Nalo, Beagle, et alia reading in San Francisco on Tuesday
This coming Tuesday, June 13, there are two events in San Francisco, at the same time and in different places, that I don't want to miss:
Nalo Hopkinson, Dorothy Allison, Kate Bornstein, and Imani Henry are reading at the SF Public Library (100 Larkin St., at Grove) as part of the Radar Reading Series. This reading starts at 6:00 p.m., which will make it hard for me to get there from Mountain View on a work day. But I suspect it'll be totally worth it. Nalo is brilliant, and I don't get to hear her read often enough. Dorothy Allison is best known as the author of Bastard Out of Carolina (which I still haven't read), but also wrote a book of essays titled Skin: Talking About Sex, Class, and Literature, which I've been reading and loving lately; one that I particularly like is about what science fiction meant to her when she was growing up in poverty in the South (and hadn't yet come out as a lesbian). I've recently encountered conflicting opinions about Kate Bornstein's work, but I've found what I've read of her writing about gender really interesting. I'm unfamiliar with Imani Henry, but he sounds interesting, and it seems likely that someone who'd be scheduled with those other three is someone I'd like to know more about.
That same evening, Peter S. Beagle and Katherine Kerr will be reading at New College Valencia Theatre, 777 Valencia St., as part of Terry Bisson's SF in SF reading series. This reading starts at 7:00 p.m., and costs $4 to attend. It would be slightly easier for me to get there on time (than to get to the other reading on time), and I don't think I've ever heard Beagle read in person, and he's one of my favorite authors, and I've heard good things about Kerr's work (but confess that I don't think I've read any of it).
I think I'm gonna try to make it to the library reading. I have a recording of Beagle reading The Last Unicorn, which isn't the same but at least is something, and Nalo doesn't make it out thisaway very often, and I really want to hear Allison read. But it's a tough choice.
And I'm not sure I can manage either one. We'll see.
Anyway, if you're available and in San Francisco that evening, I bet both of these readings will be very much worth attending.
