Runway Stories: Litquake Edition Thursday Oct 17 · 7:00 - 9:00pm Radium Runway Four storytellers of Moth Storyslam and Grandslam fame curated by JP Frary plus four Litquake authors take this beautiful outdoor stage for Runway Stories as we hear tales centered around the theme, "First Love.” $20 adv / $25 door / $49 VIP (incl premium seating and 2 drinks)
Creation Lake: Rachel Kushner with John Freeman Thursday Oct 17 · 7:30 - 9:00pm Verdi Club From Rachel Kushner, a two-time Booker Prize finalist, and three-time National Book Award finalist comes a new novel about a seductive and cunning American spy of ruthless tactics, bold opinions, and clean beauty who infiltrates an anarchist collective in France. Moderated by editor and critic John Freeman. $17 adv / $20 door
FRIDAY
Alta Presents the California Book Club Friday Oct 18 · 7:30 - 9:00pm Verdi Club In its four years of existence, Alta Journal’s California Book Club has celebrated some of the West’s most important literary voices. Join Alta, Litquake, and California Book Club host John Freeman as we welcome past CBC guests Jaime Cortez, Andrew Sean Greer, and Maxine Hong Kingston for a close reading of the new California canon and a celebration of the authors capturing the spirit of the West. This evening is designed for the Bay Area’s most adventurous book lovers—and will include live music, a visit from a late literary legend, book signings, a cash bar, and a giveaway you won’t want to miss! Ticket includes the latest issue of Alta Journal. Doors at 7:00pm. $17 adv  / $20 door
Unforgettable Sleuths Friday Oct 18 · 7:15 - 9:00pm The Lost Church Nordic Noir master Thomas Enger (Stigma) and National Book Award nominee Ramona Emerson (Exposure) are joined by Michelle Chouinard (The Serial Killer Guide to San Francisco) and Nina Simon (Mother-Daughter Murder Night), whose Bay Area–set mysteries feature home-grown amateur sleuths. $18 Â
SATURDAY
How to Get Free: Healing in the USA Saturday Oct 19 · 7:30 - 9:00pm 111 Minna Gallery Three writers, three radical visions of healing in America today. Decorated, award-winning poets and journalists Morgan Parker (You Get What You Pay For), Carvell Wallace (Another Word for Love), and sam sax’s (Yr Dead) recent transformative works reimagine the conventions of self-love in a world that wasn’t built for you. Moderated by The Stacks podcast founder and host, Traci Thomas. $17 adv / $20 door
Poetry World Series Saturday Oct 19 · 7:00 - 9:00pm Make Out Room Two teams of award-winning poets, including Armen Davoudian, Luiza Flynn-Goodlett, Cindy Ok, Joseph Rios, Mimi Tempestt, and Dashaun Washington, take turns batting at topics pitched to them by the audience. Daniel Handler returns as emcee, and eminently qualified umpires Andrew Sean Greer and Brynn Saito will score each batter’s reading. $17 adv /  $20 door
SUNDAY
Mind Games: Dark Arts & the Future of Democracy Sunday Oct 20 · 7:00 - 8:30pm Gray Area Theater Disinformation. Propaganda. Artificial intelligence. PSYOPS. Litquake brings together three thinkers to illuminate how the American mind has been gamified by bad actors, creating an invisible battlefield where our democratic future is at stake. In Stories Are Weapons, bestselling author Annalee Newitz delves into America’s deep-rooted history of PSYOPS, from Benjamin Franklin’s Revolutionary War–era fake newspaper to 21st-century culture warriors, transforming democratic debates into toxic wars over American identity. In Playing With Reality, Kelly Clancy chronicles the riveting and hidden history of games from the Enlightenment to now, where games inform our daily lives: the social media and technology that can warp our preferences, polarize us, and manufacture our desires. MacArthur-winning artist and author Trevor Paglen’s work often delves into state secrecy and mass surveillance through the lens of games, image-making, investigative journalism, and numerous other disciplines. Panel moderated by Mother Jones senior reporter and producer for Reveal from the Center for Investigative Reporting, Michael Montgomery. $10
...plus 15Â other events happening today through Sunday!Â
Litquake Out Loud Weekend 2 days of curated events · Small Press Book Fair · Live Music!Â
Sponsored by Yerba Buena Gardens Festival Co-presented with 48 Hills
Launched in 2020, Litquake Festival's curatorial program highlights the Bay Area’s BIPOC & LGBTQ+ writers and thought leaders. Out Loud puts Litquake’s production resources into the hands of guest curators who in turn produce a vibrant, dynamic series of festival events by...
Program Manager: Giovanna Lomanto Event Curators: Noor Brody, Lourdes Figueroa, Rhea Joseph, Darius Simpson, Mimi Tempestt, and RAWdance
This year, we're back with our fourth iteration small press book fair after a long COVID-y hiatus!
Participating Book Small Press vendors include: Alta Journal Aunt Lute Books Center for Sex & Culture City Lights Publishers Collective Book Studio Foglifter Press & Journal Heyday Books Kelsey Street Press Last Gasp Press Mumblers Press North Atlantic Books Parapraxis Magazine Pelekinesis Philippine American Writers & Artists (PAWA) PM Press Sixteen Rivers Press Stanford University Press Transit Books Two Lines Press ZYZZYVA
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. 2024 Dates: Oct. 10-26. www.litquake.org
Litquake is grateful for the support of the following funders who help make our programming possible. Institutional Giving: Bernard Osher Foundation, California Arts Council, Craig Newmark Philanthropies, Center for the Art of Translation, Fleishhacker Foundation, Grants for the Arts, Hawthornden Foundation, Henry Mayo Newhall Foundation, Margaret and William R. Hearst III Foundation, Miner Anderson Family Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, Rock Foundation, Norway House, Sam Mazza Foundation, San Francisco Grants for the Arts, Zellerbach Family Foundation; Individual Giving: Jared Bhatti, Lisa Brown and Daniel Handler, Frances Dinkelspiel and Gary Wayne, Karyn DiGiorgio and Steve Sattler, Scott James and Gerald Cain, Nion McEvoy and Leslie Berriman, and Ellen Ullman Media Sponsors: San Francisco Chronicle, 7x7, KALW, KEXP, KQED, SF Arts Monthly, Bay Area Reporter, Johnny Funcheap.
