First-ever Litquake South Bay event features Mary Roach

Two heads are better than one, especially when those heads are creative, open, and eager to share. On Tuesday, October 13th we will see this clearly when Litquake, the West Coast's largest literary festival, teams up with the South Bay's premier lit organization, San Jose's Center for Literary Arts.

The featured reader for the first-ever Litquake South Bay Event will be Mary Roach, the humorous and quirky science writer who started her career with a part-time PR gig at the San Francisco Zoo, where she wrote about topics like elephant wart removal and then moved on to even bigger things like first-person essays for The New York Times Magazine and Salon.com, a monthly humor column for Reader's Digest, and even (gasp) an appearance on The Colbert Report.

A New York Times Bestseller, Mary has been called "accessible, unflinching, and engaging" (1). Her first book, Stiff, is a quizzical look at what happens to our bodies after we die, and her second, Spook, is "a humorous scientific exploration as to whether there is a soul that survives death" (2). Recently, Roach has penned Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, a personal but comprehensive account of our scientific attempts to understand human sexuallity. She has the uncanny knack of being amusing and informative at the same time, gives fun interviews, and is generally someone you'd want to share a room with. Unless you're trying to hide something, of course. New York Times has called her "bold, tenacious and insatiable" (3).

Mary will be reading at San Jose's Martin Luther King, Jr. Library as the first of two free events co-sponsored by Litquake and San Jose State University's Center for Literary Arts.

The second event will take place as part of Litquake's infamous Lit Crawl on October 17th, which spans over 50 venues in San Francisco's Mission District alone and will feature Pam Houston, whose short stories have been widely anthologized in Best American Short Stories of the Century and other collections, SJSU professor Nick Taylor, Santa Clara University poet Rebecca Black, and the poetry/performance duo Daughters of Yam, which includes former San Francisco poet laureate devorah major. Both events are free and open to the public - but space is limited so make plans to show up early.

"There are so many different kinds of writing, and literary events, all over the Bay Area," says CLA director Andrew Altschul. "Obviously, San Francisco is often the focal point, and so partnering with Litquake is a fantastic way for the CLA to expand its audience and include San Jose in the fun. Litquake is like a literature lover's Mardi Gras, and we're very excited for the CLA to be a part of it."

Litquake co-founder Jane Ganahl says, "2009 is not only the year Litquake turns 10, but also the first time we're working with the Center for Literary Arts in the South Bay. While we've featured native South Bay authors like Po Bronson and Beth Lisick over the years, we've longed to expand our festival to our bookish sister city, San Jose. We're pleased that authors as fabulous and accomplished as Mary Roach and Pam Houston will be part of our first co-production with CLA."

The Center for Literary Arts hosts free readings, lectures, and seminars on the campus of SJSU and outreach events at San Jose public high schools. For twenty-three years the CLA has brought authors, scholars, and critics to San Jose, including Nobel Prize, Pulitzer Prize, and National Book Award winners. Recent visitors have included Salman RushdieSalman Rushdie, Junot Díaz, Dorothy Allison, ZZ Packer, and W.S. Merwin. For information on CLA's upcoming events visit their website at www.litart.org.

If you plan on attending:

Event 1: Mary Roach reads at SJSU - a Litquake South Bay Event
Where: Martin Luther KingMartin Luther King, Jr. Library, 150 E. San Fernando St., San Jose, Room 225
When: Tuesday, October 13, 7pm

Event 2: The Center for Literary Arts: Bay Area and Beyond featuring Pam Houston, Rebecca Black, Nick Taylor, Shawna Yang Ryan, and Daughters of Yam
Where: The Beauty Bar, 2299 Mission St. @ 19th St., San Francisco
When: Saturday, October 17, 7pm, during Phase II of Lit Crawl