Oakland Review of Books calendar of (not just) literary events, September 16 – September 21
Your ORB team is worn out with anticipation, there’s so much books on the books. Our colleagues in calendaring have the presence of mind to share just the select and best of, but we’re capacious and rapacious and maybe a little overreachy: we want you to taste all that Oakland and its stretchiest tendrils have to offer (but not on Mondays, we don’t do Mondays). This week, it’s a feast before the equinox (which, not featured, it’s on a Monday) turns the key and opens autumn. Everyone decided this is the week to do everything, so party nap your way to success. We here at ORB stomp out all binaries so there’s no town/gown division any more, but Cal coming back from summer vacation with pep in its step is why the calendar is especially heavy. Plus it’s a big weekend for tiny trees in the Bonsai show down at the Lake all weekend. Oakland AND Albany are having film festivals and for some reason The New Parkway is hosting one named after Manhattan too? Saturday is Oakland’s Creek to Bay Day, so walk a creek as far as you can. We live where fresh meets salt and are a ripply, flowing place no matter how many culverts try to lock us in.
If you’re the kind of person who plans ahead, start doing that because October is going to be cranking. Local publishers Heyday and Transit both have their big community celebrations and fundraisers going on–buy a ticket, meet your friendly East Bay writers and editors wearing their finest duds. Local Economy opens their doors next to EBB in a couple weeks and is selling out their events already. There’s still a few open spaces so jump in (except not for Julian Brave NoiseCat and Tommy Orange, that’s filled to spill). Write a vibe report about everything you did this week on Monday at Kinfolx with When the Smoke Clears, or about what you’ll do next.–MS
Tuesday, September 16
[Bonus West Bay] Public Transit Visions in Speculative Fiction, 6pm, SPUR (SOMA, in that dead space that used to separate BART from Caltrain, if you didn’t want to change at Millbrae, though now there’s the Central Subway between them, I hear, but tbh, I’d rather just walk?). A panel discussion with some cool people (Alissa Walker is coming up from LA; I imagine via Amtrak for the transit bona fides) on how fiction imagines mass movement, and the future, and how both could be better than they are. Don’t forget your Clipper Card. [Luma]
Too Poor to Die, 7pm, A Great Good Place for Books (The Hills). Local writer Amy Shea, who is the writing program director for Mount Tamalpais College at San Quentin State Prison, is in conversation with Andrea Firth about Shea’s new book on what happens to those who die while experiencing homelessness or who end up indigent or unclaimed at the end of life. [GGPB]
Purgatorio screening, 7pm, La Peña (Technically Berkeley, but the border is just there on Woolsey, I feel like we should just jog it up a little to put La Peña in Oakland). The Mexico / US border reimagined as Dante’s purgatory, a documentary film from 2013 that will depress you by how little things have changed since then and by how much worse they’ve gotten, too. [lapena]
Zoe Dubno and Zoe Hitzig in conversation, 7 pm, Mrs. Dalloway’s (College Ave). A confluence of Zoes! Dubno's debut novel Happiness & Love follows a young woman who makes the mistake of going back to NYC (you just got out girl, shoulda stayed gone) over the course of one outrageous and insufferable dinner party, where natty wine is overpoured, the guest of honor is very late, and it devolves from there. [eventbrite]
Also: Black Authors Book Club reads My Sister The Serial Killer at West Oakland Branch OPL (De Fremery Environs) / Legacy as Living Practice – A conversation with artists rethinking public memory – at SF Main Library (West Bay) / Reflections Behind Bars: Film Viewing and Panel at Berkeley Law (Cal) / Oakland Poetry Slam at Tamarack (Downtown)
Wednesday, September 17
Haiti invented freedom when they kicked the French out, 12pm, Social Science Matrix (Cal). Four hundred years later, we’re still trying to learn the lesson. Yale prof Marlene Daut will be on campus talking about the Haitian revolution’s intellectual history, and her book on it. See also, “Why did Bridgerton Erase Haiti?” [UCB]
The FS Louie Company of Berkeley: A Contemporary Archaeology of a Chinese American Business, 12 pm, Archaeological Research Facility, 2251 College (Cal). Transnational, diasporic identity as read in Chinese restaurantware -- goddamn I love a material history and a reminder that everyday objects come from deep culture and adaptation to circumstance. [Cal]
Counter-mapping: Challenging our perspective on space and community, 12:30pm, Earth Sciences & Map Library, 50 McCone Hall (Cal). Counter-maps and counter-atlases center a decolonial, quilombola, feminist, Indigenous-centered approach to mapmaking. Explore physical and digital examples of counter-mapping. I always go to geographers’ parties and so should you.[UCB]
[West Bay Bonus Event] BOUNCE: How the Valkyries Are Changing the Bay, 6pm, KALW HQ (Montgomery St). Art, skateboards, pizza, basketball, DJs and a podcast -- it’s a party for the playoffs! [eventbrite]
Meet the Author, Vanessa Grubbs, MD-- Negligent by Design: Anti-Blackness in American Medicine and How to Address It, 6:30 PM, Rockridge OPL (College Ave). Dr. Grubbs lays out a pathway to true equity and inclusion in health care: getting to the root of the underlying fears and insecurities that have led to racist medical negligence; recruiting and retaining a diverse physician workforce; and forcing Medicine to commit to the cultural humility necessary to rebuild, not just replaster, a broken institution. [OPL]
WHB September Book Club: A Man's Place by Annie Ernaux, 6:30pm, Womb House Books (Temescal Alley). Talk about Ernaux talking about her father. Buy a book or two (she wrote another one about her mom). [Eventbrite]
Reporting on Oakland schools, 7 pm, Clio’s (The Lake). One of a series of conversations with The Oaklandside. Community Journalism Director Jacob Simas will sit down with our local incredible resource, education reporter Ashley McBride (her live-tweeting of 6 hour school board meetings until like 1 AM earned my deepest loyalty) and deputy editor Esther Kaplan dig into reporting on the Oakland school system. [eventbrite]
Rituals in Transfigured Time: Maya Deren, Sidney Peterson, and Kenneth Anger, 7pm, BAMPFA (Berkeley). Gesture, bodies, celluloid for 80 minutes. California School of Fine Arts students transform the West Bay into a surreal dreamscape in The Lead Shoes -- I think it got stuck. [BAMPFA]
The Berkeley Slam featuring Matt Sedillo, 8 pm, Starry Plough (Berkeley). Doors and workshop at 7pm ahead of the show. Matt Sedillo: political poet, Los Angeles poet, Mexican poet: taste it all here in “La Reina” and get surprised by the rest of the line up. [eventbrite]
The Book Club Show by Rebel Kings of Oakland, 9:30pm, White Horse Inn (Telegraph). Stay up late with me for BOOK THEMED DRAG (I’m sorry, were you tired out by going to everything today already? Power through, we’re not even close to the weekend yet). The most joyful combination of performance art, comedy, gender fuckery, burlesque, and FUN in town. Hosted by VERA! who has been making me laugh for more than 2 decades now because we’re old, but somehow they’re still able to do the splits. [instagram]
Also: Nine Lives: My Risky Road from Fifties Rebel to Feminist Critic at the Townsend Center (Cal) / Dimond Book club discusses Sigrid Nunez's The Vulnerables at Dimond Branch OPL / Boredom, Curiosity, and the Crisis of Meaning at Berkeley Law / Political Prisoner Letter Writing Night at Golden Gate OPL (San Pablo Corridor)
Thursday, September 18
Rahim Kurwa: Indefensible Spaces: Policing and the Struggle for Housing, 3:30 pm, 106 Bauer Wurster Hall (Cal). In the Antelope Valley, where according to resident poet and birder Charles Hood “couches go to die,” there’s a lot of racism and not many antelopes. One of the many, many California towns where a white rural community developed into affordable exurbs populated by people of color and then the cops swooped in. Kurwa’s book is a case study of the national crisis of the policing of housing, told through a history of Black organizing and resistance in the edges of the Mojave. [UCB]
The Jewish-Mexican Cookbook, 5pm, Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life (Berkeley). 25 bucks worth of conversation, cooking demo, and tasting with Ilan Stavans and Margaret Boyle, authors of Sabor Judío, “a vibrant history of Jewish immigration to Mexico from 1492 to the present.” If you don’t know Stavans’ incredible contributions to Latino literature, translation, and (this one was news to me) cooking, today is the day to fix that. [UCB]
The Oaklandside’s Culture Makers, 6:30pm, The New Parkway (Uptown). An evening of community, conversation, and performance. Oaklandside’s Azucena Rasilla talks with Abby Sullivan Engen, Immigrants’ Rights Co-Directing Attorney at Centro Legal de la Raza, Gabriela Galicia, Executive Director of Street Level Health Project and Leva Zand, Founder and Executive Director of ARTogether. Together, they’ll share stories from Oakland’s immigrant communities and highlight critical resources. The evening will also feature powerful spoken word performances by Oakland Youth Poet Laureate Cael Dueñas-Lara and Vice Poet Laureate Sehinne Yohannes. We have a Vice Poet Laureate!! [insta]
Afterword Press Presents Open Mic Night, 7pm, CoBiz Richmond (Greater Northerliest Oakland). Open Mic hosted by Richmond's Poet Laureate, Stephen Sharpe. Bring your best words and your own audience. [eventbrite]
The Poetry of Sacrifice and Ritual Killings in Nigeria, 7 pm, Clio’s (The Lake). This is a poetry of witness. Stegner Fellow Adedayo Agarau's debut collection of verse, The Years of Blood, confronts one of Nigeria's most harrowing realities: the ritual killings and child abductions that terrorized communities during the country's turbulent transition from military rule to democracy. confronts the collective trauma of Nigeria's disappeared children. [eventbrite]
Also: Jorge Felipe-Gonzalez, Before 1619: Atlantic Slavery and the Slave Trade Beyond Anglo-America at Dwinelle (Cal) / “Becoming a Birder” with Ed Yong at Showcase Theater (North Bay) / Uptown Stroll (where do you think) / My Sweet Land screening and panel at Berkeley Law (Cal) / Live at Colucci with Cheflee by Eternal Now (San Pablo Corridor) / Romeo & Juliet: Noiseth Off! at Oakstop (Downtown) / Under the Influence Reading at Et al. (West Bay)/ Between The Sun And The Sidewalk at Rialto Cinemas Cerrito (El Cerrito)
Friday, September 19
Yõg ãtak: My Father, Kaiowá, 3:30pm, Bampfa (Berkeley). The filmmaker’s search for her father, highlighting the struggles of the Indigenous peoples of Brazil to maintain their traditions and autonomy. [UCB]
Even Strange Ghosts Can Be Shared: The Collected Letters of Jack Spicer, 4:30pm, Maude Fife Room (Cal). Book launch and collective reading featuring Daniel Benjamin, Kelly Holt, Brandon Brown, Leo Dunsker, Andrew David King, 최 Lindsay, Geoffrey G. O'Brien, Jocelyn Saidenberg, and Dean Smith. Spicer and Robert Duncan started the SF Renaissance -- here’s your scene history, young poets. [SPT]
The Launch of Replaceable You by Mary Roach, 6pm, Clio’s (The Lake). Go on adventures in human anatomy with the best guide ever. Come party with Mary and fete her remarkable oeuvre with cocktails inspired by her book titles (such good titles). [eventbrite]
Open Mic: The Poetry Lounge, 6:30pm, Golden Ratio (Downtown). A curated event with featured artists, open mic guests, and an audience here to hear. Pull up! It’s a poetry party! [eventbrite]
Poetry! 6:30pm, Tamarack (Downtown). Daniel Owen, Zoe Goldstein, Brian Ng. Celebrate the release of Brian Ng’s new chapbook Angel (Spiral Editions). Will the mic work, dunno, but the poetry never misses in this series and the room is always full. [insta]
Rasaki’s Drums, 7:30pm, 2727 California Street (Ashby BART environs). Screening a documentary about Oakland-resident Rasaki Aladokun, who toured with King Sunny Adé, and who will be present. There will be drumming after, we are promised; this is what that sounds like. [insta]
Also: Opening Reception for CALIFAS: The Art of Chris Granillo at Dear John (The Laurel) / Dream Captured Opening at Cone Shape Top (Uptown) / Black Futures Ball 2025 at Chabot Space & Science Museum (The Hills) / RPSC Book Club: Wave by Diana Farid at Rock Paper Scissors Collective (Downtown) / Suzhou River at BAMPFA (Berkeley)
Saturday, September 20
CityCamp Oakland 2025, 8:30 AM, Oakland City Hall (Downtown). A one-day unconference — a participant-driven gathering where anyone can propose, lead, or join sessions about the issues and opportunities shaping life in Oakland. But like, what happens next? You just leave the ideas on the white board and Mayor Lee might check them out some time? [Eventbrite]
California I CAN's 6th Annual California Native Ways Festival, 10:30 AM, Live Oak Park (Berkeley). Before he passed, Malcolm Margolin wrote out an invitation, in which he said, “I can assure you that it will be a most spectacular day! Love, Malcolm.” It will be. Artists and artisans from regional Native California Tribes are coming to play games, dance, and show their art. Redbird Willie (Pomo/Wailaki/Wintu) is bringing a tule canoe! Thank you Malcolm. [facebook]
Coastal Cleanup Day, 9 AM, MLK Jr Shoreline Park (The Waterfront). Save The Bay will be hosting a cleanup at Damon Slough, a heavily impacted estuary at the end of the Lion Creek and Arroyo Viejo Creek watersheds. One more way to learn your creeks. [Save the Bay]
Trashure Hunt, 9 AM, Shimada Friendship Park (Richmond). Community service and environmental stewardship together with neighbors to tend to our shared Bay shoreline. [eventbrite]
Fairyland Annual Children’s Book Festival, 10 AM, Fairyland (The Lake). Meet over 30 KidLit creators, artists, authors, and illustrators as they gather in the park to inspire your kiddos and stand as a beacon of representation and possibility. Buy some new books, watch some puppets eat up the stage. [Fairyland]
Doors Open: 16th Street Station, 10am, 16th St (West Oakland). This rare opportunity to visit the Bay Area's grandest railroad station, Oakland's Southern Pacific 16th St. Station is SOLD OUT -- but get on the waitlist and you could get lucky. [humanitix]
Stories of Water Stories in Water Closing Reception, 1pm, RPS Collective (Downtownish). This show offers love letters in a multitude of media to the bodies of water that permeate our planet, and ourselves. Part of it is a collaborative collection of memories with water contributed by 37 artists, writers, musicians, educators, and activists in the form of a listening station called the Aqueous Memory Archive. [RPS Collective]
Quilts as Legacy and Living Practice, 1 pm, BAMPFA (Berkeley). Artists Diedrick Brackens, Basil Kincaid, and Oakland’s Adia Millett join Key Jo Lee to reflect, through the lens of their experience and studio practices, on the quilt not only as a physical object of warmth, protection, and care, but also as a poetic language of inheritance and self-making. First of two quilt events this weekend [UCB]
Chinese Life Under American Racial Law, 2 pm, OACC (Oakland Chinatown). Michael Luo (piping in from NYC), Fae Myenne Ng, and Norman Wong (Wong Kim Ark’s great-grandson) share the stories of Chinese lives under laws enacted to exclude, deport, and deny. [OACC]
Oakland’s Chinatown: Hidden Stories & the Search for Belonging, 2 pm, Chinese American Citizens Alliance lodge (Chinatown). Lailan Sandra Huen leads a walk full of stories and good eats. [Humanitix]
African American Quilt Guild Oakland 25th Anniversary Exhibit Reception, 2 pm, Elmhurst OPL Branch (Deep East). Come experience the beauty and stories woven into quilts, lovingly created by guild members and proudly presented to the public during this milestone event. [OPL]
Gaza Surf Club, 5:30pm, Banana Yoga (Emeryville) . Watch the 2016 documentary Gaza Surf Club about surfers in Gaza and hear from local surfers, artists, and activists connected to the Gaza surf community today. Come prepared to donate, all funds go to those trapped in hell in Gaza. [insta]
CLONES GO HOME press showcase at Woolsey Heights!, 8 pm, DM for address (Berkeley). Long running reading series, maybe THE longest, in the East Bay keeps going. Ivy Johnson & Lauren Levin chapbook releases + Joseph Bradshaw record release + art by Joel Gregory, AND special guest Nicholas Deboer (who is special because he’s the editor). [instagram]
Also: Free community meal at Liberation Park (Eastmont Hills) / Spirit and Soul Festival on Macdonald Avenue (downtown Richmond) / Ballet Folklorico de Ricardo Velazquez Performance at César E. Chávez Branch OPL (Fruitvale) / Lucha Libre at the Library! at 81st St Branch OPL (Deep East) / Dance for the Land with the Justice & Ecology DJ collective at Tamarack (Downtown) / Dancing Poetry Festival in Kensington (Fancy Hills) / A Taste of EastSide Fundraiser for Eastside Arts Alliance (Deep East)
Sunday, September 21
Berkeley South Asian Radical History Walking Tour, 10 AM, Downtown Berkeley Bart (Berkeley). There’s ONE ticket left, go get it. Community historians Barnali Ghosh and Anirvan Chatterjee bring the revolutionaries of South Asian American history to life on an engaging 2-mile walking tour [Berkeley South Asian].
A Conversation on Black Fatherhood, 1 pm, OMCA (The Lake). Filmmakers and artists Siyah Mgoduka, Jordan Thierry(Black Fatherhood Project), and Chris Johnson (Co-Creator of Question Bridge: Black Males) in conversation alongside showings of their work, celebrating intergenerational healing and Black father fellowship. You are invited to witness, reflect, and connect. [OMCA]
Three Poets, One Reading, 2pm, 2727 California (Ashby BART environs). Local poets Laurel Benjamin, Jackie Berger, and Yiskah Rosenfeld read from their books. The vibe is straightforward lyric. [Insta]
[West Bay Bonus Event] Hole, 2 and 5pm, Ocean Beach (Edge of the Continent). The SF Neo-Futurists break new ground (pun intended and fully committed to) with their current play that excavates the possibilities of digging a literal hole in the beach. Watch the players play themselves sweating over the borderline-Sisyphean task. At some point, you just might want to pick up a shovel and dig in. [Eventbrite]
[West Bay Bonus Event Part Two] Civil Liberties at Risk, 2 pm, Medicine for Nightmares (The Mission). A reading hosted by Write Now! SF Bay featuring diverse writers of conscience from Lake, Mendocino & Sonoma Counties, Santa Cruz/Watsonville, and the Bay Area. [instagram]
[West Bay Bonus Event The THIRD] Poetry as Magic Workshop, 2 pm, Et Al (The Mission). Really, West Bay, you’re pushing it now. In this generative session, play with texts and techniques aligned with and oblique to Spicer’s famed Poetry as Magic workshop. Bring pen, paper, or any writing device you prefer; a text that is sacred or magical for you; and some of your own writing in progress to open up. [Small Press Traffic]
The Hour of Liberation has Arrived, 6pm, Moments Cooperative & Community Space (Downtown). Screening Heiny Srour’s 1974 film--about the late 1960s Leninist guerrilla revolution against the British-backed Sultanate in Oman--raising funds for a family in Gaza. [insta]
Yearning, 7pm, BAMPFA (Berkeley). Hop in losers, we’re yearning. BAMPFA is doing so many Naruse films, and this is one of them, which involves an intrafamilial dispute over grocery business plans, a train journey, unrequited love, and lots of yearning. I’m gonna be honest, I bet it rules, but I’m a little punchdrunk from trying to write distinct captions for so many Naruse films. [BAMPFA]
Also: Grand Lake Neighborhood Clean Up at Splash Pad Park (Under 580)
