Opening Weekend is upon us! There are a whopping 18 events to check out below—about half online and half in-person.
As always, there's something for everyone: our in-person Word/Jazz event at Local Edition, writing panels at Contemporary Jewish Museum, and poets at Grace Cathedral.
Online, we're featuring over a dozen international authors, as well as film screenings and chats about literature's artificial intelligence-driven future.
See you there!
Word/Jazz Friday, Oct. 8 · 7:00-9:00pm Local Edition
Sponsored by Yerba Buena Community Benefit District Co-presented by Healdsburg Jazz Festival
In the great tradition of San Francisco jazz and spoken-word basement readings first forged by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Kenneth Rexroth, and Bob Kaufman, Litquake is proud to bring back this festival favorite, showcasing world-class poets accompanied by improvised music created on the spot. With Genny Lim, devorah major, Paul S. Flores, and Brontez Purnell. Music by the Marcus Shelby Trio. Doors at 5pm for cocktails. $20 adv / $22 door
The Removed with Brandon Hobson & Tommy Orange Friday, Oct. 8 · 7:00-8:30pm Zoom Webinar
Drawing deeply on Cherokee folklore, The Removed (Ecco) from National Book Award finalist Brandon Hobson seamlessly blends the real and spiritual to excavate the deep reverberations of trauma—a meditation on family, grief, home, and the power of stories on both a personal and ancestral level. In the fifteen years since their teenage son, Ray-Ray, was killed in a police shooting, the Echota family has been suspended in private grief. With the family’s annual bonfire approaching—an occasion marking both the Cherokee National Holiday and Ray-Ray’s death—the mother Maria attempts to call the family together from their physical and emotional distances once more. But as the bonfire draws near, each of them feels a strange blurring of the boundary between normal life and the spirit world. In conversation with Tommy Orange. FREE, $5-10 suggested donation (pre-registration required)
This is a pre-recorded event held on Zoom Webinar. There will be no author Q&A.
Co-sponsored by Poets & Writers and USF's MFA in Writing
Litquake returns to San Francisco’s gothic and gorgeous Grace Cathedral for a special evening of exalted verse, celebrating the sacred and profane, domestic and divine, with poetry in the pews from Sandra Lim, Forrest Gander, Miguel Murphy, Danusha Lameris, and Derrick Austin. Curated and hosted by D.A. Powell. FREE, $5-10 suggested donation (pre-registration required)
This program is indoors. Mask and proof of vaccination are required at the door. Please read the requirements at litquake.org/covid.
The Capote Tapes Saturday Oct. 9 · 10:00–11:30pm Zoom Webinar
Sponsored by San Francisco Chronicle Co-presented by SFFILM
Answered Prayers was meant to be Truman Capote’s greatest masterpiece, an epic portrait of New York’s glittering jet-set society. Instead, it sparked the downfall of the iconic author of Breakfast at Tiffany’s and In Cold Blood. Through never-before-heard audio archives and interviews with Capote’s famous friends and infamous enemies, The Capote Tapes documentary reveals the rise and fall of one of America’s most influential writers and public figures. This is a virtual conversation with director Ebs Burnough and San Francisco Chronicle arts & culture reporter Tony Bravo. To rent movie, follow link below. Zoom Webinar starts at 7 pm. FREE, $5-10 donation (pre-registration required).
Come Fly the World: The Jet-Age Story of the Women of Pan Am Sunday Oct. 10 · 8:00–9:30pm Zoom Webinar
Glamour, danger, liberation: in a Mad Men–era of commercial flight, Pan American World Airways stewardesses of the ’60s and ’70s were far more than pretty faces. They were college-educated, spoke two languages and would come to play important roles on the world stage while breaking down barriers to gender equality. Join us for a conversation with author Julia Cooke, whose bestseller Come Fly the World “offers a front-row view of history” (The Washington Post). FREE, $5-10 suggested donation (pre-registration required)
This is a live, virtual event held on Zoom Webinar.
Reading, Writing, Robots: AI and Literature Sunday Oct. 10 · 9:30–11:00pm Zoom Webinar
Co-presented by City Lights Booksellers & Publishers, Gray Area, The Grid, Goethe-Institut San Francisco
When GPT-3, OpenAI’s language generator, launched last year, people across the Internet fed it reams of literary data to create poems, plays, scripts and stories. Computational tools allow distant reading at a scale far beyond the scope of human comprehension. As texts become data and algorithms become co-authors, some futurists speculate that humans will relinquish creative fields to machines. In the work of authorship and analysis, artificial intelligence promises to remake the landscape of literature as we have long known it. Yet, literary history is replete with work composed by, with and for machines, from Pāṇini’s pioneering work in generative grammar to the avant-garde poetry of Dada and OuLiPo. Join Catherine Flynn, Chen Quifan, and Robin Sloan for a spirited discussion of AI’s influence on how we read and how we write. FREE, $5-10 suggested donation (pre-registration required)
This is a live, virtual event held on Zoom Webinar.
About Litquake Litquake seeks to foster interest in literature, perpetuate a sense of literary community, and provide a vibrant forum for Bay Area writing as a complement to the city's music, film, and cultural festivals. 2021 Dates: Oct. 7-23. www.litquake.org
Litquake is grateful for the support of the following funders who help make our programming possible. Institutional Giving: California Arts Council, California College of the Arts, California Institute of Integral Studies, Center for the Art of Translation, Chronicle Books, Craig Newmark Philanthropies, Grants for the Arts, HarperOne, Margaret and William R. Hearst III Foundation, Miner Anderson Family Foundation, Mystery Writers of America, Northern California Chapter, The Bernard Osher Foundation, Stanford Continuing Studies, Swinerton Family Fund, Yerba Buena Gardens Festival, Zellerbach Foundation. Individual Giving: Frances Dinkelspiel and Gary Wayne, Margaret and Will Hearst, Scott James and Gerald Cain, Nion McEvoy, Craig Newmark, and Nicole Miner and Robert Mailer Anderson. Media Sponsors: San Francisco Chronicle, 7 X 7, KQED, Bay Area Reporter, Johnny Funcheap, and KALW 91.7
