Wednesday 3/22: Kick off spring 2017 with an unusually large array of choices for a Wednesday night:
Graham Foust is featured at the Holloway Reading Series at the University of California, Berkeley. Free, 6:30 p.m., Hearst Field Annex, Room D37, UCB.
City Lights presents Elif Batuman, celebrating the release of her new novel, The Idiot. Free, 7 p.m., City Lights.
Noe Valley’s Word Week 2017 presents a panel discussion: “Immigrant Writers on Embodying 2 Cultures at Once.” Participants include Kirsten Chen, Ingrid Rojas Contreras, Andrew Lam, and Juliana Delgado Lopera. Free, 7 p.m., Noe Valley Public Library.
Nomadic Press hosts Perfectly Queer–East Bay: Queer Speculative Fiction. Featured readers include Kwan Booth, Skye Allen, and Na’amen Tilahun. Free, 7 p.m., Nomadic Press (Uptown).
St. Mary’s College presents Arisa White as part of the SMC MFA in Creative Writing Reading Series. Free, 7:30 p.m., Hagerty Lounge, St. Mary’s College.
The Booksmith presents Jami Attenberg (All Grown Up) in conversation with Alexis Coel. Free, 7:30 p.m., The Booksmith.
Thursday 3/23: Radar Productions presents its March Queer Reading Series, featuring Marisa Crawford, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, Yuska Lutfi Tuanakotta, and Trinidad Escobar. And, of course, cookies. Free, 5:30 p.m., San Francisco Public Library.
We are intrigued by the subject of Michael Finkel’s new book, The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit. Finkel’s subject, Christopher Knight, lived alone in the Maine woods, with no human contact, for three decades. The author’s work has been published in National Geographic, Rolling Stone, Vanity Fair, and the New York Times Magazine. Free, 7 p.m., Book Passage Marin.
Friday 3/24: City Lights presents Jim Shepard to celebrate the release of his new collection of short stories, The World to Come. Free, 3 p.m., Zoetrope Cafe.
Folio Books, as part of Noe Valley Book Week, presents “Night of the Graphic Novelists,” a panel discussion and reading featuring Paige Braddock, Alex E. Fajardo, and Judd Winick. Free, 6 p.m., Folio Books.
Saturday 3/25: The popular East Bay open mic reading series “Saturday Night Special” presents the theme “Get Off My Lawn.” Featured readers: QR Hand and Paul Corman-Roberts. 7 p.m., Free (with a 1-drink minimum), Nick’s Lounge.
The bi-monthly Liminal Showcase presents a reading on SWAN day (Support Women Artists Now!). Attendees are encouraged to wear anything with swans on it. The large selection of featured readers includes: Ginger Cuervas, Emily Butterfly, Steffi Drewes, Leslie Absher, Nana K. Twumasi, Natalie Devora, Sara McAulay, Kathryn Kruse, Ai Ebashi, Tatiana Luboviski-Acosta, and Maguerite Munoz. Just reading the list out loud is breathtaking. Free, 7 p.m., The Liminal Center.
Sunday 3/26: Poet and accomplished storyteller Walker Brents III delivers monthly “Walker Talks” at Bird & Beckett Bookstore. Who else does this sort of thing, outside of academia? Today’s theme is “Kerouac and Lamantia: A Poetics of the Inner Self.” If the talk doesn’t appeal, you won’t regret a visit to Bird & Beckett, one of San Franciso’s most treasured and iconic venues. Free, 2:30 p.m., Bird & Beckett.
Diesel Books presents the Fresh & Best poetry series, featuring Farid Matuk and Tonya Foster. Free, 7 p.m., Diesel, A Bookstore.
Monday 3/27: It’s time for Bay Area Generations to present a selection of inter-generational reading pairs, plus a musical feature. Tonight’s lineup includes: Aqueila M. Lewis with Rasheedah Sabreen Sakir, Clive Matson with Kwesi The Dreamer, Sebastian Snow with G. Macias Gusman, Raluca Ioanid with Shizue Siegel, K. R. Morrison with Nancy Patrice Davenport, and Joan Baranow with David Watts. Turk & Divis (Miles Karp and Evan Karp) are the musical guests. $7–10, 7:30 p.m., Hotel Rex.
Tuesday 3/28: Jon Raymond (Freebird), in conversation with Michael Ray (editor, Zoetrope All-Story). Free, 7:30 p.m., Green Apple Books on the Park.
The MFA In Writing Program at the University of San Francisco presents the first night of its annual Emerging Writers Festival, featuring poet Cortney Lamar Charleston (Telepathologies) and novelist Patricia Park (Re Jane). Free, 7:30 p.m., USF.
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This week’s theatre recommendation is the Bay area premiere of peerless by Jiehae Park. Inspired by Shakespeare’s Scottish play (***beth) and the true life story of the Gibbons twins. The twins of peerless are high school students determined to get into a prestigious college at any cost, even murder. peerless, which has won numerous awards for previous productions, is funny, memorable, creepy, and not without significant social commentary. Read a review here. Find further information here.
For coverage of the Bay Area theatre scene, visit TheatreStorm.
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Evan Karp and Rebecca Samuelson of Litseen present video of this week’s featured local author, Nick Krieger. Read an interview here.
And here’s video of one of last week’s SF Notables, John Murillo.
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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.
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Logo art by Max Winter.
