Skip to main content

Lit Crawl 2013: Call for Curators!





This year I'm co-spearheading San Francisco's Lit Crawl, which I'm super excited about. The Lit Crawl is a crazy night of about 400+ authors reading during three phases in a march down the Mission district that marks the final night of Litquake's Literary Festival. It is a spectacular ball. I originally fell in love with Litquake through the Crawl, about 6 years ago when I first encountered the overwhelming goodness of being in a mass of people who loved reading and hearing stories. Shoving into a crowded cafe, bar, or laundromat to hear poems and stories read out loud by emerging artists, surrounded by people just as hungry for that very particular kind of fun, creates a kind of utopia. It's a night where job titles don't matter, your clapping and laughter become part of the cacophony of words that float down Valencia street, and your feet may be tired the next day, but your imagination is still fist pumping from the sheer joy of it.




Just how does a magical night like that come together you ask? It's a finely tuned orchestra of beloved volunteers, generous authors, the flight crew like myself, and of course, the curators. The curators come up with the events (readings) that make the evening such a rollicking and diverse mix, so that you can't help but find something special on the menu that's just your taste, and usually the problem is choosing between them. These curators are folks representing publishing presses, literary journals, or reading series, or a themed event highlighting the quirky, the humorous, the divine, you name it!

So if you, or someone you know is interested in a chance to curate a Lit Crawl event, be sure to submit here by April 30th (just six weeks from now!). We hope to make Saturday, October 19th a wild mashup of literary awesomeness and covet your great ideas on how to do just that!

P.S. Another super fun way to get involved is by volunteering. I've made some great friends, heard some incredible stories, and walked away feeling glad I got to be a part of that when I've volunteered with Litquake. You can sign up HERE for the fun!


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

My Litquake 2012 Report

I've been avoiding putting this together, because a part of me really doesn't want this year's Litquake festival to be over already.  The other part of me is still cranky-tired, wandering around trying to get to all those projects I said I'd get to after Litquake, and feeling post-Christmas like. In short, this year's Litquake was AMAZING.  Every year has been awesome, but this one was particularly special for me because I got to actually help plan the awesome.  As a volunteer during the festival for the past several years, I definitely felt like I contributed to making each event I helped at awesome, but this year, being on the committee,* I got to witness the tremendous build up to the festival that happens the whole year prior.  The amount of love, sweat and time that goes into it is incredible, and I'm not sure I've ever been part of something so cool.  Which is not to say I'm not still cranky-tired and looking forward to feeling fully recovered.

Love These Days

What love looks like these days in my tiny corner of the world. Or, what I'm loving these days. Books: These have brought me so much delight and escape and hope lately: Housebreaking , by Colleen Hubbard The Swimmers , by Julie Otsuka A Life in Light; meditations on impermanence, by Mary Pipher Rules for Visiting , by Jessica Francis Kane This Time Tomorrow, by Emma Straub Unsheltered, by Barbara Kingsolver Hunt, Gather, Parent , by Michaeleen Doucleff, PhD Podcasts (the links will take you to specific episodes that moved me): Crazy Good Turns HerMoney with Jean Chatzky The Lazy Genius Podcast Mega Moms Don't Have Time to Grieve Unpublished We Can Do Hard Things On Being Death, Sex and Money I was going to add another category here and then I realized all I've been consuming lately are books and podcasts. :) I love a book or podcast recommendation! What have you read or heard lately that has made your heart sing, your world grow, or brought you solace?

What To Expect When You Are Expecting A Pandemic

“When I think about all that has to transpire to get from pregnancy to the birth, I am overwhelmed by time and the unknown. It’s not useful to contemplate. There is only today, and it is good.” I documented my move from ambivalence about parenting, to IVF, to motherhood, as well as all of Year One. I did it longhand because that’s what I did back then. So now, finally, I’m typing all those pages up, in part because of the great What If that living amid a pandemic creates. And I came across this yesterday and it is so true for the current moment, for this, the fifth week of Sheltering in Place. Ways this time is like pregnancy: It can make you fat. It will definitely make you crave near-constant meals and snacks. You will swing from feeling good to anxiety-laden, angry, irritable and back again several times a day. You will want to know how this will all unfold, how hard it will get, exactly how you and your life will be changed. You can’t know any of that. Ther