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2007 Archives
2007 Schedule Below!
Saturday, October 6
- 11 am-5 pm Off the Richter Scale, Day One
San Francisco Public Library’s Koret Auditorium (Main Branch, 100 Larkin Street) - A whirlwind tour through a vast array of Bay Area literary styles and genres, from fiction to poetry, journalism, memoir, spoken-word, and essays.
- Hot off the Presses: Fresh First Books
Emily Mitchell, Matt Richtel, Kaya Oakes, Colby Buzzell, Jessica Fisher, Austin Grossman, Kiara Brinkman - Around the World in 60 Minutes
Ishmael Reed, Anita Amirrezvani, Peter Orner, Tess Uriza Holthe, Bharati Mukherjee, Marisa Handler - Poet-Palooza
Jack Hirschman, Diane Di Prima, Carolyn Miller, Tung-Hui Hu, Chana Bloch, Camille Dungy, D.A. Powell - Gritty City: Where the Pavement Meets the Page
Eddie Muller, Tiny (aka Lisa Grey-Garcia), Rachel Howard, Justin Chin, Kim Addonizio, Kate Braverman - Strictly Fiction
Elizabeth McKenzie, Eric Puchner, Melanie Abrams, Andrew F. Altschul, Katherine Noel, Cornelia Nixon, Vikram Chandra - Ladies Last Lit: Grrl-Power Girl Hour
Wendy Tokunaga, Lynn Peril, Jennifer Solow, Susan Steinberg, Elizabeth Rosner, April Sinclair, Megen Seely
- 10 am Litquake Goes to the Dogs
WAG Pet Hotel, 25 14th Street, San Francisco - A very special live show with Amy Tan; George Daugherty, Pets Unlimited; Kelly Gorman Dunbar, Open Paw; Maria Goodavage, Dog Lovers Companion; Claudia Kawczynska, editor of BARK Magazine; the Dogged Mike Greensill; and other literary hounds. Dogs well-behaved enough to sit through a 2-hour radio show are welcome.
8 pm Opening Night–Tales: An Evening with Armistead & Friends
Herbst Theater, 401 Van Ness Ave, San Francisco- Authors, actors, and the generally famous–including Laura Linney, Susie Bright, Andrew Sean Greer, Karl Soehnlein, Amy Tan, Father Guido Sarducci, Michelle Tea, Jon Ginoli of Pansy Division, Judd Winick, and Pamela Ling–honor Armistead Maupin. Special musical guests join the house band under the direction of Joshua Raoul Brody. The evening also includes a special performance courtesy of Beach Blanket Babylon and an appearance by the deceased yet still brassy Broadway star Ethel Merman, who has discovered a penchant for arena rock in the afterlife. Some of the most well-known and respected authors living in the Bay Area will read their favorite passages from Armistead’s books as well as share anecdotes and stories. You will definitely laugh. You might even shed a tear or two over bygone days. Given the talent on the stage, you’ll probably have the chance to do both. Armistead will be on hand to receive Litquake’s first-ever Barbary Coast Award, given for his lifetime of literary achievement.
- Emcee: Liam Mayclem, Host Producer, Eye On the Bay on CBS 5 TV
Sunday, October 7
- 12:30-4:30 pm Off the Richter Scale, Day Two
San Francisco Public Library’s Koret Auditorium (Main Branch, 100 Larkin Street) - A whirlwind tour through a vast array of Bay Area literary styles and genres, from fiction to poetry, journalism, memoir, spoken-word, and essays.
- Find Your Inner Teen: Authors Teens Love and So Will You
Malin Alegria Ramirez, Wendy Lichtman, Michael Cadnum, Melodie Bowsher, Derek Kirk Kim, Gene Luen Yang - Life Lines: Writing from Experience
Julia Scheeres, Jacqueline Berger, Jeff Bell, Lindsey Crittenden, Toni Mirosevich, Josh Kornbluth - Human Nature: Writers Who Make You Think
Terry Beers & Emily Elrod, Jonathon Keats, Persis Karim, Don Lattin, Micheline Marcom, Rebecca Black - Sunday Storytime
Ann Cummins, Alejandro Murguia, Sara Houghteling, Juvenal Acosta, Holly Shumas, Adam Johnson
7 pm Barely Published Authors
Make-Out Room, 3225 22nd St.- Readings by the best up-and-coming masters of prose in the Bay Area: David Booth, Darrend King Brown, Elizabeth Costello, Whimsical Doggo, Elizabeth Karaba, Monica Karaba, Frances Lefkowitz, Shana Mahaffey, Mark Segelman, Michael Sheahan, and Ransom Stephens.
- 3-5 pm Getting Your First Book Published: A Publishing Industry Roundtable
Foundation Center, 312 Sutter St., Second Floor Conference Room. FREE - Find out how to get your first book published with this panel co-produced by The Foundation Center and led by literary professionals who regularly scout for new talent, including a literary agent and editors with a variety of publishing firms (local and NY-based). Speakers provide tips on preparing your work for submission and demystify how writers can secure publishing contracts in today’s competitive literary marketplace.
- Participants include: Kate Nitze, editor at MacAdam Cage; Elise Proulx, literary agent at Frederick Hill Bonnie Nadell; Jay Schaefer, editor at Chronicle Books; and Anika Streitfeld, editor at Random House.
5:30 pm The Journey to Being Discovered: First-Time Authors Reveal All
Foundation Center, 312 Sutter St., Second Floor Conference Room.- Learn from a panel of newly published, first time writers at this panel discussion, a co-production with The Foundation Center. Three novelists and one nonfiction author will talk about all that was involved in making their dream of writing a reality. We’ll cover finding the time and discipline to write regularly, identifying potential publishers, getting noticed by literary professionals, dealing with rejection, and publicizing your book. In Litquake festival fashion, the writers will also be reading from their newly published works.
- Participants include: Anita Amirrezvani, Bridget Kinsella, Erika Mailman, and Kemble Scott
7:30 pm Porch Light–I’d Prefer Not To: Writers Talk About Day Job Hell
Swedish American Hall, 2174 Market Street- Litquake teams up once again with San Francisco’s legendary Porch Light Storytelling series to present an eclectic mix of authors telling tales about the worst jobs they’ve ever had—without using notes or memorization.
- Authors: Marta Acosta, Robert Mailer Anderson, Jack Boulware, Dave Eggers, Milta Ortiz, Alvin Orloff, Eric Spitznagel, Frank Portman, and Cameron Tuttle
- 6:30 pm Science and Religion
The Commonwealth Club, 595 Market St., 2nd floor - Does the soul really exist? Is it eternal? Was the universe created or did it just happen—and how? We pose the big questions to a panel of experts in biology, Christianity, Judaism, and physics.
- Panelists: George Smoot, Rabbi Michael Lerner, Professor Joan Roughgarden, and Professor Robert John Russell
- Moderator: Joe Quirk
7 pm Lawrence Ferlinghetti Signs Poetry As Insurgent Art
The Booksmith, 1644 Haight Street- A rare public appearance by one of the founding fathers of the beat movement: Lawrence Ferlinghetti signs copies of his newest book, Poetry As Insurgent Art.
7 pm Not Your Mother’s Book Club presents Scott Westefeld and Justine Larbalestier
Books Inc. Opera Plaza, 601 Van Ness Avenue- Scott Westerfeld is the NY Times bestselling and hugely popular author of teen science fiction novels such as Peeps, Uglies, and Midnighters. Justine Larbalestier is the author of the Magic or Madness trilogy and winner of the 2007 Andre Norton award for Outstanding Science Fiction for Young Adults. Scott and Justine split their time between New York and Sydney, so they are probably jetlagged and they definitely have more frequent flier miles than you.
7:30 pm Gail Tsukiyama Discusses The Street of a Thousand Blossoms
Kepler’s, 1010 El Camino Real, Menlo Park- Tsukiyama is the bestselling author of five previous novels, including Women of the Silk, Dreaming Water and The Samurai’s Garden. She is a recipient of the Academy of American Poets Award and the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award.
- 10:00 am Assembly #1 (grades 3, 4, 5)
Henry Neff, Susan Taylor Brown, Lynn Hazen, Maya Gonzalez, and Marissa Moss
Emcee: Regan McMahon - 11:15 am Assembly #2 (grades K, 1, 2)
Annie Barrows, Belle Yang, Bob Barner, Yuyi Morales, and Oliver Chin
Emcee: Barbara Vanderborght
noon Ann Patchett: Lunch and Discussion of Her New Novel, Run
Presented by Books Inc. at Park Chow restaurant, 1240 9th Avenue- Ann Patchett is the author of five novels, including Bel Canto as well as winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize. $60 includes lunch, wine, dessert with the author and a signed hardcover first edition of Run. Advanced tickets required.
7 pm Jane Smiley in Conversation with Daniel Handler
Delancey Street Foundation, 600 Embarcadero- We can’t promise he’ll wear a fez or play the accordion, as he’s been known to do at his public appearances, but Daniel Handler (best known as the lyrically strange Lemony Snicket) will do his best to spice up the author Q&A format as he interviews Pulitzer Prize winner Jane Smiley (Ten Days in the Hills), no slouch in the wit department herself.
- 6 pm Book Group Therapy: How to Start, Join, Run, or Fix a Book Discussion Group
Co-sponsored by One City One Book: San Francisco Reads
San Francisco Public Library’s Latino/Hispanic Community Room B - Whether you are starting a book group from scratch or want to improve the one that you are in, this workshop will help you with book selection, group dynamics, discussion topics, author events and, of course, snacks. Each class member will receive a customized folder filled with reading lists and print and online resources–and you’ll learn about bookstores and libraries in the Bay Area that can enhance your book group experience.You’ll also have the opportunity to share specific book group challenges and issues with the lecturer–and with each other. Our session leader is librarian and book group leader Lauren John who has led book discussions in libraries, living rooms, bookstores, and community centers–as well as in cyberspace. Lauren is the author of Running Book Discussion Groups: A How To Do It Manual (Neal-Schuman 2006). Lauren is also an “Instant Book Group” leader for Book Group Expo (www.bookgroupexpo.com).
7 pm The Lesser Evil: Original Short Stories
Varnish Fine Art, 77 Natoma Street (at 2nd Street). (21 and over)- Six original short stories written around the theme of the lesser evil. Authors include Gary Amdahl, Tamim Ansary, Tom Barbash, Terry Bisson, Judy Budnitz, and Michelle Richmond.
7:30 pm Haven Kimmel on The Used World
Kepler’s, 1010 El Camino Real, Menlo Park- Haven Kimmel, author of the bestselling memoir A Girl Named Zippy, talks about her new novel, The Used World.
7:30 pm Tattooed Buddha: An Evening with Dharma Punk Noah Levine
Roxie Theater. 3117 16th Street- Punk rocker turned Buddhist teacher/bestselling author Noah Levine talks dharma with San Francisco Chronicle columnist Mark Morford. Audience Q&A follows. In addition, selected clips will be screened from Meditate and Destroy, a new documentary about Noah’s life and work. Book sales and author signing after the event. Presented in conjunction with HarperOne, publisher of Levine’s books Dharma Punx and Against the Stream.
8 pm Poptones
Edinburgh Castle, 950 Geary St.- Poptones are popular
The comfort that comes with pop
Everyday nice sounds
A nice cup of tea from Ceylon
A nicely ironed shirt
A nice pair of polished shoes
A nice kick in the bollocks
Readings by:
8 pm: Beth Lisick, Bob Calhoun, Ginger Murray, Peter Plate
booze break
9 pm: Bucky Sinister, Katherine McWilliams, Luke James, Mickey Disend, Alan Black - 5:30 pm Feisty Femmes: Facing Challenges with Humor, Grace, and Brains
The Bubble Lounge, 714 Montgomery St. - Widowhood, fertility issues, memory loss, eating disorders, infidelity, aging…. No sweat! Whoever said women were the weaker sex never met up with these dazzling dames. Featured dames, er, authors include: Samina Ali, Jane Ganahl, Kathy Kamen Goldmark, Kim Wong Keltner, Wendy Merrill, Peggy Orenstein, Cathryn Jakobson Ramin, Jackie Speier, and Jan Yanehiro.
7 pm Julie Kavanagh Signs Nureyev: The Life
Book Passage, 51 Tamal Vista Blvd., Corte Madera- Julie Kavanagh speaks about her new biography, Nureyev: The Life.
7 pm Ken Foster Discusses Dogs I Have Met: And the People They Found
The Booksmith, 1644 Haight Street- Ken Foster, author of the bestselling memoir The Dogs Who Found Me, talks about his new book: Dogs I Have Met: And the People They Found.
7:30 pm Opium Magazine’s Literary Death Match
Sponsored by the San Francisco Chronicle
Swedish American Hall, 2174 Market Street- You’ve heard the fanfare (and tall tales of beers flung), now come see Opium’s Literary Death Match set off verbal pyrotechnics at Litquake. Hosted by Opium editors Todd Zuniga & Elizabeth Koch, the Litquake LDM marks the launch of Opium’s fifth print issue. FREE copies of Opium5, hot off the presses, passed out at the door.
Readers: Gary Kamiya, Daniel Handler, Wesley “John Wesley Harding” Stace, and Evany Thomas
Judges: Shaun Landry, Oscar Villalon, and New Yorker editor Ben Greenman - 6-8:45 pm The One and Only: Lit Crawl!
- So big, it demands its own schedule page.
Monday, October 8
Tuesday, October 9
Wednesday, October 10
9:30 am Kidquake
San Francisco Public Library’s Koret Auditorium (Main Branch, 100 Larkin Street).