Litquake 2026: Full Schedule

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6:30pm PDT

Artificial Intimacy: Sherry Turkle and A.I.

Wednesday October 21, 2026 6:30pm - 8:00pm PDT

Co-presented with Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

Sherry Turkle has spent decades studying how digital technologies isolate us from one another. Now, in her latest book, Artificial Intimacy: Who We Become When We Talk To Machines, the psychologist who pioneered our understanding of human-computer relationships explores the seductive and beguiling nature of chatbots presented as “perfect” companions. How does their popularity point to existing wells of deep loneliness in our current culture, and how does increasing reliance on a one-sided digital ear affect users’ ability to maintain offscreen relationships with other humans? In conversation with New Yorker cartoonist Amy Kurzweil, whose graphic novel Artificial: A Love Story suggests an alternate path in which AI isn’t used as a human connection substitute, but rather a tool to support and deepen the real-world relationships we already have. The conversation is part of Free Wednesdays at YBCA, which offers extended gallery hours, hands-on afternoon art-making, and special evening programs—all for free. Doors at 6:00pm.

Moderators

Amy Kurzweil

Amy Kurzweil is a New Yorker cartoonist and the author of two award-winning graphic memoirs: Flying Couch and Artificial: A Love Story, which was named a Best Book of 2023 by NPR, The New Yorker, and Kirkus. She is the 2024 winner of the Overseas Press Club’s “Best Cartoon Award... Read More →

Speakers

Sherry Turkle

Sherry Turkle is the Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of the Social Studies of Science and
Technology at MIT and the founding director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self. A
leading expert in humans’ relationship with digital objects, she continues to revolutionize
ou... Read More →

Wednesday October 21, 2026 6:30pm - 8:00pm PDT
YBCA Screening Room 701 Mission St, San Francisco

Nonfiction, FREE

City San Francisco

7:00pm PDT

California Journeys

Wednesday October 21, 2026 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT

KALW

Buy Tickets/RSVP

FREE, $10–15 suggested donation

Co-presented with KALW

Taking the driver’s seat on tonight’s narrative journey through California is Grant Faulkner, whose recent “flash novel” something out there in the distance pairs short, perfectly crystallized prose vignettes with Gail Butensky’s photographs of the American West. Riding shotgun is Irena Smith, whose memoir Troika is a modern-day Odyssey set in California’s Central Coast, as three generations of women share profound family stories and create new ones. As for Angelica Glass, she’ll opt out of driving altogether—her memoir Scavenging Beauty relates her quest to find healing while traversing all the streets in Santa Cruz County by foot. In true travelogue style, their conversation will be accompanied by photos illustrating each author’s journey. Doors at 6:30pm.

Moderators

Grant Faulkner

Grant Faulkner is the co-founder of Memoir Nation (and also the co-host of the Memoir Nation podcast), the co-founder of the Flash Fiction Institute, the co-founder of 100 Word Story, and an executive producer on America’s Next Great Author. He has published All the Comfort Si... Read More →

Speakers

Irena Smith

Irena Smith is the author of the award-winning memoir The Golden Ticket: A Life in College Admissions Essays and Troika: Three Generations, Three Days, and a Very American Road Trip. Her obsession with how words work began early (as a child growing up in Soviet Russia, she was known to occasionally stand on furniture and recite Pushkin poems), and her writing focuses on migration, memory, motherhood, generational expectations, the petty indignities of middle... Read More →

Angelica Glass

Angelica Glass had a decades-long career in social work in California, cluminating in directing and helping to design a program that provides support and services to children and families affected by methermphetamine abuse. The mother of two grown sons, she lives with her wife in Santa Cruz... Read More →

Wednesday October 21, 2026 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT
KALW 220 Montgomery St, Suite 100, San Francisco, CA 94104