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Michelle Tea, Tuesday, June 18th
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Michelle Tea is the author of 4 ½ memoirs, 1 ½ novels and a collection of poetry. Her memoir Valencia is an underground classic and is currently being made into a feature film by 21 different filmmakers. She is the founder and executive director of RADAR Productions, a literary non-profit which hosts the monthly RADAR Reading Series (voted Best Literary Series by SF Bay Guardian Readers), the infamous Sister Spit Literary Performance tours, an annual poetry chapbook contest, and the Radar LAB Writers' Retreat in Akumal, Mexico. She is a former writer of horoscopes and a current reader of tarot cards. |
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Everyone in the broken-down town of Chelsea, Massachussetts, has a story too worn to repeat—from the girls who play the pass-out game just to feel like they're somewhere else, to the packs of aimless teenage boys, to the old women from far away who left everything behind. But there's one story they all still tell: the oldest and saddest but most hopeful story, the one about the girl who will be able to take their twisted world and straighten it out. The girl who will bring the magic.
Could Sophie Swankowski be that girl? With her tangled hair and grubby clothes, her weird habits and her visions of a filthy, swearing mermaid who comes to her when she's unconscious, Sophie could be the one to uncover the power flowing beneath Chelsea's potholed streets and sludge-filled rivers, and the one to fight the evil that flows there, too. Sophie might discover her destiny, and maybe even in time to save them all.
Pre-order a signed copy from this event
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Poetry Flash presents a Poetic Matrix reading with Chris Hoffman and Kim Shuck, Thursday, June 20th
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Chris Hoffman is an organizational consultant, ecopsychologist, and poet. He has facilitated human development in a variety of business, educational and therapeutic settings, including 23 years as a senior organization development consultant for a Fortune 500 energy utility company. He currently focuses on organizations working for sustainability. He is a licensed professional counselor. Chris has taught ecopsychology at Naropa University and has delivered many workshops and presentations on applied psychology. He enjoys performing his poetic work both solo and in collaboration with dancers and musicians. The Afro-pop band Monkey Siren has recorded his lyrics on two CD's. |
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Kim Shuck is a writer, weaver, bead artist and walker on the crests of hills. Her artwork has shown on four continents and her poetry has been published on three. Shuck's first juried publication was in the En'owken Journal out of Canada. Her first solo book of poetry, Smuggling Cherokee, was published by Greenfield Review Press and won the Diane Decorah award from the Native Writers' Circle of the Americas. She lives in San Francisco with grown children, rescue cats and a disagreeable parrot called Bond. Rumors of resident ghosts, demi-gods or well kept secrets cannot be verified at this time. |
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Ed Hardy and Joel Selvin, Sunday, June 23rd
Don Ed Hardy and Joel Selvin will be in the store June 23rd to talk about Mr. Hardy's memoir, Wear Your Dreams. If you order a book in advance you will be invited to a pre-reading reception upstairs at More Moe's. Meet the authors and enjoy some refreshments, then come downstairs for their talk. We will reserve you a seat.
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Known as the "the Godfather of modern tattoo", Don "Ed" Hardy first partnered with Christian Audigier in 2005 to bring tattoo culture into the world of fashion. His mesmerizing artwork is now emblazoned on an extensive collection of T-shirts, denim, underwear and accessories. The boldly colorful Ed Hardy designs stand in a tribute to the youth of America, vintage fashion, Hollywood stardom and motorcycle rebel culture.
Formerly the long-established rock critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, Joel Selvin has written a number of rock music histories and biographies. In 2010 he came out with Smartass: The Music Journalism of Joel Selvin, a collection of 40 years or rock reviews. With John Johnson, Jr., Selvin wrote Peppermint Twist, the secret history of the mafia chief behind the New York nightclub made world famous by the Twist dance craze.
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“Ed Hardy” is emblazoned on everything from t-shirts and hats to perfumes and energy drinks. From LA to Japan, his colorful cross-and-bones designs and ribbon-banners have become internationally ubiquitous. But long before the fashion world discovered his iconic designs, the man behind the eponymous brand spearheaded nothing less than a cultural revolution.
In Wear Your Dreams, Ed Hardy recounts his genesis as a tattoo artist and leader in the movement to recognize tattooing as a valid and rich art form, through to the ultimate transformation of his career into a multi-billion dollar branding empire. From giving colored pencil tattoos to neighborhood kids at age ten to working with legendary artists like Sailor Jerry to learning at the feet of the masters in Japan, the book explains how this Godfather of Tattoos fomented the explosion of tattoo art and how his influence can be witnessed on everyone, from countless celebs to ink-adorned rockers to butterfly-branded, stroller-pushing moms. With over fifty different product categories, the Ed Hardy brand generates over $700 million in retail sales annually.
Vividly packaged with original Ed Hardy artwork and ideal for ink devotees and Ed Hardy aficionados alike, Wear Your Dreams is a never-before-seen look at the tattoo artist who rocked the art world and has left a permanent mark on fashion history.
Preorder a signed copy from the event
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Poetry Flash presents Bruce Isaacson and Jan Steckel, Thursday, June 27th
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Bruce Isaacson is one of the pioneers of spoken word in San Francisco, a galvanizing performer of his work, and editor of Zeitgeist Press. His new book of poems is the chapbook, Book of Rebellions; his other recent books of poetry include Dumbstruck at the Lights in the Sky and Ghosts Among the Neon. Former San Francisco Poet Laureate Jack Hirschman says, "[Isaacson] gives his realist and insightful eye to seeing and revealing how poetry remains the king of affirmation amid devastating negations and the ghosting of the soul." |
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Jan Steckel is a poet and a retired Harvard and Yale-trained pediatrician and activist for bisexual and disability rights. Her new book of poems, The Horizontal Poet, a 2012 Lambda Literary Award-winner, is audacious, worldly, and deeply compassionate. Mixing Tracks, published in 2009, won the Gertrud Press Fiction Chapbook Award, and her previous book of poems, The Underwater Hospital, won a Rainbow Award for lesbian and bisexual poetry. |
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Poetry Flash presents The Colrain Poetry Manuscript Conference Faculty Reading, with Joan Houlihan, Jeffrey Levine, Rusty Morrison and Ellen Dore Watson, Wednesday, July 10th
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Joan Houlihan founder of the Colrain Poetry Manuscript Conference, has published four books of poetry, including The Us, named a "must-read" book of 2009 by Massachusetts Center of the Book, and The Mending Worm, winner of the Green Rose Award from New Issues Press. Among other critical endeavors, she's author of Boston Comment, a series of critical essays archived online. |
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Jeffrey Levine, editor and publisher of Tupelo Press, has published three books of poems, Jubilo, Rumor of Cortez, and Mortal, Everlasting, winner of the 2002 Transcontinental Poetry Prize. |
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Rusty Morrison, co-editor and publisher of Omnidawn, has published four books of poems, including After Urgency, 2012 winner of the Dorset Prize from Tupelo Press; the true keeps calm biding its story, winner of the Academy of American Poets' James Laughlin Award, Northern California Book Award, Ahsahta's Sawtooth Prize, and the DiCastagnola Award from the Poetry Society of America; and Whethering, winner, Colorado Prize for Poetry. |
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Ellen Doré Watson is director of the Poetry Center at Smith College and poetry editor of The Massachusetts Review. She's published five books of poems, most recently Dogged Hearts. Her collection Ladder Music won the New England/New York Award from Alice James Press. |
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Poetry Flash presents Avotcja and Q. R. Hand, Jr., Thursday, July 11th
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Avotcja's latest book of poems is With Every Step I Take. Al Young says, "Introducing herself as storyteller, 'wild woman,' a 'bonafide sound junkie,' nothing slows or dampens Avotcja's passion for the power and wonder of music. Guided by ancient, ancestral wisdom, she refuses to separate poetry and storytelling from song or dance." She has published in English and Spanish in the USA, Mexico, and Europe, and she's been widely anthologized. She's shared stages with Sonia Sanchez, Piri Thomas, Janice Mirikitani, Diane di Prima, Michael Franti, Jayne Cortez, and with José Montoya's Royal Chicano Air Force. Also a musician and percussionist, she is a Bay Area star with her jazz group Avotcja & Modúpue. |
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Q. R. Hand's new book of poems is Whose Really Blues. Reginald Lockett said, "Q. R. Hand's poetry traverses the terrain of form, music, and language. This is an inspired, well crafted poetry that is political in intent and spirited in execution and defies any comparison to any literary predecessors or contemporary schools of thought." A beloved figure in Bay Area poetry who has read as a featured poet at many venues, Hand's previous publications include We Came to Play and I Speak to the Poet in Man. |
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Poetry Flash presents the Marin Center Traveling Show, with Rose Black and more, Thursday, July 18th
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The readers for the Marin Poetry Center's East Bay Summer Traveling Show, co-hosted by Rose Black, editor of the Marin Poetry Center Anthology, are:
David Alpaugh, whose most recent book of poems is Crazy Dave Talks With The Poets.
Adrienne Amundsen, psychologist and world traveler, whose new book of poems is Cassandras Falling.
Susan Cohen, also a journalist, whose debut poetry collection is Throat Singing.
Connie Post, former Poet Laureate of Livermore, whose most recent chapbook is And When the Sun Drops.
Zara Raab is a contributing editor to Poetry Flash, her two most recent books of poems are Swimming the Eel and the forthcoming Fracas & Asylum.
Joan Stepp Smith, whose latest poetry collection is In a Pasture with Palominos.
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Michael Rothenberg, Youssef Alaoui and El Habib Louai, Monday, August 26th
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Michael Rothenberg is a poet, songwriter, editor and publisher of the online literary magazine Big Bridge, www.bigbridge.org and co-founder of the global poetry movement 100 Thousand Poets for Change, www.100tpc.org.
His books include Favorite Songs (Big Bridge Press), Man/Women with Joanne Kyger (Big Bridge Press), The Paris Journals (Fish Drum Press), Monk Daddy (Blue Press), Unhurried Vision (La Alameda/University of New Mexico Press), Choose (Big Bridge Press), My Youth As A Train (Foothills Publishing), and the eco-spy thriller Punk Rockwell (Tropical Press).
Michael Rothenberg is editor of several volumes in the Penguin Poets series: Overtime by Philip Whalen, As Ever by Joanne Kyger, David’s Copy by David Meltzer, and Way More West by Ed Dorn. He is also editor of The Collected Poems of Philip Whalen published by Wesleyan University Press.
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"Out of a seeming mist of in-the-moment observations Michael Rothenberg treats us to hawk-like swoops of intellect that land unerringly on startling insights. He gives us the world that hides from the world and does so with wit, compassion and an ease with technique that renders his poems both masterful and readable." - Robert Priest
"From under the Northern California Redwoods, Michael Rothenberg writes with an abundantly concerned and familiar voice, commenting freely about the world at large and matters at hand, keeping a sharp look at the aftershocks of reality in a future which happens to be 'now'. A delightful book for our times." - Joanne Kyger
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El Habib Louai is a Moroccan poet and translator. He edited and translated an anthology of contemporary Moroccan poetry, recently published in Big Bridge Magazine. He is at the moment translating poetry by both Michael Rothenberg and Allen Ginsberg into Arabic for publication. Louai’s work has appeared in Big Bridge Magazine, Danse Macabre du Jour, Contemporary Literary Review India, Palestine Chronicle, Troubadour 2, Xenophile: A Journal of Comparative Literature, and the African Journal of History and Culture. |
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Youssef Alaoui-Fdili is a Moroccan-American Latino. His family and heritage are an endless source of inspiration for his varied, dark, spiritual and carnal writings. His work has appeared in Exquisite Corpse, 580 Split, Cherry Bleeds, Carcinogenic Poetry, Red Fez, and was nominated for the Pushcart prize at Full of Crow. Youssef’s novella The Blue Demon is available on Amazon and other bookstores.
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Jonathan Lethem, Saturday, September 28th
photo: Fred Benenson
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At the center of Jonathan Lethem's superb new novel stand two extraordinary women. Rose Zimmer, the aptly nicknamed Red Queen of Sunnyside, Queens, is an unreconstructed Communist and mercurial tyrant who terrorizes her neighborhood and her family with the ferocity of her personality and the absolutism of her beliefs. Her brilliant and willful daughter, Miriam, is equally passionate in her activism, but flees Rose's suffocating influence and embraces the Age of Aquarius counterculture of Greenwich Village.
Both women cast spells that entrance or enchain the men in their lives: Rose's aristocratic German Jewish husband, Albert; her nephew, the feckless chess hustler Lenny Angrush; Cicero Lookins, the brilliant son of her black cop lover; Miriam's (slightly fraudulent) Irish folksinging husband, Tommy Gogan; their bewildered son, Sergius. These flawed, idealistic people all struggle to follow their own utopian dreams in an America where radicalism is viewed with bemusement, hostility, or indifference.
As the decades pass—from the parlor communism of the '30s, McCarthyism, the civil rights movement, ragged '70s communes, the romanticization of the Sandinistas, up to the Occupy movement of the moment—we come to understand through Lethem's extraordinarily vivid storytelling that the personal may be political, but the political, even more so, is personal.
Brilliantly constructed as it weaves across time and among characters, Dissident Gardens is riotous and haunting, satiric and sympathetic—and a joy to read. |
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