Same Page SF | Queer literature, community, and the gayest love story ever told 💕

Plus, a giveaway for ABSOLUTELY SCIENCE FICTION

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. Every Monday, I share author talks, book clubs, and new releases happening across our city.

June is Pride Month, and this week culminates in the iconic Pride parade. If you’re looking for a friendly crew to march with, don your sparkliest attire and join the SFPL and Books Not Bans, a small-but-mighty nonprofit that’s provided over two thousand queer books to book deserts and ban hotspots throughout the country. It’s run by Becka Robbins of Fabulosa, a must-visit bookstore in the Castro with a glorious purple storefront.

In the mood for a mini Pride bookshop crawl? From Fabulosa, cross Market Street to the Love Potion Library, where you’ll find a joyful display of queer love stories. Then walk 10 minutes east to Sour Cherry Comics, lesbian-owned and 100% queer-run. Finally, head down Valencia to Dog Eared Books, praised by a Same Page reader for its “deep stacks on queer literature” in our crowdsourced bookstore database.

Fabulosa, The Love Potion Library, Sour Cherry Comics (sourced from Yelp), and Dog Eared Books

When you’re tired of walking, curl up on your couch with the lovingly curated offerings from Big Book Baby, a local- and queer-owned online bookshop for queer, trans, and BIPOC authors.

It’s another great week to be a reader in San Francisco. Here’s what you’ll want to do if:

1) You’re a sci-fi fan or theater geek

Absolutely Science Fiction! Stories by Ray Bradbury and Kurt Vonnegut in Z Below. Previews Weds 6/24, Thurs 6/25, and Fri 6/26 ($15+); opening night Sat 6/27 and run of show 6/28-7/19 ($50+).

If you’ve been reading Same Page for a while, you’ve heard me rave about Word for Word, a local theater company bringing short stories to the stage. Their latest production adapts Bradbury’s “The Veldt” and Vonnegut’s “The Big Space F*ck,” two futuristic tales in which humanity’s demands for convenience turn catastrophic. They’ve generously offered a pair of tickets to one lucky Same Page reader, redeemable for any show with capacity - enter the giveaway here. (As always, priority goes to paid subscribers.)

2) You’re excited for “the gayest love story ever told”

Jeremy Atherton Lin on Deep House: The Gayest Love Story Ever Told at Booksmith. Wednesday 6/24, 7pm, free with RSVP.

In 1996, Jeremy Atherton Lin fell in love with a British man; that same year, Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act, denying Jeremy’s partner access to immigration. A blend of memoir and history, neither one remotely censored, Deep House recounts and contextualizes their love story. In honor of the paperback launch, Jeremy will speak with Cathy Park Hong, whose Minor Feelings was a Pulitzer Prize finalist.

3) Your dream book club meets in an art museum

Works on Paper Book Club: Austerlitz by W. G. Sebald at SFMOMA. Thursday 6/25, 6pm, free with RSVP.

San Francisco has no shortage of book clubs (and that’s a point of pride), but the SFMOMA’s new concept stands out. For their inaugural meeting, assistant curator of painting and sculpture Ted Mann has chosen W. G. Sebald’s award-winning novel Austerlitz, the story of an unnamed narrator and his 30-year search for identity after escaping the Holocaust as a child. Ted will open with a short talk on the book’s relationship to their current exhibit Memory and Matter: Personal and Collective Histories, then transition into a broader discussion.

4) You want to celebrate queer literature, joy, and community

Again to our city’s credit, there’s an abundance of options! (Check out Book-Adjacent Events below for more.)

• Laughs & Lit: Queer Storytelling and Comedy at Medicine for Nightmares. Thursday 6/25, 8-9:30pm, free.

  • In partnership with Sistah Scifi/Aunt Lute, Medicine for Nightmares is hosting Laughs & Lit. With Charlie Jane Anders and Baruch Porras Hernandez as the evening’s hosts, “expect a lively, thoughtful and unforgettable night of literary conversation, comic brilliance, and creative connection.”

• A Voice Answering a Voice: A Literary Pride Extravaganza at Sealevel. Sunday 6/28, 3:30-8pm, free.

  • Serrana Gay, the former Black Bird bookseller who now motors a bookmobile through New Mexico and across the West, is back to convene a queer literary extravaganza! Swing by Sealevel for books from her Unexpected Bookstore, readings by Sinister Wisdom and Foglifter, and open mic - plus music by Umed Sharifov, “the Bear version of Taylor Swift.”

5) You know it’s not summer without a reading challenge

I was blown away by the response to Same Page’s first-ever Summer Reading Bingo, with nearly one hundred of you signing up right away.

The challenge is about books, of course, but it’s also about getting to know the literary pillars of our city, from indie bookstores to public libraries to cultural hubs. Think prompts like “A book with 10+ words in the title” interspersed with “Visit a niche-interest bookstore” and “Attend a silent reading party.”

Speaking of reading parties, I’ll be throwing one for everyone who participates, complete with raffles and prizes. Details to come! Sign up for the challenge and download your Bingo sheet here.

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Book-adjacent events (Pride Edition) 🏳️‍🌈

• 💬 Manny’s is holding Coming-Out Storytime. Expect “a few tears, some laughter and a healthy dose of awe in our fellow human beings.” Tuesday 6/23,

• 🎉 Noe Valley Books is keeping the store open late for Pride Night, with festivities including scavenger hunts, temporary tattoos, live music, Blind Dates, and book-signings. Wednesday 6/24, 7-8:30pm, free.

• 🎨 Sour Cherry Comics is hosting a BUY GAY ART! Gallery Reception & Pop-Up. There’ll be local artists vending zines, trinkets, prints, and more. As they say: Give a shit with your art! Saturday 6/27, 6-9pm, free entry.

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Excited about one of this week’s features? Invite a friend to join you (or a full crew, but let’s be real, we’re all introverts here).

Have an upcoming event to share? Tell me all about it!

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Sour Cherry Comics just announced their Summer Reading Challenge, which centers on radical history and political science and will culminate in a collaborative zine | Letterform Archive, a library/museum focused on calligraphy, lettering, and graphic design, is hiring for a Digitization Architect and an Art Director | Broccoli Club, a low-pressure writing community designed to help people reconnect with their creativity and build a consistent practice, is welcoming new members for their July circle | The SF Art Book Fair is seeking volunteers for its late-July festival | Local publisher Two Lines Press is open for submissions through the beginning of August | The Bay Area Queer Zine Fest is accepting applications for its ninth annual festival in September

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MONDAY CLOWNS Anthology Reading - “writers explore and explode the archetype of the CLOWN in all of its humiliating, earnest, magical, subversive glory” - at Fabulosa | Larry Hayes on 14 Going on 24: Growing Up with Willie Mays at Bookshop West Portal | Erica Schneider and Haley Samas-Berry, co-owners of Mendocino’s Fog Eater Cafe, on The Fog Eater Cookbook at Omnivore | Entrepreneur Eric Ries on Incorruptible: Why Good Companies Go Bad and How Great Companies Stay Great at the Commonwealth Club | Babes Who Book at Sour Cherry Comics | The Love Potion Library Book Club on Holly Brickley’s Deep Cuts, with the author herself, at 6:30pm and 7:30pm

TUESDAY Andrew Lam on his collection Stories from the Edge of the Sea, fourteen stories centering the lives of Vietnamese immigrants and their children in California, at SFPL Visitacion Valley | Christian Bancroft on A Ghost Has No Fantasies, a haunting poetry/prose illumination of LGBTQ+ individuals who suffered under Nazi persecution, at Green Apple Books on the Park

WEDNESDAY Nick Martino on his debut poetry collection Scrap Book at Green Apple Books on the Park | Player-turned-manager Dusty Baker on Crossroads: A Memoir in Baseball & Life at the Commonwealth Club | Zack Rogow on The Kama Sutra for Senior Citizens and Other Poems on Aging at the Commonwealth Club | Brooke Taylor on Healing the Success Wound at Book Passage | Ava Koohbor, Marina Lazzara, and Jessica Loos on their new books from Lithic Press, a small indie publisher focused on experimental poetry, at Bird & Beckett | After-Hours Reading Club at Black Bird | YA Author Night featuring H.D. Carver, Taylor Hobbs, Peyton June, and Alex Ritany - plus make-your-own-sprayed-edges crafting - at Bookshop West Portal | Eddie Huang on his subversive love story Come Undone at Sydney Goldstein Theater is sold out

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