LIVE! From City Lights
LIVE! From City Lights
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The official podcast for City Lights Publishers & Booksellers in San Francisco. Featuring readings and archives. Hosted by City Lights events coordinator Peter Maravelis.
Available episodes
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4 days ago
Cisco Bradley in Conversation With Lee Ranaldo
City Lights LIVE and Duke University Press celebrate the publication of “The Williamsburg Avant-Garde: Experimental Music and Sound on the Brooklyn Waterfront” by Cisco Bradley, published by Duke University Press.
In “The Williamsburg Avant-Garde” Cisco Bradley documents the rise and fall of the underground music and art scene in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn between the late 1980s and the early 2010s. Drawing on interviews, archival collections, musical recordings, videos, photos, and other ephemera, Bradley explores the scene’s social, cultural, and economic dynamics. Bradley not only documents some of the most vital music of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries; he helps readers better understand the formation, vibrancy, and life span of experimental music and art scenes everywhere.
Cisco Bradley is Associate Professor of History at the Pratt Institute and author of “Universal Tonality: The Life and Music of William Parker,” also published by Duke University Press.
Lee Ranaldo is a Grammy nominated musician, composer, visual artist, writer, and producer. He is a founding member of Sonic Youth and continues to work on numerous solo projects. His artwork and videos have been on view in galleries and museums across the globe. He is the author of the books “Some Writings on Music and Musicians,” “Against Refusing,” and “How Not To Get Played On The Radio." He makes his home in New York State.
You can purchase copies of “The Williamsburg Avant-Garde: Experimental Music and Sound on the Brooklyn Waterfront” at https://citylights.com/williamsburg-avant-garde-experimental/
This event is made possible with the support of the City Lights Foundation. To learn more visit: https://citylights.com/foundation/
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4 days ago
Brando Shimoda with Emily Luan
City Lights LIVE presents Brandon Shimoda and Emily Luan reading from their books,“Hydra Medusa” and “In 回 / Return,” published by Nightboat Books.
“Hydra Medusa” by Brandon Simoda takes us through the poet's day-to-day life as he works five jobs and raises his child. His collection of poems and essays touches on the realities of living on the US-Mexico border. Shimoda documents the realities and oftentimes horrors of living in the desert as he encounters his own past and ancestry as a Japanese American individual. Brandon Shimoda is a poet and author of eight books of poetry and prose. He teaches at Colorado College.
“In 回 / Return” by Emily Luan is rooted in the classical tradition of the Chinese “reversible” poem. "In 回 / Return” is engaged in the act of looking back—toward an imagined homeland and a childhood of suburban longing, through migratory passages, departures, and etymologies, and into the various holes and voids that appear in the telling and retelling of history. Emily Luan is a former Margins Fellow at the Asian American Writers’ Workshop.
You can purchase copies of "Hydra Medusa” and “In 回 / Return” at https://citylights.com/.
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Sep 13, 2023
Joyce Mansour Tribute and Book Launch
City Lights LIVE celebrates the publication of Emerald Wounds: Selected Poems by Joyce Mansour (Translator: Emilie Moorhouse), published by City Lights Books.
Join us as we dive into the works of iconic Surrealist poet, Joyce Mansour, who emerged from Paris in the 1950s. Mansour is best known for her unfiltered poetry and her participation in the post World War II circle of Surrealist poets.
“Emerald Wounds: Selected Poems” by Joyce Mansour is a bilingual anthology of her striking works. In this episode, Emilie Moorhouse, translator and author of the book's introduction, discusses Mansour's unwavering voice with Garrett Caples, American poet and City Lights editor. Mansour, through her work, expresses her frustration with a patriarchal society that views women as objects rather than multidimensional individuals. Mansour's poetry is as necessary as ever.
You can purchase copies of "Emerald Wounds: Selected Poems" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/emerald-wounds-sel-poems/.
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Aug 23, 2023
Jane Smiley in conversation with Steve Wasserman
City Lights, in conjunction with Heyday Books, presents Jane Smiley in conversation with Steve Wasserman to celebrate the publication of "The Questions that Matter Most: Reading, Writing, and the Exercise of Freedom" by Jane Smiley, published by Heyday Books.
Smiley’s new book offers essays on some of the aesthetic and cultural issues that mark any serious engagement with reading and writing. She dives into the complexities of character and history and how she is inspired by literature of all kinds in her own writing. She shares her analysis and research on the works of classic authors such as Charles Dickens, Louisa May Alcott, Mark Twain, and many others. Smiley shares her personal journey as a writer moving from Iowa to California and reflects on her findings within the diverse literature of the state, which often highlights issues of race, class, and sex.
Jane Smiley is a novelist and essayist. She has won various awards for her work, including the Pulitzer Prize for her novel "A Thousand Acres." She has written for numerous magazines and newspapers such as The New Yorker, The New York Times, Harper’s, and the Nation. Her most recent novel, "A Dangerous Business," was published in 2022.
Steve Wasserman is the publisher of Heyday Books. He is a former editor-at-large for Yale University Press, editorial director of Times Books/Random House and publisher of Hill & Wang and The Noonday Press at Farrar, Straus & Giroux. He has written for numerous publications, including The Village Voice, Threepenny Review, The Progressive, and many others.
You can purchase copies of "The Questions that Matter Most: Reading, Writing, and the Exercise of Freedom" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/new-nonfiction-in-hardcover/questions-that-matter-most-reading-wr/.
This was a virtual event hosted by Peter Maravelis and made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation.
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Aug 16, 2023
Kristen R. Ghodsee in conversation with Emefa Addo Agawu
City Lights LIVE presents Kirsten R. Ghodsee discussing her new book "Everyday Utopia: What 2,000 years of Wild Experiments Can Teach Us About the Good Life," published by Simon and Schuster.
"Everyday Utopia" is an exploration throughout the world and history where varying communities challenge the conventional ways in which we live our lives, raise our families, and interact with those around us. Ghodsee introduces readers to these communities who reimagine life as we know it. From Danish cohousing communities that nourish neighborly bonds to Colombian ecovillages who grow their own food, Ghodsee takes readers through the worlds of those who live in their own utopia. "Everyday Utopia" offers radical hope for what our future could look like if community and connectedness is prioritized.
Kristen R. Ghodsee is a Professor of Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pennsylvania and the critically acclaimed author of "Why Women Have Better Sex Under Socialism: And Other Arguments for Economic Independence." Her writing has been published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Republic, Le Monde Diplomatique, and Jacobin, among other publications. She lives outside of Philadelphia.
You can purchase copies of "Everyday Utopia: What 2,000 years of Wild Experiments Can Teach Us About the Good Life" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/new-nonfiction-in-hardcover/everyday-utopia/.
This was a virtual event hosted by Peter Maravelis and made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation.
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Aug 9, 2023
Mircea Cărtărescu in conversation with Mauro Javier Cardenas
LIVE! From City Lights celebrates author Mircea Cărtărescu and his latest publication, “Solenoid.”
Grounded in the reality of late 1970s/early 1980s Communist Romania, Solenoid ruminates on the exchange possible between the alternate dimensions of life and art, as various, monstrous dimensions erupt within the Communist present.
Mircea Cărtărescu is a Romanian novelist, poet, short-story writer, literary critic, and essayist. He has published more than twenty-five books. His work has received the Formentor Prize (2018), the Thomas Mann Prize (2018), the Austrian State Prize for Literature (2015), and the Vilenica Prize (2011), among many others. His work has been translated in twenty-three languages. His novels include “Blinding” (published by Archipelago Books,) “Nostalgia” (published by New Directions) and “Solenoid” (published by Deep Vellum.)
You can purchase copies of “Solenoid” directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/solenoid-tr-sean-cotter/
This was a virtual event hosted by Peter Maravelis, in conjunction with Deep Vellum and the Romanian Cultural Institute, and made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation.
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Aug 2, 2023
Yxta Maya Murray in conversation with Jocelyn Saidenberg
LIVE! From City Lights celebrates author Yxta Maya Murray’s publication of “God Went Like That: A Novel.”
“God Went Like That” follows the EPA report of federal agent Reyna Rodriguez who examines the ramifications of nuclear reactor meltdowns that occurred across three years. Drawing on an actual 2011 Department of Energy dossier that details the catastrophes and their ensuing public health fallout, Murray examines the human cost of governmental wrongdoing and environmental racism.
Yxta Maya Murray is a novelist, art critic, playwright, social practice artist, and law professor. The author of nine books, her most recent are the story collection, “The World Doesn’t Work That Way, but It Could” (University of Nevada Press, 2020), and the novel, “Art Is Everything” (TriQuarterly Press, 2021). Her next work of nonfiction, “Artivism and the Law,” is in progress and will be published by Cornell University Press. She has won a Whiting Award, an Art Writer’s Grant, a grant from the Barbara Deming Memorial Foundation/Money For Women, and was a 2021 New York City Arts Corps Grants co-grantee. She’s also been named a fellow at the Huntington Library for her work on radionuclide contamination in Simi Valley, California.
You can purchase copies of “God Went Like That: A Novel” directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/god-went-like-that/
This was a virtual event hosted by Peter Maravelis and made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation.
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Jul 27, 2023
adrienne marie brown in conversation with dream hampton
LIVE! From City Lights celebrates author adrienne marie brown on her latest novel “Maroons: A Grievers Novel.”
The second installment of the Grievers trilogy, “Maroons” is a tale of survival that bears brown’s background as an activist in Detroit. Amidst the Syndrome H-8 pandemic, she learns the importance of community and connection through an abandoned urban landscape.
adrienne marie brown grows healing ideas in public through her multi-genre writing, her music and her podcasts. Informed by 25 years of movement facilitation, somatics, Octavia E Butler scholarship and her work as a doula, brown has nurtured Emergent Strategy, Pleasure Activism, Radical Imagination and Transformative Justice as ideas and practices for transformation. She is the author/editor of seven published texts and the founder of the Emergent Strategy Ideation Institute, where she is now the writer-in-residence. Her published work includes “Fables and Spells Collected and New Short Fiction and Poetry,” “Octavia’s Brood,” “Emergent Strategy,” “Pleasure Activism,” and “We Will Not Cancel Us.” “Maroons” is her second novel. Her visionary fiction has appeared in The Funambulist, Harvard Design Review, and Dark Mountain.
You can purchase copies of “Maroons: A Grievers Novel” directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/maroons/
This was a virtual event hosted by Peter Maravelis and made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation.
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Jul 19, 2023
David Mas Masumoto in conversation with Patricia Miye Wakida
LIVE! From City Lights celebrates author David Mas Masumoto and his new publication, “SECRET HARVESTS: A Hidden Story of Separation and the Resilience of a Family Farm.” This event was hosted in conjunction with Red Hen Press and Wasabi Press.
With linoleum block and letterpress artist Patirica Miye Wakida, Masumoto unravels the mysteries surrounding the reappearance of his “lost” aunt Shizuko. In his new memoir, Masumoto is haunted by family lore and driven to explore his own identity and the meaning of family, uncovering stories that bind him to a sense of history buried in the earth that he works and a sense of place that defines his community.
David Mas Masumoto is an organic farmer, author, and activist. His book EPITAPH FOR A PEACH won the Julia Child Cookbook award and was a finalist for a James Beard award. His writing has been awarded a Commonwealth Club of California silver medal and the Independent Publisher Books bronze medal. He has been honored by Rodale Institute as an “Organic Pioneer.” He has served on the boards of the James Irvine Foundation, Public Policy Institute of California, Cal Humanities, and the National Council on the Arts with nomination by President Obama. He farms with his wife Marcy and two adult children, Nikiko and Koro. They reside in a hundred-year-old farmhouse surrounded by their eighty-acre organic peach, nectarine, apricot, and raisin farm outside of Fresno, California.
You can purchase copies of “SECRET HARVESTS: A Hidden Story of Separation and the Resilience of a Family Farm” directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/new-nonfiction-in-hardcover/secret-harvests/
This was a virtual event hosted by Peter Maravelis and made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation.
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Jul 12, 2023
Robert Greenfield discussing the life and work of Sam Shepard
LIVE! From City Lights celebrates author Robert Greenfield and his latest publication “True West: Sam Shepard’s Life, Work, and Times.”
Much like Greenfield’s previous biographies, “True West” delves deeply into the life of world-famous playwright and actor Sam Shepard, whose work was matched by his equally dramatic life and relationships. Greenfield interviewed dozens of people who knew Shepard well, and makes the case for Shepard as not just a great American writer but a unique figure who first brought the sensibility of rock ‘n’ roll to theater.
Robert Greenfield is an award-winning novelist, screenwriter, playwright, and the author of “Bill Graham Presents: My Life Inside Rock and Out.” He lives in California.
You can purchase copies of “True West: Sam Shepard’s Life, Work, and Times” directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/true-west-sam-shepards-life-work/
This was a virtual event hosted by Peter Maravelis, in conjunction with Crown Books, and made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation.
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Jul 5, 2023
Fred Moten in conversation with Douglas Kearney
LIVE! From City Lights welcomes poet, critic, theorist and McArthur fellow Fred Moten in celebration of his latest poetry collection, “perennial fashion presence falling.”
In conversation with award-winning poet Douglas Kearney, Moten shares some pieces from his book, which hold an innate quantum curiosity about the infinitude of the present and the ways in which one could observe the history of the future. Moten approaches the sublime, relishing the intermediary space of microtonal thought.
Fred Moten works in the Departments of Performance Studies and Comparative Literature at New York University. He is concerned with social movement ,aesthetic experiment and black study and has written a number of books of poetry and criticism, including National Book Award finalist “The Feel Trio.” Moten is a MacArthur Fellow, a Guggenheim Fellow and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
You can purchase copies of “perennial fashion presence falling” directly from Ci…
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Jun 28, 2023
Ada Zhang in conversation with Belinda Huijuan Tang
LIVE! From City Lights welcomes Ada Zhang, recognized as one of the National Book Foundation’s 5 Under 35 for her debut book, “The Sorrows of Others.”
In conversation with author and Iowa Writers’ Workshop graduate Belinda Huijuan Tang, Zhang touches on her inspirations to write growing up and the Chinese-American experience in her ten short stories exploring personhood, place, loneliness, love and home.
Ada Zhang is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop. Her short stories have appeared in A Public Space, McSweeney’s, Alaska Quarterly Review, and elsewhere. She grew up in Austin, Texas, and now lives in New York City, where she is an associate editor of adult’s and children’s books at Running Press, an imprint of Hachette Book Group.
You can purchase copies of “The Sorrows of Others” directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/general-fiction/sorrows-of-others/
This was a virtual event hosted by Belinda Huijuan Tang and made in conjunction with A P…
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Jun 21, 2023
Gina Apostol in conversation with R. Zamora Linmark
LIVE! From City Lights welcomes award-winning author Gina Apostol in celebration of her book “La Tercera” for Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month.
In conversation with novelist and poet R. Zamora Linmark, Apostol discusses the role of “La Tercera” as a vision of Philippine history and a narration of how the culture has changed through the newfound understandings of protagonist, Rosario Delgado. The novel is Gina Apostol’s most ambitious, personal and encompassing work yet––a story about the impossibility of capturing the truth of the past and the terrible cost to a family, or a country, that fails to try.
Gina Apostol won the 2012 PEN/Open Book Award and was shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize with her book, “Gun Dealers’ Daughter.” Her first two novels, “Bibliolepsy” and “The Revolution According to Raymundo Mata,” both won the Juan Laya Prize for the Novel (Philippine National Book Award). She was writer-in-residence at…
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Jun 15, 2023
Gillian Conoley with Norma Cole
City Lights presents Gillian Conoley in conversation with Norma Cole, celebrating the publication of "Notes from the Passenger" by Gillian Conoley, published by Nightboat Books. This live event was held in the Poetry room and simultaneously broadcasted via Zoom. This event was hosted by Peter Maravelis of City Lights.
You can purchase copies of "Notes from the Passenger" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/general-poetry/notes-from-the-passenger/
Gillian Conoley is a poet, editor, and translator. Her collection, A LITTLE MORE RED SUN ON THE HUMAN: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS, with Nightboat Books, won the 39th annual Northern California Book Award in 2020. Conoley received the Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America, and was also awarded the Jerome J. Shestack Poetry Prize, a National Endowment for the Arts grant, and a Fund for Poetry Award. Conoley’s translations of three books by Henri Michaux, THOUSAND TIMES BROKEN, is with City Lights. Conoley h…
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Jun 14, 2023
Héctor Tobar in conversation with John McMurtrie
LIVE! From City Lights welcomes Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and novelist Héctor Tobar as he celebrates the release of his new book "Our Migrant Souls: A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Myths of ‘Latino’".
In conversation with John McMurtire, senior editor at Zyzzyva, Tobar discusses the inspiration for his book and how the characterization of ‘Latino’ has changed over the years. "Our Migrant Souls" decodes the meaning of ‘Latino’ as a racial and ethnic identity in the modern United States, and seeks to give voice to the angst and anger of young Latino people who have seen latinidad transformed into hateful tropes.
Héctor Tobar is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and novelist. He is the author of the critically acclaimed, New York Times bestseller, "Deep Down Dark", as well as "The Barbarian Nurseries", "Translation Nation", and "The Tattooed Soldier". Tobar is also a contributing writer for the New York Times opinion pages and an associate professor at…
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May 23, 2023
Meredith Broussard
City Lights presents Meredith Broussard. She celebrates the publication of her book “More than a Glitch: Confronting Race, Gender, and Ability Bias in Tech” published by City Lights Books. This was a virtual event hosted by Peter Maravelis.
You can purchase copies of “More Than a Glitch” directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/more-than-a-glitch-race-gender-abi/
Meredith Broussard is Associate Professor at the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute of New York University and Research Director at the NYU Alliance for Public Interest Technology. She is the author of “Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World” (MIT Press). Her work has been featured in the New Yorker, the New York Times, the Atlantic, BBC, Wired, the Economist, and more. She appears in the 2020 documentary “Coded Bias” and serves on the advisory board for the Center for Critical Race & Digital Studies. More information at @merbroussard or meredithbroussard.com.
This…
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May 19, 2023
Coffee House Press Extravaganza with LaTasha N. Nevada-Diggs, Eleni Sikelianos, and Anne Waldman
City Lights presents LaTasha N. Nevada-Diggs, Eleni Sikelianos, and Anne Waldman reading new poetry and celebrating their three new books of poetry from Coffee House Press: "Village" by LaTasha N. Nevada-Diggs – "Your Kingdom" by Eleni Sikelianos – "Bard, Kinetic" by Anne Waldman. This event was originally broadcast via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis.
You can purchase copies of "Village" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/general-poetry/village-4/
"Your Kingdom" here: https://citylights.com/general-poetry/your-kingdom/
And "Bard, Kinetic" here: https://citylights.com/general-poetry/bard-kinetic/
To learn more about the authors, visit: https://citylights.com/events/coffee-house-press-extravaganza-with-latasha-nevada-diggs-eleni-sykelianos-and-anne-waldman/
Coffee House Press creates new spaces for audiences and artists to interact, inspiring readers and enriching communities by expanding the definition of what literature is, what it can do, and who it belo…
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May 18, 2023
Evan Kennedy and Sophia Dahlin
City Lights presents Evan Kennedy in conversation with Sophie Dahlin. Evan Kennedy celebrates the publication of his book “Metamorphoses: City Lights Spotlight No. 22” published by City Lights Books. This event took place in the City Lights Poetry Room and was moderated by Garrett Caples.
You can purchase copies of “Metamorphoses” directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/metamorphoses-2/
Evan Kennedy is a poet and bicyclist. He is the author of “I Am, Am I, to Trust the Joy That Joy Is No More or Less There Now Than Before” (Roof Books), “Jerusalem Notebook” (O’clock Press), “The Sissies” (Futurepoem), “Terra Firmament” (Krupskaya), “Shoo-Ins to Ruin” (Gold Wake Press), and “Us Them Poems” (Book*hug). He runs the occasional press, Dirty Swan Projects, and was born in Beacon, New York, in 1983. He lives in San Francisco, California.
Sophia Dahlin is a poet in Berkeley. She leads generative poetry workshops and teaches youth creative wri…
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May 16, 2023
Tim Z. Hernandez in conversation with Peter Maravelis
City Lights presents Tim Z. Hernandez in conversation with Peter Maravelis, the City Lights events manager. Tim Z. Hernandez reads from his new collection “Some of the Light: New and Selected Poems,” published by Beacon Press/Raised Voices Series. This was a virtual event.
You can purchase copies of “Some of the Light: New and Selected Poems” directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/some-of-the-light-new-sel-poems/
Tim Z. Hernandez is an award-winning author, research scholar, and performer. His work includes poetry, fiction, non-fiction, and screenplays. He is the recipient of numerous awards, most notably the American Book Award, the Colorado Book Award, and the International Latino Book Award. His work has been featured in the “Los Angeles Times,” “The New York Times,” “C-Span,” and NPR’s “All Things Considered.” “Public Radio International” hailed his book, “Mañana Means Heaven,” as one of their 2013 Books of the Year. In 2011, he…
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May 9, 2023
Robert Lopez in conversation with Sarah Rose Etter
City Lights presents Robert Lopez in conversation with Sarah Rose Etter. Robert Lopez discusses his new book “Dispatches from Puerto Nowhere: An American Story of Assimilation and Erasure”, published by Two Dollar Radio. This virtual event was hosted by Peter Maravelis.
You can purchase copies of “Dispatches from Puerto Nowhere” directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/dispatches-from-puerto-nowhere/
Robert Lopez is the author of the novels, “Part of the World” and “Kamby Bolongo Mean River,” named one of 25 important books of the decade by HTML Giant, and All Back Full; two story collections, “Asunder” and “Good People,” and a novel-in-stories titled “A Better Class of People.” His fiction, nonfiction, and poetry has appeared in dozens of publications, including “Bomb,” “The Threepenny Review,” “Vice Magazine,” “New England Review,” “The Sun,” and the “Norton Anthology of Sudden Fiction – Latino.” He teaches at Ston…
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May 5, 2023
Priya Guns in conversation with Sarah Thankam Mathews
City Lights presents Priya Guns in conversation with Sarah Thankam Mathews. Priya Guns discusses and reads from her new book “Your Driver is Waiting,” published by Doubleday. This virtual event was hosted by Peter Maravelis.
You can purchase copies of “Your Driver is Waiting” directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/your-driver-is-waiting/
Priya Guns is an actor and writer previously published in short story anthologies, "gal-dem", "Spring" magazine, and anonymously in "The Guardian". She is a Creative Writing graduate from Kingston University. “Your Driver Is Waiting” is her debut novel.
Sarah Thankam Mathews is the author of “All This Could Be Different.” The novel, Mathews’ first, was named an NYT Editor’s Choice, highlighted on multiple Best of 2022 lists, and shortlisted for the National Book Award.
This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation
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May 4, 2023
Dreaming of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha: An Appreciation
City Lights in conjunction with Asian American Writers’ Workshop and University of California Press present a tribute to the life and work of Theresa Hak Kyung Cha. Moderated by Linda Norton with appearances by Brandon Shimoda, Min Sun Jeon, and Christina Yang celebrating the publication of two new books from University of California Press: "Dictee" and "Exilee and Temps Morts: Selected Works." This event was originally broadcast via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis.
You can purchase copies of "Dictee" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/general-fiction/dictee-2/
And "Exilee and Temps Morts: Selected Works" here:https://citylights.com/general-poetry/exilee-temps-morts-sel-works/
Theresa Hak Kyung Cha (1951–1982) was a poet, filmmaker, and artist who earned her BA and MA in comparative literature and her BA and MFA in art from the University of California, Berkeley. During her brief yet brilliant career, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha explored a variety of media, inclu…
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May 2, 2023
Lakiesha Carr in conversation with Dawnie Walton
City Lights presents Lakiesha Carr in conversation with Dawnie Walton. Lakiesha Carr discusses her new book “An Autobiography of Skin: A Novel”, published by Pantheon Books. This virtual event was hosted by Peter Maravelis.
You can purchase copies of “An Autobiography of Skin” directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/autobio-of-skin/
Lakiesha Carr graduated from Southern Methodist University in Dallas, Texas, and received her MFA at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, where she was awarded a Maytag Fellowship for Excellence in Fiction and a Jeff and Vicki Edwards Post-graduate Fellowship in Fiction. A journalist and writer from East Texas, she has held various editorial and production positions with CNN, The New York Times, and other media. Her writing has received support from the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the Callaloo Creative Writing Workshop, the DC Commission on Arts & Humanities for nonfiction writing, and the Kimbilio Fellowship for fiction writing.
Da…
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Apr 25, 2023
Ayize Jama-Everett in conversation with Tân Khánh Cao
City Lights presents Ayize Jama-Everett in conversation with Tân Khánh Cao. Ayize Jama-Everett discusses his new book “Heroes of an Unknown World”, published by Small Beer Press. This in-person event was hosted by Peter Maravelis and co-sponsored by Medicine for Nightmares.
You can purchase copies of “Heroes of an Unknown World” directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/sci-fi-fantasy/heroes-of-an-unknown-world/
Ayize Jama-Everett calls the Bay Area his home despite being born in New York City. He holds a Masters degrees in Divinity, Clinical Psychology, in Fine Arts, Creative Writing. He has worked as a bartender, a translator, a drug and alcohol counselor, a stand-up comedian, a script doctor, a ghostwriter, a high school dean, a college professor, and for a brief time, a distiller of spirits. Jama-Everett’s Liminal series began with “The Liminal People” and continued with “The Liminal War” and “The Entropy of Bones”. He has also written a graph…
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Apr 20, 2023
Belén Gopegui with Mark Schafer (moderated by Katherine Silver)
City Lights presents Belén Gopegui in conversation with Mark Schafer, moderated by Katherine Silver. Belén Gopegui discusses her new book “Stay This Day and Night with Me”, published by City Lights Books and translated by Mark Schafer. This virtual event was hosted by Peter Maravelis.
You can purchase copies of “Stay This Day and Night with Me” directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/stay-this-day-night-with-me/
Belén Gopegui burst onto the Spanish literary scene in 1993, bowling over critics with her debut, “La escala de los mapas” [“The Scale of Maps,” City Lights, 2011], which was hailed as a masterpiece. She has since published six more novels, stories, young people’s fiction, and screenplays, and several of her books have been adapted for cinema. Gopegui was born, and lives in, Madrid, Spain.
Mark Schafer has translated poetry, fiction, and essays by authors from across the Spanish-speaking world into English, with a focus on contemporary Mex…
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Apr 11, 2023
New Weathers: Poetics from the Naropa Archive
City Lights in conjunction with Naropa University and Nightboat Books present Anne Waldman with Emma Gomis, joined by Alan Gilbert, Cedar Sigo, and Eleni Sikelianos, celebrating the publication of "New Weathers: Poetics from the Naropa Archive," edited by Anne Waldman with Emma Gomis and published by Nightboat Books. This event was originally broadcast via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis.
You can purchase copies of "New Weathers: Poetics from the Naropa Archive" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/story-anthologies/new-weathers-poetics-from-the-naropa-a/
Anne Waldman is a poet, performer, professor, literary curator, cultural activist, has been a prolific and active poet and performer many years, creating radical hybrid forms for the long poem, both serial and narrative, as with "Marriage: A Sentence," "Structure of the World Compared to a Bubble," "Manatee/Humanity," and "Gossamurmur," all published by Penguin Poets. She is also the author of the magnum opus "T…
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Mar 24, 2023
Peter Turchi in conversation with Austin Kleon
City Lights presents Peter Turchi in conversation with Austin Kleon. Peter Turchi discusses his new book “(Don’t) Stop Me if You’ve Heard This Before (and Other Essays on Writing Fiction)”, published by Trinity University Press. This virtual event was hosted by Peter Maravelis.
You can purchase copies of “(Don’t) Stop Me if You’ve Heard This Before (and Other Essays on Writing Fiction)” directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/dont-stop-me-if-youve-heard-this-befor/
Peter Turchi has written and coedited several books on writing fiction, including “Maps of the Imagination: The Writer as Cartographer”, “A Muse and a Maze: Writing as Puzzle, Mystery, and Magic”, “A Kite in the Wind: Fiction Writers on Their Craft”, and “(Don’t) Stop Me if You’ve Heard This Before (and Other Essays on Writing Fiction)”. His stories have appeared in “Ploughshares”, “Story”, the “Alaska Quarterly Review”, “Puerto del Sol”, and the “Colorad…
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Mar 23, 2023
Eileen Myles and Friends
City Lights presents Eileen Myles, joined by Fanny Howe, Maggie Nelson, Camille Roy, Laurie Weeks, Simone White, Frank Wilderson, and Jillian Weise, celebrating the publication of "Pathetic Literature," edited by Eileen Myles and published by Grove Atlantic. This event was originally broadcast via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis.
You can purchase copies of "Pathetic Literature" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/pathetic-lit/
“Literature is pathetic.” So claims Eileen Myles in their bold and bracing introduction to "Pathetic Literature," an exuberant collection of pieces ranging from poetry to drama to prose to something in between, all of which explore those so-called “pathetic” or sensitive feelings around which lives are built and revolutions are incited.
From confrontations with suffering, embarrassment, and disquiet, to the comforts and consolations of finding one’s familiar double in a poem, "Pathetic Literature" is a swarming taxonomy of ways…
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Mar 10, 2023
Sam Woolley in conversation with Jeff Horwitz
City Lights presents Sam Woolley in conversation with Jeff Horwitz. Sam Woolley celebrates the publication of his new book “Manufacturing Consensus: Understanding Propaganda in the Era of Automation and Anonymity”, published by Yale University Press. This virtual event was hosted by Peter Maravelis.
You can purchase copies of "Manufacturing Consensus" directly from City Lights here: citylights.com/manufacturing-consensus-propaganda-in/
Samuel Woolley is assistant professor of journalism and media, program director of the Propaganda Research Lab, and Knight Faculty Fellow at the Center for Media Engagement at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of “The Reality Game: How the Next Wave of Technology Will Break the Truth”.
Jeff Horwitz is an award-winning technology reporter for The Wall Street Journal based in San Francisco. His reporting has won repeated recognition, including a Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing award and a Gerald Loeb Awards…
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Mar 3, 2023
Thomas Crow in conversation with Carrie Lambert-Beatty
City Lights presents Thomas Crow in conversation with Carrie Lambert-Beatty celebrating the launch of “The Artist in the Counterculture: Bruce Conner to Mike Kelley and Other Tales from the Edge” by Thomas Crow, published by Princeton University Press. This virtual event took place over Zoom and was hosted by Peter Maravelis.
You can purchase copies of "The Artist in the Counterculture: Bruce Conner to Mike Kelley and Other Tales from the Edge” directly from City Lights here: citylights.com/art-hardcover/artist-in-the-counterculture/
Thomas Crow is the Rosalie Solow Professor of Modern Art at the Institute of Fine Arts, New York University. His many books include “The Long March of Pop: Art, Music, and Design, 1930–1995” and “The Hidden Mod in Modern Art: London, 1957–1969”.
Carrie Lambert-Beatty is an art historian with a focus on contemporary art and interests in spectatorship, art and knowledge, and performance in an expanded sense. She teaches at Harvard Univer…
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Mar 1, 2023
Curtis White in conversation with Cheston Knapp
City Lights presents Curtis White in conversation with Cheston Knapp celebrating the launch of “Transcendent: Art and Dharma in a Time of Collapse” by Curtis White, published by Melville House. This virtual event took place over Zoom and was hosted by Peter Maravelis.
You can purchase copies of "Transcendent: Art and Dharma in a Time of Collapse” directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/general/trancendent/
Curtis White is a novelist and social critic whose works include “Memories of My Father Watching TV”, “The Middle Mind”, and, more recently, “The Science Delusion”, “We Robots”, and “Lacking Character”. His essays have appeared in Harpers and Tricycle. He taught English at Illinois State University. He is the founder (with Ronald Sukenick) of FC2, a publisher of innovative fiction run collectively by its authors. He lives in Port Townsend, WA.
Cheston Knapp is a writer, editor, and photographer. He is the author of “Up Up, Down Down,” a…
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Feb 23, 2023
Aidan Levy in conversation with Ammiel Alcalay
City Lights presents Aidan Levy in conversation with Ammiel Alcalay celebrating the publication of “SAXOPHONE COLOSSUS: The Life and Music of Sonny Rollins” by Aiden Levy, published by Hachette Books. This virtual event took place over Zoom and was hosted by Peter Maravelis.
You can purchase copies of "SAXOPHONE COLOSSUS” directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/saxophone-colossus-sonny-rollins/
Aidan Levy is the author of “Dirty Blvd.: The Life and Music of Lou Reed” and editor of “Patti Smith on Patti Smith: Interviews and Encounters”. A former Leon Levy Center for Biography Fellow, his writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Village Voice, JazzTimes, The Nation and other publications. He has served as co-convener of the African American Studies Colloquium and works with the Center for Jazz Studies at at Columbia University. For ten years, he was the baritone saxophonist in the Stan Rubin Orchestra.
Ammiel Alcalay is a poet, novelist, translator…
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Feb 15, 2023
Zein El-Amine with James Tracy and Aimee Suzara
City Lights presents Zein El-Amine in conversation with James Tracy and Aimee Suzara, celebrating the publication of "Is This How You Eat a Watermelon?" by Zein El-Amine, published by Radix Media. This live event took place in the main room of City Lights and was hosted by Peter Maravelis.
You can purchase copies of "Is This How You Eat a Watermelon?" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/general-fiction/is-this-how-you-eat-a-watermelon-2/
Zein El-Amine is a Lebanese-born poet and writer. He has an MFA in Poetry from the University of Maryland. His poems have appeared in Wild River Review, Folio, Beltway Quarterly, Foreign Policy In Focus, CityLit, and others. His latest poetry manuscript “A Travel Guide for the Exiled” was recently shortlisted for the Bergman Prize, judged by Louise Glück. His short stories have appeared in the Uno Mas, Jadaliyya, Middle East Report, Wild River Review, About Place Journal, and in Bound Off.
James Tracy is an author, organizer,…
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Feb 15, 2023
Sam Lipsyte in conversation with Sloane Crosley
City Lights presents Sam Lipsyte reading from his new novel and in conversation with Sloane Crosley. Sam Lipsyte celebrates the publication of his novel “No One Left to Come Looking for You” by Simon & Schuster. This was a virtual event and was hosted by Peter Maravelis.
You can purchase copies of "No One Left to Come Looking for You" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/no-1-left-to-come-looking-for-you/
Sam Lipsyte is the author of the story collections “Venus Drive” and “The Fun Parts” and four novels: “Hark”, “The Ask” (a New York Times Notable Book), “The Subject Steve”, and “Home Land”, which was a New York Times Notable Book and received the Believer Book Award. His fiction has appeared in “The New Yorker”, “The Paris Review”, and “Best American Short Stories”, among other places. The recipient of a Guggenheim fellowship, he lives in New York City and teaches at Columbia University.
Sloane Crosley is the author of The…
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Feb 9, 2023
Douglas Kearney in conversation with Tisa Bryant
City Lights presents Douglas Kearney reading from his new book and in conversation with Tisa Bryant. Douglas Kearney celebrates his collection of lectures "Optic Subwoof" published by Wave Books. This virtual event was hosted by Peter Maravelis.
You can purchase copies of "Optic Subwoof" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/optic-subwoof/
Douglas Kearney has published seven poetry collections, including "Sho" (Wave 2021), which was a finalist for the National Book Award, PEN Award, and the Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award, and "Buck Studies" (Fence Books, 2016), winner of the Theodore Roethke Memorial Poetry Award, the CLMP Firecracker Award for Poetry, and the California Book Award silver medal for poetry. M. NourbeSe Philip calls Kearney’s collection of libretti, "Someone Took They Tongues" (Subito, 2016), “a seismic, polyphonic mash-up.” Kearney’s "Mess and Mess and" (Noemi Press, 2015), was a Small Press Distribution Handpicked Selection that Publisher’s We…
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Jan 13, 2023
John Freeman with Forrest Gander
In conjunction with ALTA Journal, City Lights presents John Freeman with Forrest Gander reading from new poetry. John Freeman celebrates his new collection of poetry "Wind, Trees" published by Copper Canyon Press. This live event took place in Kerouac Alley, between City Lights and Vesuvio Cafe, and was hosted by Peter Maravelis with an opening statement by Blaise Zerega.
You can purchase copies of "Wind, Trees" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/wind-trees/
John Freeman is the founder of the literary annual Freeman’s, and an executive editor at Alfred A. Knopf. His books include "How To Read a Novelist" and "Dictionary of the Undoing", as well as a trilogy of anthologies about inequality, including "Tales of Two Americas: Stories of Inequality in a Divided Nation," and "Tales of Two Planets," which features dispatches from around the world, where the climate crisis has unfolded at crucially different rates. His poetry collections include "Maps" and "The Park."…
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Jan 6, 2023
Tayi Tibble in Conversation with Tommy Orange (Opening Statement By John Freeman)
Tayi Tibble in conversation with Tommy Orange, celebrating the publication of "Poukahangatus: Poems" by Tayi Tibble, published by Alfred Knopf. This live event took place in Kerouac Alley, between City Lights and Vesuvio Cafe, and was hosted by Peter Maravelis with an opening statement by John Freeman.
You can purchase copies of "Poukahangatus: Poems" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/poukahangatus-poems/
Tayi Tibble (Te Whānau ā Apanui/Ngāti Porou) was born in 1995 and lives in Wellington, New Zealand. In 2017, she completed a master’s degree in creative writing from the International Institute of Modern Letters, Victoria University of Wellington, where she was the recipient of the Adam Foundation Prize in Creative Writing. Her second book of poetry, Rangikura, will be published in the United States in 2023.
Tommy Orange is the PEN/HEMINGWAY AWARD WINNER and best selling author of the novel There,There. He is a graduate of the MFA program at the Institute…
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Dec 16, 2022
Ericka Huggins & Friends
City Lights joins Ericka Huggins and Stephen Shames with Katherine Campbell and Judy Juanita Hart in celebrating the launch for the publication of "Comrade Sisters: Women of the Black Panther Party" with photographs by Stephen Shames
, text by Ericka Huggins, and published by ACC Art Books. This live event took place in Kerouac Alley, between City Lights and Vesuvio Cafe, and was hosted by Peter Maravelis.
You can purchase copies of "Comrade Sisters: Women of the Black Panther Party" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/art-hardcover/sister-comrade/
Ericka Huggins is an educator, Black Panther Party member, former political prisoner, human rights advocate, and poet. For 50 years, Ericka has used her life experiences in service to community. From 1973-1981, she was director of the Black Panther Party’s Oakland Community School. From 1990-2004 Ericka managed HIV/AIDS Volunteer and Education programs. She also supported innovative mindfulness programs for women and…
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Dec 9, 2022
Dr. Clarence Lusane in Conversation with Justin Desmangles
Dr. Clarence Lusane in conversation with Justin Desmangles, celebrating the publication of "Twenty Dollars and Change: Harriet Tubman and the Ongoing Fight for Racial Justice and Democracy" by Clarence Lusane with a foreword by: Kali Holloway, published by City Lights Books. This event was originally broadcast via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis.
You can purchase copies of "Twenty Dollars and Change: Harriet Tubman and the Ongoing Fight for Racial Justice and Democracy" directly from City Lights at a 30% discount here: https://citylights.com/20-dollars-change-harriet-tubman-vs/
Dr. Clarence Lusane is an author, activist, scholar, and journalist. He is a Professor and former Chairman of Howard University’s Department of Political Science. Lusane earned his B.A. in Communications from Wayne State University and both his Masters and Ph.D. from Howard University in Political Science. He’s been a political consultant to the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation and a former Commiss…
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Nov 25, 2022
Joyce Chopra in Conversation with Elizabeth Weitzman
City Lights and the California Film Institute present Joyce Chopra in conversation with Elizabeth Weitzman, celebrating the publication of "Lady Director: Adventures in Hollywood, Television and Beyond" by Joyce Chopra, published by City Lights Books. This event was originally broadcast via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis.
You can purchase copies of "Lady Director: Adventures in Hollywood, Television and Beyond" directly from City Lights at a 30% discount here: https://citylights.com/lady-director/
Joyce Chopra has produced and directed a wide range of award-winning films, ranging from "Smooth Talk," winner of the Grand Jury Prize for Best Dramatic Feature at the Sundance Film Festival, to the A&E thriller "The Lady in Question" with Gene Wilder. She has received American Film Festival Blue Ribbon and Cine Golden Eagle Awards for her numerous documentaries, including "That Our Children Will Not Die," about primary health care in Nigeria, and the autobiographical Joyce at 34, which…
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Nov 11, 2022
Jonathan Escoffery in Conversation with Yohanca Delgado
Jonathan Escoffery in conversation with Yohanca Delgado, celebrating the publication of "If I Survive You" by Jonathan Escoffery, published by Farrar Straus Giroux. This live event took place in Kerouac Alley, between City Lights and Vesuvio Cafe, and was hosted by Peter Maravelis.
You can purchase copies of "If I Survive You" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/if-i-survive-you/
Jonathan Escoffery is the recipient of the 2020 Plimpton Prize for Fiction, a 2020 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship, and the 2020 ASME Award for Fiction. His fiction has appeared in The Paris Review, American Short Fiction, Prairie Schooner, AGNI, Passages North, Zyzzyva, and Electric Literature, and has been anthologized in The Best American Magazine Writing. He received his MFA from the University of Minnesota, is a PhD fellow in the University of Southern California’s PhD in Creative Writing and Literature Program, and in 2021 was awarded a Wallace Stegner Fellows…
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Nov 4, 2022
Julian Aguon in Conversation with Rebecca Solnit
Julian Aguon in conversation with Rebecca Solnit, celebrating the publication of "No Country for Eight-Spot Butterflies: A Lyric Essay" by Julian Aguon, published by Astra Publishing. This live event took place in Kerouac Alley, between City Lights and Vesuvio Cafe, and was hosted by Peter Maravelis.
You can purchase copies of "No Country for Eight-Spot Butterflies: A Lyric Essay" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/no-country-for-8-spot-butterflies/
Julian Aguon is a Chamorro human rights lawyer and defender from Guam. He is the founder of Blue Ocean Law, a progressive firm that works at the intersection of Indigenous rights and environmental justice; and serves on the council of Progressive International—a global collective with the mission of mobilizing progressive forces around the world behind a shared vision of social justice. He lives in the village of Yona. Visit julianaguon.com
Rebecca Solnit is a writer, historian, and activist. She is the author of mo…
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Oct 28, 2022
Celebrating Ted Berrigan: Launch Party for “Get The Money!”
City Lights celebrates the publication of "Get the Money!: Collected Prose (1961-1983)" by Ted Berrigan, published by City Lights Books. With Edmund Berrigan, Anselm Berrigan, Erica Kaufman, Hoa Nguyen, and Nick Sturm. This event was originally broadcast via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis and moderated by Garrett Caples.
You can purchase copies of "Get the Money!: Collected Prose (1961-1983)" directly from City Lights at a 30% discount here: https://citylights.com/get-the-money/
“Get the Money!” was Ted Berrigan’s mantra for the paid writing gigs he took on in support of his career as a poet. This long-awaited collection of his essential prose draws upon the many essays, reviews, introductions, and other texts he produced for hire, as well as material from his journals, travelogues, and assorted, unclassifiable creative texts. "Get the Money!" documents Berrigan’s innovative poetics and techniques, as well as the creative milieu of poets–centered around New York’s Poe…
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Oct 21, 2022
Ukrainian Writers Speak!
City Lights and Deep Vellum Books present Ali Kinsella and Zenia Tompkins celebrating the publication of "Love in Defiance of Pain: Ukrainian Stories," edited by Ali Kinsella, Zenia Tompkins, and Ross Ufberg, published by Deep Vellum. This event was originally broadcast via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis.
You can purchase copies of "Love in Defiance of Pain: Ukrainian Stories" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/story-anthologies/love-in-defiance-of-pain-ukrainian-sto/
Proceeds from the sale of this collection will be donated to humanitarian efforts in Ukraine.
"Love in Defiance of Pain: Ukrainian Stories" aims to bring the riches of contemporary Ukrainian literature—and of contemporary Ukraine, too—to the world.
While Ukraine is under sustained attack, many in the West have marveled at the nation’s strength in the face of a barbaric invasion. Who are these people, what is this nation, which has captivated the world with their courage? By showcasing som…
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Oct 7, 2022
Elif Batuman in Conversation with Lucy Corin
Elif Batuman in conversation with Lucy Corin, celebrating the publication of "Either/Or: a novel" by Elif Batuman, published by Penguin Press. This event was originally broadcast via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis.
You can purchase copies of "Either/Or: a novel" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/new-fiction-in-hardcover/either-or/
Elif Batuman’s first novel, "The Idiot," was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize, and was shortlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction in the UK. She is also the author of "The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them," which was a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle Award in criticism. She has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 2010 and holds a PhD in comparative literature from Stanford University.
Lucy Corin is the author of the novel "The Swank Hotel," as well as the story collections "One Hundred Apocalypses and Other Apocalypses" and "The Entire Predicament," and the novel "Every…
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Sep 30, 2022
Jamil Jan Kochai in Conversation with Brandon Taylor
Jamil Jan Kochai in conversation with Brandon Taylor, celebrating the publication of "The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories," by Jamil Jan Kochai, published by Viking Books. This event was originally broadcast via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis.
You can purchase copies of "The Haunting of Hajji Hotak and Other Stories" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/haunting-of-hajji-hotak-other-storie/
Jamil Jan Kochai is the author of "99 Nights in Logar," a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel and the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature. He was born in an Afghan refugee camp in Peshawar, Pakistan, but he originally hails from Logar, Afghanistan. His short stories and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Ploughshares, and The O. Henry Prize Stories 2018. Currently, he is a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University.
Brandon Taylor is the author of "Filthy Animals," a national bestseller, and "Real Life," whic…
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Sep 16, 2022
Defending Choice: Roe vs. Wade and the Battle to Preserve Women’s Reproductive Rights
City Lights in conjunction with Mother Jones (https://www.motherjones.com) present "Defending Choice: Roe vs. Wade and the Battle to Preserve Women’s Reproductive Rights." This event was originally broadcast via Zoom, hosted by Peter Maravelis, and moderated by Becca Andrews of Mother Jones Magazine with Jenny Brown, Dr. Katherine Brown, Joshua Prager, and Mary Ziegler.
You can purchase copies of the panelists' books directly from City Lights here:
"Dollars for Life: The Anti-Abortion Movement and the Fall of the Republican Establishment" - by Mary Ziegler: https://citylights.com/dollars-for-life-anti-abortion-movemen/
"Without Apology: The Abortion Struggle Now" - by Jenny Brown: https://citylights.com/praxis/without-apology-abortion-struggle-now/
"The Family Roe: An American Story" - by Joshua Prager: https://citylights.com/north-america/family-roe-amer-story/
Becca Andrews is a reporter at Mother Jones. A Southerner, she most often writes about the Southeast, gender, and cult…
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Sep 2, 2022
Matt Bell on Writing – with Kirstin Chen and Jac Jemc
An evening of writers talking about writing and celebrating the publication of "Refuse To Be Done: How to Write and Rewrite a Novel in Three Drafts," by Matt Bell, published by Soho Press. This event was originally broadcast via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis.
You can purchase copies of "Refuse To Be Done: How to Write and Rewrite a Novel in Three Drafts" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/refuse-to-be-done-ht-write-rewrite-a/
Matt Bell is the author most recently of the novels "Appleseed"(a New York Times Notable Book of 2021), "Scrapper" (a Michigan Notable Book), and "In the House upon the Dirt Between the Lake and the Woods"(a finalist for the Young Lions Fiction Award). His stories have appeared in Best American Mystery Stories, Esquire, Tin House, Conjunctions, Fairy Tale Review, Gulf Coast, and many other publications. A native of Michigan, he now teaches creative writing at Arizona State University.
Kirstin Chen is the author of "Soy Sauce for Beginne…
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Aug 26, 2022
Leila Mottley in Conversation with Margaret Wilkerson Sexton
City Lights in conjunction with the Mechanics’ Institute Library and Alfred Knopf present Leila Mottley in conversation with Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, celebrating her fiction debut "Nightcrawling," published by Alfred A. Knopf. This live event took place at the Mechanics’ Institute Library in San Francisco and was hosted by Laura Sheppard and Peter Maravelis.
You can purchase copies of "Nightcrawling" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/nightcrawling/
Leila Mottley is the 2018 Oakland Youth Poet Laureate. Her work has been featured in The New York Times and Oprah Daily. She was born and raised in Oakland, where she continues to live. "Nightcrawling" is her first novel.
Margaret Wilkerson Sexton, born and raised in New Orleans, studied creative writing at Dartmouth College and law at UC Berkeley. Her most recent novel, "The Revisioners," won a 2020 Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize, an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work and a George Garrett New Writing…
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Aug 12, 2022
Nadifa Mohamed in Conversation with Tommy Orange
Nadifa Mohamed in conversation with Tommy Orange, celebrating the release of her new novel "The Fortune Men," published by Alfred Knopf. This event was originally broadcast via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis.
You can purchase copies of "The Fortune Men" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/fortune-men/
Nadifa Mohamed was born in 1981 in Hargeisa, Somaliland. At the age of four she moved with her family to London. She is the author of "Black Mamba Boy" and "The Orchard of Lost Souls." She has received both The Betty Trask Award and the Somerset Maugham Award, and in 2013, she was named as one of Granta‘s Best of Young British Novelists. Her work appears regularly in The Guardian and the BBC. A fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, she lives in London.
Tommy Orange is a novelist and writer from Oakland, California. His first book "There There" was one of the finalists for the 2019 Pulitzer Prize and received the 2019 American Book Award. Orange is a citize…
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Aug 5, 2022
K-Ming Chang in Conversation with Lily Philpott
City Lights in conjunction with the Asian American Writers’ Workshop present K-Ming Chang in conversation with Lily Philpott, celebrating her new collection "Gods of Want: Stories," published by One World Books. This event was originally broadcast via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis.
You can purchase copies of "Gods of Want: Stories" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/new-fiction-in-hardcover/gods-of-want-stories/
K-Ming Chang is a Kundiman fellow, a Lambda Literary Award finalist, and a National Book Foundation 5 Under 35 honoree. She is the author of the novel "Bestiary," which was longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, the PEN/Faulkner Award, and the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award.
Lily Philpott runs and manages AAWW events, fellowships, and workshops. She has many years of experience curating literary programs in New York City. Previously, she served as the Public Programs Manager at PEN America, where she launched the PEN Out Loud eve…
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Jul 29, 2022
Ingrid Rojas Contreras in Conversation with Esmé Weijun Wang
Ingrid Rojas Contreras in conversation with Esmé Weijun Wang, celebrating the launch of "The Man Who Could Move Clouds: A Memoir," published by Doubleday. This live event took place in Kerouac Alley, between City Lights and Vesuvio Cafe, and was hosted by Peter Maravelis.
You can purchase copies of "The Man Who Could Move Clouds: A Memoir" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/new-nonfiction-in-hardcover/man-who-could-move-clouds/
Ingrid Rojas Contreras was born and raised in Bogotá, Colombia. Her first novel "Fruit of the Drunken Tree" was the silver medal winner in First Fiction from the California Book Awards, and a New York Times editor’s choice. Her essays and short stories have appeared in the New York Times Magazine, The Believer, and Zyzzyva, among others. She lives in California.
Esmé Weijun Wang is a novelist and essayist. She is the author of the New York Times-bestselling essay collection, "The Collected Schizophrenias"(2019), and a debut novel, "Th…
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Jul 22, 2022
John Nichols in Conversation with Congressman Ro Khanna
John Nichols in conversation with Congressman Ro Khanna, discussing Nichol’s new book "Coronavirus Criminals and Pandemic Profiteers: Accountability for Those Who Caused the Crisis," published by Nation Books. This event was originally broadcast via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis.
You can purchase copies of "Coronavirus Criminals and Pandemic Profiteers: Accountability for Those Who Caused the Crisis" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/coronavirus-criminals-pandemic-profi/
John Nichols is the national affairs correspondent for The Nation magazine, and the author or co-author of more than a dozen books on media and democracy. He is a regular guest on radio and television programs, and has been featured in a number of documentaries based on his writing and reporting. A co-founder of the media reform group Free Press, he has twice keynoted world congresses of the International Federation of Journalists. Of Nichols, author Gore Vidal said, “Of all the giant sl…
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Jul 15, 2022
Dodie Bellamy in Conversation with Chris Kraus
Dodie Bellamy in conversation with Chris Kraus, celebrating Dodie Bellamy's two new books; "Bee Reaved" and "The Letters of Mina Harker," published by Semiotext(e)/Native Agents. This event was originally broadcast via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis.
You can purchase copies of "Bee Reaved" & "The Letters of Mina Harker" directly from City Lights here:
"Bee Reaved" - https://citylights.com/staff-picks/bee-reaved/
"The Letters of Mina Harker" - https://citylights.com/general-fiction/letters-of-mina-harker/
Dodie Bellamy's writing focuses on sexuality, politics and narrative experimentation, challenging the distinctions between fiction, the essay and poetry. In 2018–19 she was the subject of "On Our Mind", a yearlong series of public events, commissioned essays and reading group meetings organized by CCA Wattis ICA. With Kevin Killian, she coedited "Writers Who Love Too Much: New Narrative 1977–1997." A compendium of essays on Bellamy's work, "Dodie Bellamy Is on Our Mind", was…
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Jul 1, 2022
Amitava Kumar in Conversation with Aleksandar Hemon
Amitava Kumar in conversation with Aleksandar Hemon, discussing Amitava Kumar's new novel "A Time Outside This Time" published by Alfred Knopf. This event was originally broadcast via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis.
You can purchase copies of "A Time Outside This Time" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/new-fiction-in-hardcover/time-outside-this-time/
Amitava Kumar is a writer and journalist. He was born in Ara, India, and grew up in the nearby town of Patna, famous for its corruption, crushing poverty, and delicious mangoes. Kumar is the author of the novel "Immigrant, Montana," as well as several other books of nonfiction and fiction. He lives in Poughkeepsie, New York, where he is Professor of English on the Helen D. Lockwood Chair at Vassar College.
Aleksandar Hemon is the author of "The Lazarus Project," which was a finalist for the 2008 National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, and three books of short stories: "The Question of Bru…
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Jun 17, 2022
Farah Jasmine Griffin in Conversation with Robin D.G. Kelley
Farah Jasmine Griffin in conversation with Robin D.G. Kelley, discussing her new book "Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature," published by W.W. Norton & Co. This event was originally broadcast via Zoom and hosted by Josiah Luis Alderete.
You can purchase copies of "Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/new-nonfiction-in-hardcover/read-until-you-understand/
Farah Jasmine Griffin is a professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of "Who Set You Flowin'?": The African-American Migration Narrative, and the coeditor of "A Stranger in the Village: Two Centuries of African-American Travel Writing." She has been the recipient of fellowships from the Ford Foundation and the Bunting Institute at Radcliffe College. She lives in Philadelphia.
Robin D.G. Kelley is a scholar history of social movements in the U.S., the African Diaspora,…
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Jun 10, 2022
Gabriela Alemán and Dick Cluster in Conversation with Oscar Villalon
In conjunction with Zyzzyva, City Lights presents Gabriela Alemán and Dick Cluster in conversation with Oscar Villalon, celebrating the publication of "Family Album: Stories," published by City Lights Books. "Family Album" is Ecuadorian author Gabriela Alemán’s rollicking follow-up to her acclaimed English-language debut, "Poso Wells." This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis.
You can purchase copies of "Family Album: Stories" directly from City Lights at a 30% discount here: https://citylights.com/family-album-stories/
Gabriela Alemán was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She received a PhD at Tulane University and holds a Master’s degree in Latin American Literature from Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar. She currently resides in Quito, Ecuador. Her literary honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2006; member of Bogotá 39, a 2007 selection of the most important up-and-coming writers in Latin America in the post-Boom generation; one o…
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May 13, 2022
Mosab Abu Toha in Conversation with Mary Karr
City Lights in conjunction with the Middle Eastern Children’s Alliance and The Markaz Review present Mosab Abu Toha in conversation with Mary Karr, celebrating the publication of "Things You May Find Hidden in My Ear: Poems from Gaza," published by City Lights Books. This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis.
You can purchase copies of "Things You May Find in My Ear" directly from City Lights at a 30% discount here: https://citylights.com/general-poetry/things-you-may-find-hidden-in-my-ear/
Mosab Abu Toha is a Palestinian poet, scholar, and librarian who was born in Gaza and has spent his life there. A graduate in English language teaching and literature, he taught English at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) schools in Gaza from 2016 until 2019, and is the founder of the Edward Said Library, Gaza’s first English-language library. In 2019-2020, Abu Toha was a Visiting Poet in the Department of Comparative Literature at Harvar…
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May 6, 2022
D. S. Marriott in Conversation with Frank B. Wilderson III
D. S. Marriott in conversation with Frank B. Wilderson III, celebrating the publication of D. S. Marriott’s "Before Whiteness: City Lights Spotlight No. 21," published by City Lights Books. This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom and was hosted by Peter Maravelis with an opening statement by Garrett Caples.
You can purchase "Before Whiteness: City Lights Spotlight No. 21" directly from City Lights at a 30% discount here: https://citylights.com/general-poetry/before-whiteness/
Poet and scholar D.S. Marriott was born in Nottingham and educated at the University of Sussex, UK. He is the author of the poetry collections "Incognegro"(Salt, 2006), "Hoodoo Voodoo" (Shearsman, 2008), "The Bloods" (Shearsman, 2011), and "Duppies" (Commune Editions, 2019). His chapbooks include "In Neuter" (Equipage, 2012) and "Lative" (Equipage, 1992). His work is sometimes associated with the Cambridge school of poetry. In his critical and creative work, Marriott, of Jamaican heritage, draws on p…
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Apr 15, 2022
Still Outside: Jack Kerouac at 100
An appreciation of Jack Kerouac’s unique contribution to American literature with talks by Ann Charters, Jean-Christophe Cloutier, Ann Douglas, Tim Hunt, Joyce Johnson, Hassan Melehy, and Regina Weinreich, with readings by Tony Torn, and a birthday greeting by David Amram. This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis.
On Thursday, March 10, 2022, City Lights, at the birthplace of the San Francisco Renaissance and the Beat movement, celebrated Jack Kerouac’s centenary, with an illuminating exploration of his writing. Moving beyond the hype and fetishization of his personality, some of the country's leading Kerouac scholars take a deep dive into his work. Learn about books you haven’t yet read, his innovations in prose, the influence of his Franco-American background and how he discovered his unique voice.
City Light features one of the largest selection of Jack Kerouac books in the world. Check out our stock at this link: https://citylights.com…
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Mar 25, 2022
Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: The Bridge of Lost Desire - A Conversation with Samuel R. Delany
Daniel Shank Cruz in conversation with Samuel R. Delany, celebrating the U.S. launch of the publication of "Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical Science Fiction, 1950 to 1985," edited by Andrew Nette & Iain McIntyre, published by PM Press. This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis.
This session was part of a weekend-long symposium exploring the radical currents of Science Fiction. It was presented by City Lights in conjunction with PM Press.
You can purchase copies of "Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical Science Fiction, 1950 to 1985" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/sci-fi-fantasy/dangerous-visions-new-worlds-radical/
Born into a distinguished Harlem family, Samuel R. Delany was a success at nineteen, changing the tone, the content, and the very shape of modern science fiction with his acclaimed novels and stories that bridged the apparent gap between science and fantasy to explore gay sexuality, racial and clas…
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Mar 11, 2022
Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Mike Stax in Conversation with Michael Moorcock
Mike Stax in conversation with Michael Moorcock, celebrating the US launch of the publication of "Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical Science Fiction, 1950 to 1985," edited by Andrew Nette & Iain McIntyre, published by PM Press. This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis.
This session was part of a weekend-long symposium exploring the radical currents of Science Fiction, presented by City Lights in conjunction with PM Press.
You can purchase copies of "Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical Science Fiction, 1950 to 1985" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/sci-fi-fantasy/dangerous-visions-new-worlds-radical/
Michael Moorcock is a writer, best-known for his work in science fiction and fantasy. He is considered one of the leading voices of the genre. He has also published a number of well-received literary novels as well as comic thrillers, graphic novels and non-fiction. He has worked as an editor and is also a successf…
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Mar 4, 2022
Daniel Levin Becker in Conversation with Ian S. Port
Daniel Levin Becker in conversation with Ian S. Port, celebrating the release of his new book "What’s Good: Notes on Rap and Language," published by City Lights Books. This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis.
You can purchase "What’s Good: Notes on Rap and Language" directly from City Lights at a 30% discount here: https://citylights.com/city-lights-published/whats-good-notes-on-rap-language/
An early contributor to the groundbreaking lyrics site Rap Genius (now known as Genius), Daniel Levin Becker is an American critic, translator, and editor, and the youngest member of the Oulipo literary collective. He is the author of "Many Subtle Channels: In Praise of Potential Literature" (Harvard UP, 2012) and the translator of, among others, Georges Perec’s "La Boutique Obscure" (Melville House, 2013) and Eduardo Berti’s "An Ideal Presence" (Fern Books, 2021), and co-translator of Frédéric Forte’s "Minute-Operas" (Burning Deck, 2015) and "…
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Feb 18, 2022
Psyche Unbound Session 3: Comparative and Theoretical Studies
In conjunction with MAPS (the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies) and Synergetic Press, City Lights presents "Psyche Unbound," a day-long appreciation of Stanislav Grof.
"Comparative and Theoretical Studies" is the third and final session of the day-long symposium in three sessions exploring the life and work of Stanislav Grof, the world’s leading researcher in psychedelic therapy, breathwork, and the exploration of non-ordinary states of consciousness.
This final session explores how the work of Stanislav Grof has been applied and looking toward future paradigms of therapeutic practice. A panel discussion with Tom Riedlinger, Tom Roberts, Diane Haug, Jasmine Virdi and John Buchanan. Moderated by Maria Mangini, with an opening statement from Peter Maravelis. This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom on Saturday, January 22, 2022.
The event coincided with the launch of the new book:
"Psyche Unbound: Essays in Honor of Stanislav Grof"
Edited by Richard Tar…
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Feb 11, 2022
Psyche Unbound Session 2: Psychotherapy and Consciousness
In conjunction with MAPS (the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies) and Synergetic Press, City Lights presents "Psyche Unbound," a day-long appreciation of Stanislav Grof.
"Psychotherapy and Consciousness" is the second session of the day-long symposium in three sessions, exploring the life and work of Stanislav Grof, the world’s leading researcher in psychedelic therapy, breathwork, and the exploration of non-ordinary states of consciousness. This session is an overview of the research and main ideas of Stanislav Grof with guests Michael Mithoefer, Roshi Joan Halifax, Charles Grob, Paul Grof and Jenny Wade. Moderated by Janis Phelps, with an opening statement from Peter Maravelis. This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom on Saturday, January 22, 2022.
The event coincided with the launch of the new book:
"Psyche Unbound: Essays in Honor of Stanislav Grof"
Edited by Richard Tarnas, Ph.D. and Sean Kelly, Ph.D. and published by MAPS, with Synergetic Press.
Y…
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Feb 4, 2022
Psyche Unbound Session 1: Early Witnesses and Allies
In conjunction with MAPS (the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies)and Synergetic Press, City Lights presents "Psyche Unbound," a day-long appreciation of Stanislav Grof.
"Early Witnesses and Allies" is the first session of the day-long symposium in three sessions, exploring the life and work of Stanislav Grof, the world’s leading researcher in psychedelic therapy, breathwork, and the exploration of non-ordinary states of consciousness.
A storytelling event and tribute with Stanislav and Brigitte Grof joined by Rick Tarnas, Sean Kelly, Rick Doblin, Susan Hess Logeals (Producer of the film "Way of the Psychonaut"), Will Keepin, and Diane Haug. Moderated by David Presti, with an opening statement from Peter Maravelis. This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom on Saturday, January 22, 2022.
The event coincided with the launch of the new book:
"Psyche Unbound: Essays in Honor of Stanislav Grof"
Edited by Richard Tarnas, Ph.D. and Sean Kelly, Ph.D. and publishe…
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Jan 14, 2022
Diane di Prima Memorial Tribute Pt. 2: Spring and Autumn Annals
This is the second part of the celebration of the life and work of Diane di Prima: a panel discussion celebrating the City Lights publication of "Spring and Autumn Annals" by Diane di Prima with appearances by Sheppard Powell, Ammiel Alcalay, Amber Tamblyn, and Ana Božičević. This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom, hosted by Peter Maravelis and moderated by Sara Larsen.
This event was sponsored by the City Lights Foundation and Lost & Found: The CUNY Poetics Document Initiative.
You can purchase "Spring and Autumn Annals” directly from City Lights at a 30% discount here: https://citylights.com/beat-literature-poetry-history/spring-autumn-annals/
City Lights events calendar: https://citylights.com/events/
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Jan 14, 2022
Diane di Prima Memorial Tribute Pt. 1: Revolutionary Letters and Other Poems
A tribute to Diane di Prima, marking one year since her passing in October 2020, with Hanif Abdurraqib, Garrett Caples, Jeanne di Prima, Sheppard Powell, Cedar Sigo, Sunnylyn Thibodeaux, Wendy Trevino, and Jenny Jo Wennlund. This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis.
This event was sponsored by the City Lights Foundation and Lost & Found: The CUNY Poetics Document Initiative.
You can purchase copies of "Revolutionary Letters" directly from City Lights at a 30% discount here: https://citylights.com/beat-literature-poetry-history/revolutionary-letters-50th-anniver/
Other books by Diane di Prima can be purchased directly from the City Lights Bookstore here: citylights.com/author/diane-di-prima/
City Lights events calendar: https://citylights.com/events/
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Dec 17, 2021
Christopher W. Shaw in Conversation with Ralph Nader
Christopher W. Shaw in conversation with Ralph Nader, discussing his newly released book "First Class: The U.S. Postal Service, Democracy, and the Corporate Threat," published by City Lights Books. This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom, hosted by Peter Maravelis and moderated by Katherine Isaac.
You can purchase copies of "First Class: The U.S. Postal Service, Democracy, and the Corporate Threat" directly from City Lights at a 30% discount here: https://citylights.com/muckraking/1st-class-the-u-s-postal-service-d/
Christopher W. Shaw is an author, historian, and policy analyst. He has a Ph.D. in History from the University of California, Berkeley, and is the author of "Money, Power, and the People: The American Struggle to Make Banking Democratic" (University of Chicago Press, 2019) and "Preserving the People’s Post Office" (Essential Books, 2006). His research on the history of banking, money, labor, agriculture, social movements, and the postal system has been publish…
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Dec 10, 2021
Steven Reigns in Conversation with Jonny McGovern
Steven Reigns in conversation with Jonny McGovern, discussing his new book "A Quilt for David," published by City Lights Books. This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis.
You can purchase copies of "A Quilt for David" directly from City Lights at a 30% discount here: https://citylights.com/poetry-published-by-city-lights/quilt-for-david/
Steven Reigns, Los Angeles poet and educator, was appointed the first Poet Laureate of West Hollywood. He has two previous collections, "Inheritance" and "Your Dead Body is My Welcome Mat," and over a dozen chapbooks. Reigns edited "My Life is Poetry," showcasing his students’ work from the first-ever autobiographical poetry workshop for LGBTQ seniors. Reigns has lectured and taught writing workshops around the country to LGBTQ youth and people living with HIV. He worked for a decade as an HIV test counselor in Florida and Los Angeles. Currently he is touring The Gay Rub, an exhibition of rubbings from LGBTQ la…
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Dec 3, 2021
Stan Cox in Conversation with Sonali Kolhatkar
City Lights and YES! Magazine present Stan Cox in conversation with Sonali Kolhatkar, celebrating the launch of his new book, "The Path to a Livable Future: A New Politics to Fight Climate Change, Racism, and the Next Pandemic," published by City Lights Books. This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis.
You can purchase copies of "The Path to a Livable Future: A New Politics to Fight Climate Change, Racism, and the Next Pandemic" directly from City Lights at a 30% discount here: https://citylights.com/open-media-series/path-to-a-livable-future/
Stan Cox began his career in the U.S. Department of Agriculture and is now the Lead Scientist at The Land Institute. Cox is the author of "The Green New Deal and Beyond: Ending the Climate Emergency While We Still Can" (with City Lights), "Any Way You Slice It: The Past, Present, and Future of Rationing, Losing Our Cool: Uncomfortable Truths About Our Air-Conditioned World (and Finding New Ways to Get Throu…
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Nov 19, 2021
David Talbot and Margaret Talbot
David Talbot and Margaret Talbot celebrating the launch of their new book, "By the Light of Burning Dreams: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the Second American Revolution," published by Harper Collins. This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis.
You can purchase copies of "By the Light of Burning Dreams: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the Second American Revolution" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/new-nonfiction-in-hardcover/by-the-light-of-burning-dreams/
David Talbot is the author of the New York Times bestseller "Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years" and the acclaimed national bestseller "Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror, and Deliverance in the City of Love." He is the founder and former editor in chief of Salon, and was a senior editor at Mother Jones and the features editor at the San Francisco Examiner. He has written for The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Time, The Guardian, and other major publications.…
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Oct 29, 2021
Chet'la Sebree in Conversation with Dantiel W. Moniz
Chet'la Sebree in conversation with Dantiel W. Moniz, celebrating the release of Chet'la Sebree's new book, "Field Study," published by FSG Originals. This event was originally broadcast via Zoom and hosted by Josiah Luis Alderete.
You can purchase copies of "Field Study" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/general-poetry/field-study/
Chet'la Sebree is the director of the Stadler Center for Poetry and Literary Arts at Bucknell University and the author of "Mistress," winner of the 2018 New Issues Poetry Prize and nominated for a 2020 NAACP Image Award. She earned an MFA in creative writing, with a focus in poetry, from American University, and has received fellowships from the Delaware Division of the Arts, the MacDowell Colony, Hedgebrook, Yaddo, Vermont Studio Center, and Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies. Her poetry has appeared in the Kenyon Review, Guernica, Pleiades, and elsewhere.
Dantiel W. Moniz is the recipient of the Alice Hoffm…
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Oct 22, 2021
New Directions at 85: The Anniversary Celebration
New Directions at 85: The Anniversary Celebration with Forrest Gander as MC and Rosmarie Waldrop, Susan Howe, Nathaniel Tarn, Nathaniel Mackey, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Sylvia Legris, Michael Palmer, Will Alexander, Eliot Weinberger, and other surprise guests. This event was originally broadcast live via zoom on Thursday, June 3, 2021 and was introduced by City Lights' Peter Maravelis and hosted by Forrest Gander.
New Directions was founded in 1936 by James Laughlin, then a Harvard University sophomore, via advice from Ezra Pound to "do something useful" after finishing his studies at Harvard. The first projects to come out of New Directions were anthologies of new writing, each titled "New Directions in Poetry and Prose" (until 1966's NDPP 19). Early writers incorporated in these anthologies include Dylan Thomas, Marianne Moore, Wallace Stevens, Thomas Merton, Denise Levertov, James Agee, and Lawrence Ferlinghetti. New Directions publishing program includes writing of all genres, repre…
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Oct 15, 2021
Nathaniel Mackey with Fred Moten
Nathaniel Mackey in conversation with Fred Moten, celebrating the launch of his new poetry collection, "Double Trio," published by New Directions. This event was originally broadcast via Zoom and hosted by Josiah Luis Alderete.
You can purchase copies of "Double Trio" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/staff-picks/double-trio-tej-bet-sos-notice-nerv/
Nathaniel Mackey was born in Miami, Florida, in 1947. He is the author of several books of fiction of "exquisite rhythmic lyricism" (Bookforum), poetry, and criticism and has received many awards for his work, including the National Book Award in poetry for Splay Anthem, the Stephen Henderson Award from the African American Literature and Culture Society, the Bollingen Prize, and the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. Mackey is the Reynolds Price Professor of English at Duke University.
Fred Moten is an American cultural theorist, poet, and scholar whose work explores critical studies, black studies, and performance studies. M…
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Oct 1, 2021
Cynthia Kaufman in Conversation with Francesca Caparas
Cynthia Kaufman in conversation with Francesca Caparas, discussing her new book, "The Sea is Rising and So Are We: A Climate Justice Handbook," published by PM Press. This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis.
You can purchase copies of "The Sea is Rising and So Are We: A Climate Justice Handbook" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/staff-picks-archive/sea-is-rising-so-are-we/
Cynthia Kaufman is the director of the Vasconcellos Institute for Democracy in Action, where she also teaches community organizing and philosophy. The author of "Getting Past Capitalism: History, Vision, Hope" (Lexington Books, 2012), she is a lifelong social change activist, having worked on issues such as tenants' rights, police abuse, union organizing, international politics, and most recently climate change.
Francesca Caparas teaches English and Asian American Studies at De Anza College and she is the Faculty Coordinator of the Jean Miller Resource R…
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Aug 26, 2021
Aminatta Forna in Conversation with Eula Biss
Aminatta Forna in conversation with Eula Biss, discussing her new book, “The Window Seat: Notes From a Life in Motion,” published by Grove Press. This event was originally broadcast via Zoom and hosted by Josiah Luis Alderete.
You can purchase copies of "The Window Seat: Notes From a Life in Motion" in hardcover or paperback directly from City Lights here:
Hardcover - https://citylights.com/new-nonfiction-in-hardcover/window-seat-notes-from-a-life-in-motio/
Paperback - https://citylights.com/belles-lettres-essays/window-seat-notes-from-a-life-in-motio-2/
Aminatta Forna is the author of the novels “Ancestor Stones,” “The Memory of Love,” and “The Hired Man,” as well as the memoir “The Devil That Danced on the Water.” Forna's books have been translated into sixteen languages. Her essays have appeared in Granta, The Guardian, The Observer, and Vogue. She is currently the Lannan Visiting Chair of Poetics at Georgetown University.
Eula Biss is the author of four books…
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Aug 20, 2021
Francisco Goldman in Conversation with Valeria Luiselli
Francisco Goldman in conversation with Valeria Luiselli, discussing his new novel, "Monkey Boy," published by Grove Atlantic Press. This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis.
You can purchase copies of "Monkey Boy" in hardcover or paperback directly from City Lights here:
Hardcover - https://citylights.com/new-fiction-in-hardcover/monkey-boy/
Paperback - https://citylights.com/general-fiction/monkey-boy-3/
Francisco Goldman has published four novels and two books of non-fiction. "The Long Night of White Chickens" was awarded the American Academy's Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction. His novels have been finalists for several prizes, including, twice, The Pen/Faulkner Prize. "The Ordinary Seaman" was a finalist for The International IMPAC Dublin literary award. "The Divine Husband" was a finalist for The Believer Book Award. "The Art of Political Murder" won The Index on Censorship T.R. Fyvel Book Award and The WOLA/Duke Human Rights Book Awar…
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Aug 13, 2021
Michael McClure Memorial Tribute
A memorial tribute to Michael McClure with readings and remembrances by Russ Tamblyn, CAConrad, Margaret Randall, Forrest Gander, George Herms, Henry Kaiser, Jerome Rothenberg, Cedar Sigo, Garrett Caples, Paul Nelson, Lyn Hejinian, Andrew Schelling, Amy McClure, Jane McClure, and Joanna McClure. This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis.
Michael McClure (1932-2020) was an award-winning American poet, playwright, songwriter, and novelist. After moving to San Francisco as a young man, he was one of the five poets who participated in the Six Gallery reading that featured the public debut of Allen Ginsberg's landmark poem "Howl." A key figure of the Beat Generation, McClure is immortalized as Pat McLear in Jack Kerouac's novels The Dharma Bums and Big Sur. He also participated in the 60s counterculture alongside musicians like Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison. He taught for many years at California College of the Arts and lived with his wife, Amy, in the…
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Jul 30, 2021
Mule Kick Blues Release Party with Anne Waldman, Eileen Myles, and Garrett Caples
City Lights celebrates the final book by the late Beat Generation legend Michael McClure. Anne Waldman, Eileen Myles, and Garrett Caples read from and discuss the work of the late poet in this book launch for "Mule Kick Blues: And Last Poems" published by City Lights. This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis.
You can purchase copies of "Mule Kick Blues: And Last Poems" directly from City Lights at a 30% discount here: https://citylights.com/beat-literature-poetry-history/mule-kick-blues/
Anne Waldman co-founded the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado, where she still teaches. Her poetry collections include Iovis I, Iovis II, Fast Speaking Woman, Helping the Dreamer, Kill or Cure, and Trickster Feminism. She is a recipient of the Shelley Memorial Award.
Eileen Myles is an acclaimed poet and writer who has published over twenty works of fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and libretto. Their prizes and…
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Jul 16, 2021
Erica Hunt and Michael Palmer
Erica Hunt and Michael Palmer, reading from their new works: Hunt reading from her new collection "Jump The Clock," published by Nightboat, and Palmer reading from "Little Elegies for Sister Satan," published by New Directions. This event was originally broadcast via Zoom and hosted by Josiah Luis Alderete.
You can purchase copies of "Jump the Clock" and "Little Elegies for Sister Satan" directly from City Lights here:
"Jump the Clock" - https://citylights.com/general-poetry/jump-the-clock-new-sel-poems/
"Little Elegies for Sister Satan" - https://citylights.com/general-poetry/little-elegies-for-sister-satan/
Erica Hunt is a poet and essayist, author of Local History, Arcade, Piece Logic, Veronica: A Suite in X Parts, and Jump the Clock: New and Selected Poems, published by Nightboat Books in November 2020. Her poems and essays have appeared in BOMB, Boundary 2, Brooklyn Rail, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Poetics Journal, Tripwire, Recluse, In the American Tree, and Conjunctions.…
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Jul 9, 2021
Mary Beth Meehan with Fred Turner
Mary Beth Meehan with Fred Turner, celebrating the launch of their book "Seeing Silicon Valley: Life Inside a Fraying America" published by University of Chicago Press. This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis.
You can purchase copies of "Seeing Silicon Valley: Life Inside a Fraying America" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/topographies/seeing-silicone-valley/
Mary Beth Meehan is a photographer known for her large-scale, community-based portraiture centered around questions of representation, visibility, and social equity in the United States. She lives in New England, where she has lectured at Brown University, Rhode Island School of Design, and Massachusetts College of Art and Design.
Fred Turner is Harry and Norman Chandler Professor of Communication at Stanford University. He is the author of the books "The Democratic Surround" and "From Counterculture to Cyberculture" both published by the University of Chicago Press.…
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Jul 2, 2021
Carribean Fragoza in Conversation with Héctor Tobar
Carribean Fragoza in conversation with Héctor Tobar, celebrating the launch of her new book "Eat the Mouth That Feeds You", published by City Lights Books. This event was originally broadcast via Zoom and hosted by Josiah Luis Alderete.
You can purchase copies of "Eat the Mouth That Feeds You" directly from City Lights at a 30% discount here: https://citylights.com/city-lights-published/eat-the-mouth-that-feeds-you/
The daughter of Mexican immigrants, Carribean Fragoza was raised in South El Monte, California. After graduating from UCLA, Fragoza completed the Creative Writing MFA Program at CalArts, where she worked with writers Douglas Kearney and Norman Klein. Fragoza is founder of Vicious Ladies, a new website publishing womxn, queer, and non-binary critics of color. She co-edits UC Press's acclaimed California cultural journal, Boom California, and is also the founder of South El Monte Arts Posse, an interdisciplinary arts collective. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in…
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Jun 25, 2021
Sesshu Foster & Arturo Ernesto Romo in Conversation with Carribean Fragoza
Sesshu Foster and Arturo Ernesto Romo in conversation with Carribean Fragoza, celebrating the book launch of "ELADATL: A History of the East Los Angeles Dirigible Air Transport Lines," published by City Lights Books. This event was originally broadcast via Zoom and hosted by Josiah Luis Alderete.
You can purchase copies of "ELADATL: A History of the East Los Angeles Dirigible Air Transport Lines" directly from City Lights at a 30% discount here: https://citylights.com/city-lights-published/eladatl-a-hist-of-the-east-la-dirigi/
Sesshu Foster taught composition and literature in East L.A. for over 20 years, and at the University of Iowa, the California Institute for the Arts, and the University of California, Santa Cruz. His work is published in The Oxford Anthology of Modern American Poetry, Language for a New Century: Poetry from the Middle East, Asia and Beyond, and State of the Union: 50 Political Poems. His most recent books are "City of the and "Atomik Aztex." Sesshu was awarded…
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Jun 18, 2021
Mira Sethi in Conversation with Miranda Popkey
Mira Sethi in conversation with Miranda Popkey, celebrating Mira Sethi's new short fiction collection "Are You Enjoying?" published by Alfred Knopf. This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis.
You can purchase copies of "Are You Enjoying?" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/staff-picks-archive/are-you-enjoying-stories/
Mira Sethi is an actor and a writer. She grew up in Lahore and attended Wellesley College, after which Sethi worked as a books editor at The Wall Street Journal. She has written op-ed pieces for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Guardian. Sethi regularly appears in a mainstream Pakistani drama series on television. She lives in Lahore, Karachi, and San Francisco.
Miranda Popkey is a writer, editor, and translator from the Italian. Her writing has appeared in The New Republic, The New Yorker’s page-turner blog, The Paris Review Daily, The Hairpin, New York’s magazine “The Cut,” and man…
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Jun 4, 2021
Marie Mutsuki Mockett in Conversation with Garnette Cadogan
Marie Mutsuki Mockett in conversation with Garnette Cadogan discussing her new book "American Harvest: God, Country, and Farming in the Heartland," published by Graywolf Press. This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis.
You can purchase copies of "American Harvest: God, Country, and Farming in the Heartland" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/peoples-history/amer-harvest-god-country/
Marie Mutsuki Mockett is the author of a novel, "Picking Bones from Ash," and a memoir, "Where the Dead Pause," and "The Japanese Say Goodbye," which was a finalist for the PEN Open Book Award. She has written for the New York Times, Salon, National Geographic, Glamour, Ploughshares, and other publications and has been a guest on The World, Talk of the Nation and All Things Considered on NPR. She is a core faculty member of the Rainier Writing Workshop and a Visiting Writer in the MFA program Saint Mary's College in Moraga, California. She lives i…
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May 28, 2021
Rachel Kushner in Conversation with Dana Spiotta
Rachel Kushner in conversation with Dana Spiotta celebrating the launch of Rachel Kushner's "The Hard Crowd: Essays 2000-2020," published by Scribner. This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis.
You can purchase copies of "The Hard Crowd: Essays 2000-2020" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/new-nonfiction-in-hardcover/hard-crowd-essays-2000-to-2020/
Rachel Kushner is the bestselling author of three novels: the Booker- and NBCC Award–shortlisted "The Mars Room;" "The Flamethrowers," a finalist for the National Book Award and a New York Times top ten book of 2013; and "Telex from Cuba," a finalist for the National Book Award. She grew up in San Francisco and now lives in Los Angeles.
Dana Spiotta is is the author of four novels: "Innocents and Others,"(2016), which won the St. Francis College Literary Prize and was shortlisted for The Los Angeles Times Book Prize; "Stone Arabia" (2011), which was a National Book Critics Circle…
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Mar 5, 2021
Héctor Tobar in Conversation with Oscar Villalon
Héctor Tobar with Oscar Villalon discussing Héctor Tobar's new book "The Last Great Road Bum," published by Farrar Straus and Giroux. This event was recently broadcast via Zoom and hosted by Josiah Luis Alderete.
Héctor Tobar is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and novelist. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller Deep Down Dark, as well as The Barbarian Nurseries, Translation Nation, and The Tattooed Soldier. Tobar is also a contributing writer for the New York Times opinion pages and an associate professor at the University of California, Irvine. He has written for The New Yorker, the Los Angeles Times, and other publications. His short fiction has appeared in Best American Short Stories, L.A. Noir, ZYZZYVA, and Slate. The son of Guatemalan immigrants, he is a native of Los Angeles, where he lives with his family.
Oscar Villalon is the Managing Editor of Zyzzyva Magazine. He is is the former book editor at the San Francisco Chronicle and a board member of the Nati…
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Feb 18, 2021
Joshua Bennett, Tongo Eisen-Martin, Jesse McCarthy, and Simone White
Joshua Bennett is joined in conversation with Tongo Eisen Martin, Jesse McCarthy, and Simone White to discuss his new book "Being Property Once Myself: Blackness and the End of Man" published by Belknap Press/Harvard University Press. The prize-winning poet Joshua Bennett argues that blackness acts as the caesura between human and nonhuman, man and animal. This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom and hosted by Josiah Luis Alderete.
Joshua Bennett is the author of The Sobbing School, winner of the National Poetry Series and a finalist for the NAACP Image Award. He has received grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ford Foundation, and MIT and was a Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows. He is the Mellon Assistant Professor of English and Creative Writing at Dartmouth College.
Tongo Eisen-Martin is the author of Heaven Is All Goodbyes (City Lights Books, 2017) and someone's dead already (Boostrap Press, 2015) and his poetry has been fea…
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Jan 8, 2021
Maw Shein Win, Nathalie Khankan, Su Hwang, and Marcelo Hernandez Castillo
Maw Shein Win with Nathalie Khankan and Marcelo Hernandez Castillo reading from new poetry, Storage Unit for the Spirit House, (Maw Shein Win) and Quiet Orient Riot (Nathalie Khankan), both published Omnidawn.
Maw Shein Win is the author of Invisible Gifts: Poems and her chapbooks include Ruins of a Glittering Palace and Score and Bone. Maw is the inaugural poet laureate of El Cerrito (2016–18). She lives and teaches in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Nathalie Khankan teaches Arabic language and literature in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and she is the founding director of the Danish House in Palestine. Her work has previously appeared in the Berkeley Poetry Review, jubilat, and Crab Creek Review. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and daughters.
Marcelo Hernandez Castillo is the author of Cenzontle, winner of the A. Poulin, Jr. prize (BOA editions 2018), winner of the 2019 Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writers Award…
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Jan 1, 2021
Mauro Javier Cárdenas and Carlos Fonseca
Mauro Javier Cárdenas in conversation with Carlos Fonseca, discussing Mauro's new novel, Aphasia, published by Farrar Straus Giroux.
Mauro Javier Cárdenas, the critically-acclaimed author of The Revolutionaries Try Again—"an original, insubordinate novel" (New York Times)—pens a profound story of literature about a man coming to terms with his dysfunctional Colombian family, as well as his own behavior, as an immigrant in America.
Mauro Javier Cárdenas is the author of The Revolutionaries Try Again, which The New York Times called "an original, insubordinate novel." In 2017, the Hay Festival included him in Bogotá39, a selection of the best young Latin American novelists working today.
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Dec 25, 2020
City Lights Spotlight Poetry Series 20 in 2020 Celebration: Day Two
Day two of two: a weekend of events celebrating the 20-volume milestone of the City Lights Spotlight Series. Hosted by Garrett Caples (Series Editor). With readings by Andrew Joron, Cedar Sigo, Will Alexander, Julian Talamantez Brolaski, Lisa Jarnot, Alli Warren, John Coletti, Elaine Kahn, Edmund Berrigan, and Sophia Dahlin.
In September 2020, City Lights is publishing the next two volumes in the Spotlight Poetry Series: No. 19, Facing You by acclaimed Nigerian-American poet Uche Nduka, and No. 20, Natch, the debut collection of Bay Area queer poet Sophia Dahlin.
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Dec 18, 2020
City Lights Spotlight Poetry Series 20 in 2020 Celebration: Day One
Day one of two: a weekend of events celebrating the 20-volume milestone of the City Lights Spotlight Series. Hosted by Garrett Caples (Series Editor). With readings by Norma Cole, Anselm Berrigan, Micah Ballard, Cathy Wagner, Eric Baus, Julien Poirier, David Brazil, Barbara Jane Reyes, Carmen Gimenez Smith, and Uche Nduka.
In September 2020, City Lights is publishing the next two volumes in the Spotlight Poetry Series: No. 19, 'Facing You' by acclaimed Nigerian-American poet Uche Nduka, and No. 20, 'Natch,' the debut collection of Bay Area queer poet Sophia Dahlin.
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Dec 4, 2020
Alison Mosshart, Sheree Renée Thomas, and Robert Gordon
Third Man Books (the publishing imprint of Jack White's Third Man Records) returns to City Lights to launch three new titles: IT CAME FROM MEMPHIS by Robert Gordon, CAR MA by Alison Mosshart, and 9 Bar Blues by Sheree Renée Thomas. This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom.
Robert Gordon is a writer and a filmmaker, a native Memphian who has been exporting the city's authentic weirdness since long before his first book, It Came From Memphis (1995).
Alison Mosshart is best known for her work in her musical duo The Kills, as well as fronting the Grammy nominated rock n’ roll band, The Dead Weather. Her 5 major solo exhibits: "Fire Power," Joseph Gross Gallery in NYC, 2015, "Fire Power Los Angeles," Maxfield in Los Angeles, 2017, "Tonight Only," Muscle Shoals, Alabama, 2016, "Side Effects," Panteon in Mexico City, 2018, and "Los Trachas," FF-1051 Gallery in Los Angeles, 2018.
Sheree Renée Thomas imagines stories that are sonic rituals, works that cultivate and affirm the ma…
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Nov 27, 2020
Gary Kamiya and Paul Madonna 10.20.2020
Gary Kamiya with Paul Madonna, celebrating their new book, Spirits of San Francisco: Voyages through the Unknown City, published by Bloomsbury Books.From two bestselling, prizewinning, and critically acclaimed contemporary chroniclers of San Francisco comes a rich, illustrated, idiosyncratic portrait of this great city.
Gary Kamiya is a writer, journalist, and historian. He is the author of the bestselling book Cool Gray City of Love: 49 Views of San Francisco and the history column "Portals of the Past" (soon to be a podcast) which appears every other Saturday in the San Francisco Chronicle. He also offers unique walking tours by appointment and is available as a speaker about all things San Francisco.
Paul Madonna is a San Francisco-based artist and writer. He is the creator of the comic series "All Over Coffee" and the author of four books, All Over Coffee, Everything is its Own Reward, On to the Next Dream, and Close Enough for the Angels. He is the Comics Editor for TheRumpus.ne…
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Nov 20, 2020
Zoetrope Fall 2020 Issue Celebration
City Lights celebrates the award-winning literary periodical's fall issue. Editor Michael Ray and Managing Editor Manjula Martin are joined by several contributors in an afternoon of readings and celebrations.
Guests include Frances de Pontes Peebles, Patrick Dacey, and Daniel Orozco.
Founded by Francis Ford Coppola in 1997, Zoetrope: All-Story is a quarterly print magazine of short fiction, one-act plays, and essays on film. Among the most celebrated literary periodicals in the world, it has won every major story award, including four National Magazine Awards for Fiction, along with a number of design commendations. The magazine's contributors comprise the most promising and significant writers of our era: Mary Gaitskill, Colum McCann, Rachel Cusk, Jim Shepard, Elena Ferrante, Daniel Alarcón, Karen Russell, Yiyun Li, Jonathan Lethem, Wes Anderson, Elizabeth McCracken, David Mamet, Ha Jin, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Margaret Atwood, Pedro Almodóvar, Ethan Coen, Yoko Ogawa, Charles D…
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Nov 20, 2020
Eileen Myles
Eileen Myles reading from their new book, For Now, published by Yale University Press.
In this raucous meditation, Eileen Myles offers an intimate glimpse into creativity's immediacy. With erudition and wit, Myles recounts their early years as an awakening writer; existential struggles with landlords; storied moments with neighbors, friends, and lovers; and the textures and identities of cities and the country that reveal the nature of writing as a presence in time.
Eileen Myles is an acclaimed poet and writer who has published over twenty works of fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and libretto. Their prizes and awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Warhol/Creative Capital grant, an award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a poetry award from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts
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Nov 13, 2020
Barry Gifford and Rob Christopher
Barry Gifford celebrating the release of his new anthology, Roy's World: Stories 1973-2020, published by Seven Stories Press. Barry Gifford is joined by flimmaker Rob Christopher to explore the rich landscape of his seminal Roy Stores, a tie-in to the new documentary, Roy's World: Barry Gifford's Chicago.
Barry Gifford writes distinctly American stories for readers around the globe. From screenplays and librettos to his acclaimed Sailor and Lula novels, Gifford's writing is as distinctive as it is difficult to classify. His novel Wild at Heart was adapted into the 1990 Palme d’Or-winning film of the same name. Gifford lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Rob Christopher wrote, directed, and starred in the acclaimed fiction feature Pause of the Clock, which had its World Premiere at the Denver Film Festival in 2015 and screened at the Gene Siskel Film Center in 2016. He wrote the introduction to the young adult edition of Sad Stories of the Death of Kings by Barry Gifford and edited…
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Nov 6, 2020
Uche Nduka and Sophia Dahlin
Uche Nduka and Sophia Dahlin: Celebrating City Lights Spotlights Series Vol. 19 & 20. Uche Nduka reading from Facing You, Spotlight Series No. 19, and Sophia Dahlin reading from Natch, Spotlight Series No. 20.
Uche Nduka is an itinerant poet and professor living in Brooklyn. He was born in Nigeria, was raised bilingual in Igbo and English, and earned his BA from the University of Nigeria. He left Nigeria in 1994 and settled in Germany after winning a fellowship from the Goethe Institute. In 2007, he immigrated to the United States, where he would earn his MFA from Long Island University, Brooklyn.
Sophia Dahlin earned her BA from Bard College and her MFA from the University of Iowa, where she was an Iowa Arts Fellow. Her work has appeared in many journals, including BOMB, Fence, Lambda Literary, Denver Quarterly, and The Recluse. With Jacob Kahn, she edits the chapbook press Eyelet. She lives in Oakland, California, where she teaches with California Poets in the Schools.
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Oct 30, 2020
Kerri Arsenault and Kurt Andersen
Kerri Arsenault in conversation with Kurt Andersen discussing their two new books. Mill Town: Reckoning With What Remains, by Kerri Arsenault, (St. Martin’s Press) and Evil Geniuses: The Unmaking of America: A Recent History, by Kurt Andersen, (Random House). This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom.
Kerri Arsenault serves on the board of the National Books Critics Circle, is the Book Review Editor at Orion magazine, and Contributing Editor at Lithub. Arsenault received her MFA in Creative Writing from The New School and studied in Malmö University’s Communication for Development master’s programme. Her writing has appeared in Freeman’s, Lithub, Oprah.com, and The Minneapolis Star Tribune, among other publications. She lives in New England. Mill Town is her first book.
Kurt Andersen is author of Heyday and Turn of the Century and frequently writes for New York and Vanity Fair. He is host and cocreator of the Peabody Award–winning public radio program Studio 360. I…
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Oct 23, 2020
Celebrating RESISTENCIA: Poems of Protest and Revolution
Celebrating RESISTENCIA: Poems of Protest and Revolution with Mark Eisner, Tina Escaja, Romina Funes, Rebeca Lane, Jack Hirschman, and Jessica Powell. Co-presented by the Red Poppy Art House and Tin House Books. This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom.
Carolina De Robertis, Resistencia translator, a writer of Uruguayan origins, is the author of four novels, most recently Cantoras, which received a Stonewall Book Award and a Reading Women Award.
Mark Eisner, co-editor of Resistencia: In 2004 Mark was involved in the early stages of the Red Poppy Art House.
Tina Escaja, co-editor of Resistencia, is a Spanish American author, digital artist, and Distinguished Professor at the University of Vermont.
Romina Funes, poeta, was born in General San Martin, Buenos Aires, Argentina, in 1981. For the past decade, Romina has organized "Letras & Música.”
Jack Hirschman, Resistencia translator, is Poet Laureate emeritus of San Francisco.
Rebeca Lane, contributing poet/rapper, was b…
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Oct 16, 2020
Jenny Bhatt and Devi S. Laskar
Jenny Bhatt in conversation with Devi S. Laskar discussing Janny Bhatt's new short fiction collection, EACH OF US KILLERS: Stories, published by 7.13 Books. Set in the American Midwest, England, and India the stories in Each of Us Killers are about people trying to realize their dreams and aspirations through their professions. This event was originally broadcast live on Zoom.
Jenny Bhatt is a writer, literary translator, and literary critic. She is the host of the Desi Books podcast. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in various venues in the US, UK, and India, including NPR, The Washington Post, Electric Literature, The Atlantic, BBC Culture, Literary Hub, Longreads, The Millions, and others. Her fiction has been nominated for Pushcart Prizes and the 2017 Best American Short Stories.
Devi S. Laskar is the author of The Atlas of Reds and Blues, winner of 7th annual Crook's Corner Book Prize (2020) for best debut novel set in the South, winner of the 2020 Asian/Pacific Americ…
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Aug 21, 2020
John Freeman and D.A. Powell
John Freeman celebrates his new collection of poetry, The Park, published by Copper Canyon Press. He's joined by D.A. Powell, also reading from his own new work. This event was originally broadcast on Zoom.
John Freeman is the editor of Freeman's, a literary biannual of new writing, and executive editor of Literary Hub. His books include How to Read a Novelist and Dictionary of the Undoing (forthcoming), as well as a trilogy of anthologies about inequality, including Tales of Two Americas: Stories of Inequality in a Divided Nation, and Tales of Two Planets (forthcoming), which features storytellers from around the globe on the climate crisis. Maps, his debut collection of poems, was published in 2017. His work has been translated into more than twenty languages and has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and The New York Times. He is the former editor of Granta and is a Writer in Residence at New York University.
D. A. Powell is the author of five collections of poetry, inc…
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Jul 17, 2020
Jennifer Worley
Jennifer Worley discusses her book, Neon Girls: A Stripper's Education in Protest and Power, published by Harper Collins. This event was originally broadcasted via Zoom.
Neon Girls is a riveting true story of a young woman's days stripping in grunge-era San Francisco where a radical group of dancers banded together to unionize and run the club on their own terms.
Jennifer Worley is a professor of English at City College of San Francisco and recently finished her term as President of the faculty union, AFT 2121. Her film Sex On Wheels, documents the history of San Francisco's sex industry and sex worker activism and has played at film festivals and universities worldwide. Her writing has appeared in Bitch, Captive Genders, Invisible Suburbs, The Queerist, and PRI's Outright Radio.
[editor's note: at the time of this recording, City Lights Bookstore was only open for curbside pickup and online order. The store has since opened fully and the hours are 12-8PM every day.]
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Jul 2, 2020
Frank Wilderson III and Justin Desmangles
Frank Wilderson III in conversation with Justin Desmangles, discussing Frank's new book, "Afropessimism." This event was originally broadcast via Zoom and hosted by Josiah Luis Alderete.
Professor and chair of African American studies at the University of California, Irvine, and author of Incognegro: A Memoir of Exile and Apartheid, Frank B. Wilderson III has received an NEA Literature Fellowship and a Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Legacy Award for Creative Nonfiction, among other awards.
Justin Desmangles is chairman of the Before Columbus Foundation, administrator of the American Book Award, and host of the radio broadcast New Day Jazz, now in its fifteenth year. A member of the board of directors of the Oakland Book Festival, Mr. Desmangles is also a program producer at the African-American Center of the San Francisco Public Library.
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Jun 19, 2020
Cara Black and Jacqueline Winspear
Cara Black and Jacqueline Winspear discussing the writing of fiction that takes place in World War II Europe. They explore topics that closely parallel many of the issues of the day as well as discussing the challenge and complexities of placing one's writing in a dynamic historic period. This event was originally broadcast via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis.
Cara Black's most recent book is "Three Hours in Paris," published by Soho Press. Jacqueline Winspear's essay "Writing about War" will be published in the new anthology, "Private Investigations: Mystery Writers On The Secrets", "Riddles and Wonders In Their Lives," published by Seal Press.
Cara Black, doyenne of the Parisian crime novel, is at her best as she brings Occupation-era France to vivid life in this gripping story about one young woman with the temerity—and drive—to take on Hitler himself. Cara Black is also the author of the bestselling Aimee Leduc Series. The most recent release in that series being "Murder i…
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Jun 5, 2020
Katherine Silver in Conversation with Mauro Javier Cárdenas
Katherine Silver in conversation with Mauro Javier Cárdenas, discussing Katherine's new translations of the work of Julio Ramón Ribeyro ("The Word of the Speechless : Selected Stories," published by NYRB) and Juan Carlos Onetti ("A Dream Come True: the Complete Stories of Juan Carlos Onetti," published by Archipelago Press). This event was originally broadcast via Zoom and hosted by Josiah Luis Alderete.
Katherine Silver has translated more than thirty books, mostly of literature from the Americas. Her most recent and forthcoming translations include works by María Sonia Cristoff, Julio Ramón Ribeyro, Julio Cortázar, Daniel Sada, Horacio Castellanos Moya, César Aira, and Pedro Lemebel. She has received numerous awards and prizes, including three National Endowment for the Arts translation fellowships. She was recently translator-in-residence at the University of Iowa, and is the former director of the Banff International Literary Translation Centre. In 2019 What Books Press publ…
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May 29, 2020
Emerson Whitney
Emerson Whitney discussing and reading from their new book, "Heaven" published by McSweeney's. This event was broadcast live via Zoom, hosted by Caitlyn Wild.
At Heaven's center, Whitney seeks to understand their relationship to their mother and grandmother, those first windows into womanhood and all its consequences. Whitney retraces a roving youth in deeply observant, psychedelic prose—all the while folding in the work of thinkers like Judith Butler, Donna Haraway, and C. Riley Snorton—to engage transness and the breathing, morphing nature of selfhood.
An expansive examination of what makes us up, Heaven wonders what role our childhood plays in who we are. Can we escape the discussion of causality? Is the story of our body just ours? With extraordinary emotional force, Whitney sways between theory and memory in order to explore these brazen questions and write this unforgettable book.
Emerson Whitney is the author of Ghost Box. Emerson teaches in the BFA creative writing progr…
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Apr 24, 2020
KimShuck, Thea Matthews, and Kevin Madrigal
"Mapping the Bay," San Francisco Poet Laureate Kim Shuck is joined by Thea Matthews and Kevin Madrigal, reading new poetry.
Kim Shuck's latest book of poems is Deer Trails, published by City Lights.
Kim Shuck is an Ani Yun Wiya (Cherokee)/Polish-American poet, author, weaver, and bead-work artist who draws from Southeastern Native American culture and tradition as well as contemporary urban Indian life. She was born in San Francisco, California and belongs to the Northern California Cherokee diaspora. She is a member of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma. She earned a B.A. in Art (1994), and M.F.A. in Textiles (1998) from San Francisco State University. Her basket weaving work is influenced by her grandmother Etta Mae Rowe and the long history of California Native American basket making. She is the winner of the Diane Decorah First Book Award from the Native Writers' Circle of the Americas and the Mary Tallmountain Award for Freedom Voices. In 2017, she was named the 7th Poet Laureate o…
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Apr 17, 2020
Roy Scranton
Roy Scranton reading from his novel, I Heart Oklahoma, published by Soho.
Suzie's seen it all, but now she's looking for something she lost: a sense of the future. So when the chance comes to work with a maverick video artist on his road movie about Donald Trump's America, she's pretty sure it's a bad idea but she signs up anyway, hoping for an outside shot at starting over.
A provocative, genderqueer, shapeshifting musical romp through the brain-eating nightmare of contemporary America, I Heart Oklahoma! is a book about art, guns, cars, American landscapes, and American history. This kaleidoscopic novel moves from our bleeding-edge present to a furious Faulknerian retelling of the Charlie Starkweather killings in the 1950s, capturing in its fragmented, mesmerizing form the violence at the heart of the American dream.
Roy Scranton is the author of Learning to Die in the Anthropocene: Reflections on the End of a Civilization (published by City Lights Books), and co-editor of Fire and…
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Apr 10, 2020
Aaron Cohen
Aaron Cohen discusses the subject of his new book, Move On Up: Chicago Soul Music and Black Cultural Power, published by the University of Chicago Press.
Drawing on more than one hundred interviews and a music critic’s passion for the unmistakable Chicago soul sound, Cohen shows us how soul music became the voice of inspiration and change for a city in turmoil.
Aaron Cohen is the author of Aretha Franklin's 'Amazing Grace' (Bloomsbury). He teaches humanities, journalism and English composition at City Colleges of Chicago and received a Public Scholar fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities in 2016. Cohen's articles have appeared in The Chicago Tribune, DownBeat, Washington Post and The Nation and he is the two-time recipient of the Deems Taylor Award for outstanding music writing from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP).
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Apr 7, 2020
STAFF PICK - Chloe Aridjis Reads from Sea Monsters
(From February 2019) Chloe Aridjis reading from her novel, "Sea Monsters," published by Catapult Press.
Pulsing to the soundtrack of Joy Division, Nick Cave, and Siouxsie and the Banshees, an intoxicating portrait of Mexico in the late 1980s by this brilliant Guggenheim fellow and Prix du Premier Roman Étranger–winning author.
Chloe Aridjis is a Mexican-American writer who was born in New York and grew up in the Netherlands and Mexico. After completing her Ph.D. at the University of Oxford in nineteenth-century French poetry and magic shows, she lived for nearly six years in Berlin. Her debut novel, Book of Clouds, has been published in eight languages and won the Prix du Premier Roman Étranger in France. Aridjis sometimes writes about art and insomnia and was a guest curator at Tate Liverpool. In 2014, she was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship. She lives in London.
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Apr 3, 2020
Gillian Conoley and Donna de la Perrière
Gillian Conoley and Donna de la Perrière reading from their new poetry collections. Gillian reading from A Little More Red Sun On The Human: New and Selected Poems, published by Nightboat Books; Donna de la Perrière reading from Works of Love & Terror, published by Talisman House.
Gillian Conoley was awarded the 2017 Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America. A Little More Red Sun on the Human: Selected Poems is forthcoming with Nightboat Books in Fall 2019. Her seventh poetry collection, PEACE, was named an Academy of American Poets Standout Book for 2014 and a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. Conoley’s work has received the Jerome J. Shestack Poetry Prize, a National Endowment for the Arts grant, and a Fund for Poetry Award. Her translations of
Henri Michaux, Thousand Times Broken, appeared with City Lights in 2014. Conoley is Poet-in-Residence and Professor of English at Sonoma State University, where she edits Volt.
Donna de la Perrière is the a…
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Mar 27, 2020
Kal Spelletich
Kal Spelletich in conversation with Catharine Clark, discussing his new project, Significance Machines and Purposeful Robots.
'Significance Machines and Purposeful Robots' was an exhibit of work by Kal Spelletich at St. Mary's College Museum of Art through December 2019 that includes life size praying robots, photos, sound machines, drawings, videos and interactive sculptures which explore the question: can technology do spiritual work? Via audience operated robots that are meditative and violent, Spelletich's work enacts a liberated awareness and pushes his audience to a creative response to in their own lives.
City Lights celebrates the release of the catalog for this show. The catalog is enshrined inside a unique artifact produced in a limited edition. The artifact is composed of a suitcase shell that contains a mechanized spinning stone Buddha, LED lights, sound recording of spiritual music, a speaker, laser cut text on acrylic, caliper measuring tool, assorted photos, drawings a…
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Mar 24, 2020
STAFF PICK - Little Boy Release Party
(From March 2019) City Lights celebrates the release of Lawrence Ferlinghetti's new novel, Little Boy, published by Doubleday Books with special guests reading passages from the book including: Andrew Sean Greer, Armistead Maupin, Michael Krasny, Maxine Hong Kingston, Shobha Rao, and Julien Poirier. A pre-recorded remark by Lawrence plays at the conclusion. This event was part of our Ferlinghetti 100th birthday celebrations in Spring 2019.
In this unapologetically unclassifiable work Lawrence Ferlinghetti lets loose an exhilarating rush of language to craft what might be termed a closing statement about his highly significant and productive 99 years on this planet. The "Little Boy" of the title is Ferlinghetti himself as a child, shuffled from his overburdened mother to his French aunt to foster childhood with a rich Bronxville family. Service in World War Two (including the D-Day landing), graduate work, and a scholar gypsy's vagabond life in Paris followed. These biographical remini…
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Mar 20, 2020
Terry Tempest Williams
Terry Tempest Williams reading from her new book, Erosion: Essays of Undoing, published by Sarah Critchton Books/Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Introduction by City Lights bookseller Ryan Darley.
Erosion are fierce, timely, and unsettling essays from an important and beloved writer and conservationist.Terry Tempest Williams is the award-winning author of The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America's National Parks; Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place; Finding Beauty in a Broken World; and When Women Were Birds, among other books. Her work is widely taught and anthologized around the world. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, she is currently the Writer-in-Residence at the Harvard Divinity School. She and her husband Brooke Williams divide their time between Cambridge, Massachusetts and Castle Valley, Utah.
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Mar 13, 2020
A Celebration of Silvina Ocampo
A discussion of Silvina Ocampo, focusing on the two new translations published by City Lights––"Forgotten Journey" & "The Promise"--with the books' translators: Suzanne Jill Levine, Katie Lateef-Jan and Jessica Powell. Opening statement by Elaine Katzenberger, publisher/executive director of City Lights Booksellers & Publishers, who also edited these two books.
Silvina Ocampo was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 1903. A central figure of Argentine literary circles, Ocampo's accolades include Argentina's National Poetry Prize and a Guggenheim fellowship. She was an early contributor to Argentina's Sur magazine, where she worked closely with its founder, her sister Victoria Ocampo; Adolfo Bioy Casares, her husband; and Jorge Luis Borges. In 1937, Sur published Ocampo's first book, Viaje olvidado. She went on to publish thirteen volumes of fiction and poetry during a long and much-lauded career. Ocampo died in Buenos Aires in 1993. La promesa, her only novel, was posthumously publi…
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Mar 10, 2020
STAFF PICK - The People v. Ferlinghetti: The Fight to Publish Allen Ginsberg's HOWL
(From March 2019, during our Ferlinghetti at 100 celebrations) Ronald K.L. Collins and David M. Skover discuss the subject of their book, "The People v. Ferlinghetti : The Fight to Publish Allen Ginsberg's HOWL," published by Rowman & Littlefield. Opening statement by Malcolm Margolin.
Lawrence Ferlinghetti's name does not appear in any First Amendment treatise or casebook. And yet when the best-selling poet and proprietor of City Lights Books was indicted under California law for publishing and selling Allen Ginsberg's poem, Howl, Ferglinghetti buttressed the tradition of dissident expression and ended an era when minds were still closed, candid literature still taboo, and when selling banned books was considered a crime.
Ronald K.L. Collins is Harold S. Shefelman Scholar, University of Washington School of Law.
David M. Skover is Fredric C. Tausend Professor of Law, Seattle University School of Law. Together they have coauthored several books including The Trials of Lenny Bruce: T…
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Mar 6, 2020
Maxim Osipov
Maxim Osipov reading excerpts in Russian of his new book, "Rock, Paper, Scissors and Other Stories," published by New York Review Books in translation. The new edition from NYRB was translated by Boris Dralyuk, Alex Fleming, and Anne Marie Jackson; edited by Boris Dralyuk. Joining Maxim to read passages from the book in English is Sabrina Jaszi.
Maxim Osipov (b. 1963) is a Russian writer and cardiologist. In the early 1990s he was a research fellow at the University of California, San Francisco, before returning to Moscow, where he continued to practice medicine and also founded a publishing house that specialized in medical, musical, and theological texts. In 2005, while working at a local hospital in Tarusa, a small town ninety miles from Moscow, Osipov established a charitable foundation to ensure the hospital’s survival. Since 2007, he has published short stories, novellas, essays, and plays, and has won a number of literary prizes for his fiction. He has published five collecti…
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Feb 28, 2020
Gibby Haynes
Gibby Haynes reading from his new novel, Me & Mr. Cigar, published by Soho Press.
From the wild and wonderful mind of Gibby Haynes––world famous Butthole Surfers front man/lyricist and self-proclaimed eternal Texan adolescent––comes the surreal tale of seventeen-year-old Oscar Lester and his trusted dog, Mr. Cigar.
Gibby Haynes is a musician, visual artist, writer, and filmmaker best known as a founding member of the Butthole Surfers, whose outrageous concerts spawned a global cult following and whose albums have sold millions worldwide. He lives in Brooklyn with his family. Me & Mr. Cigar is his first novel.
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Feb 25, 2020
STAFF PICK - Elliott Sharp and David Rothenberg
(From June 2019) Elliott Sharp in conversation with David Rothenberg to celebrate the release of two new books: "Nightingales in Berlin: Searching for the Perfect Sound" by David Rothenberg, published by University of Chicago Press and "IrRational Music" by Elliott Sharp published by Terra Nova Books.
David Rothenberg is the Series Editor of Terra Nova Books and is distinguished professor of philosophy and music at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. He is the author of many books investigating music in nature, including Why Birds Sing, Survival of the Beautiful, and Bug Music: How Insects Gave Us Rhythm and Noise. His writings have been translated into more than eleven languages and among his twenty one music CDs is One Dark Night I Left My Silent House, on ECM.
Elliott Sharp is a composer and multi-instrumentalist. He was awarded the Berlin Prize in Music in 2015 and a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2014. His composition "Storm of the Eye" for violinist Hilary Hahn appeared on her Gr…
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Feb 21, 2020
Benedicte Maurseth
A very special musical episode! Benedicte Maurseth discussing her book, "To Be Nothing: Conversations with Knut Hamre, Hardanger Fiddle Master," published by Terra Nova Press.
Benedicte Maurseth is a Norwegian folk musician, composer, and writer. She began her study of the Hardanger fiddle with Knut Hamre at the age of eight. She has toured in Norway and internationally, and has made several recordings on Grappa and ECM. In 2017 she was awarded the NOPA Music Prize for her outstanding contribution to the Norwegian music scene.
Terra Nova Books aim to show how environmental issues have cultural and artistic components, in addition to the scientific and political. Combining essays, reportage, fiction, art, and poetry, Terra Nova Books reveal the complex and paradoxical ways the natural and the human are continually redefining each other.
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Feb 14, 2020
ZYZZYVA Bay Area Issue Celebration
ZYZZYVA celebrates their 117th issue, the Bay Area Issue with an all-star lineup (in order of appearance): Paul Wilner, Meg Hurtado Bloom, Rita Bullwinkel, Kevin Simmonds, Ingrid Rojas Contreras, and Chia-Chia Lin. Hosted by ZYZZYVA managing editor Oscar Villalon.
Paul Wilner is a poet, critic, freelance journalist, and member of the National Book Critics Circle, and a frequent contributor to ZYZZYVA.
Meg Hurtado Bloom received her MFA in Creative Writing from St Mary's College of California. Her writing has appeared in Calamity, Lumen, Split Lip, Yellow Chair Review, The Volta, the Columbia Poetry Review, and elsewhere.
Rita Bullwinkel is the author of the story collection Belly Up, which won the 2018 Believer Book Award, and is currently being translated into Italian and Greek. Bullwinkel’s writing has been published in Tin House, Conjunctions, BOMB, Vice, NOON, and Guernica.
Kevin Simmonds’s books include the poetry collection Bend to It (Salmon Poetry) and Mad for Meat (Sal…
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Feb 11, 2020
STAFF PICK - Kevin Killian Reading from Fascination
(From November 2018) Kevin Killian reads from his book, Fascination, published by Semiotext(e) and edited by Andrew Durbin.
A memoir of gay life in 1970s Long Island by one of the leading proponents of the New Narrative movement.
Fascination brings together an early memoir, Bedrooms Have Windows (1989) and a previously unpublished prose work, Bachelors Get Lonely, by the poet and novelist Kevin Killian, one of the founding members of the New Narrative movement. The two together depict the author's early years struggling to become a writer in the sexed-up, boozy, drug-ridden world of Long Island's North Shore in the 1970s. It concludes with Triangles in the Sand, a new, previously unpublished memoir of Killian's brief affair in the 1970s with the composer Arthur Russell. Fascination offers a moving and often funny view of the loneliness and desire that defined gay life of that era—a time in which Richard Nixon's resignation intersected with David Bowie's Diamond Dogs—from one of t…
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Feb 7, 2020
Carmen Maria Machado with Esmé Weijun Wang
Carmen Maria Machado with Esmé Weijun Wang in conversation and celebrating the release of Carmen Maria Machado's In The Dream House: A Memoir, published by Graywolf Press. Event co-sponsored by Asian Women's Shelter, Communities United Against Violence, and The California chapter of Survived and Punished.
Carmen Maria Machado is the author of Her Body and Other Parties, a finalist for the National Book Award. The recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship, she is the writer in residence at the University of Pennsylvania and lives in Philadelphia with her wife.
Esmé Weijun Wang is the author of The Collected Schizophrenias and The Border of Paradise. She received the Whiting Award in 2018 and was named one of Granta's Best of Young American Novelists of 2017. She holds an MFA from the University of Michigan and lives in San Francisco.
RESOURCES:
Asian Women's Shelter (AWS) was founded in 1988 to address the needs of women, children and transgender survivors of domestic violence and human…
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Jan 31, 2020
Freeman's: The Best New Writing on California with an All-Star Lineup
Celebrating the new issue of Freeman's: "The Best New Writing on California," published by Grove. Hosted by John Freeman with readings by Tommy Orange, Rabih Alameddine, Lauren Markham, H.R. Smith, Shobha Rao, Oscar Villalon, and Jaime Cortez.
The sixth Freeman's brilliantly showcases some of the world's best writers grappling with the myths and reality of California today.
John Freeman was the editor of Granta until 2013. His books include How to Read a Novelist, Tales of Two Cities, Tales of Two Americas, and Maps, his debut collection of poems. He is executive editor at the Literary Hub and teaches at the New School and New York University. His work has appeared in the New Yorker and the Paris Review and has been translated into twenty languages.
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Jan 28, 2020
STAFF PICK - Foucault in California
(From April 2019) Heather Dundas in conversation with David Wade celebrating the release of Foucault in California : A True Story—Wherein the Great French Philosopher Drops Acid in the Valley of Death by Simeon Wade, Foreword by Heather Dundas, and published by Heyday Books.
In The Lives of Michel Foucault, David Macey quotes the iconic French philosopher as speaking "nostalgically…of 'an unforgettable evening on LSD, in carefully prepared doses, in the desert night, with delicious music, [and] nice people.'" This came to pass in 1975, when Foucault spent Memorial Day weekend in Southern California at the invitation of Simeon Wade—ostensibly to guest-lecture at the Claremont Graduate School where Wade was an assistant professor, but in truth to explore what he called the Valley of Death. Led by Wade and Wade's partner Michael Stoneman, Foucault experimented with psychedelic drugs for the first time; by morning he was crying and proclaiming that he knew Truth.
Foucault in Califo…
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Jan 23, 2020
Joyce in Paris with Catherine Flynn
Catherine Flynn celebrating the release of "James Joyce and the Matter of Paris," published by Cambridge University Press, in conversation with fellow UC Berkeley professor Kent Puckett.
In James Joyce and the Matter of Paris, Catherine Flynn recovers the paradigmatic city of European urban modernity as the foundational context of Joyce's imaginative consciousness. Beginning with Joyce's underexamined first exile in 1902–03, she shows the significance for his writing of the time he spent in Paris and of a range of French authors whose works inflected his experience of that city. In response to the pressures of Parisian consumer capitalism, Joyce drew on French literature to conceive a somatic aesthetic, in which the philosophically disparaged senses of taste, touch, and smell as well as the porous, digestive body resist capitalism's efforts to manage and instrumentalize desire. This book re-situates the most canonical of Irish modernists in a European avant-garde context while revea…
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Jan 17, 2020
Isabella Tree
Isabella Tree discussing the subject of her new book, Wilding: Returning Nature to Our Farm, from New York Review Books with an introduction by Eric Schlosser.
For many years Isabella Tree and Charlie Burrell struggled to make a go as farmers, doing everything they could to make the heavy clay soils of their farm at Knepp in West Sussex as productive as possible, while rarely succeeding in making a profit. By 2000, facing bankruptcy, the couple decided they would try something new. They would hand their 3,500 acres, farmed for centuries, even millennia, back to nature. They would let it go wild.
Isabella Tree is an award-winning author, travel writer, and manager of the the Knepp Wildland Project, together with her husband Charlie. She has contributed writing to National Geographic, Granta, The Sunday Times, and The Observer, and her articles have been chosen for The Best American Travel Writing and Reader’s Digest Today’s Best Non-Fiction. Tree is the author of several books, in…
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Jan 10, 2020
V. Vale and Rudy Rucker
RE/Search celebrates the release of Issue 19: UNDERGROUND LIVING with V. Vale and special guest Rudy Rucker.
V. Vale has traversed the major global underground movements of the past century (including Beatniks, Hippies, Punk, Industrial, kitsch, retro-styles, surrealism, situationism, queer, incredibly strange films and music, performance art, feminism, zines—and more). Along the way, he documented it all, taking over 100,000 photos. Here, for the first time in book form, are 80 "personal" images of underground living, selected from the depths of Vale's vast photographic archive. UNDERGROUND LIVING Includes more than 75 color photos featuring the early Ramones shows, Henry Rollins, Lydia Lunch, John Waters, Genesis P-Orridge, William S. Burroughs, J.G. Ballard, Andy Warhol, Allen Ginsberg, Kathy Acker, Survival Research Labs, and many more!
Rudy Rucker is a mathematician, computer scientist, science fiction author, and one of the founders of the cyberpunk literary movement. The aut…
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Jan 7, 2020
STAFF PICK - China Miéville Reads from October: The Story of the Russian Revolution
(From May 2017)China Miéville reads from October: The Story of the Russian Revolution, published by Verso Books.
On the centenary of the Russian Revolution, China Miéville tells the extraordinary story of this pivotal moment in history.
China Miéville is the multi-award-winning author of many works of fiction and non-fiction. His fiction includes The City and the City, Embassytown and This Census-Taker. He has won the Hugo, World Fantasy, and Arthur C. Clarke awards. His non-fiction includes the photo-illustrated essay London’s Overthrow and Between Equal Rights, a study of international law. He has written for various publications, including the New York Times, Guardian, Conjunctions and Granta, and he is a founding editor of the quarterly Salvage.
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Dec 27, 2019
Anna Merlan
Anna Merlan discussing the subject of her new book, Republic of Lies: American Conspiracy Theorists and Their Surprising Rise to Power, published by Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt & Co.
A riveting tour through the landscape and meaning of modern conspiracy theories, exploring the causes and tenacity of this American malady, from Birthers to Pizzagate and beyond.
Anna Merlan is a journalist specializing in politics, crime, religion, subcultures, and women's lives. Merlan is a senior staff writer at Vice features. She was previously a senior reporter at Jezebel and staff writer at the Village Voice and the Dallas Observer. Republic of Lies is her first book. She lives in New York.
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Dec 24, 2019
STAFF PICK - Jenn Pelly and Greil Marcus Discussing The Raincoats
(From January 2018) Jenn Pelly and Greil Marcus celebrating a new edition in the 33 & 1/3 series, The Raincoats, by Jenn Pelly and published by Bloomsbury Academic. Co-presented by the Rock and Roll Book Club of San Francisco.
In this short book – the first on the Raincoats – author Jenn Pelly tells the story of the group's audacious debut album, which Kurt Cobain once called "wonderfully classic scripture." Pelly builds on rare archival materials and extensive interviews with members of the Raincoats, Sleater-Kinney, Bikini Kill, Hole, Scritti Politti, Gang of Four, and more. She draws formal inspiration from the collage-like The Raincoats itself to explore this album's magic, vulnerability, and strength.
Jenn Pelly is an editor at Pitchfork. Her writing has appeared in Rolling Stone, SPIN, The Wire, and The Village Voice. Pelly's book on feminist punk band The Raincoats was published in October 2017 as part of Bloomsbury's 33 ⅓ series.
Greil Marcus is a music journalist, cul…
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Dec 20, 2019
Ramesh Srinivasan with Shahid Buttar
Ramesh Srinivasan and Shahid Buttar discussing Ramesh's new book, Beyond the Valley: How Innovators around the World are Overcoming Inequality and Creating the Technologies of Tomorrow, published by The MIT Press.
How to repair the disconnect between designers and users, producers and consumers, and tech elites and the rest of us: toward a more democratic internet.
Ramesh Srinivasan is Professor of Information Studies and Design Media Arts at UCLA. He makes regular appearances on NPR, The Young Turks, MSNBC, and Public Radio International, and his writings have been published in the Washington Post, Quartz, Huffington Post, CNN, and elsewhere.
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Dec 17, 2019
STAFF PICK - Jeff VanderMeer Reading from Annihilation
(From February 2014) Jeff VanderMeer reads from his novel Annihilation, part one of the Southern Reach Trilogy, published in 2014 by FSG. (Includes a very interesting snapshot of City Lights c. 2014 with Peter Maravelis's intro of upcoming readings at the time..!).
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Dec 13, 2019
Savannah Shange
Savannah Shange in conversation with Patrick Camangian discussing the subject of Savannah Shange's new book, Progressive Dystopia: Abolition, Antiblackness, and Schooling in San Francisco, published by Duke University Press.
In Progressive Dystopia, Savannah Shange explores the potential for reconciling the school's marginalization of Black students with its sincere pursuit of multiracial uplift and solidarity. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork and six years of experience teaching at the school, Shange outlines how the school fails its students and the community because it operates within a space predicated on antiblackness. Seeing San Francisco as a social laboratory for how Black communities survive the end of their worlds, Shange argues for abolition over either revolution or progressive reform as the needed path toward Black freedom.
Savannah Shange is Assistant Professor of Anthropology and principal faculty in Critical Race and Ethnic Studies at the University of California, Sa…
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Dec 10, 2019
STAFF PICK - Peaches in Conversation with Annie Sprinkle & Beth Stephens
(From May 2015) Peaches in conversation with Annie Sprinkle and Beth Stephens discussing the book, What Else Is in the Teaches of Peaches, a photograph book chronicling her life and performances with text from Peaches, Yoko Ono, Ellen Page, and Michael Stipe, published by Akashic Books.
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Dec 6, 2019
Jairus Victor Grove in Conversation with David Goldberg
Jairus Victor Grove in conversation with David Goldberg discussing the subject of Jairus's book, Savage Ecology: War and Geopolitics at the End of the World, published by Duke University Press.
Jairus Victor Grove is Director of the University of Hawaii Research Center for Futures Studies and an Associate Professor of International Relations. Dr. Grove received his doctorate from Johns Hopkins University in 2011. His research focuses on the relationship between disruptive technology and global warfare and also the end of the world.
David A. M. Goldberg is a writer, teacher, cultural critic, media developer and native San Franciscan. His work focuses on those nasty spots where racism and digital technology appear to be combining forces to produce a new kind of sentient evil.
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Nov 29, 2019
Susan Steinberg
Susan Steinberg reading from her new novel, Machine, published by Graywolf.
Machine is a dazzling and innovative leap forward for a writer whose most recent book, Spectacle, gained her a rapturous following. Machine revolves around a group of teenagers—both locals and wealthy out-of-towners—during a single summer at the shore. Susan Steinberg is the author of Spectacle, Hydroplane, and The End of Free Love. She is the recipient of a United States Artists Fellowship, a National Magazine Award, and a Pushcart Prize. She teaches at the University of San Francisco.
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Nov 22, 2019
Daniel Handler
Daniel Handler in conversation with John McMurtrie celebrating Daniel Handler's new novel, "Bottle Grove," published by Bloomsbury Books.
A razor-sharp tale of two couples, two marriages, a bar, and a San Francisco start-up from the best-selling, award-winning novelist.
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Nov 6, 2019
Mark Arax in Conversation with Kit Rachlis
Mark Arax in conversation with Kit Rachils discussing the subject of his new book THE DREAMT LAND: Chasing Water and Dust Across California published by Alfred Knopf.
A vivid, searching journey into California's capture of water and soil–the epic story of a people's defiance of nature and the wonders, and ruin, it has wrought.
Mark Arax is an author and journalist whose writings on California and the West have received numerous awards for literary nonfiction. A former staffer at the Los Angeles Times, his work has appeared in The New York Times and the California Sunday Magazine. His books include a memoir of his father’s murder, a collection of essays about the West, and the best-selling The King of California, which won a California Book Award, the William Saroyan Prize from Stanford University, and was named a top book of 2004 by the Los Angeles Times and the San Francisco Chronicle. He lives in Fresno, California.
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