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Friday, October 6
 

7:00pm PDT

Festival Opening Night: Litquake Turns 18!
Ticket Link
Where were you in 1999? Playing with a Pets.com puppet? Fiddling with a Palm Pilot? Over in Golden Gate Park, a new literary festival was launching, with a whopping 22 authors. A mere 18 years later, this year’s festival will feature nearly 650 authors over nine days of eclectic and dynamic programming. Come celebrate Litquake's coming of age at our opening night party! We are now old enough to vote, pay taxes, buy a lottery ticket or a condom, own a gun, enlist in the military, and run for governor of Rhode Island. Mingle with literati, savor tasty drink specials, and get a sneak peek at this year's program. See you at the festival! $15 adv / $20 door

Friday October 6, 2017 7:00pm - 10:00pm PDT
Cafe Du Nord 2174 Market St, San Francisco, CA 94114
  Featured   Wheelchair Accessible
 
Saturday, October 7
 

7:15pm PDT

Literary Death Match: Litquake Edition
Ticket Link

TICKETS ARE STILL AVAILABLE AT THE DOOR!

Literary Death Match returns to Litquake for a rip-roaring opening weekend of literary dazzlement. Part literary event, part comedy show, part game show, Literary Death Match brings together four of today’s finest writers to compete in an edge-of-your-seat read-off critiqued by three celebrity judges, and concluded by a slapstick showdown to decide the ultimate champion. Featuring Molly Giles, Luna Malbroux, Jane Smiley, Maggie Tokuda-Hall, and Irene Tu. Hosted by Adrian Todd Zuniga. Produced by Matthew DeCoster. Doors at 6:30 pm. $15 adv / $20 door

Participants
avatar for Molly Giles

Molly Giles

Molly Giles is the author of a novel, Iron Shoes, and four award winning collections of stories: Rough Translations, Creek Walk, Bothered, and All the Wrong Places. She taught Creative Writing for many years at San Francisco State University and the University of Arkansas. She has... Read More →
avatar for JiaJing Liu

JiaJing Liu

JiaJing Liu is a writer, poet, and translator. Her writing has appeared in The Awl, As/Us, and LEAP (the international art magazine of contemporary China). She has a penchant for crying in front of Pulitzer Prize winners. Past beneficiaries include Junot Diaz, Adam Johnson, and Paul... Read More →
avatar for Luna Malbroux

Luna Malbroux

Named one of KQED's Women to Watch, Luna Malbroux is a comedian and playwright, creator of the original play, "How to Be a White Man," and the host & producer of San Francisco's sexiest show, "Live Sex." Winner of the Comedy Hackday Grand Prize at SF Sketchfest, Luna has made international... Read More →
avatar for Jane Smiley

Jane Smiley

Jane Smiley is the author of many books in many genres, most recently The Last Hundred Years Trilogy; Some Luck, Early Warning, and Golden Age. She won the Pulitzer Prize in 1992. She is over six feet tall, loves a good joke, and won LDM in 2013.
avatar for Beth Spotswood

Beth Spotswood

Beth Spotswood is a columnist and writer for the San Francisco Chronicle, a regular contributor to SFist.com, and the Digital Director and Contributing Writer for the soon-to-launch quarterly magazine, the Journal of Alta California. Beth is an avid Bingo player, unapologetic reality... Read More →
avatar for Maggie Tokuda-Hall

Maggie Tokuda-Hall

avatar for Irene Tu

Irene Tu

Irene Tu is a Chicago-born, San Francisco-based stand-up comedian, writer, and actor. In 2016, she was named one of the “Bay Area’s 11 Best Stand Up Comedians” by the SFist and one of 20 “Women to Watch” by KQED. She has been in SF Sketchfest, Bridgetown Comedy Festival... Read More →


Saturday October 7, 2017 7:15pm - 9:30pm PDT
Elbo Room 647 Valencia St., San Francisco, CA 9411
  Featured   Wheelchair Accessible

8:00pm PDT

Raw and Savvy: Chris Kraus and the Life of Kathy Acker
Ticket Link

Co-presented by CCA MFA in Writing Program

Rich girl, street punk, lost girl, icon, scholar, stripper, victim, and media-whore: The late Kathy Acker’s legend and writings are wrapped in mythologies, created mostly by Acker herself. In the new, fully-authorized biography After Kathy Acker, described by Maggie Nelson as "setting the bar for what will surely be a new era of critical and biographical reckoning,” author Chris Kraus (I Love Dick) approaches her subject both as a writer and as a member of the artistic communities from which Acker emerged. In conversation with Dodie Bellamy. Book sales and signing to follow. (Photo of Kathy Acker by Kathy Brew.) $15 adv / $20 door

 


Moderators
avatar for Dodie Bellamy

Dodie Bellamy

Dodie Bellamy writes genre-bending works that focus on sexuality, politics, and narrative experimentation, challenging the distinctions between fiction, essay, and poetry. Her most recent collection is When the Sick Rule the World, from Semiotext(e). Other books include The TV... Read More →

Participants
avatar for Chris Kraus

Chris Kraus

Chris Kraus is the author of four novels, including Aliens & Anorexia, I Love Dick, and Torpor, and two books of art and cultural criticism, all published by Semiotext(e). She was a 2016 Guggenheim Fellow, and teaches writing at European Graduate School.


Saturday October 7, 2017 8:00pm - 10:00pm PDT
Swedish American Hall 2174 Market St., San Francisco CA
  Featured   Wheelchair Accessible
 
Sunday, October 8
 

6:00pm PDT

How a Mountain was Made: Greg Sarris and Steve Wasserman
Ticket Link

In the tradition of Calvino’s Italian Folktales, Greg Sarris (Grand Avenue) turns his attention to his ancestral homeland, Northern California's Sonoma Mountain. In the 16 interconnected stories of How a Mountain Was Made, the twin crows Question Woman and Answer Woman take us through a world inspired by traditional Coast Miwok and Southern Pomo creation tales. In conversation with Heyday Books publisher Steve Wasserman. $10 adv / door


Moderators
avatar for Steve Wasserman

Steve Wasserman

Steve Wasserman, raised in Berkeley and a graduate of Cal, is Heyday’s publisher and executive director. He is a former editor-at-large for Yale University Press and editorial director of Times Books/Random House and publisher of Hill & Wang and The Noonday Press at Farrar, Straus... Read More →

Participants
avatar for Greg Sarris

Greg Sarris

Greg Sarris is a renowned author, scholar, teacher, and Chairman, but his list of accomplishments extends much deeper. As a novelist he has brought inspiration, as a professor he has provided motivation, and as Chairman of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, he has instilled... Read More →


Sunday October 8, 2017 6:00pm - 8:00pm PDT
San Francisco Center for the Book 375 Rhode Island St., San Francisco, CA 94103
  Featured   Wheelchair Accessible

7:00pm PDT

Coding, Crunching, Changing the World: Silicon Valley’s Early Years
Ticket Link
A conversation between two authors who made their mark on the valley: Ellen Ullman, one of the first female programmers whose career began in 1979, and Leslie Berlin, Stanford’s Silicon Valley historian. What were the dreams then? What is the reality now? How did some businesses become so wildly successful while others failed? What work is there still to do? Moderated by Brad Stone. $10 adv / door 
Moderators
avatar for Brad Stone

Brad Stone

Brad Stone is senior executive editor for technology at Bloomberg News and the author of The Upstarts: How Uber, Airbnb, and the Killer Companies of the New Silicon Valley are Changing the World. His bestselling 2013 book The Everything Store: Jeff Bezos and the Age of Amazon was... Read More →

Participants
avatar for Leslie Berlin

Leslie Berlin

Leslie Berlin is Project Historian for the Silicon Valley Archives at Stanford University. She also writes the "Prototype" column on innovation for The New York Times. Her newest book is Troublemakers: Silicon Valley’s Coming of Age, a narrative of the Silicon Valley generation... Read More →
avatar for Ellen Ullman

Ellen Ullman

Ellen Ullman wrote her first computer program in 1979, and went on to have a 20-year career as a computer programmer and software engineer. She is the author of two novels: By Blood, a New York Times Notable Book; and The Bug, a runner-up for the PEN/Hemingway award. Her memoir, Close... Read More →


Sunday October 8, 2017 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT
American Bookbinders Museum 355 Clementina St, San Francisco, CA 94107
  Featured   Wheelchair Accessible

7:00pm PDT

Pounded in the Ear: An Erotic Tribute to Dr. Chuck Tingle
Ticket Link

Co-presented by DogEared Books Castro

Internet cult phenomenon. Tae Kwon Do Grandmaster. The D.H. Lawrence of absurdist, gay erotica. Buckle up, buckaroos! We’ll be celebrating the good doctor with dramatic readings of Tinglers from writer/comedians Wonder Dave, Baruch Parras-Hernandes, Allison Mick, Irene Tu, Jesús U. BettaWork, Natasha Muse, and Marcus Ewert. With titles like, “Space Raptor Butt Invasion” and “Pounded in the Butt by the Sentient Manifestation of My Own Climate Change Denial,” you'll leave knowing one thing: Love is Real. $7 adv / $10 door

Participants
avatar for Jesús U. BettaWork

Jesús U. BettaWork

Work, hunty! Get ready for the 100% real-fruit comedy of Jesús U. BettaWork! Jesús has an energy that makes Red Bull seem like a little cup o’ tea. He has performed at San Francisco's Punchline, The Redwood Comedy Festival in Humboldt County, Tourettes Without Regrets in Oakland... Read More →
avatar for Wonder Dave

Wonder Dave

Wonder Dave is a writer, comedian and performer from Minneapolis, MN, now living in California. He has toured the country performing at poetry venues, schools, cabarets, science fiction conventions, burlesque shows, bowling alleys and independent wrestling shows. He has been a featured... Read More →
avatar for Marcus Ewert

Marcus Ewert

Marcus Ewert is an American writer, actor and director. Ewert began making and appearing in films in the 1990s. He has appeared in the Gus Van Sant short film Four Naked Boys and a Gun, in Sadie Benning's Flat Is Beautiful, and the movie Frisk by Todd Verow. His writing work... Read More →
avatar for Allison Mick

Allison Mick

Allison Mick is an Oakland-based comedian and writer originally from Rochester, NY. She draws from her upbringing and personal experiences to address topics like race, gender, and serial killers. She’s performed at SF Sketchfest, the Boston Women in Comedy Festival, and the Hudson... Read More →
avatar for Natash Muse

Natash 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 →
avatar for Baruch Porras-Hernandez

Baruch Porras-Hernandez

Baruch Porras-Hernandez is a Pushcart Prize nominated writer, performer and standup comedian, named one of the 13 Top Bay Area Writers to Watch in 2016 by 7×7 Magazine in San Francisco. You can find his writing published online, in journals, and several anthologies, he was named... Read More →
avatar for Irene Tu

Irene Tu

Irene Tu is a Chicago-born, San Francisco-based stand-up comedian, writer, and actor. In 2016, she was named one of the “Bay Area’s 11 Best Stand Up Comedians” by the SFist and one of 20 “Women to Watch” by KQED. She has been in SF Sketchfest, Bridgetown Comedy Festival... Read More →


Sunday October 8, 2017 7:00pm - 9:00pm PDT
Make-Out Room 3225 22nd St., San Francisco, CA 94110
  Featured   Wheelchair Accessible
 
Monday, October 9
 

7:00pm PDT

Heating Up and Doubling Down: Strategies for Global Warming
Ticket Link
The science is unequivocal: Earth is getting hotter, endangering not only human civilization but myriad species of plants and animals. But despite predictions of doom (and politicians who refuse to take action), individuals, businesses, cities and states can still take action to ensure a future for our children and grandchildren. Former Sierra Club president Carl Pope (Climate of Hope: How Cities, Businesses and Citizens Can Save the Planet) and award-winning journalist Mark Hertsgaard (Hot: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth) discuss. $10 adv / door
Participants
avatar for Mark Hertsgaard

Mark Hertsgaard

Author, broadcaster, and public speaker Mark Hertsgaard has published seven books which have been translated into 16 languages, including Bravehearts: Whistle Blowing in the Age of Snowden; HOT: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth; and Earth Odyssey: Around the World In Search... Read More →
avatar for Carl Pope

Carl Pope

A veteran leader in the environmental movement, Carl Pope is the former executive director and chairman of the Sierra Club. He is now the principal advisor at Inside Straight Strategies, focusing on the links between sustainability and economic development, and serves as a senior... Read More →


Monday October 9, 2017 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT
American Bookbinders Museum 355 Clementina St, San Francisco, CA 94107
  Featured   Wheelchair Accessible

7:00pm PDT

You Can't Write That: Writing from Privilege
Ticket Link

A diverse set of writers (Faith Adiele, Vanessa Hua, Chad Koch, and Kaitlin Solimine) discuss the pressing question of cultural appropriation, and how it influences their willingness to write outside the confines of their experience and background. Moderated by Maisha Z. Johnson. $10 adv / door


Moderators
avatar for Maisha Z. Johnson

Maisha Z. Johnson

Maisha Z. Johnson is an award-winning writer, editor, and digital strategist who writes and works where the arts meet social change and digital media.Her work experience includes some powerhouse influencers in efforts to make our world a better place, including Everyday Feminism... Read More →

Participants
avatar for Faith Adiele

Faith Adiele

Assoc Professor, California College of the Arts
Faith Adiele’s work includes the audio/ebook The Nigerian Nordic Girl’s Guide to Lady Problems; Meeting Faith, a memoir about becoming Thailand’s first Black Buddhist nun that won the PEN Open Book Award; My Journey Home, a PBS documentary about finding her family in Nigeria... Read More →
avatar for Vanessa Hua

Vanessa Hua

Vanessa Hua is the author of DECEIT AND OTHER POSSIBILITIES, winner of the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature and a finalist for the California Book Award. A columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle, she has written for the New York Times, Washington Post, ZYZZYVA, and elsewhere... Read More →
avatar for Chad Koch

Chad Koch

Chad Koch is a founding editor of Foglifter, a forthcoming queer literary journal. He recently received his MFA from San Francisco State University, where he was editor-in-chief of Fourteen Hills. He’s the recipient of the 2010 Miriam Ylvisaker Fellowship and the Leo Litwak fiction... Read More →
avatar for Kaitlin Solimine

Kaitlin Solimine

Raised in New England, Kaitlin Solimine has considered China a second home for almost two decades. While majoring in East Asian Studies at Harvard University, she was a Harvard-Yenching scholar and wrote and edited Let’s Go: China (St. Martin’s Press). In 2006-2007, she was a... Read More →


Monday October 9, 2017 7:00pm - 9:00pm PDT
San Francisco Center for the Book 375 Rhode Island St., San Francisco, CA 94103
  Featured   Wheelchair Accessible

8:00pm PDT

Heroes: A Night of Stories with Porchlight
Ticket Link

In these villainous times, the Bay Area’s long-running Porchlight storytelling series returns with "hero"-themed tales from Owen Egerton, Laleh Khadivi, Cleve Jones, Amber Tamblyn, Carvell Wallace, and Norman Zelaya. Co-hosted by Arline Klatte and Beth Lisick. Music by Marc Capelle. Doors at 7 pm for Typewriter Rodeo, direct from Austin TX, where poets write poems on the spot, about any topic you suggest. Show at 8 pm. $20 adv / $25 door


 


Participants
avatar for Owen Egerton

Owen Egerton

Owen Egerton is an author, performer, and filmmaker. He is the writer/director of the psychological horror FOLLOW and the author of several books including The Book of Harold, the Illegitimate Son of God, Everyone Says That at the End of the World and the short story collection How... Read More →
avatar for Cleve Jones

Cleve Jones

Cleve Jones’ career as an activist began in San Francisco in 1970s where he befriended pioneer gay rights leader Harvey Milk. After Milk's death, Jones co-founded the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and conceived the idea of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, which memorializes over 85,000... Read More →
avatar for Laleh Khadivi

Laleh Khadivi

Laleh Khadivi was born in Esfahan, Iran. Her debut novel, The Age of Orphans, received the Whiting Award for Fiction, the Barnes and Nobles Discover New Writers Award and an Emory Fiction Fellowship. Her debut documentary film 900 WOMEN aired on A&E and premiered at the Human Rights... Read More →
avatar for Typewriter Rodeo

Typewriter Rodeo

Jodi Egerton and Sean Petrie are wordslingers with Typewriter Rodeo, crafting custom poems on vintage typewriters. They've typed poems at museums including the Smithsonian, and at events ranging from the Nantucket Book Festival to Maker Faire Austin to the beach in Cabo San Lucas... Read More →
avatar for Amber Tamblyn

Amber Tamblyn

Amber Tamblyn is a contributing writer for the Poetry Foundation and the author of three works of poetry: Free Stallion, Bang Ditto, and Dark Sparkler. As an actress, she has been nominated for an Emmy, a Golden Globe, and an Independent Spirit award. Her writing has appeared in Bust... Read More →
avatar for Carvell Wallace

Carvell Wallace

Carvell Wallace is a writer and father and perpetual procrastinator from Oakland. He has written for GQ, The New York Times Magazine, ESPN, and others, and contributes regularly to The New Yorker and MTV News. He is also co-host of the Slate parenting podcast “Mom And Dad Are Fighting... Read More →
avatar for Norman Antonio Zelaya

Norman Antonio Zelaya

Norman Antonio Zelaya was born and raised in San Francisco. He has published stories in ZYZZYVA, NY Tyrant, 14 Hills, Cipactli, and Apogee Journal, among others, and he was a 2015 Zoetrope: All-Story finalist. He is a founding member of Los Delicados, and has performed extensively... Read More →


Monday October 9, 2017 8:00pm - 10:00pm PDT
Swedish American Hall 2174 Market St., San Francisco CA
  Featured   Wheelchair Accessible
 
Tuesday, October 10
 

6:00pm PDT

The Extraordinary Rise and Fall of Actor M.B. Curtis
Ticket Link
In his latest book, The Man Who Lit Lady Liberty: The Extraordinary Rise and Fall of Actor M.B. Curtis, author and historian Richard Schwartz tells the fascinating life story of M.B. Curtis, the first Jewish-American actor to portray a Jewish character on an American stage. Trained in San Francisco and based there during his stardom, Curtis lived in the Berkeley area for years where he donated generous sums of money to civic projects and built the Peralta Hotel, the largest hotel in the Bay Area at the time (1891). Industrious, influential, and daring on and offstage, Curtis overcame the prejudices of late 19th-century America and lived the highs and lows of celebrity, often chasing his ideals of freedom and democracy through grand, dramatic gestures.. $12 general / $9.50 Museum members
Participants
avatar for Richard Schwartz

Richard Schwartz

Richard Schwartz is a historian and the author of Eccentrics, Heroes, and Cutthroats of Old Berkeley; Earthquake Exodus, 1906; Berkeley 1900; and The Circle of Stones. An outdoor enthusiast and animal lover, he worked on a Pennsylvania Dutch farm before heading west to find higher... Read More →


Tuesday October 10, 2017 6:00pm - 7:30pm PDT
Museum of Performance + Design 893B Folsom St., San Francisco, CA
  Featured   Wheelchair Accessible

6:30pm PDT

First Fiction: The Ties That Bind
Ticket Link
For emerging fiction writers, focusing on family has long been a staple. Rachel Khong (Goodbye, Vitamin) and Margaret Wilkerson Sexton (A Kind of Freedom) plumb the richness of familial relationships in their debut novels to great effect. Tonight these two critically acclaimed authors read and discuss their recent books with author, journalist, and teacher Meghan Ward. $15 general public / FREE for Library members  
Moderators
avatar for Meghan Ward

Meghan Ward

Meghan Ward is the author of Runway: Confessions of a Not-so-Supermodel, a chronicle of six years spent working as a high-fashion model in Paris, London, Tokyo and Milan. She is also a freelance writer whose work has appeared most recently in The Rumpus, Mutha, San Francisco Magazine... Read More →

Participants
avatar for Rachel Khong

Rachel Khong

Rachel Khong grew up in Southern California, and holds degrees from Yale University and the University of Florida. From 2011 to 2016, she was the managing editor then executive editor of Lucky Peach magazine. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in Tin House, Joyland, American... Read More →
avatar for Margaret Wilkerson Sexton

Margaret Wilkerson Sexton

Born and raised in New Orleans, MARGARET WILKERSON SEXTON studied creative writing at Dartmouth and law at U.C. Berkeley. A recipient of the Lombard fellowship, she spent a year in the Dominican Republic working for a civil rights organization and writing. Her work has been nominated... Read More →


Tuesday October 10, 2017 6:30pm - 8:00pm PDT
Mechanics' Institute Library 57 Post St., San Francisco CA 94104
  Featured   Wheelchair Accessible

7:00pm PDT

Naked on the Page: Six Memoirists Bare All
Ticket Link
"I have never seen a greater monster or miracle than myself." —Michel de Montaigne. Literary memoir transports us into the visceral reality of the life of the author. As we read, we walk as they do, talk as they do, but also fail, hurt, love. But what's it like to bear all? Memoirists Andrea Avery, Julie Barton, Elizabeth Farnsworth, Edward Guthmann, and Nancy Davis Kho discuss bleeding on the page with Juan Alvarado Valdivia. $10 adv / door


Moderators
avatar for Nancy Davis Kho

Nancy Davis Kho

Nancy Davis Kho is a writer in Oakland whose work has appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, Washington Post, The Rumpus, and anthologies including 2015’s Listen To Your Mother: What She Said Then, What We’re Saying Now (Putnam.) She’s a badge-wielding member of US Magazine’s... Read More →

Participants
avatar for Andrea Avery

Andrea Avery

Andrea Avery is the author of Sonata: A Memoir of Pain and the Piano (Pegasus Books). Her writing has appeared in Ploughshares, Real Simple, The Oxford American, and The Politics of Women's Bodies. She was the winner of Real Simple's second annual Life Lessons Essay Contest and a... Read More →
avatar for Julie Barton

Julie Barton

Julie Barton is the award winning New York Times bestselling author of Dog Medicine, How My Dog Saved Me From Myself, the story of Julie’s struggle with deep clinical depression and the salvation she found in the unwavering love of a big red dog. Julie has an MFA in Writing from... Read More →
avatar for Elizabeth Farnsworth

Elizabeth Farnsworth

ELIZABETH FARNSWORTH is a filmmaker, foreign correspondent, and former chief correspondent and principal substitute anchor of PBS’ NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. Her 2008 documentary, The Judge and the General, co-directed with Patricio Lanfranco, aired on television around the world... Read More →
avatar for Betsy Graziani Fasbinder

Betsy Graziani Fasbinder

In both her works of memoir and fiction, Betsy Graziani Fasbinder explores the unending complications of people living, working, and loving one another. As a practicing therapist for more than twenty years, she has been witness to the heartbreak, healing, and heroism of people from... Read More →
avatar for Edward Guthmann

Edward Guthmann

Edward Guthmann is a Bay Area journalist and author of the memoir Wild Seed: Searching for My Brother Dan. He was a staff writer and film critic at the San Francisco Chronicle for 25 years, where his writing won accolades from the California Newspaper Publishers Assn. and the American... Read More →
avatar for Juan Alvarado Valdivia

Juan Alvarado Valdivia

Juan Alvarado Valdivia is a Peruvian American writer who was born in Guadalajara, Mexico and raised in Fremont, CA. He is the author of ¡Cancerlandia!: A Memoir, which received a 2016 International Latino Book Award Honorable Mention for Best Biography in English. A short story... Read More →


Tuesday October 10, 2017 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT
San Francisco Center for the Book 375 Rhode Island St., San Francisco, CA 94103
  Featured   Wheelchair Accessible

8:00pm PDT

Liner Notes: Loudon Wainwright III with Chuck Prophet
Ticket Link
Co-presented by Amoeba Music

With a career spanning more than four decades, Loudon Wainwright III has established himself as one of America's most enduring singer-songwriters. His songs can be laugh-out-loud funny, but they also can cut to the bone. In his new memoir, Liner Notes: On Parents & Children, Exes & Excess, Death & Decay, & a Few of My Other Favorite Things, Wainwright details the fractured relationships in the Wainwright family throughout generations: the alcoholism, the infidelities, the competitiveness—as well as the closeness, the successes, and the joy. Wainwright performs some of his classics, and discusses his life and work with San Francisco singer/songwriter Chuck Prophet. $20 adv / $25 door

Participants
avatar for Loudon Wainwright III

Loudon Wainwright III

Loudon Wainwright III is a singer-songwriter and actor. In 1968 he began to write songs, and in 1969 recorded his first album. Wainwright has recorded twenty-seven albums, including his 2010 Grammy Award-winning High, Wide, & Handsome. His songs have been covered by Johnny Cash, Mose... Read More →
avatar for Chuck Prophet

Chuck Prophet



Tuesday October 10, 2017 8:00pm - 10:00pm PDT
Swedish American Hall 2174 Market St., San Francisco CA
  Featured   Wheelchair Accessible
 
Wednesday, October 11
 

6:30pm PDT

Maximum Punch, Minimum Words: The Short Fiction of Barry Gifford
Ticket Link
For 40 years and at least that many printed works, Barry Gifford has been known as a writer’s writer. Jonathan Lethem says he “invented his own American vernacular: William Faulkner by way of B-movie film noir, porn paperbacks, and Sun Records rockabilly.” According to Elmore Leonard, Gifford “cuts right through the heart.” And William Saroyan: “Barry Gifford is a great writer.” Tonight he discusses his new short fiction collection, The Cuban Club, with bestselling author Tom Barbash. $15 general public / FREE for Library members
Moderators
avatar for Tom Barbash

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 →

Participants
avatar for Barry Gifford

Barry Gifford

Barry Gifford is the author of more than 40 published works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, which have been translated into 28 languages. His most recent prose works are The Up-Down, Writers, Sad Stories of the Death of Kings, Imagining Paradise: New and Selected Poems, The Roy... Read More →


Wednesday October 11, 2017 6:30pm - 8:00pm PDT
Mechanics' Institute Library 57 Post St., San Francisco CA 94104
  Featured   Wheelchair Accessible

7:00pm PDT

M is for Marriage (and Mayhem)
Ticket Link
Thrillers don’t have to involve espionage or nuclear threats to be suspenseful. Sometimes the most frightening scenarios happen in the home. Michelle Richmond’s new novel The Marriage Pact has been called “a tense, twisting, quirky novel of growing dread” by blockbuster author Dean Koontz, and has drawn comparisons to Gone Girl and The Stepford Wives. In conversation with thriller and crime author David Corbett. $10 adv / door
Moderators
avatar for David Corbett

David Corbett

Former private investigator David Corbett is author of five novels as well as the writing guide The Art of Character. His book Done for a Dime (a New York Times Notable Book) was described by Patrick Anderson of the Washington Post as “one of the three or four best American crime... Read More →

Participants
avatar for Michelle Richmond

Michelle Richmond

Michelle Richmond is the New York Times bestselling author of the newly-released thriller, The Marriage Pact, which has been optioned for film and translated into 28 languages. Her previous novels include the 2014 literary thriller Golden State, which imagines modern-day California... Read More →


Wednesday October 11, 2017 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT
American Bookbinders Museum 355 Clementina St, San Francisco, CA 94107
  Featured   Wheelchair Accessible
 
Thursday, October 12
 

6:30pm PDT

Gotta Get Outta Here: Why We Love Science Fiction and Fantasy
Ticket Link
Why do people value entertainment and escapism above almost anything but food and shelter? Why do we plunge ourselves into made up worlds? Is it because reality sucks? Or because storytellers present worlds that are better than ours? And how do our minds respond to the impossible? We'll investigate these questions and yours, with the help of Nick Kanas M.D. (psychologist), Jonathan Keats (philosopher), and sci-fi/fantasy authors, Meg Elison, Pat Murphy, and Ransom Stephens. $15 general public / FREE for Library members
Participants
avatar for Meg Elison

Meg Elison

Meg Elison is the author of The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, Tiptree recommendation, Audie Award nominee and winner of the Philip K. Dick Award. Her sequel, The Book of Etta, was published in February 2017. She has also been published in McSweeney’s, The Establishment, Catapult... Read More →
avatar for Jonathon Keats

Jonathon Keats

Jonathon Keats is an experimental philosopher, writer and artist. He is the author of six books, most recently You Belong to the Universe: Buckminster Fuller and the Future, published by Oxford University Press. His conceptually-driven interdisciplinary art projects, hosted by institutions... Read More →
avatar for Nick Kanas M.D.

Nick Kanas M.D.

Nick Kanas, M.D., is an Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, where he was the Principal Investigator of NASA-funded research on astronauts. He is the author of Humans in Space: The Psychological Hurdles, which won the 2016 International... Read More →
avatar for Pat Murphy

Pat Murphy

Pat Murphy has won two Nebula Awards, the Philip K. Dick Award, the World Fantasy Award, the Seiun Award, and the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award. Her novels include The Falling Woman, The City Not Long After, Nadya: The Wolf Chronicles, Wild Angel, andAdventures in Time and Space... Read More →
avatar for Ransom Stephens

Ransom Stephens

Ransom Stephens, Ph.D., is the author of The Left Brain Speaks The Right Brain Laughs: a look at the neuroscience of innovation & creativity in art, science, & life (Viva Editions) His novels include The God Patent (47North), a perspective altering novel of science and religion, and... Read More →


Thursday October 12, 2017 6:30pm - 8:00pm PDT
Mechanics' Institute Library 57 Post St., San Francisco CA 94104
  Featured   Wheelchair Accessible

7:00pm PDT

A Night with Best American Essays
Ticket Link
Since 1986, Houghton Mifflin's The Best American Essays has delivered an annual treasure trove of fine writing and thought-provoking essays selected from hundreds of magazines, journals, and websites. Join us for a reading by some of California's leading contemporary essayists, Kendra Atleework, Richard M. Lange, Angela Morales, Karen Palmer, Jose Antonio Vargas, and Alia Volz. $10
Participants
avatar for Kendra Atleework

Kendra Atleework

Kendra Atleework is a writer born and raised in the Eastern Sierra Nevada mountains. She’s at work on a book of nonfiction about disaster, family, and history, taking off from her essay “Charade,” which appeared in The Best American Essays 2015. She lives in Minneapolis and... Read More →
avatar for Richard M. Lange

Richard M. Lange

Richard M. Lange’s short fiction has appeared in North American Review, Cimarron Review, Mississippi Review, Ping Pong, Portland Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, The William and Mary Review, Eclipse, Green Mountains Review, Georgetown Review and elsewhere. Two of his stories have... Read More →
avatar for Angela Morales

Angela Morales

Angela Morales, a graduate of the University of Iowa's nonfiction writing program, is the author of The Girls in My Town, a collection of personal essays. Her work has appeared in Best American Essays 2013, Harvard Review, The Southern Review, The Southwest Review, The Los Angeles... Read More →
avatar for Karen Palmer

Karen Palmer

Karen Palmer is author of the novels All Saints and Border Dogs. The recipient of an NEA fellowship and a Pushcart Prize, her work has appeared in Best American Essays 2017, Virginia Quarterly Review, The Kenyon Review, The Rumpus, Five Points, and others. She has taught at UCLA Extension... Read More →
avatar for Jose Antonio Vargas

Jose Antonio Vargas

Jose Antonio Vargas is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, filmmaker, and media entrepreneur. He is the founder and CEO of Define American, the nation’s leading non-profit media advocacy organization that uses storytelling to humanize the conversation around immigration, citizenship... Read More →
avatar for Alia Volz

Alia Volz

Alia Volz is a native daughter of San Francisco. Her writing is found in The Best American Essays 2017, Tin House, The New York Times, Threepenny Review, Nowhere Magazine, Utne Reader, New England Review and the recent anthologies Dig If You Will The Picture: Writers Remember Prince... Read More →


Thursday October 12, 2017 7:00pm - 9:00pm PDT
American Bookbinders Museum 355 Clementina St, San Francisco, CA 94107
  Featured   Wheelchair Accessible

7:00pm PDT

Harlem of the West: San Francisco's Jazzy Fillmore
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A limited number of seats will be available at the door.

Co-presented by Amoeba Music and SFJAZZ

Billie Holiday singing at the New Orleans Swing Club. Dexter Gordon hanging out at Bop City. Dizzy Gillespie, Lionel Hampton, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, all swinging through town for gigs. San Francisco's Fillmore District was once an eclectic, integrated, and hopping neighborhood dotted with restaurants, pool halls, theaters, and two dozen nightclubs and music joints, before vanishing abruptly from redevelopment in the 1960s. Celebrate this unique and rediscovered chapter in jazz history with Harlem of the West​: The San Francisco Fillmore Jazz Era co-author Elizabeth Pepin Silva and special guest musicians from the era​.​ $12 adv / $15 door
Participants
avatar for Elizabeth Pepin Silva

Elizabeth Pepin Silva

Elizabeth Pepin Silva is an award-winning documentary filmmaker, photographer, writer and former day manager of the historic Fillmore Auditorium. She holds a degree in Journalism from San Francisco State University.


Thursday October 12, 2017 7:00pm - 9:00pm PDT
Doc's Lab 124 Columbus Ave., San Francisco, CA 94111
  Featured   Wheelchair Accessible

8:00pm PDT

Parsing the President: Experts Discuss the Behavior of Donald J. Trump
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These are unprecedented times. Never before has our commander-in-chief’s behavior been so puzzling, so laughable, so…troubled? With so many Americans confounded by Trump’s irrational behavior, not to mention odd use of the English language, Litquake has assembled this panel of experts to shed some light. Senator Barbara Boxer addresses his political naiveté, linguist Geoffrey Nunberg helps parse his verbal tics, psychiatrist Dr. Dee Mosbacher sheds light on his mental state, and comedian Will Durst talks about finding humor in this un-funny crisis. Moderated by journalist and author David Talbot. Image by New Yorker cartoonist Tom Toro. Doors open 7 pm. $20 adv / $25 door
Moderators
avatar for David Talbot

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 →

Participants
avatar for Barbara Boxer

Barbara Boxer

Barbara Levy Boxer served 24 years in the U.S. Senate, ten years in the U.S. House of Representatives, and six years on the Marin County Board of Supervisors. While in office, she championed women’s rights, the environment, public education, tax cuts and consumer protections. Since... Read More →
avatar for Will Durst

Will Durst

The New York Times has called Will Durst “quite possibly the best political comedian working in the country today.” He now tours the country with his new one-man show, “Durst Case Scenario,” is featured in the comedian documentary 3 Still Standing, writes a nationally syndicated... Read More →
avatar for Dee Mosbacher

Dee Mosbacher

Dee Mosbacher, MD, PhD, is a psychiatrist, filmmaker, and social justice activist. As a public-sector psychiatrist, she has specialized in the treatment of patients with severe mental illness. She served as San Mateo County's Medical Director for Mental Health and Senior Psychiatrist... Read More →
avatar for Geoffrey Nunberg

Geoffrey Nunberg

Geoffrey Nunberg, a linguist, is a professor at the U.C. Berkeley School of Information. Since 1987, he has done a language feature on NPR’s “Fresh Air,” and his commentaries have appeared in The New York Times and many other publications. His previous books include Talking... Read More →


Thursday October 12, 2017 8:00pm - 10:00pm PDT
Swedish American Hall 2174 Market St., San Francisco CA
  Featured   Wheelchair Accessible
 
Friday, October 13
 

7:00pm PDT

SF Stories: When You Love A City, But It Doesn't Love You Back
Ticket Link
Co-presented by United Booksellers of San Francisco

Artist evictions, tech invasions―where will it end? These San Francisco stories wrest wisdom from chaos and channel boundless energy into artful narratives, demonstrating that grace and persistence are as much a measure of the city’s legacy as a determination of its future. The new anthology Your Golden Sun Still Shines illustrates San Francisco’s continuing legacy as home and beacon to the literary vanguard. Hosted by editor Denise Sullivan and contributor Tony Robles, with readings from Golden Sun writers and special guests, and stories/music from Victor Krummenacher and Alison Faith Levy. $5 adv / $10 door
Participants
avatar for Dee Allen

Dee Allen

Dee Allen is an African-Italian performance poet currently based in Oakland, California, who has been active on the creative writing & Spoken Word tips since the early 1990s. He is author of three books (Boneyard, Unwritten Law, and his newest, Stormwater), and 12 anthology appearances... Read More →
avatar for Patsy Creedy

Patsy Creedy

Patsy Creedy has lived and worked in San Francisco for nearly 30 years. She has always loved poetry, but has branched out into creative nonfiction and plain ole fiction. She recently completed an MA in creative writing, and now is pursuing an MFA at SF State and works as a nurse helping... Read More →
avatar for Kelly Dessaint

Kelly Dessaint

Kelly Dessaint drives a San Francisco taxi and writes a weekly column about his misadventures in the city streets for the San Francisco Examiner. An L.A. native exiled in Oakland with his wife and daughter, he is a veteran of the small press, author of the novel A Masque of Infamy... Read More →
avatar for John Goins

John Goins

John Goins, author of A Portrait in the Tenderloin and The Coptic Cross, was born in the southeast section of Washington D.C. He has worked as a dishwasher, library clerk, gardener, English teacher in Istanbul, telephone solicitor, phlebotomist and lab assistant. He also wrote briefly... Read More →
avatar for Raluca Ioanid

Raluca Ioanid

Raluca Ioanid was born in Communist Romania and raised in capitalist New York City. By day she is a Family Nurse Practitioner at a community health center in Fruitvale, Oakland. By night she is a traveling, trapeze-flying writer of stories. Her work has appeared in The Sun, Riverbabble... Read More →
avatar for Michael Koch

Michael Koch

Michael Koch is a poet, translator, visual artist and amateur percussionist whose Jamaican/Slavic roots only partly explain his passion for syncopation and absurdity. His published work has appeared in, among others, Beatitude, Hanging Loose, Toad Suck Review, River Styx, Five Fingers... Read More →
avatar for Victor Krummenacher

Victor Krummenacher

Victor Krummenacher is a musician and art director located in San Francisco. He’s played in a lot of bands, written a lot of songs, released a bunch of records and designed a lot of stuff. He is a co-founding member of Camper Van Beethoven. He tries to use his powers for good... Read More →
avatar for Alison Faith Levy

Alison Faith Levy

Alison Faith Levy has been a mainstay on the San Francisco music scene for decades. From her early years as a solo singer/songwriter, to touring and playing keyboards with indie darlings the Loud Family, to her tenure with the nationally-renowned psychedelic rock band for kids The... Read More →
avatar for Sylvia J Martinez

Sylvia J Martinez

Sylvia J. Martínez is a writer and adult school ESL teacher. Her work has appeared in In Media Res: Stories from the In-Between (WriteSpace 2016), The East Bay Review, Cipactli, Word Riot, Tattoo Highway, and the San Francisco Examiner, among others. She earned her MFA from San Francisco... Read More →
avatar for Alvin Orloff

Alvin Orloff

Alvin Orloff is the author of three whimsical queer novels: I Married an Earthling, Gutter Boys, and Why Aren’t You Smiling? and co-author of The Unsinkable Bambi Lake, a transgender showbiz memoir. He currently works at Dog Eared Books Castro, a quaint neighborhood bookstore, and... Read More →
avatar for Tony Robles

Tony Robles

Tony Robles is a San Francisco poet and author of the poetry/short story collection Cool Don't Live Here No More--A Letter to San Francisco, and the upcoming Fingerprints of a Hunger Strike, to be published by Ithuriel's Spear Press in late 2017. He was a Pushcart Prize nominee for... Read More →
avatar for Shizue Seigel

Shizue Seigel

Shizue Seigel is a third-generation Japanese American writer and visual artist who has lived in San Francisco since 1958. She loves the city’s ever-changing diversity, but misses the Fillmore, the old Mission and Japantown, fog and foghorns, working docks, the Belt Line. Her books... Read More →
avatar for Don Skiles

Don Skiles

Don Skiles is the author of Miss America and Other Stories, The James Dean Jacket Story, and the novel Football. His collection of short fiction, Rain After Midnight, was published in 2017 by Pelekinesis Press. He lives in San Francisco.
avatar for Barbara Stauffacher Solomon

Barbara Stauffacher Solomon

Barbara Stauffacher Solomon is a Swiss-trained graphic designer with a masters degree in architecture. An award-winning landscape artist, she conceived the signage and supergraphics at The Sea Ranch and Ghirardelli Square and the Ribbon of Light along the Embarcadero in San Francisco... Read More →
avatar for Denise Sullivan

Denise Sullivan

Denise Sullivan is a fourth-generation San Franciscan and editor of Your Golden Sun Still Shines. She writes about music, arts, and culture and her hometown, and is the author of six titles, including Keep on Pushing: Black Power Music From Blues to Hip Hop and the 2016 chapbook, Awful... Read More →


Friday October 13, 2017 7:00pm - 9:00pm PDT
Make-Out Room 3225 22nd St., San Francisco, CA 94110
  Featured   Wheelchair Accessible

7:00pm PDT

SOLD OUT! She Persisted: Readings by Women Who Refuse to Sit Down
Ticket Link
SOLD OUT!  An evening of straight-up readings from fabulous women who have no trouble speaking their minds—sometimes at top volume. This rich array of authors will bring the humor, the anger and the pathos to the podium. Fasten your seat belts. Book sales and signings to follow. $10 adv / $15 door
Participants
avatar for Carina Chocano

Carina Chocano

Carina Chocano is an L.A.-based journalist and author of You Play the Girl: On Playboy Bunnies, Stepford Wives, Train Wrecks, & Other Mixed Messages. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The New Yorker, New York, Vogue, Elle, Rolling Stone, and many others. A... Read More →
avatar for Amy Dresner

Amy Dresner

Amy Dresner is a former professional stand-up comic, having appeared at The Comedy Store, The Laugh Factory, and The Improv. She is also a former addict, turning her 20-year battle with substance abuse into My Fair Junkie: A Memoir of Getting Dirty and Staying Clean, which Margaret... Read More →
avatar for Lynn Freed

Lynn Freed

Born in South Africa, Lynn Freed is the author of ten books: novels, short fiction and nonfiction. She has two new releases: the novel The Last Laugh, and a book of travel essays, The Romance of Elsewhere. Her work has appeared in Harper's Magazine, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic... Read More →
avatar for Jane Ganahl

Jane Ganahl

Jane Ganahl is a journalist, columnist, author, anthology editor, and the co-founder of Litquake. She is working on a children’s book that will highlight her animal rescue work.
avatar for Janine Kovac

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 →
avatar for Elizabeth Podolinsky

Elizabeth Podolinsky

Elizabeth Podolinsky is the author of the humorous memoir Pretending to Pray In French, about the time she fled to France after a bad breakup, seeking love or at least a good time in the City of Lights. What could go wrong? Podolinsky’s essays on travel, food and health have... Read More →
avatar for Carolina De Robertis

Carolina De Robertis

Carolina De Robertis is a journalist, novelist and activist. She edited the recent anthology Radical Hope: Letters of Love and Dissent in Dangerous Times. She is the author of The Gods of Tango, as well as two previous novels, Perla, and The Invisible Mountain (chosen as a 2009 Best... Read More →


Friday October 13, 2017 7:00pm - 9:00pm PDT
American Bookbinders Museum 355 Clementina St, San Francisco, CA 94107
  Featured   Wheelchair Accessible

9:00pm PDT

Waiting for the Punch: Marc Maron and Brendan McDonald
Ticket Link

Co-presented by Craig Newmark Philanthropic Fund

Each week over a million and a half listeners tune into the podcast WTF with Marc Maron to hear Marc and a guest do something remarkable: talk. The best of those interviews has now been collected in the new collection Waiting for the Punch, a hilarious, honest, and powerful running narrative of the world’s most recognizable names working through the problems, doubts, joys, triumphs, and failures we all experience. Think of it as an everyman’s guide to life, except with Barack Obama, Bruce Springsteen, and Amy Schumer. Featuring WTF host Marc Maron, in conversation with WTF producer Brendan McDonald. Book sales and signing to follow. $30 adv / $35 door

Participants
avatar for Marc Maron

Marc Maron

Marc Maron is a stand-up comedian and host of the podcast WTF with Marc Maron. He has appeared in his own comedy specials on Comedy Central, HBO, and Netflix, his IFC sitcom Maron, and the Netflix series GLOW. He lives in Los Angeles.
avatar for Brendan McDonald

Brendan McDonald

Brendan McDonald is the producer of the podcast WTF with Marc Maron since its inception.


Friday October 13, 2017 9:00pm - 11:00pm PDT
Alamo Drafthouse Cinema at New Mission 2550 Mission St., San Francisco 94110
  Featured   Wheelchair Accessible
 

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