Same Page SF | Litquake is underway!
Big-name authors, a small-press book fair, "competitive poetry," and much more
Welcome back to Same Page SF, your home for all things local and literary!
I'm Christina, your friendly, well-informed, and unabashedly nerdy bookseller. Each week, I share and signal-boost author events, book clubs, new releases, and community gatherings happening across our city.
Litquake is underway!
Now in its 25th year, Litquake is the largest literary festival on the West Coast - a multi-week extravaganza for booklovers. I can’t possibly cover everything they’ve planned, but here are a few of this week’s highlights, hosted across San Francisco and the East Bay:
📚Hear from big-name authors like Pulitzer Prize winner Hernan Diaz, whose Trust remains one of the most mind-blowing novels I’ve ever read (Thursday 10/17, 6:30-8:30pm, $34), and Booker Prize finalist Rachel Kushner, whose Creation Lake follows an American spy who infiltrates an anarchist collective in France (Thursday 10/17, 7:30-9pm, $20).
☀️ Visit Yerba Buena Gardens to browse the best of local literature at their Small Press Book Fair. Featuring Alta Journal, Heydey Books, Two Lines Press, and dozens more, there will also be readings and performances from Litquake Out Loud throughout the day. Saturday 10/19, 11am-4pm, free.
🏆 Witness competitive poetry - not a phrase I ever expected to write! - at their Poetry World Series. With Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket) as emcee, two teams of award-winning poets will take turns battling at topics pitched to them by the audience. Hilarity and brilliance guaranteed! Saturday 10/19, 7pm, $20.
You can check out the entirety of Litquake’s programming here - it’s like drinking from a literary firehose, and I mean that in the best way.
Give me more!
If the dozens of Litquake events aren’t enough, I’d be remiss not to recommend Drink Beer, Save Turtles with award-winning wildlife writer Sy Montgomery (Of Time and Turtles: Mending the World, Shell by Shattered Shell) via Bookshop West Portal and the Turtle Survival Alliance (Thursday 10/17, 7pm, $10-42).
Since the “reading alone, together” events are always popular: Sour Cherry Comics is hosting Babes Who Book Monday, Black Bird has their second Reading Disco Wednesday, and if you haven’t followed Silent Book Club SF, you’re doing it wrong.
Finally, if you’ve got a young and curious reader in your life, join award-winning local children’s author Elizabeth Partridge to celebrate the launch of Golden Gate: Building the Mighty Bridge at Mrs. Dalloway’s in Berkeley (Friday 10/18, 7pm, free with RSVP).
Thanks to our friends at Chronicle Books, we’ve got a handful of copies to gift to readers who plan to attend. If that’s you, reply to this email! As always, priority goes to paid subscribers.
Also
Note: This week’s Also doesn’t have space for all 30+ Litquake events; see their full programming here!
MONDAY (INDIGENOUS PEOPLE’S DAY) Marathon poetry reading to benefit the children of Palestine at Bird & Beckett Books | Renee Bracey Sherman on Liberating Abortion: Claiming Our History, Sharing Our Stories, and Building the Reproductive Future We Deserve at Book Passage | Author Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and illustrator Paul Peart-Smith on Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz’s Indigenous Peoples’ History of the United States: A Graphic Interpretation via City Lights Zoom
TUESDAY “Are you obsessed with obsessed with birds? Abnormally into hiking? Really into animals? Preoccupied with the life-cycle of plants?” Writing Nature, a four-week generative class at led by Serrana Laure Gay, kicks off today at Black Bird | Journalist Jason Schreier on Play Nice: The Rise, Fall, and Future Of Blizzard Entertainment at Book Passage | Blogger Carolina Gelen on Pass the Plate at JCCSF | Local author Jim Provenzano in celebration of 25 years of his debut novel Pins at SFPL Eureka Valley
WEDNESDAY Sampaguita Press Author 2024 Showcase at Medicine for Nightmares | Neal Stephenson on Polostan at SFJazz via the Long Now Foundation | Mary Poffenroth, Ph.D on Brave New You: Strategies, Tools, and Neurohacks to Live More Courageously Every Day at Book Passage | Poets Diane Frank and Stewart Florsheim on their new work at Bird & Beckett | Paola Velez on Bodega Bakes: Recipes for Sweets and Treats Inspired by My Corner Store at Omnivore | Brando Skyhorse on My Name is Iris via SFPL Zoom
THURSDAY Three Bay Area writers, JJ Elliott, Anna B. Moore, and Terry Tierney, on their newest works at Green Apple Books on the Park | Essayist Steve Wasserman on Tell Me Something, Tell Me Anything, Even If It’s a Lie: A Memoir in Essays at City Lights | Ornithophile Jack Gedney on The Birds in the Oaks: Secret Voices of the Western Woods at Bookshop West Portal | Marin author Julie Fingersh on her memoir Stay: A Story of Love & Other Traumas | Speaking Axolotl, the Bay Area’s long-running Latinx reading series, featuring Coco Oliver in a collaboration with Galeria de la Raza | Celebration: Litanies, A Ritual Reading for Audre Lorde at The Women’s Building
FRIDAY Amanda Tyler with Congressman Jared Huffman on How to End Christian Nationalism at Book Passage | Hetal Vasavada on Desi Bakes: 85 Recipes Bringing the Best of Indian Flavors to Western-Style Desserts at Omnivore
SATURDAY Yaccaira Salvatierra on her poetry collection Sons of Salt, with fellow poets Aida Salazar, Norma Liliana Valdez, Leticia Del Toro and a short film by Twodotx, at Medicine for Nightmares | Arion Press Artist Talk: “Fables of Aesop” with Daniel Handler at Fort Mason Center for Arts & Culture
SUNDAY Ticketed meet-and-greet with John Stamos for his memoir If You Would Have Told Me at Book Passage | Sarah Fennel on Sweet Tooth: 100 Desserts to Save Room For at Omnivore | Meeting of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Book Club on Walkaway by Cory Doctorow at Borderlands
Local & literary news
This week’s local and literary news is about me, the person behind Same Page. I’ve got something personal to share: I’m eight months pregnant with my first child!
This feels surreal to write - I don’t think my brain has caught up with my body - and I’m sharing it because I’ll be taking time off, beginning in November and continuing through the start of the new year.
Same Page SF has always been a labor of love - something I dreamed up after missing one too many literary events (and, as a bookseller, working one too many with no attendees). I knew the community was out there, and I wanted to do my part to inform, inspire, and connect.
And connect we have! I’m delighted to say this newsletter reaches more than 1,000 local readers each week. If one of you is interested in continuing Same Page while I’m otherwise occupied, please reach out, though I’ll be honest that the work is high and the pay is low. (Compelling!) Otherwise, consider this my few (?) week’s notice.
Cheers,
Christina
Book recommendations are my love language.
A bonus for paid subscribers: at the end of each issue, I feature a book I’ve recently read and want to recommend.
This week’s suggestion is a book you’ve probably seen, by an author you probably know. It’s not a book I expected to like, let alone love, and it feels very different to me from her other work!
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