Litquake is pleased to announce a new curatorial program highlighting the Bay Area’s BIPOC & LGBTQ+ writers and thought leaders—Litquake Out Loud. Out Loud puts Litquake’s full event production resources into the hands of guest curators who produced a vibrant, impactful series of festival events.
Litquake Out Loud aims to tackle a glaring, urgent problem: there is a serious lack of accessible literary programming for the broader Bay Area community, especially low-income, marginalized audiences. Too many of the Bay’s arts organizations providing literary programming do not do so free of charge, often asking exorbitant rates, and tend to be culturally exclusive. While Litquake still has much work to do in this vein, we are proud of how we’ve made the festival more accessible and diverse in recent years, and wish to continue our efforts to better reflect the make-up and needs of the San Francisco Bay Area as a whole.
Litquake Out Loud represents our continued investment in ensuring that all people are included in the creation of and access to the Bay Area’s historic, thriving arts scene. Cultural equity is a core goal of Litquake’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Litquake Out Loud celebrates curators who have a rich history of organizing and provides them with Litquake’s event production resources and expertise. Litquake will work directly with the curators on event production in the months running up to the festival, helping to find fitting venues (or online spaces!) and appropriate community partners.
Resources provided will include:
Success in this program can take many forms, but will privilege a vibrant, collaborative, mutually beneficial relationship between curators and Litquake. While Litquake’s primary goal is to elevate each curator and celebrate underserved voices, we also hope to expand our capacity as an organization to better serve underrepresented communities at large as is central to Litquake’s commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion.
Litquake Out Loud aims to tackle a glaring, urgent problem: there is a serious lack of accessible literary programming for the broader Bay Area community, especially low-income, marginalized audiences. Too many of the Bay’s arts organizations providing literary programming do not do so free of charge, often asking exorbitant rates, and tend to be culturally exclusive. While Litquake still has much work to do in this vein, we are proud of how we’ve made the festival more accessible and diverse in recent years, and wish to continue our efforts to better reflect the make-up and needs of the San Francisco Bay Area as a whole.
Litquake Out Loud represents our continued investment in ensuring that all people are included in the creation of and access to the Bay Area’s historic, thriving arts scene. Cultural equity is a core goal of Litquake’s commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
Litquake Out Loud celebrates curators who have a rich history of organizing and provides them with Litquake’s event production resources and expertise. Litquake will work directly with the curators on event production in the months running up to the festival, helping to find fitting venues (or online spaces!) and appropriate community partners.
Resources provided will include:
- A production budget, including stipends for curators and participating writers
- The breadth of Litquake’s networks and expertise in marketing, collaborative partnerships, and event production
- A dedicated program manager who will work closely with curators to ensure the free flow of ideas and skills, as well as the success of program events
Success in this program can take many forms, but will privilege a vibrant, collaborative, mutually beneficial relationship between curators and Litquake. While Litquake’s primary goal is to elevate each curator and celebrate underserved voices, we also hope to expand our capacity as an organization to better serve underrepresented communities at large as is central to Litquake’s commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion.
2021 Curators
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Shruti Swamy
The winner of two O. Henry Awards, Shruti Swamy's work has appeared in The Paris Review, the Kenyon Review Online, Prairie Schooner, and elsewhere. In 2012, she was Vassar College's 50th W.K. Rose Fellow, and has been awarded residencies at the Millay Colony for the Arts, Blue Mountain Center, and Hedgebrook. She is a Kundiman fiction fellow, a 2017 – 2018 Steinbeck Fellow at San Jose State University, and a recipient of a 2018 grant from the Elizabeth George Foundation. Her book A House Is a Body was shortlisted for the PEN/Robert W. Bingham Prize for Debut Short Story Collection, and her novel The Archer is forthcoming. |
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Imani Cezanne
Imani Cezanne is a writer, poet and Teaching Artist living in Oakland by way of San Diego. She is the 2016 and 2020 Woman of the World Poetry Slam Champion. While all are welcome to enjoy her work, Imani writes for Black people, Black readers and is committed to the liberation of all oppressed people. |
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Vernon Keeve III
Vernon Keeve III is a Virginia born writer that California molded into an educator. He lives and teaches in Oakland, CA. His purpose is to teach the next generation the importance of relaying their personal narratives, sharing their experiences, and taking control of their destinies. He holds a MFA from California College of the Arts, and a Masters in Teaching Literature from Bard College. Southern Migrant Mixtape (Nomadic Press, 2018) is his first book. |
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Achy Obejas
Achy Obejas is the author of The Tower of the Antilles, which was nominated for a PEN/Faulkner award, among other honors. Her novels include Ruins and Days of Awe, which was a Los Angeles Times Best Books of the Year. Her poetry chapbook, This is What Happened in Our Other Life, was both a critical hit and a national best-seller. As a translator, Havana-born Achy has worked with Wendy Guerra, Rita Indiana, Junot Díaz and Megan Maxwell, among others. A recipient of a USA Artists fellowship, an NEA and a Cintas fellowship, among other awards, she is currently a writer/editor for Netflix and lives in the San Francisco Bay area. |
Our Mission
Litquake’s diverse live programs are created with the aim of inspiring critical engagement with the key issues of the day, bringing people together around the common humanity encapsulated in literature, and perpetuating a sense of literary community, as well as a vibrant forum for Bay Area writing.
Litquake’s diverse live programs are created with the aim of inspiring critical engagement with the key issues of the day, bringing people together around the common humanity encapsulated in literature, and perpetuating a sense of literary community, as well as a vibrant forum for Bay Area writing.