-come, first-served. Doors open at 7 pm. FREE

Moderators/Hosts

Jade Chang

Thursday October 13, 2016 8:00pm - 10:00pm PDT
Elbo Room

Venue: 21+ Venue: Free Event

6:00pm PDT

After Adderall, with Stephen Elliott and Tom Barbash

Co-presented by California College of the Arts

A special screening of Stephen Elliott's newest film, After Adderall, a movie about what it's like when James Franco makes a movie about you. Featured in the film are writers Nick Flynn, Susan Orlean, and Jerry Stahl, among others. Screening followed by conversation with Stephen Elliott, hosted by author/CCA faculty member Tom Barbash. FREE

Participants

Tom Barbash

Tom Barbash is author of the recent story collection Stay Up With Me, as well as the award-winning novel The Last Good Chance and the nonfiction book On Top of the World: Cantor Fitzgerald, Howard Lutnick, and 9/11; A Story of Loss and Renewal, which was a New York Times be... Read More →

Stephen Elliott

Stephen Elliott is the founding editor of the popular online literary magazine The Rumpus. He has directed two movies. The first, About Cherry was released by IFC in 2012. In 2013 he directed an adaptation of his novel Happy Baby. His newest movie, After Adderall, premiers in... Read More →

Friday October 14, 2016 6:00pm - 8:00pm PDT
California College for the Arts

For Aspiring Authors Type: Author Conversation Type: Book Sales & Signing Type: Reading Venue: Free Event Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

6:30pm PDT

Lit by the Lake

Six East Bay authors read from their newly published books, in this after-hours event at Oakland’s Main Library. Enjoy a glass of wine, make new friends, and hear from Lucy Jane Bledsoe, Ali Eteraz, Yang Huang, Lisa McGuinness, Nayomi Munaweera, and Kate Jessica Raphael. $5.00 Suggested Donation

Participants

Lucy Bledsoe

Lucy Jane Bledsoe’s newest novel, A THIN BRIGHT LINE, is an American love story with Cold War complications, and the New York Times says it "triumphs as an intimate and humane evocation of day-to-day life under inhumane circumstances." She’s won a Yaddo Fellowship, the Saturday... Read More →

Ali Eteraz

Ali Eteraz is based at the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto. He is the author of the memoir Children of Dust, the short story collection Falsipedies & Fibsiennes, and the novel Native Believer. Eteraz’s work has appeared the Chicago Quarterly Review, storySouth, Crossborder, NPR... Read More →

Yang Huang

Yang Huang grew up in mainland China. Her debut novel Living Treasures won the Nautilus Book Awards silver medal, Next Generation Indie Book Awards gold medal, and Living Now Book Awards bronze medal. She lives in the East Bay and works for UC Berkeley.

Lisa McGuinness

Author and editor, Lisa McGuinness has written several books including the novel Catarina's Ring, Caffeinated Ideas Journal, and Meaningful Bouquets, as well a gaggle of children's books including the Dictionary of Extraordinary Ordinary Animals and New York Times bestseller, Bee... Read More →

Nayomi Munaweera

Nayomi Munaweera's debut novel, "Island of a Thousand Mirrors," won the Commonwealth Regional Prize for Asia and was a Target Book Club selection. Munaweera's second novel, "What Lies Between Us," won the Godage Prize for Best English Novel.

Kate Jessica Raphael

Kate Raphael is a San Francisco Bay Area writer, activist, journalist, and clerical worker. Her debut novel, Murder Under the Bridge: a Palestine mystery, came out in November 2016. She spent eighteen months as a peace worker in Palestine and spent six weeks in Israeli immigration... Read More →

Friday October 14, 2016 6:30pm - 8:00pm PDT
Oakland Public Library

Fiction Type: Book Sales & Signing Type: Panel Discussion Type: Reading Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

6:30pm PDT

Global Fiction: Litquake's International Night

Co-presented by Transit Books, Goethe-Institut San Francisco, Cultural Services of the Consulate General of France, San Francisco, and Mechanics' Institute Library

Amidst an increased climate for international fiction, whether translated or originally in English, Litquake convenes this stellar selection of authors from Australia, Ecuador, France, and Romania, to discuss and read from their latest works. Moderated by Transit Books publisher Adam Z. Levy. Seating is limited. Doors open at 6 pm for pre-show reception. FREE

Moderators/Hosts

Adam Z. Levy

Publisher, Transit Books

Adam Z. Levy is publisher of Transit Books, a nonprofit publishing house based in Oakland, California. His translation from the Hungarian of Gábor Schein's The Book of Mordechai is forthcoming from Seagull Books.

Participants

Carmen-Francesca Banciu

Carmen-Francesca Banciu was born in Lipova, Romania and studied religious painting and foreign trade in Bucharest. As a result of being awarded the International Short Story Award of the City of Arnsberg for the story "Das strahlende Ghetto" (“The Radiant Ghetto,” 1985), she... Read More →

Mauro Javier Cardenas

David Francis

David Francis, based in Los Angeles where he works for the Norton Rose law firm, spends part of each year back on his family’s farm in Australia. He is author of The Great Inland Sea, published to acclaim in seven countries, and Stray Dog Winter, Book of the Year in The Advocate, winner... Read More →

Antoine Volodine

Antoine Volodine is the principal pseudonym of a French novelist, who has published 20 books under this name, several of which are available in English translation. After studying literature, Volodine taught Russian for 15 years, and has devoted himself to writing and translating... Read More →

Friday October 14, 2016 6:30pm - 8:30pm PDT
Mechanics' Institute Library

Fiction Nonfiction Type: Author Conversation Type: Book Sales & Signing Type: Panel Discussion Type: Reading Venue: Free Event Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

7:00pm PDT

Naked Truth: real.stories.live

Ticket Link

Mill Valley Library’s true storytelling series returns to Litquake with an amazing lineup sharing tales on the theme “Kismit: true stories of things meant to be.” Ages 14 and up welcome. Wine reception begins at 6:30 pm for registered guests. Register online after September 26. FREE

Participants

Janis Bell

Janis Bell is an English professor and writer. Her book Clean, Well-Lighted Sentences was published in 2008 by W.W. Norton.

Brian Copeland

Brian Copeland is an award-winning actor, comedian, author, playwright, television and radio talkshow host based in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Gregory Donovan

Gregory Donovan is the author of Torn from the Sun (Red Hen Press, 2015) and Calling His Children Home (U. of Missouri Press). He has also won the Devins Award for Poetry.

Josh Healey

Josh Healey, writer, performer, and creative activist, has been featured in The New York Times and San Francisco Chronicle, and is a regular on NPR’s Snap Judgment.

Kari Kiernan

Kari Kiernan is a writer and storyteller whose work has appeared in Skirt! and The Morning News, and onstage at Porchlight, The Vent, and Literary Death Match.

David Nihill

David Nihill is a bestselling author, Inc. columnist, and the founder of FunnyBizz. His writing has been featured in Fast Company, HuffPost, and Forbes.

Friday October 14, 2016 7:00pm - 9:00pm PDT
Mill Valley Library

Type: Storytelling Venue: Free Event Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

8:00pm PDT

Word/Jazz

Ticket Link

Co-presented by City Lights Booksellers & Publishers

In the great tradition of jazz and spoken-word basement readings in North Beach first forged by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Kenneth Rexroth, and Bob Kaufman, witness this contemporary update at Doc's Lab, formerly The Purple Onion. With poets Chinaka Hodge, devorah major, and RyanNicole. Music by Afro-futurist jazz trio Broun Fellinis. $20

Participants

Broun Fellinis

The most important thing about music is the way it makes you feel. Musicians are lucky enough to live a life of pure feeling if they can play their personal visionary music with as much integrity and energy as the spirit grants them. For the last 25 years, Broun Fellinis -- percussionist... Read More →

Chinaka Hodge

Chinaka Hodge is a poet, playwright, screenwriter and founding member of The Getback. Originally from Oakland, California, Chinaka graduated from NYU in 2006, and completed her M.F.A. in Writing for Film and TV at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts in May 2012. Her work has been featured... Read More →

devorah major

devorah major, San Francisco’s third former Poet Laureate, is an award-winning poet and fiction writer, an creative nonfiction writer, performer, editor, and part-time senior adjunct professor at California College of the Arts. She is also poet-in-residence of the Fine Arts Museums... Read More →

RyanNicole

RyanNicole is a "4A" quadruple threat: artist, actress, athlete, and activist. As an MC and poet, she has appeared across the globe, including a performance for President Barack Obama. She has led several theater productions in the Bay Area, including those with SF Playhouse, African... Read More →

Friday October 14, 2016 8:00pm - 10:00pm PDT
Doc's Lab

Poetry Type: Book Sales & Signing Venue: 21+ Venue: Ticketed Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

8:00pm PDT

Reading Roulette: Literary Karaoke with a Twist

Ticket Link

Test your literary and comedic mettle in this game of literary chance. Participants will read randomly selected passages—in equally random voices (think Hamlet as Sonny and Cher or 50 Shades of Grey as Donald Trump)—and then hear from an American Idol-style panel of judges. Whether you stay in the audience (coward!), join the fun, or sign up a friend, you’re in for a night of hilarity and humiliation. $5-10 sliding scale

Moderators/Hosts

Wonder Dave

Komedio Comedy

Wonder Dave is a comedian and writer from Minneapolis, MN, now living in Northern California. He has toured the country performing at colleges, cabarets, sci-fi and comic conventions, burlesque shows, strip clubs and bowling alleys. He has been featured on the Risk Podcast and is... Read More →

Participants

Devi K

Devi K just wrapped up as Director of Community Engagement at the National Queer Arts Festival and is the Artistic and Executive Director of Peacock Rebellion, a crew of queer and trans people of color who make art for social justice Devi is a storyteller, an art career coach, and... Read More →

Jonathon Keats

Lise Quintana

Publisher, Zoetic Press

I run Zoetic Press, which publishes NonBinary Review. We love our authors, and are really open to new writers.

Friday October 14, 2016 8:00pm - 10:00pm PDT
Make-Out Room

Type: Reading Venue: 21+ Venue: Ticketed Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

8:30pm PDT

Thomas Dolby: The Speed of Sound

Ticket Link

Celebrating the launch of his new memoir, Thomas Dolby ("She Blinded Me with Science") presents an evening of stories and music, recounting his remarkable career of ups and downs, glamour and corruption, music and tech, and the eventual melding of them all into perfect harmony. In conversation with Kari Byron from "Mythbusters." $15 includes $5 towards book purchase

Walking home after being fired from his job at a grocery store, 17-year-old Thomas Dolby stumbled upon the circuit board from an abandoned musical synthesizer, a Transcendent 2000, lying in a dumpster. Few would have realized that this small discovery would lead to a career performing alongside David Bowie, pitching song lyrics to Michael Jackson, or helping create the iconic Nokia cellphone ringtone. Dolby lived amongst legends and eventually became one himself, breaking down walls in the music world with hits like “She Blinded Me with Science,” and then doing the same during the technology revolution in Silicon Valley, as his Beatnik company's technology was eventually licensed and embedded into over two billion wireless devices.

Moderators/Hosts

Kari Byron

Kari Byron is best known as a host on Discovery Channel's flagship show, "Mythbusters" and the host of Science Channel's "Head Rush." For almost a decade she has been a strong presence in the world of reality-based science television.Fostering her curious nature, she spent a lifetime... Read More →

Participants

Thomas Dolby

Perhaps best known for blinding us with science, Thomas Dolby has always blurred the lines between composition and invention. As a London teenager, Tom Robertson was fascinated with the convergence of music and technology. His experiments with an assortment of keyboards, synthesizers... Read More →

Friday October 14, 2016 8:30pm - 10:00pm PDT
Swedish American Hall

Nonfiction Type: Book Sales & Signing Type: Reading Type: Storytelling Venue: 21+ Venue: Ticketed Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

10:30am PDT

Litquake in the Bookstore: Lisa Brown

Author and illustrator Lisa Brown reads from her newest children's book The Airport Book. Follow a family and the youngest member's favorite sock monkey through all the inner and outer workings of an airport. For ages 2 to 4. FREE

"Whether kids are readying for their first plane trip, wondering where parents go after they’re dropped off at the terminal, or just looking for some imagined travel, this will set them on the runway."―Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, starred

"This is one of those books you could look at forever and never run out of new things to notice, smile at, and fold into the next reading. Sky-high in concept, execution, and kid appeal; the only airport book you’ll ever need."―Horn Book, starred

"Amusing Easter eggs abound, and Brown’s calm delineation of the mysteries and mundanities of air travel should reassure reluctant travelers. "―Publishers Weekly

Participants

Lisa Brown

Lisa Brown is an award-winning illustrator, author and cartoonist whose books include The Airport Book, How to Be, Mummy Cat by Marcus Ewert, Goldfish Ghost by Lemony Snicket, and the “Baby Be of Use” series of satirical board books for McSweeney’s. Her latest books include The... Read More →

Saturday October 15, 2016 10:30am - 11:30am PDT
Diesel Books

Kids or Teens Type: Book Sales & Signing Venue: All Ages Venue: Free Event Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

11:30am PDT

Litquake in the Bookstore: Annie Barrows

Author and editor Annie Barrows reads from her Ivy and Bean children's series. For kids in grades 1-5. FREE

“Only a stooge couldn’t love Ivy and Bean.” —Kirkus Reviews

“One of the funniest young chapter book series around.” —The Horn Book

Participants

Annie Barrows

In 1988, Chronicle Books hired Annie as an editorial assistant, from which platform she became successively assistant editor, managing editor, Editor, and Senior Editor. Somewhere in this trajectory, she acquiredGriffin & Sabine, Chronicle’s first New York Times best seller. In... Read More →

Saturday October 15, 2016 11:30am - 12:30pm PDT
Diesel Books

Kids or Teens Type: Book Sales & Signing Venue: All Ages Venue: Free Event Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

11:30am PDT

Art of the YA Novel

Ticket Link

Litquake's Teenquake producer Summer Dawn Laurie moderates this stellar panel of YA authors (Michael Grant, Stacey Lee, Nina LaCour, Jandy Nelson, and Malena Watrous) as they discuss their craft, process, tips, and tricks. Audience Q&A to follow. $10

Moderators/Hosts

Summer Dawn Laurie

Children's/Teen Specialist, Books Inc

kids and teen events

Participants

Michael Grant

Michael Grant is the author or co-author with his wife, Katherine Applegate, of more than 150 books, some of which he still remembers. Works include the Animorphs, Gone, BZRK and Front Lines series.

Nina LaCour

Nina LaCour is the author of three critically acclaimed young adult novels published by Dutton Books: Hold Still, The Disenchantments, and Everything Leads to You. You Know Me Well, a novel written in collaboration with David Levithan, is forthcoming from St. Martin's Griffin... Read More →

Stacey Lee

Stacey Lee is a fourth generation Chinese-American whose people came to California during the heydays of the cowboys. She believes she still has a bit of cowboy dust in her soul. A native of southern California, she graduated from UCLA then got her law degree at UC Davis King... Read More →

Jandy Nelson

Jandy Nelson's New York Times bestselling novel, I'll Give You the Sun, received many awards including the 2015 Printz Award. Both Sun and her debut, The Sky Is Everywhere, were on multiple best of the year lists including the NY Times, Time, and NPR. The novels are collectively published... Read More →

Malena Watrous

Malena Watrous is a novelist, book critic, and instructor at Stanford. Her first novel, If You Follow Me, was published by Harper Perennial. She is the co-author, with Helena Echlin, of Sparked, a supernatural thriller for teens. A native of San Francisco, she lives in the Mission... Read More →

Saturday October 15, 2016 11:30am - 12:45pm PDT
Mechanics' Institute Library

Fiction For Aspiring Authors Type: Book Sales & Signing Type: Panel Discussion Venue: Ticketed Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

1:00pm PDT

Art of the Thriller

Ticket Link

What makes a good thriller? Learn how to create suspense, raise the stakes, and keep the reader guessing. Authors Deborah Coonts, Paula Treick DeBoard, Alex Dolan, Reese Hirsch, and Domenic Stansberry discuss and take questions. $10

Participants

Deborah Coonts

I write fiction: light mystery, romantic suspense, thrillers and contemporary fiction. All my life I've struggled with a serious case of career ADD--I've been a business owner, an accountant, a lawyer, a pilot, a mom, and inveterate traveler...and always a storyteller. I've lived... Read More →

Paula Treick DeBoard

Paula Treick DeBoard’s novels include the psychological thriller The Drowning Girls (2016) and the novels The Fragile World (2014) and The Mourning Hours (2013). A graduate of the MFA program at the University of Southern Maine, Paula lectures in creative writing at the University... Read More →

Alex Dolan

Alex Dolan is the author of The Euthanist and The Empress of Tempera, and the host of the "Thrill Seekers" show on the Authors on the Air Global Radio Network.

Reece Hirsch

Reece Hirsch is the author of four thrillers that draw upon his background as a privacy attorney. His first book, The Insider, was a finalist for the 2011 International Thriller Writers Award for Best First Novel. His next three books, The Adversary, Intrusion and Surveillance... Read More →

Domenic Stansberry

Domenic Stansberry is an award-winning novelist known for his dark, innovative crime novels. His North Beach Mystery Series has won praise in The New York Times and other publications for its rich portrayal of the ethnic and political subcultures of San Francisco. An earlier... Read More →

Saturday October 15, 2016 1:00pm - 2:30pm PDT
Mechanics' Institute Library

Fiction For Aspiring Authors Type: Book Sales & Signing Venue: Ticketed Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

3:00pm PDT

Art of the Novel

Ticket Link

"Never open a book with weather" —Elmore Leonard. Good quote, but you'll learn more from this panel of authors, who break down the craft and process of writing a novel. With Ramona Asubel, Jan Ellison, Grant Faulkner, Sarah Ladipo Manyika, and Ellen Sussman. $10

Participants

Ramona Ausubel

Ramona Ausubel is the author of Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty (June, 2016) as well as No One is Here Except All of Us, winner of the PEN Center USA Literary Award for Fiction and A Guide to Being Born, a New York Times Notable Book. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker... Read More →

Jan Ellison

Baszucki Family Foundation

Jan Ellison is the USA Today bestselling author of the debut novel, A Small Indiscretion, which was a San Francisco Chronicle Best Book of the Year. Jan won an O. Henry Prize for her first short story, and her essays about writing and parenting have appeared in The New York Times, The... Read More →

Grant Faulkner

Executive Director, National Novel Writing Month

Grant Faulkner is the Executive Director of National Novel Writing Month, the co-founder of 100 Word Story, and a co-founder of the Flash Fiction Collective. His stories and essays have appeared in the New York Times, Poets & Writers, Writer’s Digest, and dozens of others. His collection... Read More →

Sarah Manyika

Sarah Manyika is a writer, academic and overall lover of stories. She was raised in Nigeria and has lived in Kenya, France, Zimbabwe and England. Her best-selling debut novel, In Dependence (with sales of 3 million and a brand new edition coming out in the US and UK later this year... Read More →

Ellen Sussman

co-founder, co-director, Sonoma County Writers Camp

Saturday October 15, 2016 3:00pm - 4:15pm PDT
Mechanics' Institute Library

Fiction For Aspiring Authors Type: Book Sales & Signing Type: Panel Discussion Venue: Ticketed Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

4:00pm PDT

Litquake in the Bookstore: Larry Brilliant

Activist, teacher, entrepreneur, and spiritual leader, Larry Brilliant’s life journey has led him on a purposeful path across continents and countercultural movements, marching arm-in-arm with the men and women who defined a generation. His entertaining and inspiring new memoir, Sometimes Brilliant, illuminates some of the most revolutionary events of a generation, many of the legendary people who defined it, and a towering figure at the center of it. FREE

Participants

Larry Brilliant

After sitting at the feet of Martin Luther King at the University of Michigan in 1963, Larry Brilliant was swept up into the civil rights movement, marching and protesting across America and Europe. As a radical young doctor he followed the hippie trail from London over the Khyber... Read More →

Saturday October 15, 2016 4:00pm - 5:30pm PDT
Book Passage Corte Madera

Nonfiction Type: Book Sales & Signing Venue: Free Event Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

6:00pm PDT

Lit Crawl San Francisco

San Francisco's world-famous Lit Crawl attracts close to 10,000 people, and features over 400 authors in just three hours. Lit Crawl brings literature to the streets, featuring smart and silly, worldly and wacky events in venues usual (bars, cafes, galleries, and bookstores) and unusual (police stations, tattoo parlors, barbershops, and erotica boutiques). What started as an experiment in San Francisco in 2004, has since become one of the most anticipated literary nights of the year—in 13 cities worldwide! FREE

See the entire schedule here.
https://litcrawlsanfrancisco2016.sched.org

Don't forget to download our new mobile app version!

Saturday October 15, 2016 6:00pm - 9:30pm PDT
Multiple Venues

Type: Reading Venue: Free Event

9:30pm PDT

Litquake After-Party

Join San Francisco’s biggest literary party of the year, immediately following the Lit Crawl! Sip on specialty cocktails, mingle with fellow book nerds, enter a raffle from the Moleskine pop-up shop, peruse our Litquake swag table, and watch authors dance to tunes by DJ Matt Haze! FREE

Moderators/Hosts

Jamie L. Real

Managing Director, Litquake

Saturday October 15, 2016 9:30pm - Sunday October 16, 2016 1:00am PDT
The Chapel

Venue: 21+ Venue: Free Event Venue: Wheelchair Accessible

Timezone Litquake
America/Los Angeles
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American Bookbinders Museum
Bird & Beckett Books and Records
Book Club of California
Book Passage Corte Madera
Books Inc., Berkeley
Books Inc., Opera Plaza
California College for the Arts
City Lights Booksellers & Publishers
Contemporary Jewish Museum
Creekside Room, Mill Valley Library
Cushing Memorial-Mountain Theater
Diesel Books
Doc's Lab
Elbo Room
Freight & Salvage Coffeehouse
Green Apple Books on the Park
Green Room
Herbst Theatre
Hotel Rex
Jack London Alley
Jane Warner Plaza, The Castro
Jessie Square
Jewish Community Center of San Francisco
Joe Henderson Lab, SFJAZZ Center
Koret Auditorium at the San Francisco Public Library
Make-Out Room
Mechanics' Institute Library
Mill Valley Library
Moleskine
Multiple Venues
Oakland Public Library
San Francisco Center for the Book
San Francisco Public Library
San Francisco Public Library, Latino/Hispanic Room A
San Rafael
Sports Basement
Swedish American Hall
Tenderloin Museum
The Booksmith
The Chapel
The Green Arcade
The Octopus Literary Salon
Verdi Club
Vesuvio Café
Winchester Mystery House
Z Space
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