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Chance of a Major Litquake Hitting San Francisco on October 6 Estimated at 101%

Programming to include the festival’s first ever forays into music and dramatic staged readings and to feature 350 authors over nine days, October 6 - 14

Opening night’s Between the Bridges will star musicians Dan “The Automator” Nakamura, Frank Portman, Jay Farrar and Ray Manzarek; other offerings include a staged reading of an Andrew Sean Greer short story by Word for Word; storytelling from Porchlight with Sean Wilsey and his mother Pat Montandon; Kidquake; Sports; Food, True Crime, Humor, Women’s Lit, Spirituality, the Lit Crawl and much, much more

Authors and special guests scheduled include Dave Eggers, Lawrence Wright, Mark Eitzel, Barry Gifford, Maxine Hong Kingston, Rebecca Solnit, Michelle Tea, Beth Lisick, Stephen Elliott, Po Bronson, Ray Manzarek, Vendela Vida, Andrew Sean Greer, Mark Hertsgaard, Geoffrey Nunberg, Daniel Alarcón, K.M. Soehnlein, Robert Mailer Anderson, Kate Braverman, Eddie Muller, Mary Roach, Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi, San Francisco Poet Laureate Jack Hirschman, Tamim Ansary, Susie Bright, as well as this year’s One City One Book author Luis Urrea, and others.

San Francisco, August 21, 2006” Litquake 2006 will feature 350 authors spread out over nine days of programming distributed throughout the city, October 6-14. Opening night”sponsored by SPIN and 7×7 magazines and produced in conjunction with Artists for Literacy”will star Bay Area musicians reading from literature that inspired them. Dan Nakamura, a.k.a. Dan “The Automator” of Handsome Boy Modeling School and Gorillaz, will supply a film produced just for the event, and musician and bestselling author Frank Portman, Ray Manzarek of The Doors and others will appear.

In addition, Lawrence Wright, New Yorker writer and author of The Looming Tower will be on stage for a conversation/interview and audience Q & A on Wednesday, October 11. The New York Times called the book a “heart-stopping account of the events leading up to 9/11 written with style and verve.”

In total, including closing night’s Lit Crawl, Litquake will present 45 different tracks including, but not limited to:

• Off The Richter Scale - readings at the Koret Auditorium
• Sports at Edinburgh Castle Pub
• Secrets: Told and Untold, original short stories at South of Market gallery Varnish Fine Art
• Crime and Consequences, true-crime readings
• Porchlight Storytelling
• Politics of Food
• Kidquake
• Women’s Lit
• Stephen Elliot’s Progressive Reading Series
• A Word for Word staged reading of an Andrew Sean Greer short story
• Humor from the LA based Sit-n-Spin reading series

As always, the festival will end with a bang, the Lit Crawl down Valencia Street in the Mission District.

Highlights include:

Opening night, Friday October 6 - Between the Bridges will present celebrated Bay Area musicians including Dan “the Automator” Nakamura, Frank Portman from Mr. T Experience, Penelope Houston, Jay Farrar of Uncle Tupelo and Son Volt fame, Mark Eitzel, Samantha Stollenwerck, Jill Tracy, Ray Manzarek of The Doors and others. They will read from literature that inspired them or made its way into their work, as well as perform. Dan “The Automator” Nakamura will provide a short film especially for the event, and King Dork author Frank Portman will perform Somebody’s Song, a witty, slightly melancholy Dorothy Parker poem set to music. Emcee: Ben Fong-Torres

Saturday, October 7 - Sit-n-Spin showcases “people telling the truth, but funny.” The group is made up of successful comedians, actors and scriptwriters living in Los Angeles”Litquake decided to import only those talents with alleged Bay Area pasts. Among those on hand will be self-described “bitter, grotesque jerkoff” Ron Zimmerman, who is a writer/producer/actor/comedian/poet and “Frisco” native. He insists on using “Frisco” because it annoys people. His job as writer and reoccurring character on the hit show 7th Heaven, as well as his contributions to the film The Shaggy Dog yield “credentials to annoy” that are the envy of many. Also, Jill Soloway, Andersen Gabrych, Maggie Rowe, comedian/radio personality Marc Maron, and Emmy-award winner Rick Overton, who told Penn and Gillette the joke that inspired the film, The Aristocrats.

Monday, October 9 - Writers, Muses, Flacks, and Escorts ” Litquake and Porchlight team up for the third straight year to present an evening of storytelling. This year’s programming wanders into the world of writers, muses, flacks, and escorts who will tell their stories of frustration, woe, relief, and sometimes comic humiliation as they pursue their vocation. In addition to Sean Wilsey and his mother Pat Montandon, the evening will feature Marcus Ewert, Arielle Eckstut, Kathi Kamen Goldmark, Joyce Maynard, Eddie Muller, and Jack Boulware.

Sean Wilsey, author of the bestselling memoir Oh the Glory of It All will appear on the same stage for the first time along with his mother, Pat Montandon. Pat has a book due out from ReganBooks/HarperCollins in 2007 called, Oh the Hell of it All. This supplants her planned autobiography, Whispers From God, which was to recount her journey from “Party girl to peacemaker.” More information available at http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/wilsey and http://www.patmontandon.com

Monday, October 9 - Progressive Reading Series ” Litquake and Stephen Elliott’s Progressive Reading Series combine forces to present Mary Roach, Dave Eggers, Kaui Hart Hemmings, Keith Knight, and Nora Pierce.

Tuesday, October 10 - Bay Area performing arts company Word for Word will do a staged reading of The Islanders by Andrew Sean Greer, directed by Shelia Balter. The author will be present for a post-reading discussion.

Wednesday, October 11 - Kidquake will entertain the kiddies with two assemblies featuring Bay Area children’s book authors, while workshops”including one held by 826 Valencia”will share the joys of reading and writing.

For kindergarteners through 2nd graders there is Ellisa Haden Guest, award-winning author of the Iris and Walter Early Reader Series, popular Kidquake veteran Anthony D. Robles, author of Lakas and the Makibaka Hotel and Dashka Slater, whose latest book is titled, Firefighters in the Dark.

For 3rd through 5th graders, Rachel Rodriguez will inspire imagination and artistic impulses with Through Georgia’s Eyes, about Georgia O’Keefe, while Clair and Monte Montgomery will roll out their Hubert Invented the Wheel. Also in the saddle, Terri Farley, author of many of titles in the Phantom Stallion Series, and Millie Lee with her book, Landed.

Thursday, October 11 - Sport and Circuses ” The nasty, brutish and shorts of it. In keeping with the nasty and brutish theme of this evening of sports readings at the Edinburgh Castle, Lance Williams, author of Game of Shadows will be on hand ” as long as he has not been jailed for refusing to reveal the sources for the bestselling book about Barry Bonds.

Also this same evening, Secrets Told and Untold - readings from original stories written for Litquake, at Varnish Fine Art with K.M Soehnlein, Adam Johnson, Eric Puchner, Ann Joslin Williams, Peter Orner and Jodi Angel.

Friday, October 13 - Crime and Consequences will dwell, fittingly enough as it is Friday the 13th, on writing that exposes the grisly and seamy nonfiction criminal side of life. This evening features writers reading from various perspectives on crime. With readings from the point of view of an ex-police chief, ex-bank robber, crime victim’s child, criminal’s child, and a historic reformed crook recounting his glory days, this event will be an intelligent look at malfeasance and its results for both those victimized by both others and their own actions. Authors include Robert Mailer Anderson; Margo Perin, a Pushcart nominee and contributing editor to Only the Dead Can Kill: Stories from Jail; former bank robber Joe Loya, and Rachel Howard, author of The Lost Night, a memoir about the emotional aftermath of her father’s unsolved murder. In addition, SFPD Chief Prentice Earl Sanders (ret.) and Bennett Cohen, co-authors of The Zebra Murders: A Season of Killing, Racial Madness, and Civil Rights, will read.

Saturday, October 14 - The Lit Crawl is for those who like their literature served neat, on the rocks or with a water back. It is a bona fide night out on the town. Instead of being confined to night tables, Oprah or book club discussion groups, folks take time in front of the mirror, make sure that perfect vintage shirt, hat or boutique find fits just right, gather up their friends and head out the door for their serving of books and authors. Over 100 writers in genres as varied as travel, poetry, noir & mystery, literary, music, erotica, science fiction, spirituality, Latino, queer, young adult and more will clamber onto bar counters in cocktail lounges, recline in chaise lounges or, in one case, stand around a Laundromat in order to read.

Don’t Miss: Mommy Lit; The Anxiety Chronicles “ a panel discussion on how fear shapes politics, sex and language with Mark Hertsgaard, linguist Geoffrey Nunberg (author of Talking Right), and erotica writer Susie Bright, her first time at Litquake; One City One Book author Luis Urrea at Flor y Canto; MacAdam/Cage presents The Brat Pack; Lit in Translation; music; and writing from nations the White House has labeled the Axis of Evil.

About Litquake
Litquake is an annual San Francisco literary festival produced by the Litquake Literary Project, a California nonprofit founded by San Francisco writers that brings together a wide range of authors for over a week of readings and panel discussions. Organizers created the event to represent a lively and inclusive overview of San Francisco’s thriving contemporary literary scene and to foster interest in literature, perpetuate a sense of literary community, as well as host a vibrant forum for Bay Area writing as a complement to the city’s music, film, and cultural festivals. Dates: October 6-14, 2006.

Litquake 2006 is sponsored in part by SPIN, 7×7 Magazine, KFOG, KALW, the San Francisco Examiner, Avalon Publishing Group, craigslist, Lovejoy Creative, MacAdam/Cage, Chronicle Books, Artists for Literacy, Grove/Atlantic, SFPL, the Regency Center, and Tricycle Press.

Fiscal sponsor: Intersection for the Arts