Litquake San Francisco, an annual literary festival comprising 850+ authors and hundreds of events in the span of 10 days, can be exhausting and daunting, but it can also be exhilarating and inspirational. I'm a co-producer of Kidquake, an event that draws 1,000 elementary school kids, their teachers, and chaperones to four assemblies and 10 … Continue reading Kidquake – Dream Big!
The conversation last night, between two Pulitzer prize winners—Adam Johnson and TJ Stiles kept me scribbling notes while I tended bar. Yes, I volunteered to work the event. Johnson recounted how his journalism professor would identify all of the false quotes he had created while reporting on community meetings, quotes that Johnson thought told the … Continue reading LitQuake – The Bridge Between Fiction and Nonfiction
Quick! Who knew that July is Rickey Month?! And who knows what a Rickey is? I'm waiting... So I showed up at the new Litquake offices in the Mechanics Institute building in the financial district of San Francisco for a short story class taught by Tom Barbash. At the end of class, those lovely Litquake … Continue reading Rickey, Anyone? Stay Up With Me
Fact: Everything that famous writers create is spellbinding literature. Fact: Famous writers would rather die than expose their not-so-award-winning moments. Socrates would point out that both assertions cannot be true. So a writer must be blamed for Socrates's death. Enter the fabulous writers from The Writers' Grotto in San Francisco, a collective of professional writers … Continue reading Drivel – and Proud of It at Litquake
As part of San Francisco's LitQuake Literary Festival, I attended a Word for Word staged reading of Dan Chaon's short story, "Stay Awake," last night at Z-Space. It was memorable for two reasons: 1) It was the first time I'd tasted Sofia, champagne in a can, a venture of the Coppola vineyard. A Blanc de Blancs, … Continue reading The Uncanny, Hope, and the Short Story
Jilanne Hoffmann 