| Hello Litquakers,
We’ve been busy, among other things, plotting, scheming, arranging, bartering, building, drafting, dreaming, concocting, conspiring, contriving, cooking, devising, designing, divining, formulating, hatching, incentivizing, investing, machinating, maneuvering, mapping, negotiating, ruminating, and zesting. Boy, have we been zesting.
There’s a great literary shift happening here in the city, and we’re shifting with it. We have a new leader at our helm and we’re at work with a crop of curators we couldn’t be more excited about. In the coming weeks, you’ll get to meet them and find out exactly who’s behind the West Coast’s largest literary festival. For now, let’s start with our new Executive Director. Scroll down to read a short interview with Norah! |
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Hi, Norah! Let’s start small. In your humble opinion, what’s the very best word to say out loud?
Badinage.
Nice one. What’s your favorite banned book of all time?
Too many books that I love (and that I’ve enjoyed reading with my kids) have been banned or challenged, especially recently, so this is a distressingly difficult question. But I think I have to mention Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, which are among my very favorite books. The fervor has died down somewhat now, but the first book in the trilogy was at one point the second-most challenged book in the US.
Who’s the author, dead or alive, that you’d most like to have dinner with? And describe the meal!
I’ve always enjoyed Laurie Colwin’s writing—she died suddenly when she was only in her late 40s, so although she published prolifically before then, I of course wish she had more time to live and write. I particularly admire her essays on food and cooking, so I’d love to spend time just cooking with her and talking with her about food, and then enjoying a simple but exquisite homemade meal together. Since it’s that time of year, I think we’d bake her tomato cheddar pie, which I make every late summer when the tomatoes are at their most glorious. As she writes, “It is hard to describe how delicious this is, especially on a hot day with a glass of magnificent iced tea in a beautiful setting.”
Sounds delicious. We need a Litquake potluck, stat! What book would you most like to be a character in?
I was going to choose a book with fabulous fashion (like The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton) or magnificent food (like “Babette’s Feast” by Isak Dinesen) but if I’m really going to do this right, I think I’ve got to go with a novel with serious magic. Something like N.K. Jemisin’s The City We Became— the stakes are high and the danger is real, but how epic would it be to become the human embodiment of a city? What kind of person would San Francisco choose as its avatar? Or Berkeley, where I live?
Okay, last question. What do you think the Bay Area has to offer literature now?
I think writers and artists of all kinds possess the potential to counteract the prevailing media narrative about the Bay Area. It’s not that there’s no truth to the predominant stories about extreme wealth inequality, housing insecurity, and other crises—but writers have the ability to complicate those narratives and also remind us of the beauty, creativity, and eccentricity that still persist here and that make this such a singular place. I’m proud that Litquake celebrates and amplifies that essential work.
Thanks, Norah! We’re proud to have you on the team.
Before taking up the helm at Litquake, Norah Piehl was the Director of Literary Programs at the Bay Area Book Festival in Berkeley, California. Previously, during a decade at the Boston Book Festival, she held several positions, including Executive Director from 2019–2021. There, in addition to developing the festival’s fiction, young adult, and year-round programming, she was also part of the committee that produced Lit Crawl Boston. A former bookseller, Piehl is also an active book reviewer and critic, as well as a member of the National Book Critics Circle. She holds a master's degree in English literature from the University of Illinois and a bachelor's degree from St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota. She lives with her family in Berkeley. |
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Erica Jong - Breaking the Wall
Tuesday July 25, 2023 • 12:30pm
Vogue Theater • 3290 Sacramento St, SF, CA
Tickets: $15 - $18 Erica Jong’s debut novel Fear of Flying (1973) shook the literary world with its honest depictions of sexual desire from a woman’s perspective. She sold over 12.5 million copies by her 31st birthday and quickly became an icon for second-wave feminism. Filmed in New York City during the pandemic, this unconventional documentary provides Jong with the time and space to meditate on her long career from a distance. She reflects on the pitfalls of early fame, her insecurities, her changing relationship with her artistic parents and sister, her four marriages and how her identity became synonymous with her writing. |
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Burning Off the Page
Thursday, July 27, 2023 • 12:30pm
Vogue Theater • 3290 Sacramento St, SF, CA
Tickets: $15 - $18
This fascinating documentary about Russian-born American Yiddish poet and fiction writer Celia Dropkin (1887–1956) celebrates her unabashed writing about the female body and sexual liberation. Considered radical during her lifetime, her work defied gender norms and complicated traditional narratives and boundaries. In this film, powerful dramatic readings, archival footage, historic recordings, and dazzling animations bring her pioneering poems to life. |
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Litquake Weekly Literary news, upcoming events, and whatever else we’re looking at... “If you can’t fix the problem, you can at least expose it. If that doesn’t work, then conjure a fiction or a half-truth or an exaggeration, a parable that gets your meaning across with brutal efficiency, whether that’s a true crime podcast or a false etymology.” Why linguistic determinism is clouding our judgement, and the importance of holistic language analysis • The New Inquiry
“Call it a one-man campaign to dispel the notion that poets are self-serious. Anyone who watches Holbert taste shampoo will have to concede that it’s working.” Oakland resident, Wallace Stegner Fellow, and Max Ritvo Poetry Prize winner Jackson Holbert has a new collection called Winter Stranger • San Francisco Chronicle’s Datebook
“There’s something inherently hopeful about bookshops. Safe havens for diverse minds, the best transmit a sense of possibility and community. It’s no surprise that novels set in them abound.” Do you like reading books about people who like to read books? Then we have two more books for you • NPR
“The city is asking for your ideas on whether and how to expand, rebuild, or relocate Oakland’s biggest public library.” Add a branch? More events? Expand the sci-fi section? Oakland needs your takes! • Oaklandside
“The novel draws on Etter’s own time working in Silicon Valley and her own experiences of loss and depression, as well as hours of research into the science of black holes.” In Ripe, Sarah Rose Etter confronts the surreality of San Francisco, wealth disparity, and the tech industry • Electric Literature |
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