Co-presented with the San Francisco Maritime National Park Association and the San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park
This nonstop, cover-to-cover reading transforms the San Francisco Maritime Museum into the setting for one of the city's most beloved literary traditions! Steeped in maritime history, theatrical creativity, and community participation, the Moby-Dick Marathon brings Melville's monumental novel to life in a way that is lively, accessible, and, dare we say, fun. Literary thrill-seekers gather annually to celebrate this complicated, provocative, much-beloved-and-sometimes-dreaded epic of nautical life! Volunteer readers of all backgrounds, from special guest performers to members of the public, lend their voices to the story chapter by chapter. This year's MD24 blends San Francisco's creative spirit with live performance, visual art, spectacle, and surprise, creating an unforgettable celebration of one of America's greatest novels. Come for a chapter, stay for the night, or experience the full 24 hours inside the spectacularly restored Art Deco landmark that is the Maritime Museum!
Saturday September 12, 2026 12:00pm - Sunday September 13, 2026 12:00pm PDT San Francisco Maritime Museum900 Beach St, San Francisco
From the author of Queen Sugar comes a piercing examination of friendship and loyaltyset in a tight-knit enclave in the Bay Area as two best friends find themselves at odds over their beliefs on race, identity, and allyship, especially when it comes to their teenage children. Babs and Nora have spent a decade’s worth of morning walks sharing family secrets, local drama, and advice—everything from tips on lingerie choices to Babs’s suggestions to Nora, a white woman, on how to raise Nathan, her adopted Black son. But their worlds are turned upside down when the cops are called on their kids, leading to a traumatic police encounter for Nathan. Torn between respecting Nora’s boundaries and embodying the values so important to her own family, Babs will make a choice that will shape their lives forever. In conversation with filmmaker and Jingletown Films’ founder Cheryl Dunye. Doors at 2:30pm.
Cheryl Dunye is a Liberian-American filmmaker, director, and producer based in Oakland whose work explores Black queer identity, history, and cultural memory. Her narratives are peppered with deconstructive elements such as characters addressing the camera and making ironic references to the... Read More →
Natalie Baszile is a writer and filmmaker. Her new novel is Friends and Family. Her previous novel, Queen Sugar, was adapted for seven television seasons by Ava DuVernay and co-produced by Oprah Winfrey. Her non-fiction work includes We Are Each Other's Harvest: Celebrating African... Read More →
From the author of the multi-award-winning, National Book Award–longlisted, “vivid, fast, funny, way-smart, and verbally inventive” (George Saunders) story collection Heads of the Colored People, comes a sly, spry, literary debut novel. We find ourselves in 1920s Oklahoma, just far enough out of Tulsa, just long enough after the Race Massacre of 1921. For as long as anyone can remember, the Milfords have led plentiful lives on the backs of the townspeople of Newville. On the ominous brink of the Great Depression and at the height of Prohibition, Richard Milford is an infamous moonshiner and womanizer who, it seems, finally crossed the wrong person at the wrong time. He’s dead and buried with only his women to mourn him, but a question remains: Who killed him, and why? Top suspects are his four “wives,” but as their stories burst to light, the very idea of a true story comes apart before our eyes. In conversation with Margaret Wilkerson Sexton. Doors at 5:30pm.
MARGARET WILKERSON SEXTON studied creative writing at Dartmouth College and law at UC Berkeley. Her most recent novel, On the Rooftop, was a 2022 Reese’s Book Club Pick. The Revisioners won a 2020 Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize and an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work... Read More →
Nafissa Thompson-Spires is the author of the award-winning, National Book Award longlisted short story collection, Heads of the Colored People. She earned a doctorate in English from Vanderbilt University and a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing from the University... Read More →
FREE, $10–15 suggested donation, $33 for signed book
Co-presented with SFPL
In the latest addition to the inimitable Walter Mosley’s Joe King Oliver series, King finds himself accepting (again at his grandmother’s request) a case from Arman Babylon, a powerful Los Angeles gangster now dying from cancer. Babylon’s granddaughter, Twyla Mann, has been missing for years, and he’s desperate to find her before he passes. The search pulls King into the Babylons’ stained past and the cold case of Dalia Shorts, a torch singer who vanished without a trace and whom Arman was once suspected of killing. As King follows her trail from L.A. to New York and back, he’ll realize nothing is what it seems as he uncovers a pattern of violence that has targeted the women around Babylon for decades. How much will King be willing to risk to finally set things right? In conversation with Carvell Wallace. Doors at 6:00pm.
Carvell Wallace is the best-selling author of the memoir Another Word For Love — a Kirkus Prize finalist, and Whiting Award winner. As a podcaster he has been nominated for a Peabody and won a Kaleidoscope Award in Journalism. His essays have appeared in the New York Times Maga... Read More →
Walter Mosley is one of America’s most celebrated writers. He was given the 2020 National Book Award’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, named a Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America, and honored with the Anisfield-Wolf Award, a Grammy, a PEN USA... Read More →
