Oakland Review of Books calendar of (not just) literary events, May 27 – June 1
The big news in town is the 11th annual Bay Area Book Festival, on in Berkeley all day Saturday 5/31 and Sunday 6/1 (It’s tough on my brain when a weekend spans two months). You might even catch your local literary events calendar compiler at the Heyday booth! There’s still a lot of native California plants that need homes in your garden at Watershed nursery, so many they’re having a sale. Nisperos abound, generally. Similarly (coincidence??!!),The New Parkway has a largesse of garbanzo beans and is looking to rehome GALLONS of them. GALLONS. Each week for the foreseeable future. Since beauty is truth and truth beauty, there’s documentaries to see over in the West Bay starting May 29th at the San Francisco Documentary Film Festival. But possibly of more importance, the Lake Merritt Dog Awards will be giving out a trophy! -MS
Tuesday, May 27
[West Bay Bonus Event] Poet CD Eskilson launching their debut collection Scream / Queen, with Oakland poet Ashia Ajani and West Bay poet Preeti Vangani, 7 pm, Green Apple Books on the Park. I bought Ashia Ajani’s book Heirloom at MOAD last year and fell head over heels for her poems. [Green Apple Books on the Park]
Literally nothing else. The town is dead. If you don’t feel like hauling your body to the Sunset, or, I don't know, watch Jaws at the Alamo Drafthouse, rest up, stay home, and write? Pick some nisperos.
Wednesday, May 28
Standing Above The Clouds Community Screening, 5 pm, 2501 Harrison St (Huchiun/Oakland). Community screening, fundraiser, and cultural exchange. Standing Above the Clouds highlights the movement to protect Mauna Kea through the intergenerational stories of women in three Native Hawaiian families as they stand for the sacred mountain. Followed by a panel featuring Kumu Pua Case, Confederate Villages of Lisjan Tribal Chair Corrina Gould, and Winnemem Wintu Chief Caleen Sisk. [eventbrite]
Black Birders Week 2025, 6 pm. North end of Lake Temescal. Birding is for everyone! Take a leisurely walk around the lake as we search for birds floating on the water and hiding in the cattails. Beginners welcomed and encouraged! [EBRPD]
Sultry Sessions: Open Mic, 6:30pm, Zanzi (Downtown Oakland). I saw this advertised on a pole and what could be more appropriate? The Bay Area has been raunchy and very public about it forever. Featuring storytelling, spoken word, poetry, music, and burlesque (or any art form) about one of the most intriguing and fraught aspects of humanity: sex and sexual intimacy! Hosted by two BIPOC and AAPI women who wanna hear how you like to get wild. We all have those stories of navigating our bodies, debaucherous desires, and feelings to share..... or maybe you just want to talk about sucking dick on stage, they’re into it all! Gonna be an ORB vibe report on this, for sure. [eventbrite]
Native Women's Labor and Resistance in the Bay Area with Professor Caitlin Keliiaa, 6:30 pm, Oakland History Center. California has coerced labor from Native peoples under many guises ever since enslaved Native people built the Missions. Prof. Keliiaa will present her research into the Bay Area Outing Program, which brought young Native women to the East Bay under the guise of (domestic) vocational training in the early 20th century. Decades before Indian Relocation (an official federal program in the mid-20th century to dismantle tribal communities, break apart communal land stewardship, and accelerate assimilation, and which led to a strong concentration here in the Bay of Native people from all across the US), these women helped shape the Bay Area Indian community as we know it today. Their stories of resistance and resilience run throughout Prof. Keliiaa's new book, Refusing Settler Domesticity: Native Women's Labor and Resistance in the Bay Area Outing Program. [OPL]
Lyrics and Dirges, 7 pm Pegasus Books Downtown (Berkeley). Monthly poetry reading at Pegasus! In April, they posted the names of poets reading the day of, so just know they bring in good people and like to keep us guessing. [Pegasus]
Community Gathering on Community, 7 pm, Understory (Oakland). Queer arts collective DIY Museum wants to know: In what ways have communities aided you and in what ways have they failed? How can we better build community? Come early to grab a bite, bring a mask for the conversation. If you liked meetings about meetings, this is a logical next step. [eventbrite]
Joan C. Williams on Outclassed, 7pm, Mrs Dalloway’s (Berkeley). The West Bay author, journalist, and professor presents her new book Outclassed: How the Left Lost the Working Class and How to Win Them Back. Apparently, neoliberalism and NAFTA were a bad idea, folks. [eventbrite]
Also: Book Club:The Journalist and the Murderer by Janet Malcolm (Womb House) / Revolutionary Rest (Black Panther Party Museum)
Thursday, May 29
REAL TALK with Aisha Shillingford and Kristen Zimmerman, 6 pm, Real Time and Space (Oakland Chinatown). Aisha Shillingford is the Artistic Director of Intelligent Mischief, a creative studio unleashing the power of Black radical imagination to shape the future. Kristen is a multidisciplinary artist, storyteller, world-builder and way-finder based in Oakland, CA. Get there early for pizza, stay late to imagine a whole new world that will ferment itself from this one. When I think about dreams and how we move toward what we imagine, Shillingford is there, and you should go there too. [instagram]
Black Women Speak: An Abortion Storytelling Showcase, 6:30pm, Preservation Park (Downtown Oakland). Abortions are healthcare, and sharing stories of abortion destigmatizes a healthcare procedure that allows women autonomy. Listen in. [eventbrite]
Know Your Rights Workshop, 7 pm, La Peña Cultural Center (Berkeley). What to do in an encounter with ICE (step zero: don’t talk to cops). [Oaklandside]
Chris Hedges: Resistance in Occupied Palestine, 7pm, First Congregational Church of Oakland (Grand Lake-ish). Launching his new book, A Genocide Foretold: Reporting on Survival and Resistance in Occupied Palestine. Hosted by Law & Disorder’s Cat Brooks. Bear witness. [eventbrite]
[Bonus West Bay Event] Literary Speakeasy celebrating Foglifter Journal, 7 pm, Martuni’s (West Bay). Foglifter—created by and for LGBTQ+ writers and readers—continues the San Francisco Bay Area’s tradition of groundbreaking queer and trans writing. Come hear six fantastic Foglifter authors and writers! Readers: Cianga, Syr Becker, Lily Kaylor Honoré, Randall Mann, Eden Nobile, D’mani Thomas. [instagram]
[Bonus West Bay Event, el segundo] Found Footage & Collage Films, 7 pm, The Lab (West Bay). This evening’s screening celebrates this publication by presenting five works discussed in the text whose imagery draws from the pre-digital image banks of the twentieth century, films assembled from personal and anonymous home movies, newsreels and industrial films and more. I love all art forms made with found materials; what are we but little mammalian magpies picking up glittery fragments of life and arranging them? [dice.fm]
Also: East Bay Open Studios Opening Party and Community Exhibition (Berkeley) / END OF EMPIRE: A Fundraiser for PLACE for Sustainable Living (New Parish, Oakland) / Debunking YIMBYism [FINALLY!] (with the West Side Tenants Union, West Bay) / Book launch for Dan Alter’s Hills Full of Holes (Berkeley)
Friday, May 30
Shoreline clean up and Plastic Earth movie screening, 6:30pm, Shorebird Park Nature Center (Berkeley). Shoreline cleanup, then movie at 8:30pm. Family fun day! Children love to clean up and to watch documentaries! [City of Berkeley]
Tamarack Friday poetry, 6:30pm, Tamarack (Downtown Oakland). Readers: María Esquinca, Ignacio Carvajal, and Lourdes Figueroa (Guest hosted by Tatiana Luboviski-Acosta). María Esquinca is a poet and journalist of la frontera. She’s currently a producer for The Bay podcast, poetry published widely. Ignacio Carvajal (he/they) is a scholar, poet, and translator at UCSD researching Indigenous responses to colonialism and evangelization and Indigenous language learning (especially K’iche’). Lourdes Figueroa is an oral poet. Her poems are a dialogue of her lived experience when her family worked in el azadón in Yolo County. This is gonna be a hella good night. Get there by 6:30 sharp or join the stairs caucus. [Tamarack]
Weekly Bay Area Organizing Meeting. 7 pm, 1499 Fruitvale Ave (Oakland). Start by waving a sign, then make a goddamn plan. [instagram]
Also: The Glitch Research Center by Los Pobres Artistas closing night (Emeryville) / Elderflora: Music for the Trees (Oakland) / OMCA Friday Nights, see twins bailando (Oakland) / Party/Fundraiser/Poetry/Magic/Music for Mount Vision Press (Point Reyes)
Saturday, May 31
Creekside Bilingual Story Hour at Wildcat Creek 9:30 am, Alvarado Park (Richmond). Head to Alvarado Park for a bilingual reading of the children’s storybook, Kiyana and the Wildcat Creek, followed by a guided nature hike through the park. For families, nature enthusiasts, and anyone interested in learning more about the wildlife and ecology of Wildcat Creek. [instagram]
Bay Area Book Festival, Day 1, 11 AM (Downtown Berkeley). Family Story Day at the Main Berkeley library! Writing workshops! People who wrote songs about books performing them! [Bay Area Book Festival]
Alameda County Public Defender Community Block Party, 12-4 PM (DeFremery Park): Bike raffle, bounce castle, screen printing station, coloring for Kids, DJ, free food and drinks, face painting, clean slate (criminal record repair), immigration know-your-rights trainings, free COVID & flu vaccines (no ID or insurance required. [Alameda County Public Defenders]
Evil Gays, 2 pm, Bathers Library (Downtown Oakland). A reading group for all five of Dennis Cooper’s “George Miles novels.” These five novels, written between the late ‘80s and the early ‘00s, make a unique experiment in the representation of “bad gays,” men who, for whatever reasons, can’t resist the draw of vices as various as drug abuse, murder, and pedophilia. Led by Jared Robinson, a sometimes poet, a one time dramaturg, and yes, something of an evil gay. [Bathers Library]
Search for Treasure in Old Newspapers, 2pm, Oakland History Center (Downtown Oakland). Get an overview of the newspaper collections in the library and learn to search newspaper clippings, microfilm, indexes, and databases in both the Oakland History Center and the Magazine & Newspaper Department. Great preparation for anyone who is planning to make an entry for our "All the News That's Fit to Build" diorama exhibit this fall. [OPL]
[West Bay Bonus Event] The Auction, 2pm, Et al. Gallery (The Mission). Small Press Traffic is hosting a fundraiser and party to help sustain homegrown art and community. Confession: I accidentally double booked myself so will miss this for our family’s annual-ish hang with friends on the Peninsula who have stock options and a pool. At least I already bid recklessly in the silent auction (Please outbid me. Please. On at least one thing.). And don’t forget to block off your (my) calendar for SPT’s Backroom event June 9! [Small Press Traffic]
Fundraiser Party with LARB and Transit, 6pm, Transit HQ (Berkeley). In case you also missed last weekend’s hang with all the Oakland headliners who love alleys, R.O. Kwon & Lauren Markham are continuing the conversation with a party inside, hosted by Transit Books and the Los Angeles Review of Books. Look for the \O/ [eventbrite]
Also: Fern Ravine restoration workday in Joaquin MIller Park (Friends of Sausal Creek) / Community Tree Maintenance (Aquatic Park, Berkeley) / Lake Merritt Dog Contest Awards Celebration (The Lake) / Family Storytime and Birdwatching (Main Oakland Library Children’s Room and The Lake)
Sunday, June 1
California Forever Police Department, 10 am, Real Time and Space (Oakland Chinatown). Free, participatory culture jamming workshop by Carrie Hott and Liat Berdugo. In this (absolutely brilliant) workshop, participants will create a speculative recruitment video for a fictional police force that will guard the new planned community called California Forever. Participants are welcome to contribute as performers, behind the scenes, or both. RSVP Required! Email liat.berdugo@gmail.com [instagram]
The Bay Area Book Festival, Day 2, 11 AM, Downtown Berkeley. A beautiful bookish bouquet of local and visiting authors with recent books to talk about the essay as a form, Black Futurism as a genre, poetry as incantation, and everything else you can squeeze between two covers. A book is a portal to anywhere you want to go, a meeting of minds at the low low price of not even keeping up with inflation (seriously). [BABF]
Electrical Gaza & Before My Eyes, 6 pm, Moments Co-op (Downtown Oakland). For Sure Cinema, in collaboration with Nostalgic for Nothing Cinema, shows Electrical Gaza, a film depicting the rhythms of daily life in the area before an onslaught of Israeli bombardment in the summer of 2014. Occasional animated scenes anticipate a moment when the people and places in the film have been destroyed, while the electronic score, layered with field recordings, bubbles with the effervescence of Nashashibi’s sentimental gaze. [instagram]
Also: Teach Your Children to Slurp Noodles (BAMPFA) / How to HELP Local Immigrants / Writing Sex: Making Erotic Diversities Visible (Clio’s) / Cinderella Trail Run (hills) / Bernstein Chichester Psalms and Poulenc Gloria (The Cathedral of Christ the Light)
