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Category Archives: Community Events
LAUNCH PARTY: Pictures and Recap
Wow! We had an amazing turn out at our Fall 2019 Launch Party last week. The back room of Alley Cat Books was full to the brim. We got to hear some of the amazing local voices published in print and on the blog and some spontaneous Open Mic readers from our CCSF community. All the literary fun was accompanied by delicious food and drinks. We also got a chance to see some of the impressive short films that we’ll be publishing on the blog–stay tuned!
If you missed your chance to grab the newest issue, don’t despair! You can pick up your copy, still fresh off the press, from Alley Cat Bookstore and Gallery or the English Lab in the Rosenberg Library at the Ocean Campus.
Also, Forum magazine is an entirely student-produced magazine. The Forum class is just one of many creative writing classes offered by the English department at CCSF!
Looking for a certificate? Taking the Forum class and others like it will get you the Creative Writing Certificate. You can get more information here. Check out the Spring 2020 schedule, and register for some classes! We’ll see you in the spring!
Finally, many thanks are due to those who made this issue so beautiful, inspiring, and memorable. Thank you to the entire Forum team, our hardworking editors, our even harder working instructors, and especially our Visual Media Design partners. But most of all, thank you to all the creators out there who let us publish your work. This wouldn’t be possible without you!
Check out some pictures from the night.
©Tigran Demurjian
Tommy Orange: Pics and Recap
©Tigran Demurjian
Wow! We had the immense honor of hosting Tommy Orange, author of There, There, at City College this past Wednesday. Mr. Orange was interviewed by CCSF instructor, activist, and author Benjamin Bac Sierra. He spoke about his recent novel and his plans for the future. This was great opportunity for the writers in the crowd because Mr. Orange spoke extensively about his writing process, the books and writers that have influenced him, and how he applies his past experience as a musician to his writing today. Mr. Orange then read a passage from his novel. It was amazing to see an author read their own work how they intended it to be read; his reading was powerful and inspiring. The event was concluded with a Q&A and book signing session.
This is only one of the many amazing events that Forum is involved with! Stay tuned for more–check the blog and our social media! And don’t forget about our Launch Party on December 18th 2019, from 6-9PM @Alley Cat Bookstore in the Mission District. Save the date!
Photos ©Tigran Demurjian
TOMMY ORANGE @ CCSF
We have the immense honor of hosting Tommy Orange, Pulitzer Prize Finalist and author of There, There, at CCSF’s Ocean Campus. Come join Forum for the unique opportunity to hear a local author speak about this beautiful novel, on Wednesday Novemeber 20th, from 10:30 to 12:30, @ the Diego Rivera Theater at the Ocean Campus.
From the City College website:
“Tommy Orange is the author of There There, a multi-generational, relentlessly paced story about a side of America few of us have ever seen: the lives of urban Native Americans. Pulitzer Prize Nominee and one of The New York Times’ top books of 2018, There There shows us violence and recovery, hope and loss, identity and power, dislocation and communion, and the beauty and despair woven into the history of a nation and its people. Orange talks about his craft, the writing process, and Native American history and culture, often meticulously researched visual presentations.”
Members of the Forum team will be there! Stay tuned for a recap and pictures!
The event is free and open to the public.
Author Reading: Carolina de Robertis
Join us at for a reading from Carolina De Robertis’ new novel Cantoras and a discussion about writing and its relationship with social change.
Monday, Novemeber 4th, from 1-2:30pm @ the Rosenberg Library at Ocean Campus, room 305.
Free and open to the public!
More about De Robertis:
A writer of Uruguayan origins, Carolina De Robertis is the author of the novels Cantoras, The Gods of Tango, Perla, and the international bestseller The Invisible Mountain. She is also an award-winning translator of Latin American and Spanish literature, and editor of the anthology Radical Hope: Letters of Love and Dissent in Dangerous Times, which features essays by leading thinkers and writers in response to the shifting political atmosphere in the U.S. In 2017, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts named De Robertis on its 100 List of “people, organizations, and movements that are shaping the future of culture.” She teaches fiction and literary translation at San Francisco State University, and lives in Oakland, California, with her wife and two children. 
Poetry Reading: Joseph Lease
Join us tomorrow night at the Mission Campus at 6pm for a reading featuring Joseph Lease.
His critically acclaimed books of poetry include The Body Ghost (Coffee House Press, 2018), Testify (Coffee House Press, 2011), and Broken World (Coffee House Press, 2007). Lease’s poems “‘Broken World’ (For James Assatly)” and “Send My Roots Rain” were anthologized in Postmodern American Poetry: A Norton Anthology. Lease’s poem “‘Broken World’ (For James Assatly)” was anthologized in The Best American Poetry (Robert Creeley, Guest Editor). His poem “Free Again (Why don’t people)” was published in The New York Times.
Of The Body Ghost, David Shapiro wrote: “When I was very young, my father a ‘skin doctor’ would show gleaming models of body parts at medical fairs. They frightened my sisters but they were also illuminations of a whole world. Joseph’s poems are like these terrifying wholes/holes. They travel into us. Joseph has been 2 making an American Buddhist poetry, and he is as maximalist as flesh and bone. He gives me the sensation that poetry is in gleaming hands, healing and grasping and letting go. He is the future of poetry.”
CCSF’s Mission Campus, 1125 Valencia St., Room109
October 17, 2019 6:00-8:00 PM
Author Reading Tonight: Sehba Sarwar, Fan Wu, and liz gonzález
Come to the San Francisco Library’s Main Branch tonight for readings and book signings from three female authors with diverse cultural backgrounds: Sehba Sarwar, Fan Wu, and liz gonzález.
The event is happening at the Chinese Room at the Main library tonight, Thursday 10/10 from 5:30-7:00. The Main Library is in downtown San Francisco, right off Market street and next to Civic Center BART.
From the SFPL’s website:
“This literary event celebrates women of color authors, who will be reading from and talking about their writing and how their various backgrounds influence their creative works. Award-winning Pakistani writer and artist, Sehba Sarwar, will read from her recently-published debut novel Black Wings. This book is about a story of a mother and daughter who struggle to meet across the generations, cultures and secrets that separate them. Bay Area-based writer Fan Wu will read from her critically acclaimed novels including Beautiful as Yesterday, a book about two sisters who were born and brought up in China and now reside in the United States. Her writing explores the impact of history and memories on one’s life. And fourth-generation Southern Californian liz gonzález will share from her multi-genre collection Dancing in the Santa Ana Winds. Her book explores memories, pivotal experiences and cultural influences that shaped her when growing up as a nontraditional Catholic Mexican American in San Bernardino.
A book sale and signing will follow the event.”
Lit Crawl 2018!
Adobe Books in San Francisco’s Mission District sponsored many events for Lit Quake 2018 and on Saturday, October 20th they sponsored contributors of CCSF’s Forum Literary Magazine for the final day of Lit Crawl 2018!!
The well-attended event on Saturday, October 20th at 6pm had writers Jackie Davis-Martin, Matt Andrews, bloodflower, Vincent Calvarese, Matt Luedke and Zachariah Hauptman.
Forum Magazine would like to thank Adobe Books, CCSF English Department faculty Jen Sullivan-Brych, Jackie Davis-Martin, Chante McCormick, John Isles, Julie Young, Leila Easa, Cullen Bailey Burns .
Forum 11/18 Fundraiser: Pupusas and Poetry!
Help support the publication of Forum Magazine, City College of San Francisco’s literary journal. Members from the community will be reading poetry, and all donations are appreciated. Food and drinks are free but limited, and available for purchase.
HAVARIE/COLLISION (LITQUAKE SF; OCTOBER 13TH, 2017, 6:00PM-8:30PM)
The European Refugee Crisis: Havarie and the Art of Slow Cinema
Alamo Drafthouse Cinema (2550 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA 94110) 6:00PM-8:45PM, October 13, 2017
$15 adv./door
Moderator: Nilgun Bayraktar
Participants: Merle Kröger, Philip Scheffner
Goethe-Institut San Francisco presents a reading with Merle Kröger (Radio Bremen Crime Novel Award 2015 / German Crime Novel Award 2016) and a film screening with Philip Scheffner in collaboration with the Litquake Festival and the Center for the Art of Translation.
Inspired by a short cellphone video of a raft of refugees, shot by a tourist from the deck of a cruise ship, Merle Kröger and Philip Scheffner created both a feature film and a novel, Havarie (Collision). Scheffner’s film loops the original clip into a haunting 90-minute “slow cinema” hallucination and meditation on the nature of refugees, while Kröger’s book unspools a crime story from the same collection of characters. Kröger reads from her book, followed by a screening of Havarie, and then an onstage discussion with both Kröger and Scheffner. Moderated by CCA film professor Nilgun Bayraktar. (LitQuake 2017)
