LITQUAKE OUT LOUD
OCTOBER 4, 2026
YERBA BUENA GARDENS
Litquake Festival's curatorial program highlights the Bay Area’s BIPOC & LGBTQ+ writers and performers. Out Loud puts Litquake’s production resources into the hands of guest curators who in turn produce a vibrant, dynamic series of festival events.
2026 Out Loud schedule coming soon!
2026 Curators
Litquake Out Loud Program Manager
Giovanna Lomanto is a Pushcart Prize-nominated poet and artist. She has published six books of various lengths and genres. A recent graduate of NYU's MFA program, her work has been supported by U.C. Berkeley, KQED, and the SFMOMA archive. In addition to working as a teaching artist and nonprofit organizer, she has also co-hosted the Living Room Poetry series and served as the lead curator for the San Francisco Literary Festival's inaugural Out Loud weekend for Queer & BIPOC writers. Currently, she serves as the co-owner of the indie press Game Over Books. She lives in Oakland with her partner and their lion head bunny Maggie.
Vania Luna Gutierrez
Vania Luna Gutierrez (they/she) is an award-winning poet, orator, and educator exploring what it means to hold relations — to land, lineage, language, community, history, and self. She affirms that poetry and education are essential liberatory tools and vehicles for storytelling. Vania grounds her commitment to writing and education as a responsibility to cultural preservation. Born and raised on Ojibwe, Odawa, and Potawatomi lands (Chicago, IL), her work is heavily influenced by the city, as well as her lineage of Central Mexico’s mountains and valleys. Vania has toured throughout the country to share her work, moderate panels, and facilitate workshops. You can engage with her work in The Womanist, Palacio Magazine, The Offing, Foglifter, Youtube, and more. To keep up with her writing, check out her substack at: substack.com/@vanialuna. Vania currently resides in Lisjan Ohlone territory (Oakland, CA).
Zara Jamshed (they/them) is a queer, trans, disabled Pakistani and Indian American poet from New York City living in the East Bay. They are the winner of the Penrose Poetry Prize for LGBTQIA+ writers and have work published in The Arrow, Foglifter, Kiwi Collective Magazine, and others. Zara has had their work supported by Anaphora Arts, Asian American Writers Workshop, Harvard University, Kearny Street Workshop, The Muslim Alliance of Sexual and Gender Diversity (MASGD), Open Mouth Literary, Periplus Collective, Queer Ancestors Project, Still Here San Francisco, Sundress Academy for the Arts, Tin House, THEYFRIEND, VONA, and The Writer’s Grotto. Their debut full-length collection Neither Created Nor Destroyed was a semifinalist for the Pamet River Prize, a finalist for the Stories Award for Poetry, and is available now with Game Over Books.
Mukethe Kawinzi is a trans shepherd and land steward working at the intersection of the pastoral, modern negritude, queer identity, and contemporary rural life. He has farmed in sustainable and organic agriculture for six years, with a focus on small ruminants, artisanal cheesemaking, non-violent livestock handling, and regenerative grazing. He is the author of ‘touching grass’ (Porkbelly Press), ‘Koans to a Young Cowboi’ (Bottlecap Press), ‘rut’ (Ghost City Press Summer Series), and ‘saanens, nubians, one lamancha’ (Winner, Quarterly West Chapbook Contest). He currently traverses the open range with a herd of 300 Spanish cashmere range goats to restore coastal prairie, rehabilitate degraded soils, and mitigate the effects of climate change on California native grasslands.
2025 Out Loud Schedule
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