Sunset Writers Extravaganza
Readings by local writers and poets living and working in the Sunset.
Join us at Black Bird Bookstore, as we host a plethora of amazing writers and poets based right here in the Outer Avenues! Readers for the evening will include:
Amy Berkowitz is the author of Gravitas (Éditions du Noroît / Total Joy, 2023) and Tender Points (Nightboat Books, 2019). Her writing and conversations have appeared in publications including Bitch, The Believer, BOMB, and Jewish Currents. She lives in San Francisco, where she co-hosts the Light Jacket Reading Series. More at amyberko.com.
Jennifer S. Cheng is a hybrid writer whose work explores immigrant home-building, shadow poetics, and the interior wilderness. She is the author of MOON: LETTERS, MAPS, POEMS (2018), named a Publishers Weekly “Best Book of 2018” and HOUSE A (2016), selected by Claudia Rankine for the Omnidawn Poetry Prize. She has received awards and fellowships from Brown University, the University of Iowa, San Francisco State University, the National Endowment for the Arts, the U.S. Fulbright program, Kundiman, MacDowell, Bread Loaf, and the Academy of American Poets. www.jenniferscheng.com
Sarah Heady is a poet and essayist interested in place, history, and the built environment. The author of two full-length poetry collections, Comfort (Spuyten Duyvil, 2022) and Niagara Transnational (Fourteen Hills, 2013), she is also the librettist of Halcyon, a documentary opera about the death and life of a women’s college. Sarah is the recipient of residencies from the Corporation of Yaddo, In Cahoots, Bethany Arts Community, and Art Farm. Raised in New York’s Hudson Valley, she lives in San Francisco, where she co-edits Drop Leaf Press, a small women-run poetry collective. More at sarahheady.com.
Monica Mody is a poet, scholar, and educator working at the intersections of liminal knowing/language, earth medicine, and decolonial frameworks of wholeness. She is the author of the full-length collection Bright Parallel (Copper Coin), the cross-genre Kala Pani (1913 Press), and three chapbooks including Ordinary Annals (above/ground press). Her writing has won awards including the Sparks Prize, the Zora Neale Hurston Award, and the TOTO Award. Performances include the Asian American Writers' Workshop, Delta Mouth, UCSD New Writing Series, and Noise Pop. Monica was born in Ranchi, India, and lives in San Francisco. More at drmonicamody.com.
Amanda Moore
Amanda Moore’s Requeening (ECCO 2021) was selected for the National Poetry Series by Ocean Vuong, featured in Oprah Magazine's Favorite Things issue, and a finalist for the Northern California Book Award. She lives in the Outer Sunset with her husband and daughter. http://amandapmoore.com
Maxwell Shanley is a poet, playwright, and musician. He is the author of There Are Trees (Drop Leaf Press, 2017) and the full-length poetry manuscript Filament & Void. He is currently working on a lyric essay collection called Haze Alias as well as a series of twenty-syllable poems entitled Galaxie 500 & Other Days. He lives in San Francisco, where he works as a bookseller.
Shawn Wen is a writer and podcast producer. Her writing has appeared in n+1, frieze, The Believer, The New Inquiry, The Seneca Review, The Iowa Review, The White Review, and the anthology City by City: Dispatches. Her radio work has broadcast on This American Life, Morning Edition, All Things Considered, and Marketplace, and her video work has screened at MoMA and elsewhere. She is the recipient of numerous fellowships and awards, including the Ford Foundation Professional Journalism Training Fellowship and the Krause Essay Prize from the University of Iowa’s Nonfiction Writing Program.
Shelley Wong is the author of As She Appears (YesYes Books, 2022), longlisted for the National Book Award. She lives in San Francisco. www.shelley-wong.com