Alternative Histories Tuesday, Oct. 12 · 7:00-8:30pm American Bookbinders Museum
Sponsored by Yerba Buena Community Benefit District Co-presented by American Bookbinders Museum, The National Book Critics Circle, and Balay Kreative
Join author Ricco Villanueva Siasoco in a conversation with three debut novelists about the process of building alternative histories of the American West, from the Gold Rush through World War I. Patty Enrado’s A Village in the Fields highlights a compelling but buried piece of American history: the Filipino-American contribution to the farm labor movement; Rishi Reddi’s epic Passage West, Los Angeles Times’ Best California Book of 2020, explores a Punjabi sharecropper family in California during World War I, as they work and live alongside their Mexican in-laws and Japanese neighbors; while Tom Lin’s debut novel The Thousand Crimes of Ming Tsu, transforms the genre of the Western in a story of revenge for forced labor in the American railroad’s expansion. FREE, $5-10 suggested donation (pre-registration required)
Straight, No Chaser: Writers at the Bar Tuesday, Oct. 12 · 7:00-8:30pm Vesuvio Café (Outdoors) Famed bohemian saloon Vesuvio Café welcomes Litquake for an edgy and hilarious North Beach reading celebrating 2020 authors (who didn’t get to have any damn fun). Featuring Vanessa Hua, A.H. Kim, Roberto Lovato, Caitlin Myer, and Maggie Tokuda-Hall. Hosted by Alia Volz. A rare opportunity to glimpse authors performing new work in their natural habitat. Held outdoors in Kerouac Alley. Seats limited. FREE, $5-10 suggested donation Registration is closed, but walk-ups are welcome. Limited space available.
One Friday in April: Suicide and Survival with Donald Antrim & John Freeman Tuesday, Oct. 12 · 7:00–8:00pm Zoom Webinar
Co-presented by MFA @CIIS
As the sun lowered in the sky one Friday afternoon in April 2006, acclaimed author Donald Antrim found himself on the roof of his Brooklyn apartment building, afraid for his life. In this searing memoir that offers a new understanding of suicide as a distinct mental illness, Antrim vividly recounts what led him to the roof and what happened after he came back down: two hospitalizations, weeks of fruitless clinical trials, the terror of submitting to ECT—and the saving call from David Foster Wallace that convinced him to try it—as well as years of fitful recovery and setback.This profound, insightful work sheds light on the tragedy and mystery of suicide, offering solace that may save lives. In conversation with John Freeman. FREE, $5-10 donation (pre-registration required)
This is a pre-recorded event held on Zoom Webinar. There will be no author Q&A.
The Wrong End of the Telescope with Rabih Alameddine Wednesday, Oct. 13 · 5:00–6:30pm Zoom Webinar
Litquake welcomes back gifted storyteller and National Book Award finalist Rabih Alameddine, to celebrate the release of his new novel The Wrong End of the Telescope. Centered around an Arab-American trans woman's journey among Syrian refugees on Lesbos island, Publishers Weekly called it “profound and wonderful...A wise, deeply moving story that can still locate humor in the pit of hell...A triumph.” Rabih will be in conversation with Lambda Award-winning fiction writer K.M. Soehnlein. FREE, $5-10 donation (pre-registration required)
This is a live, virtual event held on Zoom Webinar.
Tarnished Side of the Golden Gate: New Novels Wednesday, Oct. 13 · 7:00–8:30pm American Bookbinders Museum
Sponsored by Yerba Buena Community Benefit District Co-presented by American Bookbinders Museum
The Bay Area has seen a few gold rushes but none like the most recent boom, which has created a new class of instant millionaires but also changed the cultural landscape, leaving many people at a loss. This trio of new novels will explore the lengths one-percenters will go to to see their children advance, how former hipsters find themselves alienated in the Silicon Valley monoculture, and how a tribe of homeless young people in Golden Gate Park learn to survive as cultural outcasts. FREE, $5-10 donation (pre-registration required)
Escaping into Books: Lauren Hough and Julia Scheeres Thursday, Oct. 14 · 6:00–7:00pm Zoom Webinar
Litquake is thrilled to welcome essayist, nonfiction author and memoirist Lauren Hough to discuss her new book Leaving Isn’t the Hardest Thing. In it, she describes memorable parts of her remarkable life— from her life as a “don’t ask” gay person in the military, to her childhood spent in the violent Children of God religious cult. To shed those memories and adjust to life, Hough says “I read everything I could get my hands on. I hid in books.” Sharing both her writing passion and her childhood in a cult, author Julia Scheeres (author of the New York Times bestselling memoir Jesusland) will be in conversation with Hough. FREE, $5-10 donation (pre-registration required)
This is a live, virtual event held on Zoom Webinar.
Running is a Kind of Dreaming: J.M. Thompson with Bonnie Tsui Thursday Oct. 14 · 7:30–9:00pm Zoom Webinar Sponsored by HarperOne Co-presented by MFA @ CIIS
Following years of depression, ineffective medication, and therapy that went nowhere, J.M. Thompson feared he was falling into an inescapable darkness. After a suicide attempt, he spent weeks confined in a San Francisco psychiatric hospital, feeling scared, alone, and trapped. One afternoon during an exercise break, he experienced a sudden urge. “Run, I thought. Run before it’s too late and you’re stuck down there. Right now. Run. ”
The impulse that started with sprints across a hospital rooftop turned into all-night runs in the mountains. Through motion and immersion in the beauty of nature, Thompson found a way out of the hell of depression and drug addiction. Step by step, mile by mile, his body and mind healed. Now a successful psychologist, J. M. Thompson details his luminous story of recovery in the new memoir Running is a Kind of Dreaming (HarperOne). He reads from and discusses his work with bestselling author Bonnie Tsui. FREE, $5-10 suggested donation (pre-registration required)
This is a pre-recorded event held on Zoom Webinar. There will be no author Q&A.
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.
