Dear Labbers and Friends of The Lab, 

It's already Week 6 of The Lab. The thematic question arching over this cycle has been very Rumpelstiltskin: how do artists spin gold out of straw? Or, what are the processes and practices that have allowed artists to transform their fury and feelings of grief in response to loss or injustice or both into something complex and beautiful, into something funny or healing? Into art? So far we've studied and experimented with processes inspired by composer Gustav Mahler, artist Janine Antoni, writer/actor Laura Dern & writer/actor Mike White, fiction writer Zulema Renee Summerfield, and poet Ellen Bass. Stay tuned for a more detailed recap. For now, I wanted to encourage those of you in San Francisco to get out to LitQuake. 

So many Labbers, friends of The Lab, and writers we've studied at The Lab are participating in LitQuake and LitCrawl. I will surely and unintentionally leave many off this list. I'm afraid we already missed Jessica Powell's LitQuake talk, but you can check out her debut novel The Big Disruption here. And read about it here. Last night Labber Arline Klatte co-hosted A Night of Storytelling with Porchlight. This is a great San Francisco storytelling series. Learn more here.

Please check out the full LitQuake schedule here. 

Here are a few coming up:

Wednesday, October 17th, Terry Beswick will participate in Beefcake: 50 Years of Tom of Finland at 7pm and Matthew James DeCoster has produced Literary Death Match at 7:15. 

Friday, October 19th, Ethel Rohan is part of a great lineup for Global Fiction: The Novel and The World

Saturday, October 20th, Lab fave Transit Books will be at Lit Crawl Book Fair during the day and then that evening Labbers Celeste Chan, Matthew James DeCoster, Natasha Dennerstein, Jase Peeples, and I will all be reading. 

I hope to see some of you there and if you do spot me, please say hi.