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Venue: Mechanics’ Institute clear filter
Tuesday, October 13
 

6:30pm PDT

Tilar J. Mazzeo: The Sea Captain’s Wife
Tuesday October 13, 2026 6:30pm - 8:00pm PDT
Mechanics’ Institute
Buy Tickets/RSVP
$5 MI members / $15 gen public

Co-presented with Mechanics' Institute

New York Times bestseller Tilar J. Mazzeo brings us The Sea Captain's Wife, the true story of the first female captain of a merchant ship and her treacherous navigation of Antarctica's deadly waters. In 1856, at just nineteen years old, Mary Ann Patten led her crew through Drake's Passage as her husband, the former captain, lay deathly ill and the first mate agitated for mutiny. Set against the backdrop of the California Gold Rush and taking us to the brink of Antarctica, The Sea Captain's Wife draws on new archival research from nineteenth-century women’s maritime journals and on Mazzeo’s own expedition to the Southern Ocean and Antarctica in search of Mary Ann’s route. Doors at 6:00pm.
Speakers
avatar for Dr. Tilar J. Mazzeo

Dr. Tilar J. Mazzeo

Dr. Tilar J. Mazzeo is the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and San Francisco Chronicle bestselling author of numerous award-winning works of narrative nonfiction, including history and biography titles. Formerly the Clara C. Piper Associate Professor of English at Colby College and Professeur Associée in the Department of World Literatures at the University of Montreal... Read More →
Tuesday October 13, 2026 6:30pm - 8:00pm PDT
Mechanics’ Institute 57 Post St, San Francisco
  Nonfiction
 
Thursday, October 15
 

6:30pm PDT

Freedom: Essays with Zinzi Clemmons
Thursday October 15, 2026 6:30pm - 8:00pm PDT
Mechanics’ Institute
Buy Tickets/RSVP
$5 MI members / $15 gen public

Co-presented with Museum of the African Diaspora & Mechanics’ Institute 

Join Zinzi Clemmons in conversation with Faith Adiele on Clemmons's latest essay collection, Freedom, a deft mix of memoir, family history, criticism, and reportage, drawing on a vast range of material from Joan Didion to James Baldwin, political analysis and history to Clemmons’s own experiences across the globe. In elegiac prose, Clemmons trains her discerning eye on American institutions and mythologies, probing the bounds of liberation and autonomy to interrogate our most enduring quest—the relentless pursuit of freedom for all. Doors at 6:00pm.
Moderators
avatar for Faith Adiele

Faith Adiele

I'm the author of Meeting Faith, an award-winning account of ordaining as Thailand’s first Black Buddhist nun that is widely taught, is the subject of multiple studies, and regularly appears on essential travel listicles. I am also author of four hybrid chapbooks/memoirs about my Nigerian/Nordic/American heritage... Read More →
Speakers
avatar for Zinzi Clemmons

Zinzi Clemmons

Zinzi Clemmons' novel What We Lose was a finalist for the NBCC John Leonard First Book Prize and the Aspen Words Literary Prize. A National Book Foundation “5 Under 35” honoree, she was raised in Philadelphia by a South African mother and an American father. A cofounder of the literary journal Apogee, she lives... Read More →
Thursday October 15, 2026 6:30pm - 8:00pm PDT
Mechanics’ Institute 57 Post St, San Francisco
  Nonfiction
 

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