Wednesday 5/18: Lyrics and Dirges presents long-time creative writing chair at SFSU Maxine Chernoff, along with Garrett Murphy, Lark Omura, Elizabeth Rosner, and Juan Velasco. Free, 7:30 p.m., Pegasus Books.
Fenton Johnson (The Man Who Loved Birds) reads in Berkeley. Free, 7 p.m., Books, Inc.
Thursday 5/19: Townsend Walker reads at the Ferry Building—a special location for an early evening event. Free, 6 p.m., Book Passage.
Rumpus Comics Editor Paul Madonna celebrates his recently completed illustrated novel, Close Enough for the Angels, with an exhibit of new work, including framed originals from the book. Free, 7 p.m., The Dryanksy Gallery.
James Warner brings his popular series, Inside Story Time, to the East Bay, featuring Ali Eteraz (Native Believer), Paul Corman-Roberts (We Shoot Typewriters), Alexandra Naughton (American Mary), Edmund Zagarin (The Face of Our Town), and Tanya Rey. Free, 7 p.m., The Octopus Literary Salon.
Friday 5/20: Hella Close: Stories of Black Queer Intimacy features Joshua Merchant, Jezebel Delilah X, Brontez Purnell, and Ramona “Mona” Webb. Free, 6 p.m., Strut.
Saturday 5/21: Adrian Todd Zuniga himself will host the 61st edition of Literary Death Match with competitors Janice Cooke Newman (A Master Plan for Rescue), Baruch Porras-Hernandez, Na’amen Tilahun (The Root), and Sarah Ladipo Manyika (Like a Mule Bringing Ice Cream to the Sun). $7-10, 7:15 p.m., The Elbo Room.
Writers With Drinks will imbibe with Guy Gavriel Kay (Children of Earth and Sky), Yangsze Choo (The Ghost Bride), David Lau (Virgil and the Mountain Cat), Kwan Booth (Black Futurists Speak: An Anthology of New Black Writing), and Ariel Waldman (What’s It Like in Space?). $5–$20, 7:30 p.m., The Makeout Room.
Sunday 5/22: The second annual Oakland Book Festival takes over Oakland’s City Hall for an all day event with panels, writers, tabling, and readings. A wonderful event! One of the East Bay’s highlights, not to be missed if you can help it. Free, 10:30 a.m.–5:00 p.m., Oakland City Hall.
Monday 5/23: Bay Area Generations features intergenerational pairs Susan Dambroff + Carol Harada, Raluca Ioanid + Shizue Seigel, Rusty Rebar + Isobel O’Hare, and Kate Folk + Diego De Leo. $7 ($10 with souvenir chapbook), 7:30 p.m., Hotel Rex.
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This week’s theatre recommendation is Red Velvet at the San Francisco Playhouse. Leading Bay Area actor Carl Lumbly stars as the highly successful 19th Black Shakespearean actor Ira Aldridge, who played all the great houses of Europe. For further information, click here.
For more extensive coverage of the Bay Area theatre scene, visit TheatreStorm.
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Evan Karp presents video of this week’s featured local author, Laura Walker. Read an interview here.
And here’s some older video of one of last week’s SF notables, Michael Warr.
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If you have a Bay Area event listing you’d like us to consider for Notable SF, please contact [email protected] as far in advance as possible, and include the date of the event in the subject line.
