Two nationally known award-winning poets read from their new works and talk about their influences and passions. Henri Coles explores the formality and density of the sonnet with its glorious layers of emotion with a contemporary twist in his new collection Gravity and Center: Selected Sonnets, 1994-2022. Brenda Hillman’s bold, experimental eco-poems in her recent work A Few […]
Accounts of the origins of the alphabet contribute to the broad history of ideas. Many vivid intellectual traditions have flourished, and some have been set aside, discredited by “modern” scientific methods of archaeology and forensic science. Turning our attention to these varied lineages, we see not only a history of the alphabet, but also different […]
Queer Bedtime Stories is an opportunity to re-seed the fertile ground of your imagination with poetry, memoirs, and history from our people: LGBTQ+ ancestors and creators alive today. Together, let’s uncover the richness of our shared history and catch a glimpse of the blossoming future. You can come just to listen or bring a reading […]
Publishing in a Diverse World
Join SFCB in welcoming curator Megan N. Liberty at the opening of her latest exhibition Craft & Conceptual Art: Reshaping the Legacy of Artists' Books Light refreshments will be served; opening remarks at 7 pm. About the exhibition: Craft & Conceptual Art: Reshaping the Legacy of Artists’ Books focuses on the intertwined legacies of book art centers across […]
Join Litquake for our annual celebration of National Poetry Month. We’ll gather under the stunning stained glass of San Francisco's historic Grace Cathedral while five celebrated poets read from their latest collections. Featuring words from James Cagney, Henri Cole, Jewelle Gomez, Jacques Rancourt, and Rachel Zucker. Book sales and signing to follow. Curated and hosted […]
Please join us for the second annual Hayward Lit Hop. Lit Hop showcases a variety of local writers’ groups with the support of local musicians and establishments, including a showcase of MWA NorCal authors. It’s situated in downtown Hayward’s charming B Street area and is absolutely free. Please come support your MWA fellows!
The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books began in 1996 with a simple goal: to bring together the people who create books with the people who love to read them. The festival was an immediate success and has evolved to include live bands, poetry readings, chef demos, cultural entertainment and artists creating their work on-site. […]
What is redemption? How do you get it? How is it different from revenge? Multi-award winning authors Lucy Jane Bledsoe and Devi S. Laskar will read from their new novels and discuss how they write with an eye toward redemption that is true and honest. Lucy Jane Bledsoe’s newest, Tell The Rest, features two queer characters who […]
In partnership with Alano Club of Portland, “The Break is a monthly virtual gathering of writers and artists lead by Kaveh Akbar, celebrating amongness, collaboration, and interdisciplinary creative experimentation. Though many of the activities and discussions orbit or are inflected by recovery themes (Akbar has been in active recovery for eight years), participants are not required […]
Even among iconic frontiersmen like John C. Frémont, Kit Carson, and Jedediah Smith, Jim Bridger stands out. A mountain man of the American West, straddling the fur trade era and the age of exploration, he lived the life legends are made of. His adventures are fit for remaking into the tall tales Bridger himself liked […]
Jane Smiley fans, get excited! The Pulitzer Prize–winning author’s forthcoming book, The Questions that Matter Most: Reading, Writing, and the Exercise of Freedom, explores a number of provocations around class, race, and gender in the Western literary imagination and—most importantly—reflects on how the autonomy of a reader’s interpretation of any work of literature makes reading an inherently […]