photo by Scott Beale
Each year the annual Bay Area literary festival Lit Quake culminates in an ambling stumble amongst literarily dozens of locations where hundreds of authors of every stripe and micro-genre read their work.
This Saturday, October 9th, the closing night tradition of Lit Crawl continues with an amazing lineup at of authors at a diverse assortment of venues around San Francisco’s Mission District. It all goes down in 3 shifts on Saturday night, so you can catch 3 readings if you plan well. There’s a downloadable map of all the options.
This year we bring you a whopping 66 venues and almost 400 authors, spread over three phases (Phase 1: 6:00–7:00, Phase 2: 7:15–8:15, Phase 3: 8:30–9:30). Hear writers perform readings in bars, cafes, bookstores, art galleries, community centers, a laundromat, and even the Mission Police Station!
From San Quentin inmates to Buddhist writers, dog lovers, Stanford professors, and a multi-orgasmic couple, there’s literally an event for everyone—even if you are not an incarcerated Buddhist humanities professor who loves dogs and is multi-orgasmic.
One of the 7:15 shows features a pair of notable San Francisco counterculture instigators and friends of Laughing Squid: canine-head enthusiast, bridge expert & fiction writer, and tradesman John Law and successfully failed mayoral candidate Chicken John (who is also a successfully unpublished author).
They are part of an amazing lineup at The Blue Macaw bar (previously the home of the great bar 12 Galaxies), details below:
Emperor Norton Lives: Bay Area Iconoclasts
Blue Macaw, 2565 Mission St.Emceed by Litquake co-founder Jack Boulware
Lynn Breedlove writes for queer performance: Godspeed (speed-freak-bike-messenger-in-love-with-a-stripper novel); Tribe 8 (all-dyke punk band); One Freak Show (gender comedy for stage and page).
Chicken John Rinaldi Insultant. Confusionist. Mechanic. Writer. Activist. Lover. Hater. Showman. Author of Fail…to Win! Engineered Disperfection Explained.
Eugene S. Robinson is vocalist/front man for the Art Brut quartet Oxbow, and has published two books, Fight and A Long Slow Screw.
John Law was raised in the Midwest and dreamed about bridges from a very young age. Arriving in San Francisco in 1976, he can’t seem to leave. Please buy his book.
Susie Bright is an author, editor, host of Audible.com’s In Bed with Susie Bright, and love child of Lillian Hellman and Coco Chanel.
photo by Violet Blue
Featured writers at other venues include Squid pal and dada erotic whipping boy m.i. blue; Kasper Hauser member Rob Baedeker with longtime bay area writer, musician, storyteller, comedienne, etc Beth Lisick, and a group of Bawdy Storytellers including performer Cherry Zonkowski.
Below actress Wynona Ryder speaks at a recent Litquake event, a reading by poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, about Ferlinghetti (his poetry and that he used to babysit her) and the importance of Lit Quake to San Francisco:
