The clock is ticking on Litquake 2021. A few more days of hybrid programs are on tap—a co-production with Texas Book Festival, a Foglifter issue release at Strut, and Paul Auster with Eddie Muller. Then Lit Crawl San Francisco takes over the Misison after a year hiatus! Check out this incredible interactive Crawl map via Mission Local. See ya there!
“Dios aprieta, pero no ahorca” (“God squeezes, but He doesn’t strangle”)—the epigraph of Machete—sets the stage for a powerful poet who summons a variety of ways to endure life when there’s an invisible hand at your throat. In this new collection from Tomás Morín, culture crashes like waves and leaves behind Billie Holiday and the CIA, disco balls and Dante, the Bible and Jerry Maguire. They are long, lean, and dazzle in their telling: “Whiteface” is a list of instructions for people stopped by the police; “Duct Tape” lauds our domestic life from the point of view of the tape itself. One part Groucho Marx, one part Job, Morín considers our obsession with suffering—“the pain in which we trust”—and finds that the best answer to our predicament is sometimes anger, sometimes laughter, but always via the keen line between them that may be the sharpest weapon we have. In conversation with 2022 Texas Poet Laureate Lupe Mendez. FREE, $5-10 suggested donation (pre-registration required)
This is a live, virtual event held on Zoom Webinar.
Burning Boy: The Life of Stephen Crane with Paul Auster & Eddie Muller Friday, Oct. 22 · 5:00-6:30pm Zoom Webinar
Paul Auster, one of the major literary figures of our time, reads from and discusses his surprising new work, an exploration of the life and career of Stephen Crane, whose novels and short stories changed the course of fiction and journalism. Burning Boy: The Life and Work of Stephen Crane artfully balances in-depth biography with insightful literary criticism. In this exclusive Litquake event, Auster reveals what compelled him to plunge into an earlier era of American life and letters—and into the psyche of an ambitious and adventurous young writer, dead at 28, but who in a prodigious ten-year burst crafted a legacy that makes him one of the true giants of American literature. In conversation with noir expert Eddie Muller. FREE, $5-10 suggested donation (pre-registration required)
This is a live, virtual event held on Zoom Webinar.
Join Foglifter Press as they celebrate the new issue of their literary journal—a biannual compendium of the most dynamic, urgent queer and trans writing today. Based in San Francisco, Foglifter publishes queer and trans writers from around the world. It’s a space to celebrate, mourn, rage, and embrace. Featuring Tauheed Zaman, Sara Brody, Nefertiti Asanti, and Danny Thanh Nguyen. Emceed by Matthew DeCoster. FREE, $5-10 donation (pre-registration required)
Registrations are closed. If you registered, please arrive by 7pm to claim your spot. Walk-ups welcome, but space is limited.
Black Food Book Launch Party with Chef Bryant Terry Friday, Oct. 22 · 7:00–9:00pm Museum of African Diaspora
Co-presented by Museum of African Diaspora
Join MoAD and Litquake for a celebration of Bryant Terry’s groundbreaking new cookbook, Black Food: Stories, Art and Recipes from Across the African Diaspora, published by his newly Penguin Random House/Ten Speed Press-backed imprint 4 Color Books. Writer and organizer Shakirah Simley will facilitate a conversation between Terry, the book’s art director George McCalman, and the imprint’s creative director Amanda Yee, about the process of making Black Food as well as 4 Color’s plans to disrupt the publishing industry. Special invited guests who contributed art to Black Food include Demetri Broxton, Emory Douglas, Keba Konte and David Schmitz. SOLD OUT
Lit Crawl San Francisco is BACK! Saturday, Oct. 23 · 5:00-9:00pm
Live & In-Person, Indoor & Outdoor (weather permitting). Forecasted to be a bit wet so dust off the poncho and galoshes and get Crawlin'.
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.
