Litquake 2026

Pay-what-you-can for guaranteed seat; FREE to walk-ups (space depending)

Sponsored by Yerba Buena Partnership

Humor is one of a writer’s best tools, and an oft-underutilized one at that. More than just a hook to get their attention, a well-timed joke can break down a reader’s defenses faster than almost anything else on the page. Want to sharpen your wit-wielding skills? Join Claire Oshetsky, Rebecca Handler, Scott Meyer, and Malik Robinson as they unpack their secrets of how humor can raise the stakes, heighten the drama, and make both tragic and comedic moments hit twice as hard. Moderated by Yuliya Patsay. 

Pay-what-you-can for guaranteed seat; FREE to walk-ups (space depending)

Sponsored by Yerba Buena Partnership

When the world's on fire, storytelling can act as first-responder to community hearts and minds, inspiring real-world activism that drives social change. From our expert authors, you’ll learn how to shine a light on things that matter and craft narratives that build genuine empathy, explore cultural and social responsibility, and maybe, just maybe, motivate readers to act. Join panelists Jilanne Hoffmann, Khan Wong, Safia Elhillo, and Savala Nolan for tips spanning genres across poetry, longform essays, children’s books, and speculative fiction. Moderated by Jane Ganahl. 

Pay-what-you-can for guaranteed seat; FREE to walk-ups (space depending)

Sponsored by Yerba Buena Partnership

We’ve all heard about “show, don’t tell” but how, exactly, does a writer show the most evocative details possible? Let's lean into the heat, the ache, the sensory overload. In this panel, Jennifer Barone, Sandra Jackson-Opoku, and Tomas Moniz will show you how to write about our most unspoken longings (the sensual, the emotional, and the taboo) and they're not afraid to go there! Moderated by Tijanna Eaton. 

FREE, $10-$15 suggested donation

A reading series that puts poets in the front window of the bookstore to read their poems to the chingadera, locura, and beauty that is 24th Street. Featuring Mukethe Kawinzi, Cathy Arellano, Barbara Jane Reyes, and San Francisco’s current Poet Laureate Genny Lim. 

$20 adv / $25 door

Co-presented with The Stud

Literary Speakeasy returns to Litquake for another hysterical evening of Bay Area drag superstars putting on their reading glasses to celebrate the most scandalous, most outrageous, and most ridiculous celebrity memoirs and autobiographies! From Real Housewives to Hollywood legends, no book or celebrity is off limits for Fagatha Christie, Lisa Frankenstein, Vanilla Meringue, Piranha Psychotronica, BeBe Sweetbriar, and Laundra Thyme. Come join your hosts James J. Siegel and Elsa Touche for an evening of laughs, queer camp, and prizes! Doors at 5:30pm. 

FREE, $10-$15 suggested donation

We will make our way down 24th, to a 49-year-old Mission institution, La Reyna Bakery, for the Pan Dulce Poets, a beloved Mission series started in May of 2015 by Ricardo Tavarez. Here, poets read surrounded by pan dulce and used a converted paleta cart as a podium while Louie passed out cafecito y chocolate caliente to everyone. Featuring Ellie Lopez, Pan Dulce Poets founder Ricardo Tavarez, Michelle Ibarra, and former San Francisco Poet Laureate Alejandro Murguía. 

$15 gen admission / $45 with signed book

Co-presented with Kearny Street Workshop

The National Book Award finalist and New York Times bestselling author of Pachinko returns with a breathtaking contemporary epic. In American Hagwon, Min Jin Lee has crafted an unforgettable, panoramic novel where the smallest of gestures can have enormous repercussions. Once comfortably middle class in Korea, John and Helen Koh and their three children—Bo, DH, and Mido—find their lives upended, first by a shocking betrayal by John’s oldest friend, then by the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Desperately striving to regain their footing, they leave Seoul for Sydney and eventually settle in Southern California—where new vistas of opportunity open up for the children as their parents, strangers in a strange land, must adjust to a new life in which their experience and education mean little. In conversation with Andrew Sean Greer. Doors at 6:00pm. 

$15 adv / $20 door
21+

Two teams of award-winning poets, including Bhion Achimba, Rhoni Blankenhorn, Safia Elhillo, Prageeta Sharma, Angel Dominguez, and Ben Gucciardi, take turns batting at topics pitched to them by the audience. Fastballs, curveballs, knuckleballs: these poets won’t know what’s coming next! Hilarity and brilliance both guaranteed. Daniel Handler will be tonight’s emcee, and eminently qualified umpires—Randall Mann and Katie Peterson—will score each batter’s reading. The winning team takes the series title. Don’t forget to bring a topic to stump the poets with! Book sales/signing follow the final inning. Doors at 6:30pm.

FREE, $10-$15 suggested donation

Finally we will end the crawl at the mama of all Mission reading series, La Lunada! Originally started in 1998 in a Mexican restaurant in San Jose, La Lunada relocated to Calle 24 in 2004 at the original location of Galeria de la Raza on the esquina of 24th and Bryant. Since then the Lunada has been where countless poets from the neighborhood and beyond have gathered and celebrated the power of poesía. Featuring Kevin Madrigal Galindo, Rebeca Abidaíl Flores, and Know Expressions.