Dear John, When devorah major read her invocation on opening night, it was impossible to know just how prophetic her words would be. But soon audiences arrived, giddy to be back roaming San Francisco, or beaming in from China and Scotland, Iowa and New York. All in search of the erudite, the comical, the profane. All in search of words. Authors met their readers, intertwined their voices with new friends, walked onto the city’s stages ready to share after years away.
An excerpt from devorah major’s 2021 festival invocation poem, “Celebration in the Time of Masks”
We thank you supporters. We applaud you authors. We hail you readers. Litquake is a celebration of words, transporting and transformative. Litquake is a celebration of you: the Bay Area with its scads of word tinkerers, linking phrases to soul and ideals, and word lovers ready and willing to dive in. Here’s to joy, here’s to words. Thank you! Jack Boulware and Jane Ganahl, Litquake co-founders
PS. Through all the twists and turns of these last two years, Litquake has continued to place Bay Area writers in front of larger audiences and cast a wider net into the world of readers. Now help us bring this banquet of voices, of ideas, of issues to even more in 2022.
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: Alta Magazine, Amazon Literary Partnerships, California Arts Council, California College of the Arts, California Humanities, Center for the Art of Translation, City National Bank, Craig Newmark Philanthropies, Grants for the Arts, HarperOne, Margaret and William R. Hearst III Foundation, Mary A Crocker Trust, Miner Anderson Family Foundation, Mystery Writers of America, Northern California Chapter, National Endowment for the Arts, National Endowment for the Humanities, The Bernard Osher Foundation, Poetry Foundation, San Francisco Public Library, Swinerton Family Fund, University of San Francisco's MFA Program, Yerba Buena Community Benefit District, 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, 7x7, KQED, Bay Area Reporter, Johnny Funcheap.
