Litquake Year-Round 2020

A co-presentation with SF Sketchfest

Groundlings Alums Mary Jo Smith and Colleen Smith (no relation) host a storytelling podcast that asks their guests to recall their first significant memories of essential life moments. Past themes have been Cars, Virginity, Love, Hate, Apartments, Drugs and Porn. With special guest Bryan Safi ("Throwing Shade").

Past guests have included: Paul F. Tompkins, Taran Killam, Jillian Bell, Jennifer Coolidge and Patton Oswalt.

Produced by: Ian Smith and T. Chick McClure

Speakers

Brian Safi

Bryan is the co-host and co-creator of the "Throwing Shade" podcast, live show and TV show. As an actor, you’ve seen him on shows like "Modern Family," "The Big Bang Theory," "Superstore," and as Charlie in the Will Ferrell/Kristen Wiig Lifetime original movie opus "A Deadly Adoption... Read More →

Colleen Smith

Her television credits include "Selfie," "How I Met Your Mother," "King of The Hill," "No You Shut Up," "The Mike Tyson Mysteries" and "The Office."She is a professional puppeteer for the Jim Henson Company and has performed all over the world with the live improvised show, "Puppet... Read More →

Mary Jo Smith

Mary Jo Smith is an actor, writer, director and an alum of the world-famous Groundlings Main Company. Despite having almost no education, she's also a vice president at a worldwide media company. Weird. She co-hosts the monthly podcast "My First Time" with Colleen Smith (no relation... Read More →

Friday January 10, 2020 10:00pm - 11:30pm PST
PianoFight 144 Taylor Street, San Francisco, CA 94102

4:00pm PST

The Art of Process with Aimee Mann and Ted Leo (SF Sketchfest)

In collaboration with SF Sketchfest

The Art of Process with Aimee Mann and Ted Leo is the newest artistic collaboration from legendary singer-songwriters Aimee Mann and Ted Leo. Every other week, Aimee and Ted talk to friends across the creative spectrum to find out how they work. And sure, they're friends with a lot of musicians, but weirdly not as many as you'd expect. So you'll hear from comedians, directors, novelists, show creators - ok, yes, some musicians - writers, producers and more, as they discuss the process of turning an idea into art. With special guests Rhett Miller and Scott Thompson. ($35, All Ages)

Speakers

Aimee Mann

Aimee Mann is one of the most distinguished singer-songwriters of her generation. Her successful solo career has spanned several decades with several Grammy nominations, two Grammy award and the release of nine critically acclaimed solo albums, including the profoundly popular soundtrack... Read More →

Rhett Miller

"It’s a grown-up record,” Rhett Miller says of his extraordinary new album, The Dreamer. “It takes a long time to feel the confidence to step up and be the boss. I finally feel like I’m there.”Rhett Miller has made a number of fine solo albums over his long, illustrious... Read More →

Scott Thompson

Well known to fans as a member of the sketch comedy troupe “The Kids in the Hall,” Scott Thompson is anything but your average comedic talent. After Lorne Michaels discovered them in the late eighties, “The Kids in the Hall” created a groundbreaking television series which... Read More →

Ted Leo

It’s a comforting cliché that “you can’t keep a good man down,” but of course you can. Good men and women and non-‐gender-‐conforming people are kept down all the time. The world crushes the good and talented and honest and decent unsparingly. We’ve all got our... Read More →

Saturday January 18, 2020 4:00pm - 5:30pm PST
Brava Theater 2781 24th St, San Francisco, CA 94110

7:30pm PST

Fake TED Talks (SF Sketchfest)

In collaboration with SF Sketchfest

TED Talks are influential videos from expert speakers on education, business, science, tech, and creativity. Fake TED Talks are simply hilarious. With all of the bullet points and none of the facts, Jonathan Coulton, Paul and Storm, Adam Savage and other guests will present a well-rehearsed presentation, live, in the present. ($45 Reserved Front Row Seating, $40 Reserved Premium Seating, $35 General Admission, 18+)

Speakers

Jonathan Coulton

Jonathan Coulton is the in-house musician for NPR's "Ask Me Another."In 2005, Coulton dropped out of a perfectly good software career to write music on the Internet. He embarked upon a bold experiment called "Thing a Week," in which he home-recorded and released a new song every week... Read More →

Greg DiCostanzo

Paul and Storm (Paul Sabourin and Greg “Storm” DiCostanzo) are known internationally and across the Internet for their original comedy music (often with a “nerd-ish” bent). In addition to their own live performances, they are co-founders of the geek-oriented variety show "w00tstock... Read More →

Matt Gourley

First of all, Matt Gourley does some podcasts. I’ll say he does. For starters, he's the creator of the "I Was There Too" podcast and the co-creator of the "Superego," "James Bonding," "Pistol Shrimps Radio," "In Voorhees/Myers We Trust," "The Complete Man" podcasts as well as sidekick... Read More →

Jean Grae

Jean Grae is a modern day polymath you may know from being a critically acclaimed, internationally renowned lyricist, performer, writer and producer. Since like… 25 years ago. She’s only 6 now. What a talent.Maybe you've seen her on “Night Train with Wyatt Cenac,” “Thrilling... Read More →

Paul Sabourin

Adam Savage

Adam Savage has spent his life gathering skills that allow him to take what’s in his brain and make it real. He’s built everything from ancient Buddhas to futuristic weapons, from spaceships to dancing vegetables, from fine art sculptures to animated chocolate — and just about... Read More →

Saturday January 18, 2020 7:30pm - 9:00pm PST
Cobb's Comedy Club 915 Columbus Street, San Francisco, CA 94133

10:30pm PST

Fake TED Talks (SF Sketchfest)

Speakers

Myq Kaplan

Myq Kaplan is a comedian named Mike Kaplan. He has performed on the "Tonight Show," "Conan," the "Late Show with David Letterman," "Late Night with Seth Meyers," the "Late Late Show with James Corden," in his own half-hour Comedy Central Presents special, and in his own one-hour special... Read More →

Rhea Butcher

Rhea Butcher is a Los Angeles-based standup comic, actor and writer. Originally from the Midwest, Rhea grew up skateboarding the mean streets of Akron, Ohio. Her blue collar brand of cool has endeared audiences nationwide, as she's performed standup and appeared on shows such as HBO's... Read More →

Adam Savage

Jean Grae

Jonathan Coulton

Matt Gourley

Paul Sabourin

Greg DiCostanzo

Saturday January 18, 2020 10:30pm - 11:59pm PST
Cobb's Comedy Club 915 Columbus Street, San Francisco, CA 94133

9:00am PST

SHOAH: A Film Screening

Co-presented by Berlin International Literature Festival and Goethe-Institut San Francisco
Promotional partners: the Anti-Defamation League, the Consulate General of France in San Francisco, the Consulate General of Israel to the Pacific Northwest San Francisco, the Farkas Center, the Holocaust Center, and the San Francisco Public Library.

January 27, International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Holocaust, was introduced by the United Nations in 2005 to commemorate the Holocaust and the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp in 1945. To honor this day, and remind us all of the current growing popularity of anti-Semitism, cultural institutions around the world will participate in a global film screening of Shoah, the 1985 documentary by Claude Lanzmann. With a running time of 9½ hours, both surviving victims and perpetrators of the systematic extermination of Jews by the German Reich are given time to speak on camera. There is no historical footage included. Lanzmann worked on the film for 11 years, and was awarded the Honorary Golden Bear by the Berlinale for a lifetime of work. FREE

Panel discussion will take place the following day on 1/28, 7 - 9 PM, on Holocaust education.

Monday January 27, 2020 9:00am - 8:00pm PST
Goethe-Institut San Francisco 530 Bush St #204, San Francisco, CA 94108

7:00pm PST

Poet Danez Smith: Homie

Co-presented with JCCSF

Award-winning poet Danez Smith (Don’t Call Us Dead) is a groundbreaking force, celebrated for deft lyrics, urgent subjects and performative power. A poet, performer and multidisciplinary artist, Smith has galvanized diverse communities nationwide with their profound contemplations on race and gender, desire and mortality. Join Smith as they read from and share their new collection, Homie, a magnificent anthem about the saving grace of friendship at a time when our country is overrun by violence, xenophobia and disparity, speaking from within a body defined by race, queerness and diagnosis. Part friendship diary, part bright elegy, part war cry, Homie is the exuberant new book written for Danez and Danez’s friends, and for you and for yours. $20

“These poems can’t make history vanish, but they can contend against it with the force of a restorative imagination. Smith’s work is about that imagination – its role in repairing and sustaining communities, and in making the world more bearable."
–New Yorker

Speakers

Danez Smith

Danez Smith is a black, queer, poz writer and performer from St. Paul, Minnesota. Danez is the author of Don’t Call Us Dead, winner of the Forward Prize for Best Collection and the Midwest Booksellers Choice Award, and a finalist for the National Book Award, and [insert] boy... Read More →

Wednesday January 29, 2020 7:00pm - 9:00pm PST
Jewish Community Center SF 3200 California St, San Francisco, CA 94118

9:30pm PST

Obi Kaufmann at Night of Ideas

Litquake's portion of the evening begins at 7:30 pm on the second floor of the Library, which will be themed "Wonder & Worry." We are honored to present a lecture by Bay Area naturalist, painter, poet, and writer Obi Kaufmann, author of several books including the award-winning California Field Atlas, which blends science and art to illuminate the multifaceted array of the natural world. FREE, advanced registration now open

Litquake is proud to again partner with San Francisco's annual edition of the global marathon event Night of Ideas (Nuit des Idées), at the city's Main Library. Presented in collaboration with the French Consulate in San Francisco, San Francisco Public Library (SFPL), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), and KQED, this free seven-hour marathon of philosophical debate, talks, performances, and music features top thinkers from San Francisco and beyond, in a format designed to spur dialogue on the theme “Living on the Edge."

Events run from 7 pm to 2 am throughout the evening. Multiple stages throughout the Main Library will host concurrent programming, music and dance performances, yoga, breakout sessions and opportunities for engagement and debate amongst attendees.

About Night of Ideas
Co-produced in the United States by the Cultural Services of the French Embassy, the Institut Français and local partners, Night of Ideas/Nuit des Idées has been mounted in New York City since 2015 and in Los Angeles since 2017. Last year, more than 6,000 guests attended Night of Ideas at the San Francisco Public Library. The event begins in Paris on January 30, 2020 and is held annually in more than 120 cities around the world.

Speakers

Obi Kaufmann

Obi Kaufmann is a Bay Area author, poet, painter, and naturalist. He grew up in the East Bay as the son of an astrophysicist and a psychologist, and spent most of high school practicing calculus and breaking away in the evenings to scramble around Mount Diablo and map its creeks... Read More →

Saturday February 1, 2020 9:30pm - 10:00pm PST
San Francisco Public Library, Main Branch 100 Larkin St, San Francisco, CA 94102

9:30pm PST

T.J. Stiles at Night of Ideas

Litquake's second portion of the evening begins at 9:30 pm on the fourth floor of the Library at the information desk, which will be themed "Telling Heroes from Villains". Americans have changed their minds about whether certain icons are villains or heroes—but T.J. Stiles argues that we're still not asking the right questions about them, or about us. FREE, advanced registration now open

Litquake is proud to again partner with San Francisco's annual edition of the global marathon event Night of Ideas (Nuit des Idées), at the city's Main Library. Presented in collaboration with the French Consulate in San Francisco, San Francisco Public Library (SFPL), San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA), and KQED, this free seven-hour marathon of philosophical debate, talks, performances, and music features top thinkers from San Francisco and beyond, in a format designed to spur dialogue on the theme “Living on the Edge."

Events run from 7 pm to 2 am throughout the evening. Multiple stages throughout the Main Library will host concurrent programming, music and dance performances, yoga, breakout sessions and opportunities for engagement and debate amongst attendees.

About Night of Ideas
Co-produced in the United States by the Cultural Services of the French Embassy, the Institut Français and local partners, Night of Ideas/Nuit des Idées has been mounted in New York City since 2015 and in Los Angeles since 2017. Last year, more than 6,000 guests attended Night of Ideas at the San Francisco Public Library. The event begins in Paris on January 30, 2020 and is held annually in more than 120 cities around the world.

Speakers

T.J. Stiles

Two-time Pulitzer Prize recipient T.J. Stiles won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in History for Custer’s Trials: A Life on the Frontier of a New America, and the 2010 Pulitzer for Biography and the 2009 National Book Award for Nonfiction for The First Tycoon: The Epic Life of Cornelius... Read More →

Saturday February 1, 2020 9:30pm - 10:00pm PST
San Francisco Public Library, Main Branch 100 Larkin St, San Francisco, CA 94102

2:00pm PST

Zora Neale Hurston: Stories from the Harlem Renaissance

Co-presented by Litquake and MoAD

In 1925, Barnard student Zora Neale Hurston—the sole black student at the college—was living in New York, “desperately striving for a toe-hold on the world.” During this period, she began writing short works that captured the zeitgeist of African American life, transforming her into one of the central figures of the Harlem Renaissance. Nearly a century later, this singular talent is recognized as one of the most influential and revered American artists of the modern period.

Released just in time for Black History Month, Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick(Amistad Press) unveils an outstanding collection of stories about love and migration, gender and class, racism and sexism that proudly reflect African American folk culture. Brought together for the first time in one volume, they include eight of Hurston’s “lost” Harlem stories, which were found in forgotten periodicals and archives. These stories challenge conceptions of Hurston as an author of rural fiction and include gems that flash with her biting, satiric humor, as well as more serious tales reflective of the cultural currents of Hurston’s world. All are timeless classics that enrich our understanding and appreciation of this exceptional writer’s voice and her contributions to America’s literary traditions.

With readings and discussion from UC Berkeley African American studies professor Chiyuma Elliott, poet and CCA professor Tonya M. Foster, and bestselling novelist Margaret Wilkerson Sexton. Moderated by writer and radio journalist Jenee Darden. Audience discussion and book sales to follow. $10 general, $5 student/senior, free for MoAD members

*NOTE: This event will be recorded for Litquake's Lit Cast podcast

Moderators

Jenee Darden

Jeneé Darden is an award-winning journalist, public speaker, mental health advocate and proud Oakland native. She hosts KALW’s arts segment Sights & Sounds and is their East Oakland reporter. Jenee has reported for NPR, Time, Ebony, Los Angeles Times, and other outlets. She blogs... Read More →

Speakers

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 →

Tonya Foster

Tonya M. Foster was raised in New Orleans. She is an Assistant Professor of Writing & Literature, and of Graduate Writing at California College of the Arts. A poet and essayist, she is the author of A Swarm of Bees in High Court (Belladonna, 2015), the bilingual chapbook La Grammaire... Read More →

Margaret Wilkerson Sexton

Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, born and raised in New Orleans, studied creative writing at Dartmouth College and law at UC Berkeley. Her debut novel, A Kind of Freedom, was long-listed for the National Book Award and the Northern California Book Award, won the Crook’s Corner Book Prize... Read More →

Saturday February 8, 2020 2:00pm - 3:45pm PST
Museum of the African Diaspora 685 Mission St, San Francisco, CA 94105

7:30pm PST

Lit Flicks: Steven Soderbergh's "Out of Sight"

Lit Flicks is a new monthly collaboration between Litquake and Alamo Drafthouse, presenting the best films adapted from written works, and introduced by special guests. Lit Flicks bookstore, operated by Borderlands Books, will be open at all screenings.

Special guest speaker: Eddie Muller (Noir City, TCM's Noir Alley).
Talk at 7:30 pm, screening at 7:50 pm.
$16

George Clooney. Handsome, classy, and undeniably the most suave man in Hollywood. His grin alone can melt every woman's heart in a hundred mile radius, and his cockiness is the envy of dudes the world over. He's one smooth operator, and no film exemplifies that better than OUT OF SIGHT.

As Jack Foley, Clooney plays a bank robber who escapes from prison and winds up stuck in the trunk of his getaway car with U.S. Marshall Karen Sisco (Jennifer Lopez, in arguably her best role). After she's released, Sisco remains in hot, and I mean HOT, pursuit of Foley (and who can blame her?)

We all want to hunt down George Clooney for the crime of devastating us with his charm, but Jennifer Lopez might be the only one sexy enough to catch him. Also starring the excellent male specimens of Don Cheadle, Ving Rhames, and Dennis Farina, this film, based on the novel by the legendary Elmore Leonard, is guaranteed to give you plenty of opportunities to swoon, fist pump, and worship at the altar of Clooney.

Speakers

Eddie Muller

EDDIE MULLER is a second generation San Franciscan, product of a lousy public school education, a couple of crazy years in art school, and too much time in newspaper offices and sporting arenas. No college, but he's compensated by always hanging around smarter people, an effortless... Read More →

Tuesday February 25, 2020 7:30pm - 10:00pm PST
Alamo Drafthouse San Francisco 2550 Mission St, San Francisco, California 94110

7:00pm PDT

Litquake on Lockdown: Fiction Writing in a Time of Crisis

Fiction writers Nayomi Munaweera, R.O. Kwon, Ingrid Rojas Contreras, and host Lauren Markham discuss both the challenges and urgency of fiction writing at this moment in time. How do we write during bleak times, and into the bleakness? How does the loss and grief of our current moment impact what we are writing about, how we write, and who we are writing for? What works or writers are we turning to right now, and how are we finding sustenance there? And perhaps most importantly, where might we be finding joy and how are we cultivating it—and what role could this joy play in our writing?

All authors' books available from your favorite indie bookstores, order from bookshop.org!

Livestream link: https://us04web.zoom.us/j/155995868

Speakers

Ingrid Rojas Contreras

Nayomi Munaweera

Nayomi Munaweera is the author of the novels Island of a Thousand Mirrors, which won the Commonwealth Book Prize for the Asian Region in 2013, and What Lies Between Us, which won the Sri Lankan National Book Award for best English novel and the Godage Award. She is anthologized in... Read More →

R.O. Kwon

R.O. Kwon’s nationally bestselling first novel, The Incendiaries, is published by Riverhead (US) and Virago/Little Brown (UK), and it is being translated into seven languages. Named a best book of the year by over forty publications, The Incendiariesreceived the Housatonic Book... Read More →

Lauren Markham

Lauren Markham is a writer focusing on issues related to youth, migration, the environment, and her home state of California. Her work has appeared in outlets such as Guernica, Harper's, Orion, The New Republic, The New York Times and VQR, where she is a contributing editor. Lauren... Read More →

Wednesday April 1, 2020 7:00pm - 8:00pm PDT
Virtual! litquake.org

Panel

7:00pm PDT

Litquake on Lockdown: Poets for National Poetry Month

Join Litquake for our annual National Poetry Month celebration, for readings from some of America's best poets: Kazim Ali, Tongo Eisen-Martin, and Jane Hirshfield. Curated and hosted by Rebecca Foust. Originally scheduled to be held at Grace Cathedral atop the city's Nob Hill, now streaming live for you!

All authors' books available from your favorite indie bookstores, order from bookshop.org!

Click here: Livestream link

Moderators

Rebecca Foust

Rebecca Foust was the Poet Laureate of Marin County and is the author of Paradise Drive and The Unexploded Ordnance Bin, released November 2019. A new book, ONLY, will come out with Four Way Books in 2022.

Speakers

Jane Hirshfield

Jane Hirshfield's ninth collection, Ledger (Knopf), just released. Chancellor emerita of the Academy of American Poets and recently elected into the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, she works frequently at the intersection of poetry and science. Her essays, poems, and translations... Read More →

Tongo Eisen-Martin

Tongo Eisen-Martin is the author of Someone's Dead Already and Heaven Is All Goodbyes (City Lights Pocket Poets Series), which won the 2018 California Book Award.

Kazim Ali

Kazim Ali’s many books include The Far Mosque, which won an Alice James Books award and Inquisition (2018), as well as the prose books The Disappearance of Seth, Bright Felon, and Resident Alien. Ali co-founded Nightboat Books and is a professor at U.C. San Diego.

Thursday April 2, 2020 7:00pm - 8:00pm PDT
Virtual! litquake.org

Poetry

7:00pm PDT

Litquake on Lockdown: Beth Lisick and "Edie on the Green Screen"

Beth Lisick's canceled book tour for her debut novel transmogrifies into an at-home spoken word and music performance with her husband, musician and studio wizard Eli Crews (Tune-yards, Deerhoof). Though rarely in the same place at the same time, they've spent the last few weeks collaborating on making hand sanitizer, falafel, and music. Beth will read excerpts from her new book accompanied by organs, synths, and other assorted gadgetry. Presented live from their Spillway Sound recording studio in New York's Hudson Valley.
Book releases March 26, 2020.

Order from your favorite indie bookstore at bookshop.org!

Livestream link
Limited to 100 attendees
Ask questions ahead of time at Facebook event page

Speakers

Eli Crews

Eli Crews is a sound engineer and record producer based in New York. He is a house engineer at Figure 8 Recording in Brooklyn, where he has lived and worked since 2012. He also just built a getaway, residential recording studio in the Catskills near the Ashokan Reservoir, called Spillway... Read More →

Beth Lisick

Beth Lisick is a writer and actor from the San Francisco Bay Area, currently living in Brooklyn. She is the author of six books, including the New York Times bestseller Everybody Into the Pool, and co-founder of the Porchlight Storytelling Series. Beth has also worked as a baker... Read More →

Friday April 3, 2020 7:00pm - 8:00pm PDT
Virtual! litquake.org

7:00pm PDT

Litquake on Lockdown: "Home Baked" Booty Shake

In the seventies, when author Alia Volz was tucked into in her stroller, her parents ran Sticky Fingers Brownies, an underground bakery that delivered more than 10,000 marijuana edibles each month in San Francisco. From the frothy 1970s through the depths of the AIDS crisis and the dawn of medical marijuana, Volz’s new memoir Home Baked: My Mom, Marijuana, and the Stoning of San Francisco is a kaleidoscopic portrait of a city in the throes of change and the community that came together when things fell apart.

Pour yourself a tequila sunrise, twist a doobie, and join Volz and luminaries Rebecca Skloot and Marke Bieschke for a taste of home-baked San Francisco love. Followed by a funkalicious living-room dance party with special guest DJs.

Book is released on April 20, 2020, pre-order it from your favorite indie bookstore, at bookshop.org!

Livestream link, Password: 049130
Limited to 100 attendees
Ask questions ahead of time at Facebook event page

Moderators

Rebecca Skloot

Rebecca Skloot is author of the #1 New York Times Bestseller, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, which was made into an Emmy-nominated HBO film. Lacks took more than a decade to research and write, and instantly hit the New York Times bestseller list, where it has remained for... Read More →

Speakers

Marke Bieschke

Marke Bieschke is the publisher and arts editor of 48 Hills and the SF Bay Guardian, and the author most recently of Into the Streets: A Young Person's Visual History of Protest in the United States (Lerner, 2020) and Queer: The Ultimate LGBTQ Guide for Teens (Zest Books, 2019... Read More →

Alia Volz

Alia Volz is the author of Home Baked: My Mom, Marijuana, and the Stoning of San Francisco, due for release on 4/20 of this year. You'll find her work in The Best American Essays, The New York Times, Tin House, and elsewhere.

Saturday April 4, 2020 7:00pm - 8:00pm PDT
Virtual! litquake.org

7:00pm PDT

Litquake on Lockdown: Met Cute--The Happy Side of Gay Romance

In these stressful times, everyone could use a little fun. Because sometimes loving goes best with laughter, four bestselling authors of gay romance read from their lighter works--J. Scott Coatsworth, Kim Fielding, Angel Martinez, and Amy Lane. Discussion and Q&A about why love stories help soothe frayed nerves and anxious minds to follow.

All authors' books available from your favorite indie bookstores, order from bookshop.org!

Livestream link
Limited to 100 attendees
Ask questions ahead of time at Facebook event page

Speakers

Kim Fielding

Kim Fielding is the bestselling author of numerous m/m romance novels, novellas, and short stories. Like Kim herself, her work is eclectic, spanning genres such as contemporary, fantasy, paranormal, and historical. Her stories are set in alternate worlds, in 15th century Bosnia, in... Read More →

J. Scott Coatsworth

Scott lives with his husband Mark in a yellow bungalow in Sacramento. He was indoctrinated into fantasy and sci fi by his mother at the tender age of nine. He devoured her library, but as he grew up, he wondered where all the people like him were. He decided that if there weren’t... Read More →

Angel Martinez

Angel Martinez is the pen name of a writer of several genres who writes both kinds of queer fiction – Science Fiction and Fantasy. (What? There are others?) Currently living part time in the hectic sprawl of northern Delaware, (and full time inside the author's head) Angel has... Read More →

Amy Lane

Amy Lane has two kids who are mostly grown, two kids who aren't, two cats, and two Chi-who-whats at large. She lives in a crumbling crapmansion with most of the children and a bemused spouse. She also has too damned much yarn, a penchant for action adventure movies, and a need to... Read More →

Sunday April 5, 2020 7:00pm - 8:00pm PDT
Virtual! litquake.org

7:00pm PDT

Litquake on Lockdown: DIY Flash with the Flash Fiction Collective

A reading of dozens of tiny stories from micro-fictionistas, including guest readers, plus a discussion of the Art of Flash and prompts—including visual prompts—to write and submit your own, with a selection to be published on the Flash Fiction Collective Facebook page.

All authors' books available from your favorite indie bookstores, order from bookshop.org!

Livestream link
Limited to 100 attendees
Ask questions ahead of time at Facebook event page

Speakers

Jane Ciabattari

Jane Ciabattari, author of the short story collection Stealing the Fire, writes the Between the Lines column for BBC Culture. She is a former president of the National Book Critics Circle and a member of the Writers Grotto. Her reviews, interviews and cultural criticism have appeared... Read More →

Grant Faulkner

Grant Faulkner is the Executive Director of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and the co-founder of 100 Word Story. He has published two books on writing, Pep Talks for Writers: 52 Insights and Actions to Boost Your Creative Mojo, and Brave the Page, a teen writing guide... Read More →

Kirstin Chen

Kirstin Chen‘s second novel, Bury What We Cannot Take (Little A, March 2018), was named a best book of the year by Entropy, Popsugar, and Book Bub, and a top pick of the season by Electric Literature, The Millions, The Rumpus, Harper’s Bazaar, and InStyle. She is also the aut... Read More →

Meg Pokrass

Meg Pokrass is the U.K. based author of six flash fiction collections, an award-winning collection of prose poetry, and a novella-in-flash from the Rose Metal Press. Her latest is a flash fiction collection called The Dog Seated Next To Me, published in 2019 by Pelekinesis Press. A new novella in flash The Smell Of Good Luck will be published in 2020 by Flash: The International Short Short Story Press. Meg’s work has been recently anthologized in two Norton Anthology Readers: New Micro (W.W. Norton & Co, 2018) and Flash Fiction International (W.W. Norton & Co., 2015), The Best Small Fict... Read More →

Monday April 6, 2020 7:00pm - 8:00pm PDT
Virtual! litquake.org

7:00pm PDT

Litquake on Lockdown: ZYZZYVA's 35th Anniversary Issue Release

Celebrate ZYZZYVA's 35th anniversary issue, to be released in early April, with contributors from the issue. Featuring Dave Madden, Lysley Tenorio, Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, Kristen Iskandrian, and more.

All authors' books available from your favorite indie bookstores, order from bookshop.org!

Livestream link
Limited to 100 attendees
Ask questions ahead of time at Facebook event page

Speakers

Margaret Wilkerson Sexton

Kristen Iskandrian

Kristen Iskandrian is the author of the novel Motherest (Twelve). Her story “Good With Boys,” which appeared in Issue No. 109, was included in Best American Short Stories 2018. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama, and is co-owner of Thank You Books, a new independent bookstore.

Lysley Tenorio

Lysley Tenorio is the author of the forthcoming novel The Son of Good Fortune (Ecco) and the story collection Monstress (Ecco), named a Book of the Year by the San Francisco Chronicle.

Dave Madden

Dave Madden is the author of the story collection If You Need Me I’ll Be Over There (Indian University Press) and The Authentic Animal: Inside the Odd and Obsessive World of Taxidermy (St. Martin’s).

Meg Hurtado Bloom

Meg Hurtado Bloom's writing has appeared in Split Lip, Lumen Magazine, and other publications. Her poetry also appeared in ZYZZYVA's Bay Area Issue (No. 117).

Tuesday April 7, 2020 7:00pm - 8:00pm PDT
Virtual! litquake.org

7:00pm PDT

Litquake on Lockdown: We All Want to Change the World

Fiction writers are often told – by teachers, editors, and agents – that politics and literature don’t mix. But in these times of political polarization and dissatisfaction, many writers are reconsidering this conventional wisdom. How can ambitious writers find a space to explore the matters of life and death, wealth and poverty, war and governance, that affect us all? How should art respond to the terrors of modern life? Join five accomplished writers as they share work that has grappled with these questions.

All authors' books available from your favorite indie bookstores, order from bookshop.org!

Livestream link to be posted at 6 PM!
$5-10 suggested donation, NOTAFLOF
All proceeds will be split with our participants
Limited to 100 attendees
Ask questions ahead of time at Facebook event page

Speakers

Kirstin Chen

Andrew Altschul

Andrew Altschul's third novel, The Gringa, was published in March. In a starred review, Booklist called it “a captivating depiction of passion, disenchantment, and hope gone violently awry.” His previous novels are Deus Ex Machina and Lady Lazarus. His work has appeared in Best... Read More →

Ramona Ausubel

Ramona Ausubel is the author of two novels and two story collections. Her most recent book, Awayland, was a New York Times Editors’ Choice selection, a Finalist for the California Book Award, Colorado Book Award and long-listed for the Story Prize. She is the recipient of the PEN/USA... Read More →

Danielle Evans

Danielle Evans is the author of the story collection Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self, and the forthcoming collection The Office of Historical Corrections. She is the winner of the PEN American Robert W. Bingham Prize and the Hurston-Wright award for fiction, a National Book... Read More →

Joshua Furst

Joshua Furst’s critically acclaimed novel Revolutionaries was published last year. He’salso the author of The Sabotage Café—named to the 2007 year-end best-of lists of the Chicago Tribune, the Rocky Mountain News and the Philadelphia City Paper, as well as being awarded the... Read More →

Wednesday April 8, 2020 7:00pm - 8:00pm PDT
Virtual! litquake.org

Panel

7:00pm PDT

Litquake on Lockdown: Bring the World into Your Home with World Editions

Let's connect our global literary community in a time of closed borders. Hear World Editions authors read from their works, discuss the current situation in their countries, and talk about what books mean to them during Covid-19. With Adeline Dieudonné, Pierre Jarawan, Sisonke Msimang, Amin Maalouf, and others to be announced.

All authors' books available from your favorite indie bookstores, order from bookshop.org!

Livestream link
$5-10 suggested donation, NOTAFLOF
All proceeds will be split with our participants
Limited to 100 attendees
Ask questions ahead of time at Facebook event page

Moderators

Adam Dalva

Adam Dalva’s writing has appeared in The New York Review of Books, The Paris Review, Tin House, and The Guardian. He teaches Creative Writing at Rutgers University and is a book critic for Guernica Magazine. Adam has received fellowships from the Atlantic Center for the Arts... Read More →

Speakers

Esther Gerritsen

Esther Gerritsen is a Dutch novelist, columnist, and playwright. She made her literary debut in 2000. She is one of the most established, widely read, and highly praised authors in the Netherlands, and makes regular appearances on radio programs and at literary festivals. Esther... Read More →

Adeline Dieudonné

Adeline Dieudonné is a Belgian author and lives in Brussels. Real Life, her debut novel, was published in France in Autumn 2018 and has since been awarded most of the major French literary prizes: the prestigious Prix du Roman FNAC, the Prix Rossel, the Prix Renaudot des Lycéens... Read More →

Pierre Jarawan

Pierre Jarawan was born in 1985 to a Lebanese father and a German mother and moved to Germany with his family at the age of three. Inspired by his father’s imaginative bedtime stories, he started writing at the age of thirteen. He has won international prizes as a slam poet, and... Read More →

Sisonke Msimang

Sisonke Msimang is the author of Always Another Country: A memoir of exile and home. She is a South African writer whose work is focussed on race, gender and democracy. She has written for a range of international publications including the New York Times, the Washington Post, The... Read More →

Amin Maalouf

Born in Beirut in 1949, Amin Maalouf has lived in France since 1976. After studying sociology and economics, Maalouf joined the Lebanese daily An-Nahar, for which he travelled the world covering numerous events, from the fall of the Ethiopian monarchy to the last battle of Saigon... Read More →

Thursday April 9, 2020 7:00pm - 8:00pm PDT
Virtual! litquake.org

7:00pm PDT

Litquake on Lockdown: Letters of Love and Dissent in Dangerous Times

Hear from the writers of Radical Hope: Letters of Love and Dissent in Dangerous Times
as they read briefly from their contribution and engage in conversation about what's changed, what hasn't, how we weather what we're facing not only politically but also culturally, personally, artistically, and as communities who affirm our connections to each other.

All authors' books available from your favorite indie bookstores, order from bookshop.org!

Livestream link
$5-10 suggested donation, NOTAFLOF
All proceeds will be split with our participants
Limited to 100 attendees
Ask questions ahead of time at Facebook event page

Speakers

Aya de Leon

Aya de Leon directs the Poetry for the People program, teaching creative writing at UC Berkeley. Kensington Books publishes her award-winning feminist heist/romance series, Justice Hustlers: UPTOWN THIEF (2016), THE BOSS (2017), THE ACCIDENTAL MISTRESS (2018), and SIDE CHICK NATION... Read More →

Chip Livingston

Chip Livingston is the author of the novel, OWLS DON’T HAVE TO MEAN DEATH; a collection of essays and stories, NAMING CEREMONY; and two poetry collections, CROW-BLUE, CROW-BLACK and MUSEUM OF FALSE STARTS. His writing has appeared in Ploughshares, Prairie Schooner, New American... Read More →

Achy Obejas

Achy Obejas is the author of The Tower of the Antilles, which was nominated for a PEN/Faulkner award, among other honors. Her novels include Ruins and Days of Awe, which was a Los Angeles Times Best Books of the Year. Her poetry chapbook, This is What Happened in Our Other Life... Read More →

Carolina De Robertis

A writer of Uruguayan origins, Carolina De Robertis is the author of the novels Cantoras, winner of a Stonewall Book Award and a Reading Women Award, a finalist for the Kirkus Prize and a Lambda Literary Award, and a New York Times Editors’ Choice; The Gods of Tango, winner of... Read More →

Friday April 10, 2020 7:00pm - 8:00pm PDT
Virtual! litquake.org

Panel

about A writer of Uruguayan origins, Carolina De Robertis is the author of the novels Cantoras, winner of a Stonewall Book Award and a Reading Women Award, a finalist for the Kirkus Prize and a Lambda Literary Award, and a New York Times Editors’ Choice; The Gods of Tango, winner of a Stonewall Book Award; Perla; and the international bestseller The Invisible Mountain, which received Italy’s Rhegium Julii Prize. Her books have been translated into seventeen languages and have received numerous other honors, including a fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. She is also an award-winning translator of Latin American and Spanish literature, and editor of the anthology Radical Hope: Letters of Love and Dissent in Dangerous Times. In 2017, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts named De Robertis on its 100 List of “people, organizations, and movements that are shaping the future of culture.” She teaches at San Francisco State University, and lives in Oakland, California, with her wife and two children.

6:00pm PDT

Litquake on Lockdown: Ishmael Beah and Little Family

From the #1 New York Times-bestselling author of the Sierra Leone child-soldier memoir, A LONG WAY GONE, comes this powerful new novel about young people living at the margins of society. LITTLE FAMILY portrays the lives of five youth who have improvised a household in an abandoned airplane, struggling to replace the homes they have lost with the one they have created together. Join us to celebrate release of this remarkable debut work of fiction from Ishmael Beah, whom Vanity Fair has called “arguably the most-read African writer in contemporary literature.” FREE, $5 suggested donation

Streamed live on Crowdcast and Facebook Live!
Books are available from your favorite indie bookstores, or order from bookshop.org!

Speakers

Ishmael Beah

Ishmael Beah, born in Sierra Leone, West Africa, is the New York Times bestselling author of A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier, and the novel Radiance of Tomorrow. His newest novel, Little Family, is a profound and tender portrayal of the connections we forge to survive the... Read More →

Wednesday May 20, 2020 6:00pm - 7:00pm PDT
Virtual! litquake.org

6:00pm PDT

Litquake on Lockdown: Nerd Novels -- A Different Kind of Escape

As society grinds to a halt around us, many readers find themselves at home with time on their hands, yearning to think about something—anything—beyond the daily drama of the pandemic. In this conversation, authors Jean Hegland & Susan M. Gaines discuss "nerd novels," those books whose characters, plots, and themes depend on some specialized body of knowledge. Examples include Barbara Kingsolver’s "Flight Behavior" (2012), Karen Joy Fowler’s "We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves" (2013), Marilynne Robinson’s "Gilead," and most of A.S. Byatt’s and Richard Powers’ novels. Tonight's conversation covers the concept of the nerd novel, as well as the special challenges and rewards of reading and writing them, and invites questions and discussion from the virtual audience. FREE, $5 suggested donation

Streamed live on Crowdcast and Facebook Live!
Books are available from your favorite indie bookstores, or order from bookshop.org!

Speakers

Jean Hegland

Jean Hegland is the author of three novels and a book of creative nonfiction. Her first novel, "Into the Forest," has been translated into 17 languages, adapted as a film starring Ellen Page and Evan Rachel Wood, and a French graphic novel. Set in a near future that bears an eerie... Read More →

Susan M. Gaines

Susan M. Gaines is the author of the nerd novels "Accidentals" and "Carbon Dreams," as well as the science narrative "Echoes of Life: What Fossil Molecules Reveal About Earth History." Her stories have appeared in the "North American Review," "Missouri Review," "Best of the West... Read More →

Tuesday May 26, 2020 6:00pm - 7:00pm PDT
Virtual! litquake.org

Panel

6:00pm PDT

Litquake on Lockdown: Sarah Ray and A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety

A youth movement is reenergizing global environmental activism. The “climate generation”—late millennials and iGen, or Generation Z—is demanding that policy makers and government leaders take immediate action to address the dire outcomes predicted by climate science. Those inheriting our planet’s environmental problems expect to encounter challenges, but they may not have the skills to grapple with the feelings of powerlessness and despair that may arise. Author and professor Sarah Jaquette Ray releases her new book A Field Guide to Climate Anxiety (UC Press), an “existential tool kit” for the climate generation. Combining insights from psychology, sociology, social movements, mindfulness, and the environmental humanities, Ray explains why and how we need to let go of eco-guilt, resist burnout, and cultivate resilience while advocating for climate justice. In conversation with eco-engagement strategist Renee Lertzman. FREE, $5 suggested donation

Streamed live on Crowdcast and Facebook Live!
Books are available from your favorite indie bookstores, or order from bookshop.org!

Moderators

Renee Lertzman

Renée Lertzman is a researcher, educator and eco-engagement strategist who uses psychological insights to change our approach to the environmental crisis. Applying her training as a psychosocial researcher specializing in deep human insights, she uses frameworks and methods that... Read More →

Speakers

Sarah Jaquette Ray

Sarah Jaquette Ray teaches environmental studies at Humboldt State University in Arcata, California, and is also the author of The Ecological Other: Environmental Exclusion in American Culture.

Wednesday May 27, 2020 6:00pm - 7:15pm PDT
Virtual! litquake.org

6:00pm PDT

Litquake on Lockdown: Ode to Our 13-Year-Old Selves

Prompted by a fireside moment at a writing conference, these poets with varying childhood experiences of race, gender, sexuality, migration, culture and religion, will share work that honors their 13-year-old selves -- and the surprise, disbelief, pride, love, and even derision those 13-year-old selves might have for the grown and poetry folx they have become. Participants will each open their readings by addressing themselves as their younger selves might experience them now. An unforgettable evening of vulnerable intimacy, physical distancing, and social connection. With Hari Alluri, Nico Amador, Faisal Mohyuddin, Cynthia Dewi Oka, and Seema Reza. FREE, $5 suggested donation

Streamed live at Crowdcast and Facebook Live!
Books are available from your favorite indie bookstores, or order from bookshop.org!

Speakers

Nico Amador

Nico Amador is a poet, community organizer and facilitator based in Vermont by way of San Diego and Philadelphia. His poems have appeared in Bettering American Poetry, Vol 3, the Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day series, Hypertext Review, Poets Reading the News, Poet Lore, Bedfellows... Read More →

Cynthia Dewi Oka

Cynthia Dewi Oka is the author of Salvage (Northwestern University Press) and Nomad of Salt and Hard Water (Thread Makes Blanket). Her work has appeared widely in print and online, including in ESPNW, Hyperallergic, Guernica, Scoundrel Time, Academy of American Poets, American Poetry... Read More →

Seema Reza

Seema Reza is the author of A Constellation of Half-Lives and When the World Breaks Open. Her writing has appeared in print and online in McSweeney’s, The Feminist Wire, Bellevue Literary Review, The Offing, Full Grown People, and The Nervous Breakdown, among others. She has performed... Read More →

Faisal Mohyuddin

Faisal Mohyuddin is a writer, artist, and educator. He is the author of The Displaced Children of Displaced Children, winner of the 2017 Sexton Prize in Poetry and a 2018 Summer Recommendation of the Poetry Book Society. His other awards include the Prairie Schooner’s Edward Stanley... Read More →

Hari Alluri

Hari Alluri is the author of The Flayed City (Kaya), Carving Ashes (CiCAC/Thompson Rivers), and the chapbook The Promise of Rust (Mouthfeel Press, 2016). Winner of the 2020 Leonard A. Slade, Jr. Poetry Fellowship for Poets of Color, his current projects are supported by grants from... Read More →

Tuesday June 2, 2020 6:00pm - 7:15pm PDT
Virtual! litquake.org

Panel

6:00pm PDT

Litquake on Lockdown: Alka Joshi and The Henna Artist

Please join us for this vivid and compelling evening with Alka Joshi, author of The Henna Artist, the May selection for Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine Book Club. Tune in at 6pm Pacific time and learn why Publishers Weekly calls this novel “eloquent and moving,” while Christian Science Monitor highlights its “vibrant characters, evocative imagery, and sumptuous prose.”

A portrait of one woman’s struggle for fulfillment in a society pivoting between the traditional and the modern, The Henna Artist takes readers on a journey through 1950s Indian culture, a world that is at once lush and fascinating, stark and cruel. Escaping from an abusive marriage, seventeen-year-old Lakshmi makes her way alone to the vibrant pink city of Jaipur. There she becomes the most highly requested henna artist—and confidante—to the wealthy women of the upper class. But trusted with the secrets of the wealthy, she can never reveal her own. Alka Joshi reads from and discusses her book, with bestselling author Tom Barbash. FREE, $5 suggested donation

Streamed live at Crowdcast and Facebook Live!
Books are available from your favorite indie bookstores, or order from bookshop.org!

Moderators

Tom Barbash

Tom Barbash is the author of five books, including Dakota Winters. His short story collection Stay Up With Me was nominated for the Folio Prize and picked as a Best Book of the Year by the Independent of London, NPR, San Francisco Chronicle, and San Jose Mercury News. His novel The... Read More →

Speakers

Alka Joshi

Alka Joshi was born in India and raised in the U.S. since the age of nine. She has a BA from Stanford University and an MFA from California College of Arts and runs an advertising and marketing agency. She has lived in France and Italy and currently lives in Pacific Grove, California... Read More →

Thursday June 11, 2020 6:00pm - 7:15pm PDT
Virtual! litquake.org

6:00pm PDT

Litquake on Lockdown: You, Me, and Everyone In Quarantine

Cutting-edge poetry and visuals from both coasts, on the theme of "You, Me, and Everyone In Quarantine." From the depths of their shelter-in-place, these writers will perform their literary hearts out for you! With SevanKele Boult, Wo Chan, Katie Fricas, Irene McCalphin aka Magnoliah Black, and Preeti Vangani. Curated and hosted by Baruch Porras-Hernandez. FREE, $5 suggested donation

Streamed live at Crowdcast and Facebook Live!
Books are available from your favorite indie bookstores, or order from bookshop.org!

Moderators

Baruch Porras-Hernandez

Baruch Porras Hernandez is a San Francisco writer, stand up comedian, illustrator, organizer, and the author of the small poetry collections “I Miss You, Delicate” and “Lovers of the Deep Fried Circle,” both from Sibling Rivalry Press. His solo show “Love in the Time of... Read More →

Speakers

Magnoliah Black

Irene McCalphin aka Magnoliah Black blends modern movement and words with neo-burlesque to create socially conscious art pieces that add voice to marginalized communities and celebrates the human body. She has performed her writing at Black Love at Strut, Radar Productions, Writers... Read More →

SevanKelee Boult

SevanKelee Boult (aka Lucky 7) has been seen performing on HBO, with Radar Productions, Black Love at Strut, and stage theatre productions, and has represented several Bay Area slam teams over the past ten years. In 2014, she became the only person in the Bay to win the honored title... Read More →

Wo Chan

Wo Chan is a queer poet and drag performer living in Brooklyn. Wo has received fellowships from the New York Foundation of the Arts, Kundiman, and the Asian American Writers Workshop. As a member of Switch N' Play, Wo has performed at venues including The Whitney, National Sawd... Read More →

Preeti Vangani

Preeti Vangani is a poet & essayist. Her work has been published in BOAT, Buzzfeed, Gulf Coast, and Threepenny Review among other journals. She is the winner of the RL Poetry Award 2017 and her debut book of poems titled Mother Tongue Apologize was published by RLFPA Editions in February 2019. S... Read More →

Katie Fricas

Katie Fricas is a cartoonist and bibliophile in New York City. She makes nonfiction essay comics on art, politics, oddities, and hidden histories for various publications and websites including The New Yorker, The New York Times Book Review, the Guardian, and Hyperallergic. Her comic... Read More →

Tuesday June 16, 2020 6:00pm - 7:15pm PDT
Virtual! litquake.org

Poetry

6:00pm PDT

POSTPONED - Elizabeth Tallent and Scratched, A Memoir of Perfectionism

THIS EVENT IS POSTPONED, PLEASE CHECK BACK FOR A RESCHEDULED DATE. THANKS!

In a bold and brilliant memoir that reinvents the form, Elizabeth Tallent, acclaimed author of the novel Museum Pieces and the collection Mendocino Fire, explores the ferocious desire for perfection which has shaped her writing life as well as her rich, dramatic, and constantly surprising personal life. Elizabeth traces her journey from her early years as “the child whose flaws let disaster into an otherwise perfect family,” to her adulthood, when perfectionism came to affect everything. Between the ages of 27 and 37, she published five literary books with Knopf and her short stories appeared in The New Yorker. But in the following 22 years she wrote, or rather published, nothing at all. Why? Scratched is the remarkable response to that question. This memoir, filled with wit, humor, and heart, is unlike any other you will read. Elizabeth Tallent reads from and discusses her work with author/critic Vincent Scarpa. FREE, $5 donation requested

Streamed live at Crowdcast and Facebook Live!
Books are available from your favorite indie bookstores, or order from bookshop.org!

Moderators

Vincent Scarpa

Vincent Scarpa is a recent graduate of the MFA program at the Michener Center for Writers. His stories and essays have appeared in Electric Literature, Indiana Review, StoryQuarterly, Lit Hub, NANO Fiction, and other outlets. He has been a Pushcart Prize nominee every year since 2012... Read More →

Speakers

Elizabeth Tallent

Elizabeth Tallent, author of a novel and four story collections, has appeared in The Threepenny Review, The Paris Review, The New Yorker, Tin House, and ZYZZYVA, as well as in the Best American Short Stories, Best American Essays, O. Henry Prize, and Pushcart Prize award anthologies... Read More →

Thursday June 18, 2020 6:00pm - 7:15pm PDT
Virtual! litquake.org

6:00pm PDT

Litquake on Lockdown: Literary Page Turners

Page turners are usually associated with genre or popular fiction rather than literary fiction. In this discussion, Melanie Abrams, Laura Mazer, and Kate Milliken will talk about what readers, agents, and editors are looking for when it comes to plot. We’ll talk about marketability, but also how to write a beautifully crafted narrative while still making readers turn pages. FREE, $5 suggested donation

Streamed live on Crowdcast and Facebook Live!
Books are available from your favorite indie bookstores, or order from bookshop.org!

Speakers

Melanie Abrams

Melanie Abrams is the author of the novels Playing and Meadowlark. She teaches writing at UC Berkeley and is a photographer and developmental editor.

Kate Milliken

Kate Milliken is author of the short story collection If I’d Known You Were Coming and the novel Kept Animals. Her work has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize, anthologized in the California Prose Directory, New Writing from the Golden State, and received runner-up for the Rick... Read More →

Laura Mazer

Laura Mazer is a literary agent at Wendy Sherman Associates, Inc. Before becoming an agent, she was the executive editor of Seal Press, a boutique imprint of the Hachette Book Group, and the managing editor of Counterpoint and executive editor of its imprint Soft Skull Press.

Tuesday June 23, 2020 6:00pm - 7:15pm PDT
Virtual! litquake.org

Panel

6:00pm PDT

Litquake on Lockdown: Wayétu Moore and The Dragons, the Giant, the Women

Co-presented by Museum of the African Diaspora

When Wayétu Moore turns five years old, her father and grandmother throw her a big birthday party at their home in Monrovia, Liberia, but all she can think about is how much she misses her mother, who is working and studying in faraway New York. Before she gets the reunion her father promised her, war breaks out in Liberia. The family is forced to flee their home on foot, walking and hiding for three weeks until they arrive in the village of Lai. Finally, a rebel soldier smuggles them across the border to Sierra Leone, reuniting the family and setting them off on yet another journey, this time to the United States.

Spanning this harrowing journey in Moore’s early childhood, her years adjusting to life in Texas as a black woman and an immigrant, and her eventual return to Liberia, The Dragons, the Giant, the Women is a deeply moving story of the search for home in the midst of upheaval. Moore has a novelist’s eye for suspense and emotional depth, and this unforgettable memoir is full of imaginative, lyrical flights and lush prose. In capturing both the hazy magic and stark realities of what is becoming an increasingly pervasive experience, Moore shines a light on the great political and personal forces that continue to affect many migrants around the world, and calls us all to acknowledge the tenacious power of love and family. Wayétu will be in converation with author and professor Faith Adiele. FREE, $5 suggested donation

Streamed live at Crowdcast and Facebook Live!
Books are available from your favorite indie bookstores, or order from bookshop.org!

Speakers

Wayétu Moore

Wayétu Moore is the author of She Would Be King and the founder of One Moore Book. She is a graduate of Howard University, Columbia University, and the University of Southern California. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Faith Adiele

Faith Adiele’s work includes The Nigerian Nordic Girl’s Guide to Lady Problems; Meeting Faith, a memoir about becoming Thailand’s first Black Buddhist nun; My Journey Home, a PBS documentary about finding family in Nigeria; and Coming of Age Around the World: A Multicultural... Read More →

Thursday June 25, 2020 6:00pm - 7:15pm PDT
Virtual! litquake.org

6:00pm PDT

POSTPONED: Litquake on Lockdown: Daniel Mallory Ortberg

PLEASE NOTE: This event is postponed for tonight (June 30). Our apologies. We will reschedule it for the near future. More details will be available here. Thanks for your patience!

From the New York Times bestselling author of Texts From Jane Eyre and Merry Spinster, writer of Slate’s “Dear Prudence” column, and cofounder of The Toast comes this hilarious and stirring collection of essays and cultural observations spanning pop culture—from the endearingly popular to the staggeringly obscure. In Daniel Mallory Ortberg's most personal work to date, he offers vigorous and laugh-out-loud funny accounts of both popular and highbrow culture while mixing in meditations on gender transition, family dynamics, and the many meanings of faith. From a thoughtful analysis of the beauty of William Shatner to a sinister reimagining of HGTV’s House Hunters, and featuring figures as varied as Anne of Green Gables, Columbo, Nora Ephron, Apollo, and the cast of Mean Girls, Something That May Shock and Discredit You will make you see yourself and those around you entirely anew. In conversation with Marke Bieschke from 48hills.org. FREE, $5 suggested donation

Streamed live at Crowdcast and Facebook Live!
Books are available from your favorite indie bookstores, or order from bookshop.org!

Moderators

Marke Bieschke

Speakers

Daniel Mallory Ortberg

Daniel Mallory Ortberg is the “Dear Prudence” advice columnist at Slate, the cofounder of The Toast, and the New York Times bestselling author of Texts From Jane Eyre and The Merry Spinster.

Tuesday June 30, 2020 6:00pm - 7:15pm PDT
Virtual! litquake.org

4:00pm PDT

Litquake on Lockdown: Jaimal Yogis and Mop Rides the Waves of Life

Going to school and navigating classmates can be hard—but all that goes away when little surfer Mop paddles out in the waves. With a few tips from his clever mom, Mop studies the wisdom of the water and learns to bring it into his life on land: taking deep breaths, letting the tough waves pass, and riding the good ones all the way. With newfound awareness and courage, Mop heads back to land—and school—to surf the waves of life.

Celebrated San Francisco surfer-journalist-dad Jaimal Yogis teaches 4-8 year olds timeless beach wisdom with the story of Mop, a sensitive and fun-loving kid who just wants to be in the ocean. FREE, $5 suggested donation

Streamed live at Crowdcast and Facebook Live!
Books are available from your favorite indie bookstores, or order from bookshop.org!

Speakers

Jaimal Yogis

Jaimal Yogis is the author of numerous books including Saltwater Buddha and All Our Waves Are Water, which was named a “Best Beach Read of 2017” by the BBC. His work has been featured in the pages of O, the Oprah Magazine, Outside, Forbes, The Atlantic, ESPN Magazine, and many... Read More →

Thursday July 2, 2020 4:00pm - 5:00pm PDT
Virtual! litquake.org

6:00pm PDT

Litquake on Lockdown: Ilana Masad and All My Mother's Lovers

“A debut that explores sexuality, family trauma, and grief — after our main character’s mother dies in a car crash and leaves mysterious letters to five different men — but it's all packed in a smart, funny package.” —Entertainment Weekly

“This book is on literally every anticipated book list for 2020 and for good reason.” —Paper Mag

Told over the course of a funeral and shiva, and written with enormous wit and warmth, All My Mother's Lovers is the much-anticipated debut novel from Israeli-American fiction writer and book critic Ilana Masad. A unique meditation on the universality and particularity of family ties and grief, and a tender and biting portrait of sex, gender, and identity. FREE, $5 suggested donation

Streamed live on Crowdcast and Facebook Live!
Books are available from your favorite indie bookstores, or order from bookshop.org!

Moderators

Adam Dalva

Speakers

Ilana Masad

Ilana Masad is a queer Israeli-American fiction writer, essayist, and book critic whose work has appeared in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The Paris Review, NPR, BuzzFeed, Catapult, StoryQuarterly, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, as well as several others... Read More →

Thursday July 9, 2020 6:00pm - 7:15pm PDT
Virtual! litquake.org

6:00pm PDT

Litquake on Lockdown: A Family Divided

Millions of families are separated today, by circumstances of the current pandemic, by draconian immigration policies, and by war. Family separation has long been used as an intentional political tool to pressure, frighten, and terrorize. Through the lens of fiction, we can understand the impact of such wounds, and strengthen our shared belief in family and community connection. Authors Donna Hemans, Aimee Liu, Ellen Meeropol, and Kristen Millares Young discuss their Spring 2020 novels, and explore the paths of families torn apart. Registration via Eventbrite required to access Zoom. FREE, $5 suggested donation

Streamed live on Zoom and Facebook Live!
Books are available from your favorite indie bookstores, or order from bookshop.org!

Speakers

Kristen Millares Young

The current Prose Writer-in-Residence at Hugo House, Kristen Millares Young is the author of the novel Subduction. Her prize-winning investigations, essays and book reviews appear in the Washington Post, the Guardian, and elsewhere. She was the researcher for The New York Times team... Read More →

Donna Hemans

Donna Hemans is the author of Tea by the Sea and a previous novel, River Woman. Her short fiction has appeared in Caribbean Writer, Crab Orchard Review, Witness, and Stories from Blue Latitudes: Caribbean Women Writers at Home and Abroad. She is an editor at Pree, a Caribbean online... Read More →

Aimee Liu

Aimee Liu is the author of Glorious Boy and the previous novels Flash House, Cloud Mountain, and Face. Her nonfiction includes Gaining and Solitaire. Her short stories and essays have appeared in more than a dozen anthologies, magazines, and literary journals. She teaches in Goddard... Read More →

Ellen Meeropol

Ellen Meeropol is the author of Her Sister's Tattoo, and the previous novels Kinship of Clover, On Hurricane Island, and House Arrest. Recent essay publications include Ms Magazine, Lilith, Lit Hub, and Mom Egg Review. She is a founding member of Straw Dog Writers Guild and leads... Read More →

Tuesday July 14, 2020 6:00pm - 7:15pm PDT
Virtual! litquake.org

Panel

12:00pm PDT

Litquake on Lockdown: Caitlin Myer and Wiving with Joe Loya

Co-presented by Green Apple Books on the Park

At 36 years old, Caitlin Myer is ready to start a family with her husband. She has left behind the restrictive confines of her Mormon upbringing and early sexual trauma, and believes she is now living her happily ever after. In a single week, she suffers the twin losses of a hysterectomy and the death of her mother, and is jolted into a terrible awakening that forces her to reckon with her past—and future. Myer's electric debut memoir Wiving is the story of one woman’s “escape” from religion at age 20, only to find herself similarly entrapped in the gender conventions of the secular culture at large. The biblical characters Yael and Judith, wives who became assassins, become her totems as she evolves from wifely submission to warrior independence. In conversation with author Joe Loya. Registration via Eventbrite required to access Zoom. FREE, $5 suggested donation

Streamed live on Zoom and Facebook Live!
Books are available from Green Apple direct!

Moderators

Joe Loya

Joe Loya is an essayist, screenwriter, actor/director, and author of the memoir, The Man Who Outgrew His Prison Cell: Confessions of a Bank Robber. While consulting on the script for Edgar Wright's film Baby Driver, he was also cast as a bank guard who gets shot and killed by Jamie... Read More →

Speakers

Caitlin Myer

Caitlin Myer is the daughter of a poet and a visual artist, and grew up in a large, chaotic Mormon family in Provo, Utah. Her short stories, poetry, and essays have appeared in No Tokens, Electric Literature, The Butter, Cultural Weekly, and Joyland, among others, and she was a 2012... Read More →

Wednesday July 22, 2020 12:00pm - 1:15pm PDT
Virtual! litquake.org

6:00pm PDT

Litquake on Lockdown: Billy-Ray Belcourt and A History of My Brief Body

Billy-Ray Belcourt's debut memoir opens with a tender letter to his kokum and memories of his early life in the hamlet of Joussard, Alberta, and on the Driftpile First Nation. From there, it expands to encompass the big and broken world around him, in all its complexity and contradictions: a legacy of colonial violence and the joy that flourishes in spite of it, first loves and first loves lost, sexual exploration and intimacy, and the act of writing as a survival instinct and a way to grieve. What emerges is not only a profound meditation on memory, gender, anger, shame, and ecstasy, but also the outline of a way forward. With startling honesty, and in a voice distinctly and assuredly his own, Belcourt situates his life experiences within a constellation of seminal queer texts, among which this book is sure to earn its place. Eye-opening, intensely emotional, and excessively quotable, A History of My Brief Body demonstrates over and over again the power of words to both devastate and console us. In conversation with writer and professor Greg Sarris. Registration via Eventbrite required to access Zoom. FREE, $5 suggested donation

Streamed live on Zoom and Facebook Live!
Books are available from your favorite indie bookstores, or order from bookshop.org!

Moderators

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 →

Speakers

Billy-Ray Belcourt

Billy-Ray Belcourt is from the Driftpile Cree Nation. He is Canada’s first First Nations Rhodes Scholar. He is the author of the poetry collections NDN Coping Mechanisms and This Wound Is a World, which was awarded the 2018 Canadian Griffin Poetry Prize, the 2018 Robert Kroetsch... Read More →

Thursday July 23, 2020 6:00pm - 7:15pm PDT
Virtual! litquake.org

6:00pm PDT

Litquake on Lockdown: Alexandra Petri and Nothing Is Wrong and Here Is Why

“One of the difficulties of being alive today, is that everything is absurd but fewer and fewer things are funny.” In her new essay collection Nothing Is Wrong and Here Is Why, acclaimed Washington Post satirist Alexandra Petri offers perfectly logical, reassuring reasons for everything that has happened in recent American politics that will in no way unsettle your worldview. Petri reports that the Trump administration is as competent as it is uncorrupted, white supremacy has never been less rampant, and men have been silenced for too long. The “woman card” is a powerful card to play! Q-Anon makes perfect sense! This Panglossian venture into our swampy present offers a virtuosic first draft of history—a parody as surreal and deranged as the Trump administration itself. Petri’s essays have become iconic expressions of rage and anger, read and liked and shared by hundreds of thousands of people. Alexandra will read from and discuss her work, with Vox political reporter Jane Coaston. Registration via Eventbrite required to access Zoom. FREE, $5 suggested donation

Streamed live on Zoom and Facebook Live!
Books are available from your favorite indie bookstores, or order from bookshop.org!

Moderators

Jane Coaston

Jane Coaston is senior politics reporter at Vox with a focus on conservatism, the American Right, the GOP and white nationalism. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, National Review, Washington Post, The Ringer, and ESPN Magazine, among others. She attended the University... Read More →

Speakers

Alexandra Petri

Alexandra Petri is an American humorist and newspaper columnist at the Washington Post. She lives in Washington DC.

Friday July 24, 2020 6:00pm - 7:15pm PDT
Virtual! litquake.org

6:00pm PDT

Litquake on Lockdown: Afrofuturism — Risen From a Poet’s Sun

Co-presented by Museum of the African Diaspora

Afrofuturism: Risen From a Poet’s Sun explores the intersection of technology, science, and the arts, as well as culture, of the African Diaspora. Featuring Bay Area poets James Cagney, Tongo Eisen-Martin, Thea Matthews, and Tureeda Mikell. Registration via Eventbrite required to access Zoom. FREE, $5 suggested donation

Streamed live on Zoom and Facebook Live!
Books are available from your favorite indie bookstores, or order from bookshop.org!

Speakers

Tongo Eisen-Martin

Tongo Eisen-Martin is the author of Someone's Dead Already and Heaven Is All Goodbyes (City Lights Pocket Poets Series), which won the 2018 California Book Award.

Thea Matthews

Born and raised in San Francisco, CA, Thea Matthews is a poet, scholar, and activist. She writes on the complexities of humanity, grief, and resiliency. She earned her BA at UC Berkeley where she studied and taught June Jordan's program Poetry for the People. She has work published... Read More →

James Cagney

James Cagney is a poet from Oakland. He is a Cave Canem Fellow and VONA alum, both programs that foster Black writers. He has performed in venues and museums throughout the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond. His first book, Black Steel Magnolias in the Hour of Chaos Theory, was published... Read More →

Tureeda Mikell

Tureeda Mikell is a Bay Area Writing Project Teacher Consultant, Story Medicine Woman, published poet and writer, Qigong Healer, storyteller, lyricist, astrologer and performance artist. She has published over 70 CA Poets in the Schools student anthologies since 1989, and performs... Read More →

Tuesday July 28, 2020 6:00pm - 7:15pm PDT
Virtual! litquake.org

Poetry

6:00pm PDT

Litquake on Lockdown: Peter Orner and Maggie Brown & Others

In this powerful and virtuosic collection of 44 interlocking stories, each one “a marvel of concision and compassion” (Washington Post), Peter Orner chronicles people whose lives are at inflection points, gripping us with a series of defining moments. Whether it's a first date that turns into a late-night road trip to a séance in an abandoned airplane hangar, or a family’s memories of the painful mystery surrounding a neglected uncle’s demise, Orner reveals how our fleeting decisions between kindness and abandonment chase us across time. These stories are anchored by a poignant novella that delivers not only the joys and travails of a 40-year marriage, but an entire era in a working-class New England city. "A master of his form” --The New York Times. Peter Orner reads from and discusses his work, with bestselling illustrator Paul Madonna. Registration via Eventbrite required to access Zoom. FREE, $5 suggested donation

Streamed live on Zoom and Facebook Live!
Books are available from your favorite indie bookstores, or order from bookshop.org!

Moderators

Paul Madonna

Paul Madonna is an award-winning artist and writer. He is the creator of three series, All Over Coffee (San Francisco Chronicle 2004-2016), Small Potatoes (Universal Press Syndicate), and Quotable City (Nob Hill Gazette 2018-present), and the author of four books, All Over Coffee... Read More →

Speakers

Peter Orner

Peter Orner, a two-time recipient of the Pushcart Prize, is the author of five previous books, including the novel Love and Shame and Love and the collection Esther Stories, a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award. His memoir Am I Alone Here? was a finalist for the National Book Critics... Read More →

Thursday July 30, 2020 6:00pm - 7:15pm PDT
Virtual! litquake.org

5:00pm PDT

Litquake's Seismic Salon: Laurie R. King

Sheltering in place doesn’t have to mean skipping A-list social events. In keeping with these times, Litquake presents its summer fundraiser: a series of online author salons for very intimate audiences of ten. Grab your adult beverage of choice, kick back in your comfy chair and ask the questions you’ve always wanted to ask of some of the Bay Area’s most acclaimed authors, who between them have written a staggering 50+ New York Times bestsellers. Proceeds to help the Bay Area’s premiere (and 85% free) literary festival. Join us!

For tonight's event, Laurie R. King (The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, The Murder of Mary Russell) will answer your many questions, including her secret to cranking out so many bestselling books -- 27 at last count!
$100, or $500 for all six salons

Speakers

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 (from The Beekeeper’s Apprentice, named one of the 20th century’s best crime novels by the IMBA, to 2018’s Island of the Mad). She has... Read More →

Thursday September 3, 2020 5:00pm - 6:00pm PDT
Virtual! litquake.org

Salon

5:00pm PDT

Litquake's Seismic Salon: Mary Roach