If you’re an avid reader or if you’re interested in anyone of the authors in this year’s lineup, join us to learn about them and to hear more about their work. You can find more information about each guest and their work in the image below.
The link to each event will be posted here on Forum three days in advance so make sure you check back with us for the link! For any further questions, comment below.
Lit Night is back! Have you been churning out poems and stories and essays that you are desperate to share ? Are you perhaps looking for inspiration and a regular meet up with fellow writers?
Please join the Get Lit crowd TONIGHT! You can come to read or come to listen.
You will need –A preying mantis rescued from a lawnmower –Five ants rescued from a kitchen where the balabosta was going to crush them. –A wrapped piece of grocery cake Hostess or my new favorite that comes from Mexico white cake covered in chocolate with some spots of red jelly Gansito –Your favorite pair of colored socks –Your favorite pair of comfortable worn-out socks –A book you’re been meaning to read –Miscellaneous secret government files –My mother Felice’s fountain pen with something in her handwriting –My father Eli’s thimble he used as a tailor –One of my grandfather Wulf’s Hebrew Prayer Books –Something my grandmother Rachel has sewn
–A short piece played on the piano by my sister Ruth –The smell of the beach of Riis Park on a hot summer’s day –A worn pair of my dance shoes –The tights I started to knit and stopped at the calf of the second leg and then forgot how to knit altogether –Photos of the local people who went to see the last performance of Beach Blanket Babylon closing after forty-five years including Nancy Pelosi, Diane Feinstein and Dick Blum –Some of the DNA from elephants, lions, giraffes, feral cats –Some bit of giant Redwoods and Sequoias –The wisps of laughter, puzzlements, revelations of my now gone family and friends
(Add all of yours) Whoosh them all together in a beautiful canyon someplace in New Mexico
where they will create a whirling–like a soft tornado up to the horizon
and out to cover the world And surely this will save the human species in 2020.
Helen Dannenberg writes with the Older Writers Lab. She takes various arts-related classes and featured her assemblages in Open Studios 2019. She participates with San Francisco Recreation and Parks Cosmic Elders and has been a dancer and choreographer, and worked as an Activity Director and Social Services Coordinator in skilled nursing facilities.
Cedar Pass, Linocut print, by Teresa Beatty
A San Francisco based artist, Teresa Beatty has spent the last few years honing her skills in printmaking and drawing. Her interests span from scientific illustration to art therapy. In pursuit of bettering her craft she’s traveled across the globe. She uses art as a tool for healing, expression and connection.
Crimson bleeds on her clean pink jumper, blooming, like Poppies in October, the Plath poem which has nothing to do with poppies, the wounded woman’s heart a watercolor seeping.
Fresh ruby drops just as we were ready to go home, declaring a reminder that everything is not normal, everything is not as it should be, but the portals are open the veins are still alert, dripping, as the nurse removes the plastic tubing dangling from the crook of her arm, a thief tapping into a pot of gold striking it rich before her veins collapse.
I want to slide inside a pair of Emily‘s flannel pajamas, slip into my bed and pretend that everything will be fine, that she will be here to create art with me in my retirement in her little downstairs studio, with gelli plates squeezing tubes of fine gold acrylic rolling, watching it smear and shine translucent spreading onto every inch of plain paper.
Snuggling beside her in the hospital bed feeling her beating heart, holding her hand and we are laughing at Jim Carrey impugning god in Bruce Almighty when she asks me quietly, Do you know whether you want to be cremated or what? Emily who has organized everything down to the intimate notes she has kept for 20 years, then carefully hand bound into a creative atlas to celebrate a life, has not prepared her burial plans. She is leaving that up to us to spread her sifted bones.
Diana Feiger grew up in Sandwich, Kent, UK and moved to the Bay Area in 1986. She finds inspiration in nature and from the miraculous and mundane aspects of life. Small moments and phrases can capture the imagination.
Happy Pine Cone, Charcoal Drawing by Travis Yallup
Travis Yallup is a contemporary realist who lives and works in San Francisco. He has studied art at various colleges and universities over the past eleven years and has developed a preference for drawing and painting in a variety of mediums. His focus usually comes from life, photos, and collages and he often draws an inspiration from influences such as Andrew Wyeth and Vija Celmins.
Jason Syzdlik studied poetry at City College of San Francisco.
KARMAGIA, illustration by Joshua Yule
Joshua Yule has actively been producing artwork including print, screen printing, illustrations, and digital illustrations for the likes of many local Bay area bands for almost two decades.
don’t follow me like that with your sleazy saunter and those toned (bone-d) twigs wobbling wedges dollbaby dress hippie handbag and impossibly long locks the color of crows (screaming murder!) the color of cats, those black island cats, following me all over staring me down with eyes the color of citrine
don’t look at me like that holding your ground as i back toward my car posing against the cemeterial scene thousands of stones millions of bones dressed in summer green with floral accents languidly tossing, up and down, up and down, a white ball daring me to hold my ground staring me down through eyes the color of that ball (eyes with no color at all) don’t haunt me like that
the other patron in the red water bar the passenger in the back seat of my car the visitor at my bedroom door that’s ajar silent, insistent that we go back to play at the alae*
*alae – a cemetery outside hilo, a city on hawaii’s big island
Sarah Elliott is a poet, classical pianist, and opera coach, who in her spare time practices law in San Francisco.
Children Forever Dream, Victor Bhatti
Born in Karachi, Pakistan, Victor Bhatti started practicing graffiti art on paper at the age of 8, emboldened by the walls around his neighborhood. He works in a number of mediums, including spray paint, airbrush, acrylics, oils, pastels, color pencil, and more. Children Forever Dream is the name of an artist collective he founded to bring together community artists and inspire the next generation.
I received my English degree with a Spanish minor from CSU Stanislaus in Spring 2019, and I will complete my creative writing certificate at CCSF in Spring 2020. Writing is my passion, but I also dabble in drawing, painting, photography, and performance. My work has appeared in Penumbra Literary Magazine.
It’s Not a Salt Shaker by Travis Yallup
It’s Not A Saltshaker by Travis Yallup
Travis Yallup is a contemporary realist who lives and works in San Francisco. He has studied art at various colleges and universities over the past eleven years and has developed a preference for drawing and painting in a variety of mediums. His focus usually comes from life, photos, and collages and he often draws an inspiration from influences such as Andrew Wyeth and Vija Celmins.
Steven Louis Ray is a multidisciplinary artist working in traditional film and darkroom processes, in addition to writing and recording experimental music and writing poetry. He’s currently slogging his way to a creative writing certificate and studying printmaking at City College of San Francisco. More of his photography can be viewed at stevenlouisray.com
Art Title: The Little People in our Plants
Artist: Bianca Joy Catolos
Bianca Joy Catolos is a graphic designer based in the Bay Area with a passion for drawing and illustration. She illustrates to document memories, stories, and assets of life in a quirky, abstract and colorful way to share and commentate how she sees people and world. Bianca is a digital artist with a traditional background in painting and often mixes the two to create endless worlds and scenes to fuel the imagination.
Rocio Ramirez is a Counselor who works with families. She has a Masters in Counseling Psychology and a Certificate in Expressive arts therapies. She has been a Presenter for IVAT, Center for the Prevention of Abuse and Trauma, in La Jolla. She has recently presented on the use of Sandplay therapy and Collage with Domestic violence survivors. She is currently writing a book on sandplay therapy and art therapy with disenfranchised populations. She is always happiest when she is next to the sea.
Art Title: Canid I
Artist: Teresa Beatty
San Francisco based artist, Teresa Beatty, has spent the last few years honing her skills in printmaking and drawing. Her interests span from scientific illustration to art therapy. In pursuit of bettering her craft she’s traveled across the globe. She uses art as a tool for healing, expression and connection.