Literary Speakeasy at Martuni’s (SF)

Submitted by the Event Organizer

Literary Speakeasy returns on March 30 for another evening of Bay Area authors and the best martinis in town. This month’s featured readers include Guy Biederman, Lee Kravetz, Giovanna Lomanto, William Taylor Jr., and Chun Yu. Your host and curator every month is James J. Siegel.

Literary Speakeasy is always FREE with NO drink minimum. Arrive early and receive a FREE raffle ticket for your chance to win the evening’s secret speakeasy prize. Come on out and raise a glass with us!

Performer bios:
Guy Biederman is the author of six books including Translated From The Original, one-inch punch fiction (Nomadic Press, December 2022).  Guy has been a peace corps volunteer, gardener, and creative writing instructor at San Francisco State, College of Marin and privately. He’s hooked on Heart coffee, unlined moleskin journals, and speed bag workouts, which are a lot like writing, sometimes. But he can quit anytime. Guy lives on a houseboat with his wife and tuxedo cat and walks the planks daily. guybiederman.com

Giovanna Lomanto is an Oakland-based, Pushcart Prize-nominated poet and teaching artist. An alumnus of U.C. Berkeley and a current MFA candidate at NYU’s low-residency program, her work has been featured on KALW, the Worth-Ryder Art Gallery, the SFMOMA archive, and various literary magazines. She is the author of two poetry collections: “no body in particular” (Scrambler Books, 2019) and “jupiter fell out the sky last night” (Bound to Brew, 2021) as well as a poetry box/art edition called “erase this: prose poem for the sentimentalist” (RITE Editions, 2021). She serves as the host/curator of The Living Room Series & Salon at Syzygy in San Francisco.

Dior J. Stephens is a proud pisces hailing from Midwestern waters. He is the author of the chapbooks SCREAMS & lavender, 001, and CANNON!. Their debut full-length collection, CRUEL/CRUEL, is out now with Nightboat Books. They happily serve as the Managing Poetry Editor of Foglifter Journal and Press. You can find their work in Ligeia Mag, Foglifter, Ex-Puritan, and more. Keep up with them on twitter at @dolphinneptune and Instagram at @dolphinphotos.

William Taylor Jr. lives and writes in San Francisco. He is the author of numerous books of poetry, and a volume of fiction. His work has been published widely in literary journals, including Rattle, The New York Quarterly, and The Chiron Review. He was a recipient of the 2013 Kathy Acker Award, and edited Cocky Moon: Selected Poems of Jack Micheline (Zeitgeist Press, 2014). Pretty Things to Say, (Six Ft. Swells Press, 2020) is his latest collection of poetry.  A new collection is forthcoming from Roadside Press in 2023.

Chun Yu, Ph.D. is an award-winning bilingual (English and Chinese) poet, graphic novelist, scientist, and translator. She is the author of a memoir in verse “Little Green: Growing Up During the Chinese Cultural Revolution” (Simon & Schuster) and a historical graphic novel in progress (Macmillan). Her poetry and translations are nominated for the Pushcart Prize (2021 & 2022). She is an honoree of YBCA 100 award (2020) for creative changemakers. She is a Library Laureate 2023 of Friends of SFPL. She has won support from San Francisco Arts Commission, Zellerbach, Poets & Writers, and Sankofa Fund. Her work is taught in world history and culture classes. Her website: www.chunyu.org.

Disclaimer: Please double check event information with the event organizer as events can be canceled, details can change after they are added to our calendar, and errors do occur.