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Thursday, October 8
 

7:00pm PDT

Litquake's Opening Night Bash: Booksellers Ball
Thursday October 8, 2026 7:00pm - 10:00pm PDT
524 Union
Buy Tickets/RSVP
$50 / $75 to sponsor a bookseller or librarian
All sales help support the rest of Litquake's (75% free!) festival programming!

Co-presented with Book Passage, Black Bird Books, Bookshop West Portal, City Lights, Dog Eared Books, Et al., Fabulosa Books, Green Apple Books, Noe Valley Books, Pegasus Books, Sistah Scifi, Telegraph Hill Books, The Booksmith, The Love Potion Library, Medicine for Nightmares, and Womb House Books

Beverages sponsored by Griffo Distillery & Saintsbury Winery

Kick off the 2026 festival at the Booksellers Ball, our big opening night bash! Here, the Litquake community will come together to fête San Francisco’s independent bookstores at the former home of the legendary Paper Doll, an underground LGBTQ supper club active 1941-1969.

Join us for catered event with abundant libations and a special literature-themed drag performance from Carlota Di Carlo. With festive grooves from BFF.FM DJ Lead Teddy and an open bar from beverage sponsors Griffo Distillery and Saintsbury Winery, we invite you to kick up your heels with local literati and celebrate another year of Litquake!
Thursday October 8, 2026 7:00pm - 10:00pm PDT
524 Union 524 Union St, San Francisco
  Party
 
Friday, October 9
 

6:00pm PDT

"I took the lake between my legs": Women of a Certain Age Read Poems on Sex and Death
Friday October 9, 2026 6:00pm - 8:00pm PDT
Vintage Berkeley Wine Shop
Buy Tickets/RSVP
$12 adv / $15 door

Co-presented with Left Margin Lit and Vintage Berkeley

Back by popular demand, with an all-new lineup! Sex and death are central human concerns, but older women poets often find themselves silenced or sidelined on the first of these subjects. Here, in an event curated by Rebecca Foust, five women aged 40 and better—Mahogany L. Browne, Prageeta Sharma, Jen Siraganian, Melissa Stein, and Barbara Jane Reyes—will share frankly erotic work that refuses to be muted or mooted and makes a bulwark of bodily sensuality against death, time, and our aging selves. Alongside the reading, emceed by poet Tracey Knapp, winemaker Emily Fernwood will be on site to introduce Osa Major wines, which will be available for purchase by the glass. This event will take place on Vintage Berkeley’s secret garden patio—dress accordingly! Doors at 5:30pm.
Moderators
avatar for Tracey Knapp

Tracey Knapp

Tracey Knapp's second collection, Swerve, was released from Pine Row Press in Spring 2026. Her first full-length collection of poems, Mouth, won the 42 Miles Press Poetry Award and was published in 2015. Tracey has received awards and scholarships from La Romita School of Art in... Read More →
Speakers
avatar for Emily Fernwood

Emily Fernwood

Osa Major Wines
Emily Fernwood is a Berkeley-based winemaker devoted to crafting classic, site-driven wines under Osa Major Wines. Working with organically farmed vineyards across California, her approach emphasizes native fermentations, gentle handling, and little to no added sulfur, allowing the grapes an... Read More →
avatar for Jen Siraganian

Jen Siraganian

Jen Siraganian is an Armenian-American writer and former Poet Laureate of Los Gatos, California. Her debut collection, Everything Has Been Moved, Even the Dead, which won the 2026 Perugia Press Prize, was a finalist for the Tupelo Press Dorset Prize and The Journal’s Charles B. Wheeler Poetry Prize, and a semi-finalist for the Lexi Rudnitsky First Book Prize, Philip Levine Prize for Poetry, and Vassar Miller Prize. Her poems have won... Read More →
avatar for Melissa Stein

Melissa Stein

Melissa Stein is the author of the poetry collections Terrible blooms (Copper Canyon Press) and Rough Honey, winner of the APR/Honickman First Book Prize. Her work has appeared in Ploughshares, American Poetry Review, Harvard Review, New England Review, Best New Poets, and others, and she’s received awards and fellowships from the NEA, Pushcart Prize, Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and the Sewanee Writers' Conference. She is a freelance editor in the Bay Area... Read More →
avatar for Mahogany L. Browne

Mahogany L. Browne

Mahogany L. Browne is a writer, playwright, organizer, and educator is the inaugural poet in residence at Lincoln Center, a 2022 Kennedy Center Next 50 Fellow, the inaugural Distinguished Writer in Residence at Wesleyan University, a MacDowell Arts Advocacy Awardee, a NAACP Image Award nominess and... Read More →
avatar for Prageeta Sharma

Prageeta Sharma

Prageeta Sharma is the author of six collections of poetry; her most recent collection is Onement Won, out from Wave Books. She is the founder of the conference Thinking Its Presence: An Interdisciplinary Conference on Race, Creative Writing, and Artistic and Aesthetic Practices, a recent recipient of the 2025 NEA Creative Writing Fellowship, and is currently the Henry G. Lee... Read More →
avatar for Rebecca Foust

Rebecca Foust

Rebecca Foust’s books include You Are Leaving the American Sector: Love Poems (Blue Light Press 2026) and Only (Four Way Books 2022). Her poems appear widely in venues including The Slowdown, Iowa Review, Ploughshares, Poem-a-Day, POETRY, and Southern Review, winning the James Dickey, New Ohio Review, Pablo Neruda, James Hearst, and Poetry International prizes in recent years... Read More →
avatar for Barbara Jane Reyes

Barbara Jane Reyes

Barbara Jane Reyes is the author of Poeta en San Francisco, Diwata, Invocation to Daughters, Letters to a Young Brown Girl, and others. Her eighth book, Daughtersong Diaspore, is forthcoming in 2027.
Friday October 9, 2026 6:00pm - 8:00pm PDT
Vintage Berkeley Wine Shop 2113 Vine St, Berkeley, CA 94709
  Poetry

7:00pm PDT

Olivie Blake: Dreamland
Friday October 9, 2026 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT
Gilman Brewing
Buy Tickets/RSVP
Pay-what-you-can for guaranteed seat; FREE to walk-ups (space depending)

Get in the spirit of scary season with the latest moody masterpiece from bestselling novelist Olivie Blake, author of Girl Dinner. Loosely inspired by the 1947 Black Dahlia murder, Dreamland is a dark Hollywood fable about fame, ambition, and the price some people are willing to pay to achieve both. Alix E. Harrow calls it nothing short of a “gory, gothic masterpiece.” In conversation with Kristina Ten, whose work Blake selected for the latest Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy anthology. Dress in your Hollywood finery (or come as you are) and bring your burning questions for Olivie Blake! Doors at 6:30pm.

Moderators
avatar for Kristina Ten

Kristina Ten

Kristina Ten is the author of Tell Me Yours, I'll Tell You Mine (2025, Stillhouse Press). Her stories appear in The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy, We're Here: The Best Queer Speculative Fiction, The Best Weird Fiction of the Year, and elsewhere. She has won the McSwee... Read More →
Speakers
avatar for Olivie Blake

Olivie Blake

Olivie Blake is the New York Times bestselling author of sci-fi and fantasy for adults, including Dreamland, The Atlas Six trilogy, Alone with You in the Ether, Masters of Death, the short story collection Januaries, and her most recent novel, Girl Dinner. With Little Chmura, she... Read More →
Friday October 9, 2026 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT
Gilman Brewing 912 Gilman St, Berkeley
  Sci-fi / Fantasy / Horror, Pay What You Can
 
Saturday, October 10
 

6:00pm PDT

Literary Speakeasy Presents: Dragging Celebrity Autobiographies
Saturday October 10, 2026 6:00pm - 8:00pm PDT
The Stud
Buy Tickets/RSVP
$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. 
Speakers
avatar for Fagatha Christie

Fagatha Christie

Tighe Flatley is the creative force behind Fagatha Christie, the literary drag queen, who hosts the Bay Area’s popular Fagatha Christie's Book Club drag show and book matchmaking event. He’s an internationally published, award-winning writer whose fiction has appeared in The MacGuffin... Read More →
avatar for Laundra Tyme
avatar for Lisa Frankenstein
avatar for Vanilla Meringue

Vanilla Meringue

Vanilla Meringue is the bubbly and bodacious alter-ego of make-up artist, Vanilla King. She is proud to be a trans woman and a drag queen. Vanilla can be spotted performing around the Bay Area in stage shows like Harry Poofter, Dragcula, and Jurassic Park! You can find her @vanillameringue... Read More →
avatar for Elsa Touche

Elsa Touche

Beloved San Francisco drag queen Elsa Touche is a former winner of the Ms. California Gold Pageant and was voted San Francisco's "favorite drag queen" by the readers of the San Francisco Weekly newspaper in 2020. She is a host of the legendary Monster Show, the Castro District's longest-running... Read More →
avatar for Piranha Psychotronica

Piranha Psychotronica

Piranha Psychotronica is a San Francisco-based transfeminine genderqueer filmmaker, film programmer, theater artist, writer, and performer. She is best known for creating and producing the stage show series “Select Thine Own Journey” (called a “must-see” by SF Gate) and f... Read More →
avatar for BeBe Sweetbriar

BeBe Sweetbriar

San Francisco-based drag star, also known as “Mother Dust” and “The Drag Queen of Jurassic Park” because of her 20 years of drag performance, BeBe Sweetbriar has graced every notable stage in the Bay Area and many stages around the world including Hong Kong, China and Panama City, Panama. BeBe is 2016 Drag Entertainer of the Year & NITEY Awards Most Notable Drag Queen, and 2007 Miss Gay SF & 2013 SF Pride Community Grand Marshal. BeBe i... Read More →
avatar for James J. Siegel

James J. Siegel

James J. Siegel is a San Francisco-based poet and arts organizer. For the past 11 years, he has been the
host and curator of the monthly Literary Speakeasy show at Martuni’s piano bar, which brings together
Bay Area authors, poets, and songwriters for an evening of words and mart... Read More →
Saturday October 10, 2026 6:00pm - 8:00pm PDT
The Stud 1123 Folsom St, San Francisco
  Performance

7:00pm PDT

Poetry World Series: Litquake Edition
Saturday October 10, 2026 7:00pm - 9:00pm PDT
Make-Out Room
Buy Tickets/RSVP
$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.
Moderators
avatar for Daniel Handler

Daniel Handler

Daniel Handler is the author of seven novels, including Why We Broke Up, All The Dirty Parts and Bottle Grove, and most recently a memoir, And Then? And Then? What Else? As Lemony Snicket, he is the author of far too many books for children, including Poison for Breakfast, the four-volume All The Wrong Questions and the thirteen-volume A Series of Unfortunate Events, which has been adapted for screen and television. He lives in San Francisco with the illustrator Lisa Brown, to whom he is married... Read More →
Speakers
avatar for Bhion Achimba

Bhion Achimba

Bhion Achimba grew up in rural southeastern Nigeria and is a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford University. A graduate of Brown University's MFA program, they were named the 2023 Ruth Lilly & Dorothy Sargent Rosenberg Fellow by the Poetry Foundation and have been published in the... Read More →
avatar for Rhoni Blankenhorn

Rhoni Blankenhorn

Rhoni Blankenhorn’s poems have appeared in the Los Angeles Review of Books, Poetry Daily, The Slowdown, AAWW’s The Margins, and elsewhere. Her work has received support from Bread Loaf, Saltonstall, Sewanee, and Storyknife. Rhoni’s debut, Rooms for Dead and the Not Yet, was published by Trio House Press in 2025... Read More →
avatar for Safia Elhillo

Safia Elhillo

Sudanese by way of Washington, D.C., Safia Elhillo is the author of Girls That Never Die, The January Children, Home Is Not a Country, and Bright Red Fruit, and co-editor of the anthology Halal If You Hear Me. She has received fellowships from Cave Canem and Stanford University, and her awards include a California Book Award, the Brunel International African Poetry Prize, and an Arab American Book Award. She has been a finalist for the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, the... Read More →
avatar for Prageeta Sharma

Prageeta Sharma

Prageeta Sharma is the author of six collections of poetry; her most recent collection is Onement Won, out from Wave Books. She is the founder of the conference Thinking Its Presence: An Interdisciplinary Conference on Race, Creative Writing, and Artistic and Aesthetic Practices, a recent recipient of the 2025 NEA Creative Writing Fellowship, and is currently the Henry G. Lee... Read More →
avatar for Angel Dominguez

Angel Dominguez

Angel Dominguez is a Latinx poet and artist of Yucatec Maya descent, born in Hollywood and raised in Van Nuys, CA by their immigrant family. They now live amongst the Santa Cruz Mountains in Bonny Doon, CA. They’re the author of Don’t Tell My Mother If They Kill Me (Nightboat... Read More →
avatar for Katie Peterson

Katie Peterson

Katie Peterson is the author of six collections of poetry, including Fog and Smoke (2024) and Life in a Field (2021). She teaches English at UC Davis. She is a middle child. 
avatar for Randall Mann

Randall Mann

Randall Mann is the author of six poetry collections, most recently Deal: New and Selected Poems (Copper Canyon Press, 2023). His new collection, Memory Puzzle, is forthcoming from Copper Canyon in 2027. He lives in San Francisco.
avatar for Ben Gucciardi

Ben Gucciardi

Originally from San Francisco, Ben Gucciardi is the author of Arguments (Persea Books, 2026), winner of the Lexi Rudnitsky Editor’s Choice Award, and West Portal (University of Utah Press, 2021). His recent poems appear in American Poetry Review, Kenyon Review, Poetry Unbound,... Read More →
Saturday October 10, 2026 7:00pm - 9:00pm PDT
Make-Out Room 3225 22nd St, San Francisco
  Poetry
 
Wednesday, October 14
 

7:30pm PDT

Trading Pages: A Poetry/Fiction Exchange
Wednesday October 14, 2026 7:30pm - 9:00pm PDT
Make-Out Room
Buy Tickets/RSVP
$12 adv / $15 door

Yin and yang? Or oil and water? Join us for this special, hopefully amicable exchange between fiction writers and poets…and no, they are not the unwitting subjects of an elaborate bet. This summer, Zach Williams traded pages with Judy Halebsky, Vanessa Hua with Dean Rader, and Kate Folk with Cintia Santana. Join us as these writers come together to read and respond in appreciation and celebration of each other’s narrative arcs and line breaks. Moderated by Litquake Artistic Director Graham Todd. Doors at 6:30pm.

Moderators
avatar for Graham Todd

Graham Todd

Graham Todd is a fiction writer and the Artistic Director of Litquake, San Francisco's Literary Festival. He studied literature and religion at Stanford and received his MFA from Bowling Green. His writing has appeared in The Gettysburg Review, Southampton Review, Notre Dame Review, Epiphany... Read More →
Speakers
avatar for Kate Folk

Kate Folk

Kate Folk is the author of the novel Sky Daddy, which received the California Book Awards’ Silver Medal in Fiction and has been longlisted for The Brooklyn Public Library Book Prize, The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize and The VCU Cabell First Novelist Award. Her story collection... Read More →
avatar for Judy Halebsky

Judy Halebsky

Judy Halebsky is the author of three poetry collections, including Sky=Empty which won the New Issues Prize. At Dominican University of California, she directs the MFA program and teaches courses in poetry and live storytelling. A fan of urban hikes, walking as transportation, and... Read More →
avatar for Cintia Santana

Cintia Santana

Cintia Santana is a poet, translator, and interdisciplinary artist. Her debut poetry collection, The Disordered Alphabet (Four Way Books, 2023) received the 43rd Annual Northern California Book Award in Poetry, the 2024 IPPY Bronze Medal, the 2023 North American Book Award's Silver... Read More →
avatar for Dean Rader

Dean Rader

Dean Rader is a San Francisco-based poet, essayist, translator and critic. He has authored or co-authored 14 books. His debut collection of poems, Works & Days, won the 2010 T. S. Eliot Poetry Prize. His 2014 collection Landscape Portrait Figure Form was named by The Barnes & Noble... Read More →
avatar for Vanessa Hua

Vanessa Hua

Vanessa Hua is a nationally bestselling author of Coyoteland, A River of Stars and Forbidden City, and story collection Deceit and Other Possibilities, a New York Times Editors’ Pick. A National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellow, she has also received a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award, the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature, a California Arts Council Fellowship, and a Steinbeck Fellowship in Creative Writing, as well as... Read More →
avatar for Zach Williams

Zach Williams

Zach Williams' debut short story collection, Beautiful Days, was a New Yorker Best Book of 2024, a finalist for the 2025 California Book Award for First Fiction, and longlisted for the 2025 PEN / Robert W. Bingham Prize. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, ... Read More →
Wednesday October 14, 2026 7:30pm - 9:00pm PDT
Make-Out Room 3225 22nd St, San Francisco
  Performance
 
Thursday, October 15
 

7:30pm PDT

Sweet and Lowdown: Poets at the Bar
Thursday October 15, 2026 7:30pm - 9:00pm PDT
Make-Out Room
Buy Tickets/RSVP
$12 adv / $15 door

This celebration of poetry collates a half-dozen poets’ stylings, live on our darkest, dankest stage. Featuring multi-hyphenate award winners Nancy Miller Gomez, Prairie Moon Dalton, Ibe Liebenberg, Leigh Lucas, and Preeti Vangani for a lurid evening of ebullient verse. Hosted by Litquake Artistic Director Graham Todd. Doors at 6:30 PM. 
Moderators
avatar for Graham Todd

Graham Todd

Graham Todd is a fiction writer and the Artistic Director of Litquake, San Francisco's Literary Festival. He studied literature and religion at Stanford and received his MFA from Bowling Green. His writing has appeared in The Gettysburg Review, Southampton Review, Notre Dame Review, Epiphany... Read More →
Speakers
avatar for Prairie Moon Dalton

Prairie Moon Dalton

Prairie Moon Dalton is a Southern Appalachian poet born and raised in Western North Carolina. She is a 2025–2027 Wallace Stegner Fellow in Poetry at Stanford University. Her work has appeared in The Adroit Journal, TriQuarterly, Cagibi, and elsewhere. She earned her MFA at North Carolina State University... Read More →
avatar for Leigh Lucas

Leigh Lucas

Leigh Lucas is the author of Splashed Things (Boa Editions, 2026), selected by Maya C. Popa for the A. Poulin Jr. Prize. Her chapbook Landsickness (Tupelo Press, 2024) was selected by Chen Chen for the 2023 Sunken Garden Poetry Chapbook Award. Leigh’s writing can be found in Academy of American Poets’ Poem-a-Day, Poetry Society of America, Electric Lit, and elsewhere. She holds a BA from Stanford and an MFA from Warren Wilson... Read More →
avatar for Nancy Miller Gomez

Nancy Miller Gomez

Nancy Miller Gomez (she/her) is the author of Inconsolable Objects (YesYes Books) winner of the 2025 Patterson Poetry Prize, and Punishment (Rattle Chapbook Series). An Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellow, her work has appeared in Best American Poetry, Best New Poets, ... Read More →
avatar for Preeti Vangani

Preeti Vangani

Preeti Vangani is a poet & writer from Bombay based in San Francisco. She is the author of the poetry collections, Mother Tongue Apologize (2019), and Fifty Mothers, (River River Books, 2026). Her work has appeared in AGNI, The Georgia Review, Gulf Coast, and Prairie Schooner, among other places. Her debut short story won the 2021 Pen/Dau Emerging Writers Prize. Vangani has been a resident at UCross, Djerassi and Ragdale. She has received artist grants from San Francisco Arts Commission and YBCA, and is a 2026-27 Steinbeck fellow. She holds an MFA in... Read More →
avatar for Ibe Liebenberg

Ibe Liebenberg

Ibe Liebenberg is a citizen of the Chickasaw Nation. He lives in Paradise, California and works as a firefighter, and a lecturer at Chico State University. He is a recent graduate of the MFA program at the Institute of American Indian Arts (IAIA) in both poetry and fiction. He has been published... Read More →
Thursday October 15, 2026 7:30pm - 9:00pm PDT
Make-Out Room 3225 22nd St, San Francisco
  Poetry
 
Friday, October 16
 

7:30pm PDT

Irregular Feedback: Writers on Music
Friday October 16, 2026 7:30pm - 9:00pm PDT
Make-Out Room
Buy Tickets/RSVP
$12 adv / $15 door

"Music makes the people come together... yeah." That's right, Madonna. You said it. So astute. Join cultural critic, essayist, and curator Micheal Foulk (Queer Film Theory 101) for an evening of writers writing about music! Inspired by the perpetual beat inside us all and the iconic music criticism and archival work of writer Hanif Abdurraqib, Michael-Vincent D'Anella-Mercanti, Kai Gault, Joan Granite, Brittany Newell, and Kochina Rude read work written exclusively for tonight, a literary deep dive into our favorite albums, genres, and musical artists of the past 60 years. Doors at 6:30pm. 
Speakers
avatar for Michael-Vincent D'Anella-Mercanti

Michael-Vincent D'Anella-Mercanti

Michael-Vincent is a writer from South Philly living in San Francisco. His work explores queerness, labor, and cities. He's a big library guy.
avatar for Brittany Newell

Brittany Newell

Brittany Newell is a writer and performer living in San Francisco. Her debut novel “Oola” was published by Henry Holt in 2017 at the age of 21. Her second novel “Soft Core” was published in 2025 by FSG in the US, UK and France. Her third novel “Blue Movie” will be published... Read More →
avatar for Kochina Rude

Kochina Rude

Cary Escovedo is an internationally recognized harm reduction advocate, drag entertainer, communicable disease specialist, and performance artist living in Oakland, California. Doing business as drag queen “Kochina Rude,” he uses this persona as a vehicle for artistic expression... Read More →
avatar for Micheal Foulk

Micheal Foulk

Micheal Foulk is a non-binary queer comedian, writer, and construct thriving in Oakland, California. They are the curator and host of the film screening series Queer Film Theory 101 produced in collaboration with Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas with screenings across the country. Michea... Read More →
avatar for Joan Granite

Joan Granite

Joan Granite (she/her) is a DJ, producer, and is a devoted presence in the Bay Area underground. Her sets balance euphoria with introspection, held together by emotional intentionality and unshakeable optimism. Every set is a communion, connecting the senses between sweat, spirit, and sound... Read More →
Friday October 16, 2026 7:30pm - 9:00pm PDT
Make-Out Room 3225 22nd St, San Francisco
  Nonfiction
 
Tuesday, October 20
 

7:00pm PDT

Pitchapalooza
Tuesday October 20, 2026 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT
Gilman Brewing
Buy Tickets/RSVP
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.
Speakers
avatar for Arielle Eckstut

Arielle Eckstut

Arielle Eckstut started her career as an agent at Levine Greenberg Rostan Literary Agency where she represented dozens of authors for over thirty years. She then co-founded LittleMissMatched, an innovative, mission-driven company that sold socks that don’t match in packs of threes, opening stores... Read More →
avatar for David Henry Sterry

David Henry Sterry

David Henry Sterry is a performer, producer, and bestselling author of 18 books, translated into a dozen languages. His one-man show Chicken (based on his international bestseller) was named the #1 show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. He invented Pitchapalooza, and toured it ev... Read More →
Tuesday October 20, 2026 7:00pm - 8:30pm PDT
Gilman Brewing 912 Gilman St, Berkeley
  Nonfiction, Pay What You Can
 
Thursday, October 22
 

6:00pm PDT

Fire, Earth, Air & Water: Nik Sharma on the Science of Better Cooking
Thursday October 22, 2026 6:00pm - 8:00pm PDT
Book Society
Buy Tickets/RSVP
$30 Book Society Members / $45 General Public

Sponsored by Chronicle Books
Media sponsorship by Berkeleyside
Co-presented with Book Society

With books like Season and The Flavor Equation, award-winning cookbook author and America's Test Kitchen Editor in Residence Nik Sharma has earned a reputation for blending storytelling and science with recipes that are seasonal, reliable, and delicious. In his fourth cookbook, Fundamentals of Flavor: 100 Recipes for the Science of Better Cooking, this former molecular biologist shows home cooks how four elements—fire, earth, air, and water—shape the way we cook and taste. In conversation with food writer Soleil Ho, Sharma will lead an interactive evening in the spirit of a test kitchen: an intimate conversation with tastings of recipes from the book. Doors at 6:00pm. Ticket includes tastings and wine or a non-alcoholic beverage. $10 of each ticket supports Litquake.


Moderators
avatar for Soleil Ho

Soleil Ho

Soleil is an award-winning food and culture writer based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2025, they co-founded the COYOTE Media Collective, a worker-owned news outlet for the Bay Area.


Speakers
avatar for Nik Sharma

Nik Sharma

Nik is the bestselling author of cookbooks celebrated for blending culinary science with deeply personal storytelling: Season, The Flavour Equation, and Veg-Table. A former molecular biologist, Sharma brings a unique lens to the kitchen, where flavour is both a feeling and a formula... Read More →
Thursday October 22, 2026 6:00pm - 8:00pm PDT
Book Society 2945 College Ave, Berkeley, CA 94705
  Food

8:00pm PDT

Hieu Minh Nguyen & Friends
Thursday October 22, 2026 8:00pm - 10:00pm PDT
The Stud
Buy Tickets/RSVP
FREE, $10-15 suggested donation


Co-presented with The Stud

In celebration of Hieu Minh Nguyen's third poetry collection, Staying Still, join Litquake and The Stud for a night of readings and drag performances that highlight the power and resonance of stillness. Featuring drag from Pam, Hera Wynn, Mary Vice, and Hands. Readings from Brittany Newell, Hieu Minh Nguyen, Brontez Purnell, and Garrett Schlichte. Hosted by curator Micheal Foulk and Hands. Doors at 7:00 PM. 

Speakers
avatar for Brontez Purnell

Brontez Purnell

Brontez Purnell is the author of several books, most recently 100 Boyfriends, which won the 2022 Lambda Literary Award in Gay Fiction, was longlisted for the 2022 Mark Twain American Voice in Literature Award and the 2021 Brooklyn Public Library Literary Prize, and was named an Editors... Read More →
avatar for Micheal Foulk

Micheal Foulk

Micheal Foulk is a non-binary queer comedian, writer, and construct thriving in Oakland, California. They are the curator and host of the film screening series Queer Film Theory 101 produced in collaboration with Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas with screenings across the country. Michea... Read More →
avatar for Garrett Schlichte

Garrett Schlichte

Garrett Schlichte is an award-winning columnist, writer, and chef living in San Francisco. Garrett's work has appeared online and in print in The Washington Post, The New York Times, THEM, Jezebel, Slate, and other outlets. Garrett has worked in restaurants across the Bay Area fo... Read More →
avatar for Hera Wynn

Hera Wynn

Hera Wynn is a transgender performer in San Francisco and the greater Bay Area, for over 5 years she has made her mark across the scene as a performer, producer, hostess, and transgender activist. From her fierce looks to enchanting performances she will no doubt leave you wanting more... Read More →
avatar for Mary Vice

Mary Vice

Mary Vice is a staple of San Francisco’s nightlife scene. She is the current reigning winner of both the High Princx and Rollin with the Homos pageants, and has won a handful of other local titles including Miss Gay San Francisco. She emcees two weekly shows: Pillows, every Monday at Powerhouse... Read More →
avatar for Han (Hands) Ayasse

Han (Hands) Ayasse

Hands is a Bay Area Drag King, current reigning Father of Pearl 2026, first-born son, self-made man, the man in the House of Cringe and the Man Cave, and your toxic ex-boyfriend's toxic-ex boyfriend. 
avatar for Brittany Newell

Brittany Newell

Brittany Newell is a writer and performer living in San Francisco. Her debut novel “Oola” was published by Henry Holt in 2017 at the age of 21. Her second novel “Soft Core” was published in 2025 by FSG in the US, UK and France. Her third novel “Blue Movie” will be published... Read More →
avatar for Hieu Minh Nguyen

Hieu Minh Nguyen

Hieu Minh Nguyen is the author of the poetry collections, This Way to the Sugar (Write Bloody Publishing, 2014), Not Here (Coffee House Press, 2018), and Staying Still (Tin House, 2026). Winner of the 2019 Thom Gunn Award for Gay Poetry from the Publishing Triangle, some of his other... Read More →
Thursday October 22, 2026 8:00pm - 10:00pm PDT
The Stud 1123 Folsom St, San Francisco
  Poetry, FREE
 
Friday, October 23
 

7:00pm PDT

Queerly Beloved: A Celebration of LGBTQ+ Writing in Foglifter
Friday October 23, 2026 7:00pm - 9:00pm PDT
The Stud
Buy Tickets/RSVP
FREE, $10-15 suggested donation

Co-presented with Foglifter and The Stud

Foglifter—created by and for LGBTQ+ writers and readers—continues the San Francisco Bay Area’s tradition of groundbreaking queer and trans writing, with an emphasis on publishing those multi-marginalized (BIPOC, youth, elders, and people with disabilities). Queerly Beloved is a celebration of the latest queer writing coming out in Foglifter's newest journals, online zone, and Start a Riot! Chapbook series. Limited print copies of the newest issue will be available for purchase—get them before anyone else! Featuring: Brent Armendinger, Juda Ātman, KB Brookins, Reggie Edmonds-Vásquez, Alix Perry, and Allegra Wilson! Doors at 6:00pm.
Speakers
avatar for Reggie Edmonds-Vásquez

Reggie Edmonds-Vásquez

Reggie Edmonds-Vásquez (they/them) is a poet, educator, and cultural curator from Richmond, CA. Their work explores Black, queer, and gender-diverse identities and has earned recognition from Nomadic Press, Afro Urban Society, and the Museum of the African Diaspora. A two-time Berkeley... Read More →
avatar for KB Brookins

KB Brookins

KB Brookins is a writer, educator, and cultural worker from Texas. KB’s poetry collection Freedom House (2023) won the American Library Association Barbara Gittings Literature Award and the Texas Institute of Letters Award for Best First Book of Poetry. KB’s memoir Pretty (20... Read More →
avatar for Brent Armendinger

Brent Armendinger

Brent Armendinger (he/him) is the author of Street Gloss (The Operating System, 2019) and The Ghost in Us Was Multiplying (Noemi Press, 2015), both of which were finalists for the California Book Award in Poetry. As a poet, he is interested in queer embodiment, site-specific prac... Read More →
avatar for Allegra Wilson

Allegra Wilson

Allegra Wilson (she/her) is a writer living in Northern California. Her chapbook, song & ruins, received the 2025 Lefty Blondie Press First Chapbook Award, selected by Stacey Waite. She is the author of a micro-chapbook, sex party at the opera house (Whittle Micro-Press), and her... Read More →
avatar for Judas Ātman

Judas Ātman

Judas Ātman tells trans stories for trans people. They are a trans butch, multidisciplinary artist based in Oakland. An alum of NYU Tisch's BFA in Drama program, he is now in the process of receiving his MFA in Creative Writing at SFSU. Outside of his studies, he serves as the Assistant Managing... Read More →
avatar for Alix Perry

Alix Perry

Alix Perry is a trans writer of fiction and poetry based in Portland, Oregon. They are the author of the poetry chapbook Tomatoes Beverly (Querencia Press, 2025) and have been nominated for the Best of the Net Anthology. Their work can be found in Flash Fiction Magazine, The Shor... Read More →
Friday October 23, 2026 7:00pm - 9:00pm PDT
The Stud 1123 Folsom St, San Francisco
  Party, FREE
 
Saturday, October 24
 

9:00pm PDT

Lit Crawl Afterparty
Saturday October 24, 2026 9:00pm - 11:00pm PDT
The Drawing Room: Annex
Buy Tickets/RSVP
$10 NOTAFLOF

We did it!! Join the Litquake team in celebrating another great festival, alongside Lit Crawl readers and programmers. Featuring libations from beverage sponsors Griffo Distillery and Saintsbury Winery!
Saturday October 24, 2026 9:00pm - 11:00pm PDT
The Drawing Room: Annex 599 Valencia St, San Francisco
  Party
 

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