Wednesday 5/27: Jan Ellison will discuss her new novel, A Small Indiscretion, with Kirsten Jones Neff. Ellison was a recipient of a 2007 O. Henry Prize for her first story to appear in print, and has been short listed for The Best American Short Stories and a Puschart Prize. Free, 7 p.m., Book Passage Corte Madera.
Thursday 5/28: Poetry Flash presents The Marin Poetry Center’s Traveling Show featuring Barbara Swift Brauer, Rafaella Del Bourgo, Gerald Fleming, Connie Post, Ann Robinson, and Jeanne Wagner. Free, 7:30 p.m., Moe’s.
Friday 5/29: Nomadic Press, which has been taking Oakland by storm, presents Maw Shein Win and Tim Donnelly. Free, 7 p.m., Nomadic Press.
Saturday 5/30: Jayinee Basu celebrates the release of Asuras. Free, 6 p.m., Press: Works On Paper.
Sunday 5/31: The Oakland Book Festival! This is a biggie: One day. Seven hours. 90 Writers. 40 Events. Can’t list all 90 writers, but it is an amazing line up. You don’t need to take our word for it: check out the link, and make your way to Oak Town, where the scene is exploding. Free, 11 a.m.–6 p.m., City Hall and Frank Ogawa Plaza in Oakland.
Tuesday 6/2: The newest iteration of Inside Storytime (Perversions) will feature David Corbett (The Mercy of the Night), Bich Minh Nguyen (Stealing Buddha’s Dinner), Faith Adiele (The Nigerian-Nordic Girl’s Guide to Lady Problems), Stephen Beachy (boneyard), and Jenny Bitner. Hosted by James Warner (All Her Father’s Guns).
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This week’s theatre recommendation is Cutting Ball’s world premier of Mount Misery, a comedy of enhanced interrogations, by resident playwright Andrew Saito. When Andrew Saito heard of Donald Rumsfeld’s purchase of a former plantation house where Frederick Douglass had served as a slave (“Mount Misery”) to serve as a weekend retreat, he wondered what it would be like if Rumsfeld encountered the ghost of Frederick Douglass. This astonishing, surrealistic, black comedy is the remarkable result. For ticket information, click here. Read a review here.
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Also, check out the San Francisco International Arts Festival! More than 70 ensembles and individual artists are participating. The best of the best: world class! Continues through June 7.
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This week’s featured local author is A. D. Winans. Read an interview here.
