7:00pm PDT
Black Klansman: Race, Hate, and the Undercover Investigation of a Lifetime
Moderators 
Michael Warr is Poetry Editor for
Of Poetry & Protest: From Emmett Till to Trayvon Martin. The Black Caucus of the American Library Association called his most recent collection of poems The Armageddon of Funk, “a soundtrack for Black life.” Other awards include a Gwendolyn Brooks Significant Illinois Poets Award, an NEA Creative Writing Fellowship, a Creative Work...
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Ron Stallworth is a 32-year, highly decorated, law enforcement veteran, who worked undercover narcotics, vice, criminal intelligence and organized crime beats in four states. As the first black detective in the history of the Colorado Springs Police Department, Ron overcame fierce...
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6:00pm PDT
Metaphors in the Mission: Poetry at Alley Cat Books
Authors and Participants 
Jason Bayani is the author of Amulet (Write Bloody Publishing, 2013). He is an MFA graduate from Saint Mary's College, a Kundiman fellow, and works as the Artistic Director for Kearny Street Workshop. Jason performs regularly around the country and recently debuted his solo theater...
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MK Chavez is the author of Mothermorphosis, and Dear Animal. She is a recipient of the 2017 Pen Oakland Josephine Miles Award and Alameda County Arts Leadership Award. Her latest publications can be found in bags of coffee from Nomadic Coffee and online at Academy of American Poets...
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Heather June Gibbons is the author of the poetry collection Her Mouth as Souvenir, winner of the 2017 Agha Shahid Ali Poetry Prize from the University of Utah Press. She is also the author of two chapbooks, and her poems have appeared widely in literary journals. A graduate of the...
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Brian Laidlaw is a poet-songwriter originally from the Bay Area. He has released the poetry collections Amoratorium (Paper Darts Press) and The Stuntman (Milkweed Editions), each of which includes a companion album of original music; another book called The Mirrormaker is forthcoming...
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Susie Meserve is a poet, essayist, blogger, and mother. Her personal essays have appeared in the New York Times, Elle, Salon.com, and the book anthology Show Me All Your Scars: True Stories of Living with Mental Illness. Her debut poetry collection, Little Prayers, won the 2018...
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Aaron Shurin is the author of thirteen books of poetry and prose, most recently Flowers & Sky: Two Talks (Entre Rios Books), The Skin of Meaning: Collected Literary Essays and Talks (University of Michigan Press, 2016) and Citizen, a collection of prose poems (City Lights Books...
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Kathleen Winter's second book, I will not kick my friends (2018), won the 2017 Elixir Poetry Prize. Her debut collection, Nostalgia for the Criminal Past, won the Texas Institute of Letters first book award. Her poems have appeared in Tin House, Agni, New Statesman, New Republic...
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7:00pm PDT
Bay Area Pun-Off: Litquake Edition
Authors and Participants 
Producer and Co-Emcee Carmen Olson has been with the Bay Area Pun-Off since day one, and has built an army of punsters and dedicated enthusiasts that come back month after month. Whether it’s a large-scale event or an intimate puppet show in a suitcase, if you swirl around theater...
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Founder and Co-Emcee Jonah Spear has appeared on screen in We Are The Hartmans and Across The Universe, on TV in Sex and the City, and under the bigtop in Cirque Du Soleil. He’s a lifelong camp counselor and met Carmen and Hana at Camp Grounded before starting
Camp Wonderful, a summer camp for grown ups on the east coast. He’s most grateful to the O. Henry Pun-Off World Championship for inspiration, his parents for never letting a pun slip by without a chuckle, and to the countless amazing punsters that come out to the Bay Area Pun-Off to ply their...
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6:00pm PDT
Andy Weir: From Silicon Valley to Mars
Moderators 
Kishore Hari is a science educator who specializes in producing innovative live science events. He is director of the Bay Area Science Festival, which is based out of the University of California, San Francisco. Hari hosts Mother Jones’ weekly science podcast "Inquiring Minds...
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Andy Weir built a career as a software engineer until the success of his first published novel, The Martian, allowed him to live out his dream of writing fulltime. His second novel Artemis appeared in paperback this year. He is a lifelong space nerd and a devoted hobbyist of subjects...
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7:00pm PDT
Bad Poetry & Bad Stories: A Celebration of the Awful in All of Us
Authors and Participants 
Steve Almond is the author of eight books of fiction and nonfiction, including the New York Times bestsellers Candyfreak and Against Football. His short stories have been anthologized widely, in the Best American Short Stories, The Pushcart Prize, Best American Erotica, and Best American...
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Matthew Zapruder is the author of four collections of poetry, most recently Come On All You Ghosts, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and Sun Bear, as well as Why Poetry, a book of prose, from Ecco Press/Harper Collins. An Associate Professor in the MFA at Saint Mary’s...
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11:00am PDT
Elder Project All-Stars
Moderators 
Lisa Galloway is a queer San Francisco-based poet with an MFA from Pacific University. A 2014 Lambda Literary Fellow, she’s the author of the chapbook Liminal: A Life of Cleavage published by Lost Horse Press. She directs and teaches poetry for Litquake’s Elder Writing Project...
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7:00pm PDT
Poetry World Series
Authors and Participants 
Dan Bellm has published four books, most recently Deep Well; Practice won the CA Book Award and was named a top ten poetry book of 2008 by VQR. Awards include fellowships from Yaddo, Dorset Colony House, CA Arts Council, and NEA.
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.
Daniel Handler is the author of six novels, most recently All the Dirty Parts, and far too many books as Lemony Snicket, most recently The Bad Mood and the Stick. His essay on the Eurythmics album Savage is still considered definitive.
Lee Herrick's books are This Many Miles from Desire, Gardening Secrets of the Dead, and Scar and Flower, forthcoming. He teaches at Fresno City College and Sierra Nevada College.
Vanessa Hua is a columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle and the author of a short story collection, Deceit and Other Possibilities, and a debut novel, A River of Stars. For two decades, she has been writing, in journalism and fiction, about Asia and the diaspora. She has received...
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David Tomas Martinez is author of the poetry collections Hustle (2014) and Post-Traumatic Hood Disorder (2018). A CantoMundo Fellow, he has served as an editor for Gulf Coast.
Brittany Perham is the author of Double Portrait, which won the Barnard Women Poets Prize, and The Curiosities. She teaches at Stanford University.
Brynn Saito, MA, MFA, is the author of two books of poetry, Power Made Us Swoon (2016) and The Palace of Contemplating Departure (2013), winner of the Benjamin Saltman Award from Red Hen Press and a finalist for the Northern California Book Award. She also co-authored, with Traci...
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Melissa Stein is author of the poetry collections Terrible Blooms (Copper Canyon Press) and Rough Honey, winner of the APR/Honickman First Book Prize. She is a freelance editor in San Francisco.
7:15pm PDT
Literary Death Match
Authors and Participants 
Mac Barnett is a New York Times-bestselling author of stories for children. His books have sold more than one million copies in the United States and have been translated into more than 30 languages. His picture books include two Caldecott-Honor-winning collaborations with Jon Klassen...
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Chris Colin is the author most recently of What to Talk About, and This Is Camino, which was nominated for a James Beard award. He's written about gay bus trips through the south, Obama’s Irish roots, endangered noodles, refugee theater, George Bush’s pool boy, solitary confinement...
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Karinda Dobbins is a stand-up comedian. She’s appeared at the Bridgetown Comedy Festival; featured at Bay Area comedy clubs the Punch Line and Cobb’s; opened for Hari Kondabolu, Trevor Noah, and toured with W. Kamau Bell. Karinda made her primetime national television debut on...
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Meg Elison is a science fiction author and feminist essayist. Her debut novel, The Book of the Unnamed Midwife, won the 2014 Philip K. Dick award. Her second novel was a finalist for the Philip K. Dick, and both were longlisted for the James A. Tiptree award. She has been published...
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Vernon Keeve III is a Virginia-born writer whom California molded into an educator. He lives and teaches in Oakland. His purpose is to teach the next generation the importance of relaying their personal narratives, sharing their experiences, and taking control of their destinies...
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Maisha Z. Johnson is an award-winning writer and digital content strategist who writes and works where the arts meet social change. As a queer Black survivor of Trinidadian descent, she dedicates her work to amplifying marginalized voices with healing, humor, and radical truth-telling...
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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...
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K.M. Soehnlein is recipient of the Lambda Literary Award (novel); the Henfield Prize (short fiction); and the SFFILM/Rainin Filmmaking Grant (screenwriting). Author of the novels The World of Normal Boys (2000), You Can Say You Knew Me When (2005), and Robin and Ruby (2010). Published...
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Wednesday October 17, 2018 7:15pm - 9:00pm PDT
Elbo Room
6:00pm PDT
6:30pm PDT
The City Is Already Speaking: The Sound of Calle 24
Authors and Participants 
Josiah Luis Alderete is a full-blooded Pocho indio who refries his beans and poesia in Spanglish. He was one of the founding members of outspoken word troupe The Molotov Mouths, and is also a radio insurgente whose stories have aired on KALW and KPFA. He was deported from La Misión...
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Simon Crafts is a poet and bookseller at Alley Cat Books. He shares a birthday with Walter Benjamin and Roky Erickson.
Flavia Elisa is an immigrant artivist from Mexico, raised in San Francisco. Her writing focuses on her experience as an immigrant chingonx, spiritual old soul, on her role in intersectional feminism, and the systematic oppression of POC.
E.K. Keith is a Latinx poet who calls San Francisco home and calls Texas regularly to keep in touch with her family. She organizes Poems Under the Dome, the annual open mic celebration of poetry inside San Francisco’s City Hall. Nomadic Press will release her book Ordinary Villains in...
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Born and raised in San Francisco, Thea Matthews is a queer Black and Mexican American awarded poet, spoken-word artist, activist, curator, bruja, revolutionary, collaborator, and researcher. She writes on the complexities of trauma, grief, resiliency, and ultimately, triumph over...
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Linda Noel is a Native Californian of the Koyungkowi people from the Northern Sierra. She has been included in many anthologies and is Poet Laureate Emerita of Ukiah, California.
Raul Ruiz is a poet and current participant in the experimental vocal noise group Foreignfire (
www.foreignfire.com).
Kim Shuck embraces the fool and jester qualities of being a modern poet and artist. She is a devotee of San Francisco, whose hills she wanders nearly always on foot. Her maternal grandparents met at the Polish Hall on Shotwell, and she spent many hours with her mother and grandmother...
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Denise Sullivan is an author, journalist, cultural worker, and literary organizer originally from the Ingleside District who has lived and worked in Atlanta and Los Angeles, the Mission and the Haight. A former member of the Modern Times Bookstore Collective, and co-founder of the...
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Ricardo Tavarez’s writing is influenced by culture, labor history and activism. He co-founded Pan Dulce Poets and is part of La Brigada, a collective that organizes the International Flor Y Canto Literary Festival. His writing has appeared in Acentos Review, Cipactli Journal, Occupoetry, and...
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7:00pm PDT
Word for Word: Octavio Solis
Moderators 
Oscar Villalon is the managing editor of ZYZZYVA. His reviews, essays, and interviews have been published in VQR, Zocalo, The Believer, Lit Hub, The Daily Beast, and many other publications. A former board member of the National Book Critics Circle, and past book editor of the San...
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Sheila Balter has worked at theaters in the Bay Area and beyond, and has been a member of Word for Word Performing Arts Company for over 20 years. She acts with the company and has branched out into directing several of their productions, including work by Tobias Wolff, Sandra Cisneros...
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Author of over 20 plays, Octavio Solis is considered by many to be one of the most prominent Latino playwrights in America. With works that both draw on and transcend the Mexican-American experience, he is a writer and director whose style defies formula, examining the darkness, magic...
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Thursday October 18, 2018 7:00pm - 9:00pm PDT
Elbo Room
7:00pm PDT
Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin: Arwen Curry & Michael Chabon (SOLD OUT!)
Moderators
Authors and Participants 
Arwen Curry (Project Director) served as Associate Producer and Archivist of the PBS American Masters film EAMES: The Architect and the Painter (2011), and associate-produced both American Jerusalem: Jews and the Making of San Francisco (2013), and the acclaimed HBO film Regarding...
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7:30pm PDT
Rachel Kushner: Voice of Witness
Moderators 
Caille Millner is the author of The Golden Road: Notes on my Gentrification (Penguin Press). Her short fiction has appeared in Zyzzyva and Joyland, and Best American Short Stories 2016. Her essays have been in Michigan Quarterly Review, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and listed...
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Mohammed "Mike" Ali grew up in the Bay Area after his family immigrated to the United States from Fiji. Growing up romanticizing gang life, he escalated through youth detention, jails, and prisons before landing in solitary confinement in a private immigration detention facility in...
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Mateo Hoke is a writer, oral historian, and mixed-media journalist. His newest book, Six by Ten: Stories from Solitary explores the mental, physical, and spiritual impacts of America’s widespread embrace of solitary confinement. He previously spent four years interviewing and...
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Rachel Kushner is the bestselling author of The Flamethrowers, a finalist for the National Book Award and a New York Times Top Ten Book of 2013. Her first novel, Telex from Cuba, was also a finalist for the National Book Award. Her latest novel is The Mars Room. She lives in Los...
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7:00pm PDT
7:00pm PDT
One Dumb Guy: Kids in the Hall with Paul Myers
Authors and Participants 
Paul Myers is a Canadian writer and musician living in Berkeley, California. His previous books include the critically acclaimed A Wizard A True Star: Todd Rundgren in the Studio; It Ain’t Easy: Long John Baldry and the Birth of the British Blues; and Barenaked Ladies: Public Stunts...
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12:30pm PDT
5:00pm PDT
