North Gate News Online - 10/05/06 (link to original article)

by Erin Fitzgerald

SAN FRANCISCO - For nine days in October, Bay Area readers will put down their books and take to the streets.

It’s all in the interest of Litquake, the landmark San Francisco literature festival that offers nine days of writers and events with words to challenge the mind, open the heart, and satisfy every reader. This year’s Litquake takes place from October 6 to October 14 at venues throughout the city.

The event’s growing success is a testament to the Bay Area’s devotion to the written word. From humble beginnings in 2003, when Litquake covered three days and featured fewer than than 80 authors, the event has expanded to cover nine days and more than 300 authors.

Litquake’s producers have gone out of their way to provide something for everyone, says Litquake spokesperson Liam Passmore, as evidenced by event titles like The G Spot with Seal Press: Gender, Geeks, Grooms, Grief and Getting it On, and Mommy Lit: The Pleasures, Perils and Politics of Motherhood.

Both the big names and the lesser knowns are featured at Litquake. Maxine Hong Kingston will beguile with book excerpts and Jamie Lee Curtis will read from her new children’s book, but there are also opportunities to meet and greet up-and-comers on the literary scene.

Near the top of the nine day festival is Barely Published, an event that provides attendees the chance to meet authors who may be published, but are just shy of that all-important first novel.

Andrew Altschul, one of the writers in the Barely Published venue, is awaiting publication of his first novel Lady Lazarus in 2007. Altschul is a Jones Lecturer at Stanford University, and is the winner of the O. Henry Prize for Literature.

“It’s wonderful for a city to take a week out of the year to put on such an extensive festival,” says Atschul.

But with historic bookstores like Modern Times and City Lights and poetry readings on every corner, Litquake may be an event that could only happen here.

“Younger people in San Francisco are savvy about literature,” says Altschul. “I’m not sure other parts of the country value literature as highly as we do.”

Altschul, who is pleased to be part of Litquake, says that many of his friends and colleagues from Stanford University and writers from out of town flock to Litquake.

The event’s success is due in large part to the commitment of producers and board members who fuse both the personal and the political into the event, providing an international perspective that is particularly appealing to Bay Area audiences.

Among the political offerings at this year’s Litquake is a special conversation entitled America at War: Al-Qaeda, Iraq and the Politics of Terror with authors Lawrence Wright and Mark Danner. Wright is the author of The Looming Tower: Al Qaeda and the Road to 9/11. Danner is a UC Berkeley Professor who has written for 25 years on politics and foreign policy.

According to Passmore, the committee that puts on the event is well-versed in Bay Area literature. Committee members include venerables like Dave Eggers, author of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, and founder of the independent publishing company McSweeney’s, and Oscar Villalon, book review editor for the San Francisco Chronicle.

Litquake, now in its fifth year, will end with a perennial favorite, the streetwise “Lit Crawl”.

During the crawl, which takes place the evening of October 14, lit lovers overtake a neighborhood in the Mission and travel from venue to venue listening to writers deliver their work. From martini clubs to laundromats, Litquake promises literary belles and beaus will read from bandstands and bartops, turning the streets into what Passmore describes as “a staggered block party divided into three phases.”

Passmore says that event producers purposely placed events in Lit Crawl venues that would reflect the grit and savvy of the street in keeping with Lit Crawl’s ambiance. Streetside Stories: Real Life Tales From San Francisco Youth; and Murder and Mayhem; An Evening of Mystery, Crime and Noir are just two of the notable events at Lit Crawl.

Passmore, who has been with Litquake since 2003 understands the joy of the crawl.

“I’m a jaded guy in many ways, but when I go to Lit Crawl I’m surprised and elated to see the energy and spirit with which people take to the street for literature,” Passmore says.

Atschul, who says he “crawled” a couple of years ago, agrees. “To see seven or eight blocks of people on Valencia Street, not bound for a rock show or a motivational speaker, but there instead for literature, is pretty amazing.”