Opening Weekend

Friday, October 3

Friday, October 3, 8 pm
Litquake and Porchlight Storytelling present:

Suckered: Writers Confess a Profound Lack of Judgment
Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness Avenue, across from City Hall
$25 General Admission: $100 VIP Pass includes post-show reception with open bar and a chance to share your stories with the storytellers. Advance tickets now available online from City Box Office.

Have you ever done something you should have avoided but didn’t?
Made a shockingly bad decision born of haste, desperation,  greed, or hormones?
What about that job you thought you’d never take?
The person you should never have met?

Oh, the humiliation.

“If you’re playing a poker game and you look around the table and can’t tell who the sucker is, it’s you.” —Paul Newman

On a warm October night in San Francisco, eight authors will relive the moment of delusion that left a permanent scar—their lifetime of shame, presented in public for your entertainment.

Join Litquake for another hilarious production of Porchlight, this year expanded to a one-of-a-kind opening night extravaganza. Hosted by Beth Lisick and Arline Klatte, Porchlight brings together an eclectic mix of people each month, telling a story without notes or memorization.

From New York:

~ Author and columnist Jonathan Ames, frequent guest of David Letterman and New York’s Moth storytelling series, instigator behind “The World’s Most Phallic Building” contest

~ Sharp-tongued cultural critic Cintra Wilson, author of the forthcoming novel Caligula for President: Better American Living Through Tyranny

From Los Angeles:

~Satirist Neal Pollack, author of Alternadad: The True Story of One Family’s Struggle to Raise a Cool Kid in America

~Poet Amber Tamblyn, actress from Joan of Arcadia and Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants.

and from San Francisco:

~ Acerbic commentator Will Durst, America’s sharpest political comedian

~ SF man of the arts Robert Mailer Anderson, film producer and author of Boonville

~April Sinclair, East Bay author and spoken-word firebrand

~ Adam Savage, co-host of the Discovery Channel’s Mythbusters, special effects artist, model maker, and former child actor (Charmin TV commercial)

House band fronted by Porchlight musical director Marc Capelle

Saturday, October 4

Saturday, October 4, 11 am-5 pm
Off the Richter Scale, Day One
San Francisco Public Library’s Koret Auditorium (Main Branch, 100 Larkin Street). FREE.

Writers who’ll shake up your literary world! A whirlwind tour through the Bay Area’s best, from fiction to poetry, journalism to memoir, graphic novels to essays.

Note: Authors are listed in reading order

Saturday, October 4, 5-6 pm
Reception with Off the Richter Scale Authors
Books Inc. in Opera Plaza, 601 Van Ness, FREE.

Wine, food, book sales, and signings.

Saturday, October 4, 3 pm
Kathleen Norris at Kepler’s
Kepler’s, 1010 El Camino Real, Menlo Park. FREE

Kathleen Norris discusses Acedia & Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer’s Life.

Saturday, October 4, 8 pm
A Night of “Intimacy” With the San Francisco Writer’s Grotto
The Jewish Community Center of San Francisco, 3200 California Street
$22 General Admission/$20 JCCSF Members
Followed by reception 9:30-10:30 pm
Tickets available at: http://www.jccsf.org/content_main.aspx?catid=537#2550

Grotto Nights is back with “Intimacy”—a multimedia extravaganza of tight genes, body fluids, and misplaced affections. The evening will feature authors Mary Roach, David Ewing Duncan, Elizabeth Bernstein, Stephen Elliott, Laura Fraser, and Jennifer Traig, filmmakers Caveh Zahedi and Jay Rosenblatt, music by Marc Capelle, plus an audio documentary by Jennifer Durban and art by JD Beltran, Emily Korson, and Jan Blythe. Come and get under the covers with us for an evening of literary and artistic hanky panky.

Sunday, October 5

Sunday, October 5, 12:30-4:30 pm
Off the Richter Scale, Day Two
San Francisco Public Library’s Koret Auditorium (Main Branch, 100 Larkin Street). FREE

Writers who’ll shake up your literary world! A whirlwind tour through the Bay Area’s best, from fiction to poetry, journalism to memoir, graphic novels to essays.

Note: Authors are listed in reading order


Sunday, October 5, 4:30-6 pm
Reception with Off the Richter Scale Authors
Books Inc. in Opera Plaza, 601 Van Ness, FREE.

Wine, food, book sales, and signings.


Sunday, October 5, 3 pm
An Afternoon with Author and Filmmaker Neil Gaiman presented by The Booksmith
Kabuki Sundance Theaters, 1881 Post Street at Fillmore
$28 General Admission includes a signed, 1st edition copy of The Graveyard Book

Tickets available at The Booksmith (415) 863-8688Famed author and filmmaker Gaiman will read a chapter from his new book, The Graveyard Book, followed by a live Q&A with the author. Including a sneak preview of the upcoming film version of Gaiman’s novel Coraline!

Sunday, October 5, 7 pm
Barely Published Authors
Make-Out Room, 3225 22nd St. FREE
21 and over

Readings by the best up-and-coming masters of prose in the Bay Area. Featuring: David Gleeson, Cris Hammond, Jocelyn Mangan, Joshua Marcus, Diana Orgain, Beverly Parayno, Susan Shea, Todd Zuniga