Litquake 2026

FREE, $10–$15 suggested donation

Sponsored by Mission Local
Co-presented with Bay Area Book Festival and San Francisco Public Library

Sure, Silicon Valley’s wealth, power, and technological innovation loom large over the entire Bay Area—but what about the rest of us? Tonight we’ll hear from three authors who can share deep knowledge of Silicon Valley’s effects on Bay Area housing, economic inequality, urban planning, and public policy. Investigative journalist Brian Barth (Front Street: Resistance and Rebirth in the Tent Cities of Techlandia), anthropologist Manissa Maharawal (Anti-Eviction: The Fight Against Tech-Led Gentrification in San Francisco), and journalist Jonathan Weber (City on the Edge: Technology, Politics, and the Fight for the Soul of San Francisco) will be joined by architect and urban planner Vinita Goyal. Doors at 5:30pm.

Pay what you can ($15 suggested) for guaranteed seat; FREE to walk-ups (space depending)

Pitchapalooza is American Idol for books (only kinder and gentler). Twenty writers, selected at random, will pitch their book for one minute only! Judges (including The Book Doctors, Arielle Eckstut and David Henry Sterry) will help you improve your pitch, not tell you how bad it is. Judges critique everything from idea to style to marketplace potential, and authors gain concrete advice as well as a greater understanding of the publishing industry. Whether potential authors pitch themselves, or simply listen to the critiques, Pitchapalooza is educational and entertaining for one and all. At evening’s end, the judges will pick a winner. Like the dozens of Pitchapalooza winners who have gone from talented amateurs to professionally published authors, this lucky participant will receive an introduction to an agent or publisher. Doors at 6:30pm.

FREE, $10–15 suggested donation

Sponsored by Publishers Group West

From a shoestring investment of $500 in 1976, Berkeley-based Publishers Group West grew, by the turn of the century, into the US’s largest distributor of independent presses. Since then, it’s maintained its focus on resilience, innovation, and a passion for independent publishing—not to mention the value of throwing a really great party. We’ll toast to a half-century of PGW, which continues to distribute books for 150 publisher clients, including some beloved local presses. How does PGW’s history reflect the larger story of Bay Area publishing? And how can lessons learned over the past fifty years inform its future? Join PGW founder Charlie Winton, executive VP Sean Shoemaker, VP of field sales Elise Cannon, and Litquake co-founder Jack Boulware for a walk down memory lane—and stick around to buy a beverage or two from Clio’s on-site bar. Doors at 6:30pm.

FREE, $10-15 suggested donation

Co-presented with City Lights

Master of literary horror Brian Evenson returns with a long-awaited follow-up to his 2016 novel, Last Days. After destroying the headquarters of an underground amputation cult, a burned and battered Kline finds himself in a holding cell. When he enlists the help of an ex-cop to commute his prison sentence, Kline inadvertently tangles with a schism of the very cult he sought to destroy. Can Kline investigate the sect’s ritualistic murder spree without getting lured into their ranks? Frigid and precise, Phantom Limb interrogates our notions of wholeness, fate, and the lengths we are willing to go to connect with a higher power. In conversation with Colin Winnette. 

FREE, $10–$15 suggested donation

Co-presented with Memoir Nation

These four memoirists are, in different ways, writing into spaces where their experience has been minimized, misread, or actively suppressed. Judy Juanita's California Fever Dream spans sixty years of writing focused on Black activism and feminism. In I Love You So Many, journalist Terria Smith shares lessons learned from a career sharing stories about the richness of Native people’s lives. Elena Dudum's They Told Me Back Home Would Be Beautiful is a call to action against institutional silencing and censorship. Finally, Caroline Paul has spent her career writing women into adventure narratives that historically excluded them, most recently in Why Fly. Brooke Warner and Grant Faulkner, co-founders of the Memoir Nation podcast and online community, will guide a compelling discussion on the power of this truth-telling form. Doors at 6:30pm.

FREE, $10–$15 suggested donation

Part of Words Around the World
Sponsored by Center for the Art of Translation
Co-presented with Villa Albertine

In 2004, Alain Damasio’s Horde of the Counterwind: An Epic Voyage to the Upper Reaches gained acclaim as France’s genre-defining sci-fi odyssey of the 21st century, inspiring the celebrated video game Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 and igniting the imaginations of millions around the world. Now, this seminal work appears in English translation for the very first time, offering even more readers the opportunity to experience a masterpiece of epic scope and visionary world-building in which twenty-three adventurers climb endlessly against the wind that plagues their desolate homeland. Their only purpose: identifying the mysterious source where eight centuries of past climbers have tried and failed. Join Damasio and Horde’s English translator, Alexander Dickow, for a conversation moderated by award-winning writer and translator Edward Gauvin. Doors at 6:30pm.