LIVE! From City Lights

Francisco Goldman in conversation with Valeria Luiselli, discussing his new novel, "Monkey Boy," published by Grove Atlantic Press. This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis. You can purchase copies of "Monkey Boy" in hardcover or paperback directly from City Lights here: Hardcover - https://citylights.com/new-fiction-in-hardcover/monkey-boy/ Paperback - https://citylights.com/general-fiction/monkey-boy-3/ Francisco Goldman has published four novels and two books of non-fiction. "The Long Night of White Chickens" was awarded the American Academy's Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction. His novels have been finalists for several prizes, including, twice, The Pen/Faulkner Prize. "The Ordinary Seaman" was a finalist for The International IMPAC Dublin literary award. "The Divine Husband" was a finalist for The Believer Book Award. "The Art of Political Murder" won The Index on Censorship T.R. Fyvel Book Award and The WOLA/Duke Human Rights Book Award. "The Interior Circuit: A Mexico City Chronicle," published in 2013, was named by the LA Times one of 10 best books of the year and received The Blue Metropolis "Premio Azul" 2017. His most recent novel, "Say Her Name," won the 2011 Prix Femina Etranger. His books have been published in 16 languages. Valeria Luiselli was born in Mexico City and grew up in South Korea, South Africa and India. An acclaimed writer of both fiction and nonfiction, she is the author of the essay collection "Sidewalks;" the novels "Faces in the Crowd" and "The Story of My Teeth;" "Tell Me How It Ends: An Essay in Forty Questions" and "Lost Children Archive." She is the recipient of a 2019 MacArthur Fellowship and the winner of two Los Angeles Times Book Prizes, The Carnegie Medal, an American Book Award, and has been nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Kirkus Prize, and the Booker Prize. She has been a National Book Foundation "5 Under 35" honoree and the recipient of a Bearing Witness Fellowship from the Art for Justice Fund. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Granta, and McSweeney's, among other publications, and has been translated into more than twenty languages. She is a Writer in Residence at Bard College and lives in New York City. This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

A memorial tribute to Michael McClure with readings and remembrances by Russ Tamblyn, CAConrad, Margaret Randall, Forrest Gander, George Herms, Henry Kaiser, Jerome Rothenberg, Cedar Sigo, Garrett Caples, Paul Nelson, Lyn Hejinian, Andrew Schelling, Amy McClure, Jane McClure, and Joanna McClure. This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis. Michael McClure (1932-2020) was an award-winning American poet, playwright, songwriter, and novelist. After moving to San Francisco as a young man, he was one of the five poets who participated in the Six Gallery reading that featured the public debut of Allen Ginsberg's landmark poem "Howl." A key figure of the Beat Generation, McClure is immortalized as Pat McLear in Jack Kerouac's novels The Dharma Bums and Big Sur. He also participated in the 60s counterculture alongside musicians like Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison. He taught for many years at California College of the Arts and lived with his wife, Amy, in the San Francisco Bay Area. This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

City Lights celebrates the final book by the late Beat Generation legend Michael McClure. Anne Waldman, Eileen Myles, and Garrett Caples read from and discuss the work of the late poet in this book launch for "Mule Kick Blues: And Last Poems" published by City Lights. This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis. You can purchase copies of "Mule Kick Blues: And Last Poems" directly from City Lights at a 30% discount here: https://citylights.com/beat-literature-poetry-history/mule-kick-blues/ Anne Waldman co-founded the Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado, where she still teaches. Her poetry collections include Iovis I, Iovis II, Fast Speaking Woman, Helping the Dreamer, Kill or Cure, and Trickster Feminism. She is a recipient of the Shelley Memorial Award. Eileen Myles is an acclaimed poet and writer who has published over twenty works of fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and libretto. Their prizes and awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Warhol/Creative Capital grant, an award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and a poetry award from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts. Garrett Caples is a poet and freelance writer who lives in San Francisco and is an editor for City Lights, where he curates the Spotlight Poetry Series. He is the author of three full-length poetry collections and a book of essays. He is the co-editor of The Collected Poems of Philip Lamantia (California, 2013), Particulars of Place (Omnidawn, 2015) by Richard O. Moore, Incidents of Travel in Poetry: New and Selected Poems by Frank Lima (City Lights, 2016), and Arcana: A Stephen Jonas Reader (City Lights, 2019) He has a Ph.D. in English from UC Berkeley. This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

Erica Hunt and Michael Palmer, reading from their new works: Hunt reading from her new collection "Jump The Clock," published by Nightboat, and Palmer reading from "Little Elegies for Sister Satan," published by New Directions. This event was originally broadcast via Zoom and hosted by Josiah Luis Alderete. You can purchase copies of "Jump the Clock" and "Little Elegies for Sister Satan" directly from City Lights here: "Jump the Clock" - https://citylights.com/general-poetry/jump-the-clock-new-sel-poems/ "Little Elegies for Sister Satan" - https://citylights.com/general-poetry/little-elegies-for-sister-satan/ Erica Hunt is a poet and essayist, author of Local History, Arcade, Piece Logic, Veronica: A Suite in X Parts, and Jump the Clock: New and Selected Poems, published by Nightboat Books in November 2020. Her poems and essays have appeared in BOMB, Boundary 2, Brooklyn Rail, The Los Angeles Review of Books, Poetics Journal, Tripwire, Recluse, In the American Tree, and Conjunctions. With Dawn Lundy Martin, Hunt is the editor of an anthology of new writing by Black women, Letters to the Future. Hunt has received awards from the Foundation for Contemporary Art, the Fund for Poetry, and the Djerassi Foundation and is a past fellow of Duke University/University of Capetown Program in Public Policy. She teaches at Brown University. Michael Palmer is an American born in New York City in 1943 and long resident in San Francisco, nearly all of Palmer's poetry is published by New Directions: At Passages (1995); The Lion Bridge: Selected Poems 1972–1995 (1998); The Promises of Glass (2000); Codes Appearing: Poems 1979–1988 (2001); Company of Moths (2005); and most recently, Thread (2011). He is the translator of works by Emmanuel Hocquard, Vicente Huidobro, and Alexei Parshchikov, among others, and the editor of "Code of Signals: Recent Writings in Poetics." For over thirty years he has collaborated with the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company. This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

Mary Beth Meehan with Fred Turner, celebrating the launch of their book "Seeing Silicon Valley: Life Inside a Fraying America" published by University of Chicago Press. This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis. You can purchase copies of "Seeing Silicon Valley: Life Inside a Fraying America" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/topographies/seeing-silicone-valley/ Mary Beth Meehan is a photographer known for her large-scale, community-based portraiture centered around questions of representation, visibility, and social equity in the United States. She lives in New England, where she has lectured at Brown University, Rhode Island School of Design, and Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Fred Turner is Harry and Norman Chandler Professor of Communication at Stanford University. He is the author of the books "The Democratic Surround" and "From Counterculture to Cyberculture" both published by the University of Chicago Press. This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

Carribean Fragoza in conversation with Héctor Tobar, celebrating the launch of her new book "Eat the Mouth That Feeds You", published by City Lights Books. This event was originally broadcast via Zoom and hosted by Josiah Luis Alderete. You can purchase copies of "Eat the Mouth That Feeds You" directly from City Lights at a 30% discount here: https://citylights.com/city-lights-published/eat-the-mouth-that-feeds-you/ The daughter of Mexican immigrants, Carribean Fragoza was raised in South El Monte, California. After graduating from UCLA, Fragoza completed the Creative Writing MFA Program at CalArts, where she worked with writers Douglas Kearney and Norman Klein. Fragoza is founder of Vicious Ladies, a new website publishing womxn, queer, and non-binary critics of color. She co-edits UC Press's acclaimed California cultural journal, Boom California, and is also the founder of South El Monte Arts Posse, an interdisciplinary arts collective. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in numerous publications, including Zyzzyva, Alta, BOMB, Huizache, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. She is the co-editor of "East of East: The Making of Greater El Monte" and Senior Writer at the Tropics of Meta. Carribean is the Coordinator of the Kingsley and Kate Tufts Poetry Award at Claremont Graduate University, and she lives in the San Gabriel Valley in LA County. Héctor Tobar is the author of five books published in fifteen languages, including the critically acclaimed, New York Times bestseller: "Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine and the Miracle That Set Them Free." Héctor is also a contributing writer for the New York Times opinion pages and an associate professor at the University of California, Irvine. He's written for The New Yorker, The Los Angeles Times and other publications. His short fiction has appeared in Best American Short Stories, L.A. Noir, Zyzzyva and Slate. His new novel is "The Last Great Road Bum," published by MCD/Farrar, Straus & Giroux. This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

Sesshu Foster and Arturo Ernesto Romo in conversation with Carribean Fragoza, celebrating the book launch of "ELADATL: A History of the East Los Angeles Dirigible Air Transport Lines," published by City Lights Books. This event was originally broadcast via Zoom and hosted by Josiah Luis Alderete. You can purchase copies of "ELADATL: A History of the East Los Angeles Dirigible Air Transport Lines" directly from City Lights at a 30% discount here: https://citylights.com/city-lights-published/eladatl-a-hist-of-the-east-la-dirigi/ Sesshu Foster taught composition and literature in East L.A. for over 20 years, and at the University of Iowa, the California Institute for the Arts, and the University of California, Santa Cruz. His work is published in The Oxford Anthology of Modern American Poetry, Language for a New Century: Poetry from the Middle East, Asia and Beyond, and State of the Union: 50 Political Poems. His most recent books are "City of the and "Atomik Aztex." Sesshu was awarded the American Book Award and the Asian American Literary Award in Poetry for "World Ball Notebook;" the Believer Book Award for "Atomik Aztex; an American Book Award for "Invocation LA: Urban Multicultural Poetry;" and finalist for the PEN Center West Poetry Prize, as well as the Paterson Poetry Prize, for "City Terrace Field Manual." Sesshu is based in Alhambra, CA. Arturo Ernesto Romo was born in Los Angeles, California in 1980. His artwork, mostly collaborative mixed media works but also drawing, has been circulated internationally. Fluency, agency and folly are central themes in his practice; he sees his artwork as a companion multiplier, folding folds, netting nets. His art-making is pushed through explorations on the streets of East and North East Los Angeles, which feed into an ongoing series of collaborations with Sesshu Foster. He is based in Alhambra, CA. Carribean Fragoza is the author of Eat the Mouth That Feeds You (City Lights), and founder of Vicious Ladies, a new website publishing womxn, queer, and non-binary critics of color. She co-edits UC Press's acclaimed California cultural journal, Boom California, and is also the founder of South El Monte Arts Posse, an interdisciplinary arts collective. Her fiction and nonfiction have appeared in numerous publications, including Zyzzyva, Alta, BOMB, Huizache, and the Los Angeles Review of Books. She is the co-editor of East of East: The Making of Greater El Monte and Senior Writer at the Tropics of Meta. Carribean is the Coordinator of the Kingsley and Kate Tufts Poetry Award at Claremont Graduate University, and she lives in the San Gabriel Valley in LA County. This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

Mira Sethi in conversation with Miranda Popkey, celebrating Mira Sethi's new short fiction collection "Are You Enjoying?" published by Alfred Knopf. This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis. You can purchase copies of "Are You Enjoying?" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/staff-picks-archive/are-you-enjoying-stories/ Mira Sethi is an actor and a writer. She grew up in Lahore and attended Wellesley College, after which Sethi worked as a books editor at The Wall Street Journal. She has written op-ed pieces for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Guardian. Sethi regularly appears in a mainstream Pakistani drama series on television. She lives in Lahore, Karachi, and San Francisco. Miranda Popkey is a writer, editor, and translator from the Italian. Her writing has appeared in The New Republic, The New Yorker’s page-turner blog, The Paris Review Daily, The Hairpin, New York’s magazine “The Cut,” and many others. Her debut novel, “Topics of Conversation,” was published by Alfred Knopf in 2020. She currently resides in Massachusetts with her husband and dog. This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

Marie Mutsuki Mockett in conversation with Garnette Cadogan discussing her new book "American Harvest: God, Country, and Farming in the Heartland," published by Graywolf Press. This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis. You can purchase copies of "American Harvest: God, Country, and Farming in the Heartland" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/peoples-history/amer-harvest-god-country/ Marie Mutsuki Mockett is the author of a novel, "Picking Bones from Ash," and a memoir, "Where the Dead Pause," and "The Japanese Say Goodbye," which was a finalist for the PEN Open Book Award. She has written for the New York Times, Salon, National Geographic, Glamour, Ploughshares, and other publications and has been a guest on The World, Talk of the Nation and All Things Considered on NPR. She is a core faculty member of the Rainier Writing Workshop and a Visiting Writer in the MFA program Saint Mary's College in Moraga, California. She lives in San Francisco. Garnette Cadogan is the Porter Distinguished Visiting Professor for the 2020-2021 academic year. Born and raised in Jamaica, Garnette Cadogan is an essayist, a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia, and a Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University. This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

Rachel Kushner in conversation with Dana Spiotta celebrating the launch of Rachel Kushner's "The Hard Crowd: Essays 2000-2020," published by Scribner. This event was originally broadcast live via Zoom and hosted by Peter Maravelis. You can purchase copies of "The Hard Crowd: Essays 2000-2020" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/new-nonfiction-in-hardcover/hard-crowd-essays-2000-to-2020/ Rachel Kushner is the bestselling author of three novels: the Booker- and NBCC Award–shortlisted "The Mars Room;" "The Flamethrowers," a finalist for the National Book Award and a New York Times top ten book of 2013; and "Telex from Cuba," a finalist for the National Book Award. She grew up in San Francisco and now lives in Los Angeles. Dana Spiotta is is the author of four novels: "Innocents and Others,"(2016), which won the St. Francis College Literary Prize and was shortlisted for The Los Angeles Times Book Prize; "Stone Arabia" (2011), which was a National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist in fiction; "Eat the Document" (2006), which was a National Book Award Finalist in fiction and a recipient of the Rosenthal Foundation Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; and "Lightning Field" (2001). Spiotta was a Guggenheim Fellow, a New York Foundation for the Arts Fellow, and she won the 2008-9 Rome Prize from the American Academy in Rome. In 2017, the American Academy of Arts and Letters awarded her the John Updike Prize in Literature. Spiotta lives in Syracuse and teaches in the Syracuse University MFA program. This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation