Written on the Dock of the Bay is your weekly guide to literary and bookish happenings in the pleasantly literary and bookish Bay Area.
Saturday, May 25
East Bay on the Brain Reading Series // East Bay on the Brain showcases the brains, or at the very least the talent, of East Bay writers. Books will be for sale! Drinks will be sold! The series also claims to “stimulate neurotransmitters,” but this is probably not as scary as it sounds. // DETAILS: Saturday, May 25, 6:30 – 8:30pm. The Layover. 1517 Franklin Street, Oakland, CA
Sunday, May 26
Drunken Spelling Bee // A lot of things are fun to do while drunk that aren't so fun otherwise. Like dancing. Or singing. Or … spelling. Spelling? According to Jim Mora, the host of the Drunken Spelling Bee at Cafe Royale, yes. In this game, you drink every time you get a letter wrong. If you get it right, you get to drink, too! In fact, you have a chance to win free drinks. If you enter, there's an all-you-can-drink from tap beers for $15. If you don't drink, you can watch the event for free, but your presence will be mildly confusing. // DETAILS: Sunday, May 26, 6pm. Cafe Royale. 800 Post Street, San Francisco, CA
Poetry Flash // Poetry Flash is flashing through Diesel Bookstore yet again, this time featuring Tim Kahl and Joshua McKinney. Tim Kahl's new book The Century of Travelexplores the end of the West – and since we're kind of near the West, or maybe because we are the West, it might be worth hearing about how we're gone. Joshua McKinney's Mad Cursiveis totally different: it's about the unlikely fusion of martial and literary arts. // DETAILS: Sunday, May 26, 3pm. Diesel Bookstore. 5433 College Ave, Oakland, CA
Wednesday, May 29
My Dirty Dumb Eyes Reading // Lisa Hanawalt will be at Pegasus Books Downtown to discuss and sign copies of her newly released book, My Dirty Dumb Eyes. If you've checked out her illustration book, you'll see that her eyes may not be dumb – at least not as far as eyes go – but they are definitely dirty. We're talking pornographic lizards in a field of windswept flowers. We're talking splattered cat and horse intestines following a predictable driving accident. In one illustration, birds lay their offspring inside the shell of a horse. If you're asking yourself, “But what does that mean?” then you might want to come to Pegasus to ask the illustrator herself. // DETAILS: Wednesday, May 29, 7:30pm. Pegasus Books. 2349 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley, CA
Thursday, May 30
The Stick Soldiers Reading // Hugh Martin, Brandon Shimoda, and Greg Wrenn will be at Mrs. Dalloway’s to read The Stick Soldiers – a Poulin Prize-winning debut poetry collection by Iraq War veteran Hugh Martin. In the Forward, Cornelius Eady sums up the collection eloquently as “poetry from a scab...and now, the full shock and beauty and mystery of the things of war that won’t let go will stick to you.” // Thursday, May 30, 7pm. Mrs. Dalloway’s. 2904 College Avenue. Berkeley, CA
