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Books on the Garden
Sat, Jan 28
|San Francisco
The Racket Reading Series + Green Apple Books present: A Winter Thaw Featuring Jaime Cortez, Micheal Foulk, Truong Tran, Sydney Vogl, and Kathleen J. Woods with music by C.W. Danzig
Time & Location
Jan 28, 2023, 1:00 PM – 2:30 PM
San Francisco, 1199 9th Ave, San Francisco, CA 94122, USA
About the event
Join us on Saturday, January 28 at 1pm when we celebrate the latest installment of our Books on the Garden series
The Racket Reading Series + Green Apple Books present: A Winter Thaw
Featuring Jaime Cortez, Micheal Foulk, Truong Tran, Sydney Vogl, and Kathleen J. Woods
with music by C.W. Danzig This is a free event, but please RSVP.
About the Event The Racket is a monthly, San Francisco-based reading series that brings together six writers to share work on a theme. This month, to celebrate the season and our Botanical Garden setting, our theme is A Winter Thaw. We think about what it means for the ice to melt off of our wings, waking from hibernation, reveling in the cold, and everything in between. This month, we will hear from five writers and conclude the afternoon with a special musical performance.
Date:Â Saturday, January 28 Â Start Time:Â 1pm
Location: San Francisco Botanical Garden. 1199 9th Ave. This event will take place in the Garden of Fragrance.
This is a free event (minus admission to the Garden for non-SF residents), but please RSVP.
Books by our featured authors will be available for purchase.
Please bring blankets or chairs for sitting on the grass. Please be mindful of high chairs blocking others' view.
About the Authors Jaime Cortez is a writer and visual artist based in Watsonville, California, and the San Francisco Bay Area. His fiction, essays, and drawings have appeared in diverse publications that include "Kindergarde: Experimental Writing For Children" (edited 2013 by Dana Teen Lomax for Black Radish Press), "No Straight Lines," a 40-year compendium of LGBT comics (edited 2012 by Justin Hall for Fantagraphics Press), "Street Art San Francisco" (edited 2009 by Annice Jacoby for Abrams Press), and "Infinite Cities," an experimental atlas of San Francisco (edited 2010 by Rebecca Solnit for UC Berkeley Press). He wrote and illustrated the graphic novel "Sexile" for AIDS Project Los Angeles in 2003. Cortez often combines humor and tragedy to tell stories of resilient survivors who exist on the margins of the economy, the law, and social acceptability. "Gordo" is Jaime's debut collection of short stories. Black Cat, an imprint of Grove Atlantic Press, is the publisher of the book. Cortez spent his early years in San Juan Bautista and Watsonville, two California farm towns where the stories are set. He received his B.A. in Communications from the University of Pennsylvania, and his fine art MFA at UC Berkeley. His website is www.jaimecortez.org.  Micheal Foulk is a non-binary queer comedian, writer, educator, and community organizer thriving in Oakland, California. Micheal has been featured on the SF Sketchfest, Crom Comedy Festival, Moontower, OUTsider Festival, Frontera Fest, Austin Sketchfest, and Out Of Bounds Comedy Festival. They are the co-creator of the LGBTQ+ storytelling show Greetings, from Queer Mountain (ATX/NOLA/NYC/OAK) and the film screening series Queer Film Theory 101 (ATX/NYC/SF) produced in collaboration with Alamo Drafthouse Cinemas. Micheal has written and produced over 50 sketch shows with their sketch group Bad Example at Fallout Theater in Austin over the course of 2014-2016. Micheal performs with comedy partner Vanessa Gonzalez as the duo HANDBOMB, their short play "The Vacationers" won the Best Of Festival award in the 2014 Frontera Fringe Festival. In 2017, Micheal wrote and performed their first autobiographical one-person show "This Is How They Get You" which chronicles their time as the closeted lead singer of a Christian screamo band Widows & Orphans. Micheal has been featured in the films Meet Me There and Zero Charisma and can be seen in season 1 and 2 of the PBS show Stand Up Empire. Micheal's essays and articles have been published in Slate, VICE, Intomore, and TimeOut Magazine.  Truong Tran is a Vietnamese-American poet, visual artist, and teacher. He is an author of eight collections of poetry, artist book, and a children's book. As a visual artist Tran is best known for mixed media pieces and light installations. His work is in private collections, and has been featured in solo gallery shows as well as museum exhibitions across the Bay Area. As a teacher, Truong Tran has over twenty years experience as a professor of Creative Writing to both graduates and undergraduates, and has mentored thousands in the community.
Sydney Vogl currently teaches, writes and lives in San Francisco. Their chapbook, CRYBABY!, was chosen by Chen Chen as the winner of the 2022 Cow Creek Chapbook Prize and is forthcoming in 2023. They are also the author of the chapbook CALIFORNIA IS GOING TO HELL (Nov 2021, perhappened press). Previously, they won the 2021 Jane Underwood Poetry Prize and the 2020 AWP Intro Journals Project. Their work can be found in Iron Horse Literary Review, Hobart, Honey Literary, Booth and more.
Kathleen J. Woods is the author of the pornographic novel White Wedding, published by University of Alabama Press and Fiction Collective Two. She earned an M.F.A in Creative Writing from the University of Colorado at Boulder, where she served as Managing Editor for Timber Journal. She is an alum of SF Writers Grotto Fellowship, the Tin House Summer Writers Conference, and the Wellstone Center Residency. Her work has been featured in Electric Literature, Literary Hub, Bitch, Western Humanities Review, The Racket, and others. Kathleen lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she was born and raised. She is at work on a second novel exploring a community of mediums on the shores of Shasta Lake, examining the manifold ways we inherit and haunt one other—and all the tendrils we leave behind.
About the Musical Guest C.W. Danzig is a singer-songwriter in San Francisco, CA. When Danzig isn't playing bass with Down and Outlaws (Outsidelands, Last Call With Carson Daly, Converse Rubber Tracks) he's writing quieter, pensive songs of longing and wandering. It's music that emerges late at night, a product of moonlight, whiskey, and hushed conversation. Finding inspiration in artists like Bon Iver, Nick Drake, and Tom Petty, Danzig's songs are simple, introspective, and always seeking a peace that's just out of reach.Danzig's debut EP, Calamity, is out now. The four-song collection was recorded over two days at Donut Time Studios in Oakland, CA, by Chris Daddio, who also provided guest guitar work on the record.
About Books on the Garden Books on the Garden is an event series collaboration between the San Francisco Botanical Garden and Green Apple Books. On the last Saturday of every month, a different literary event will take place at the SFBG with a wide variety of topics, always coinciding with and honoring nature, botanicals, and our beautiful garden setting.
This is a free event (minus admission to the Garden for non-SF residents), but please RSVP.