 | | Pic 1: Litquake's one-day festival moved to Yerba Buena in 2000. Pic 2: In the early years, Irvine Welsh (Trainspotting) did a few shows at the Edinburgh Castle after the main afternoon showcase. Pic 3: Daniel Handler reading in 2002. Pic 4: Handler, Dave Eggers, and friend at a festival wrap party. |
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| 2000 through 2002, we moved the festival to Yerba Buena Gardens to partner with YBGFestival (their 1st year!), and changed our name from Litstock to Litquake. Lawrence Ferlinghetti arrived two hours late for his time slot after some car trouble, but then proceeded to blow the crowd away with a poem he'd written to help us christen our new name, “Lit.Quake.” As cofounder Jane Ganahl has said, "It was quite an honor, but also, I felt that he had thrown down the gauntlet. If you read the poem, he appears to be telling us, What are you going to do with this thing? Don’t screw it up!" 22 years later, we think we're doing alright!
PS. Here's the inimitable Lawrence reading Lit.Quake in 2002. |
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Launch Party Celebrating R.O. Kwon's Exhibit
Monday May 20 · 7pm
Verdi Club · 2424 Mariposa St, San Francisco, CA 94110
co-presented by Green Apple Books
Join us for the launch party celebrating R.O. Kwon's highly-anticipated second novel, EXHIBIT! Kwon will be joined in-conversation by Ingrid Rojas Contreras. Meet us at the historic Verdi Club for a night of literary splendor. VIP tickets available for meet-and-greet preparty with Kwon plus a copy of the book, a drink ticket, and more. FREE for students, $5-$50 |
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SOROCHE Live at The Brava
Thursday June 6, 2024 · 7pm
The Brava Theater · 2781 24th St., San Francisco
co-presented by Center for the Art of Translation/Two Lines Press
Two Lines Press and Cuentero Productions present Soroche, a haunting one-night-only multimedia performance. Adapted from the short story by award-winning Ecuadorian writer Mónica Ojeda published in Through the Night Like a Snake: Latin American Horror Stories by Two Lines Press, Soroche depicts the effects of a leaked sex tape, filtered through the dizzying lens of altitude sickness. The cinematic sound design, created by Cuentero Productions to accompany the performance, immerses the audience in the suffocating, malignant air of the mountains while giving voice to Mónica Ojeda’s harrowing observations of abject humiliation and self-loathing. The performance will be followed by a conversation between translators Sarah Booker and Noelle de la Paz and Sarah Coolidge, editor of Through the Night Like a Snake. $10-25 |
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SongWriter Live with Susan Orlean and Diana Gameros
Thursday June 13 · 7pm
The Commons · 2601 Mariposa St San Francisco, CA 94110
co-presented by KQED
Litquake and KQED Live present a night with SongWriter, a podcast that turns stories into songs (featured guests have included Questlove, Joyce Carol Oates, David Gilmour of Pink Floyd, Roxane Gay, and Craig Finn of The Hold Steady).
In this special live recording event, bestselling author Susan Orlean (The Orchid Thief, The Library Book) will share a story from her recent collection On Animals, and local songwriter Diana Gameros will play a brand new song written in response. SongWriter’s creator Ben Arthur will host, and engage the artists in a conversation with UC Berkeley researcher Laura Simone Lewis on animal intelligence. $29 |
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How They Did It: Biographical Fiction
Sunday June 23 · 3pm
Page Street Co-Writing · 2508 San Pablo Ave Berkeley, CA 94702
co-presented by LitCamp
Novelist Louisa Treger once called biographical fiction "the lie through which truth can emerge." In the third of our "How They Did It" series, we'll hear from four talented novelists who have blended fact with their fiction, with dazzling results. Novelist Jasmin Darznik, who has written biographical fiction about Iranian poet Forugh Farrokhzad and photographer Dorothea Lange, will moderate a wide-ranging conversation with novelists Karen Joy Fowler (author of the Booker longlisted Booth), Dawn Tripp (author of national bestseller Georgia and her latest novel, Jackie), and Gail Tsukiyama (author of Bright Star, about the Hollywood trailblazer Anna May Wong). $25
PS. We are also hosting a free Write Together with Page Street Co-Writing and Lit Camp on 6/8! |
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