Written on the Dock of the Bay is your weekly guide to literary and bookish happenings in the pleasantly literary and bookish Bay Area.
Bay Area Book World Breaking News
In case you haven’t heard, November is National Novel Writing Month, otherwise known as NaNoWriMo. It might sound like a silly arrangement of letters, and a crazy idea to begin with, but people take it pretty seriously in these parts. After all, it all began in Berkeley, and now the Office of Letters and Light’s mission is to get people writing that novel they’ve been talking about writing for decades. The catch? They have to write it in 4 weeks. Not much more to say here, other than: just do it. Look, they’ve even got emergency cheerleaders, waiting for you.
MONDAY, 11/9 - SUNDAY 11/15
Monday, 11/9
Shout!
Storytelling is the latest craze. These days, it’s hard to go more than a couple of days without some sort of live-storytelling event in the Bay Area. So, it’s important to find the good ones. Enter SHOUT - a monthly event featuring guest storytellers to tell their own true 10-minute tales. And someone else cleans up!
DETAILS: Perch. // 440 Grand Ave., Oakland // 7 p.m.
Tuesday, 11/10
Killing -- and Dying, Too
Adrien Tomine has been working on his comic book series, Optic Nerve, since he was sixteen. His latest acclaimed graphic novel, Killing And Dying, comes from an older man, now married with two kids and apparently a tadbit sinister.
DETAILS: The Booksmith // 1644 Haight Street, SF. // 7:30pm
Wednesday, 11/11
Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time
Things that seem like good ideas but might not be: drinking away your sorrows, talking on your cell phone while sitting on the john, learning to swim by jumping in the swimming pool. With so many conferences and talks about good ideas, every now and again, we want to sit around and listen to people talk about their bad ideas and unfortunate failures. Fireside Storytelling pumps out the bad ideas this Wednesday.
DETAILS: The Institute of Possibility // 3359 Cesar Chavez, SF. // 7pm
Thursday, 11/12
5 + 5 Gay Poets Dead and Alive
Five local poets + the work of five gay icons = 5 + 5 Gay Poets Dead and Alive. That’s the basic equation of the first part of the Gay Ancestor Project’s next literary reading in the SF Public Library’s Gay and Lesbian Center. Prepare to be exposed to good things, and come back for Part 2 on Friday.
DETAILS: SF Public Library // 100 Larkin St., SF. // 6pm
Friday, 11/13
Play Me Some Word Music
Take some pop. Plug in some experimental spoken word, then add some Beatniks, and why not some Dada sensibility? And there you have it: the language experiment that is Toby Lurie’s Lost Coast Word Music Ensemble, right in the Beat Museum.
DETAILS: The Beat Museum // 540 Broadway, SF. // 7pm
Saturday, 11/14
Poetry in the Disco Room
There's this thing called the Bay Area Public School, where people can host classes they want on whatever they want. And once a month, the Bay Area Public School hosts a reading called Hearts Desire. This one is at the Disco Room at Omni Oakland Commons, so if not for the poetry, come to find out all the great things a Disco Room might entail.
DETAILS: Fort Mason Center // 2 Marina Boulevard, San Francisco // Saturday, 12pm - Sunday, 12pm
Sunday, 11/15
Not Your Bro
Want to re-imagine the possibilities of being a man? Perhaps that’s not what you had in mind this Sunday, perhaps it is. Either way, it’s good that there’s a place for that conversation, and male-identified writers will be at the CCSF campus this Sunday to read work that explores whatever it is that manhood might mean.
DETAILS: CCSF Mission Campus // 1125 Valencia St., SF // 3pm
