The California Palimpsest: Jaime Cortez & José Vadi Tuesday, Oct. 19 · 7:00-8:30pm California Historical Society
Sponsored by Yerba Buena Community Benefit District Co-presented by Alley Cat Books
From Jaime Cortez’s intimate pre-teen view of a 1970’s migrant camp near Watsonville (Gordo) to José Vadi’s cinematic and impassioned examination of California’s layered histories (Inter State: Essays from California), we are rooted inside necessary stories and places lost in our ever-changing, selectively Golden State. Join these two writers as they read from new essays and short stories that uncover with warmth, hilarity, and style the essential questions: What is this place we call home? And what do we imagine it can become? Discussion moderated by ZYZZYVA’s Oscar Villalon. FREE, $5-10 suggested donation (pre-registration required)
The Every with Dave Eggers & Thi Bui Tuesday, Oct. 19 · 7:00-8:15pm Zoom Webinar
To celebrate release of his new book The Every (McSweeney’s), celebrated author Dave Eggers will appear virtually in conversation with graphic novelist/illustrator Thi Bui (The Best We Could Do) A sequel to the runaway bestseller The Circle, The Every follows a former forest ranger and tech skeptic, Delaney Wells, as she tries to take down a dangerous monopoly from the inside. The Every was released only in independent bookstores on October 5. FREE, $5-10 donation (pre-registration required)
Concepcion: An Immigrant Family’s Fortunes w/ Albert Samaha & Jason Bayani Wednesday, Oct. 20 · 7:00-8:30pm American Bookbinders Museum
Sponsored by Yerba Buena Community Benefit District Co-presented by American Bookbinders Museum, Philippine American Writers and Artists, and Balay Kreative
Nearing the age at which his mother migrated to the US, when non-Europeans arrived after immigration quotas were relaxed in 1965, journalist Albert Samaha began to question the ironclad belief in a better future that had inspired her family to uproot themselves from their birthplace. Tracing his family’s history through the Philippine’s unique geopolitical roots in Spanish colonialism, American intervention, and Japanese occupation, in Concepcion Samaha fits their arc into an ambitious, intimate, and incisive exploration of what it might means to reckon with the unjust legacy of imperialism, to live with contradiction and hope, to fight for the unrealized ideals of an inherited homeland. In conversation with Kearny Street Workshop’s Jason Bayani. FREE, $5-10 donation (pre-registration required)
San Francisco Neo-Futurists: The Infinite Wrench Wednesday, Oct. 20 · 8:00–9:30pm (Doors at 7pm) Children's Creativity Museum
Sponsored by Yerba Buena Community Benefit District Co-presented by SF Sketchfest
Join the SF Neo-Futurists as they present The Infinite Wrench: an ongoing, ever-changing attempt to perform 30 plays in 60 minutes for a live audience. “An underground power generator”—San Francisco Chronicle. Doors 7pm, show 8pm; $20 adv / $22 door
Chang-rae Lee and Natalie Baszile in Conversation Wednesday, Oct. 20 · 7:00–8:30pm St. Joseph's Art Society
Sponsored by St. Joseph's Art Society Co-presented by Goethe-Institut San Francisco
Two gifted storytellers (and real-life friends) meet on the stage of the extraordinary St. Joseph’s Arts Society to talk about spinning tales from family lore, the different challenges of writing fiction vs. nonfiction, and anything else they please! Chang-rae Lee’s latest bestseller is My Year Abroad, which the New York Times Book Review called “a manifesto to happiness—the one found when you stop running from who you are.” And Natalie Baszile recently followed up her mega-bestselling Queen Sugar with We Are Each Other’s Harvest: Celebrating African American Farmers, Land, and Legacy, an anthology Time magazine called “a moving collection about identity, food and community.” $15 (pre-registration required)
The Relic Report: San Francisco’s Monuments Wednesday, Oct. 20 · 7:00-8:30pm California Historical Society
Sponsored by Yerba Buena Community Benefit District Co-presented with Goethe-Institut and New Monuments Taskforce
The Relic Report is an unofficial municipal study of San Francisco’s monuments and memorials and their intersection with our country’s racist history. The two-part publication documents a playful investigation of monuments in the city’s civic art collection, and reflects on what to do next. A research guide of sorts, Part One intends to provide fodder for critical conversations, and Part Two includes a creative culmination of participants’ reflections as well as recommendations from the New Monuments Taskforce. Relic Report author Cheyenne Concepcion and NMT’s Anna Lisa Escobedo discuss and present slides. FREE, $5-10 suggested donation (pre-registration required)
REGISTRATION IS CLOSED—WE ENCOURAGE THOSE WHO HAVE TICKETS TO ARRIVE EARLY. WE WILL START LETTING IN WALK-UPS AT 7 PM.
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.
