Writing, Publishing, and Bookselling in the San Francisco Bay Area by Malcolm Margolin

[A course in six sessions offered by Osher Lifelong Learning. It will be held at Freight & Salvage, 2020 Addison Street, Berkeley, on Tuesdays, 1:00 – 3:00 PM, from March 28, 2016 through May 2. For enrollment or other information, contact Osher Lifelong Learning at [email protected] or call 510-642-9934.]

The Bay Area is home to hundreds if not thousands of writers, among them some of the world’s most prominent novelists, poets, and non-fiction writers. Scores of presses, ranging from those publishing limited editions of fine press books to major publishers producing a hundred or more titles a year have found fertile ground and flourish here. Independent booksellers, long the backbone of the literary scene have withstood the assault of chain stores and electronic ordering, and their numbers are expanding. What factors have created such a dynamic and diverse literary scene? For more than forty years author and publisher Malcolm Margolin has been an active and highly respected participant in the Bay Area literary scene. Join him and his friends as they explore literary San Francisco Bay Area, discussing its history (how this level of creativity came into being), its present, and as they speculate on its future.

Session 1, March 28, Introduction 1:00 – 1:55 PM • Malcolm Margolin will introduce the course. • Vincent Medina traces his ancestry back to the Indian villages of the East Bay and the people who lived here for thousands of years. A tribal scholar and cultural activist, he has —as he puts it—roused his native Chochenyo Ohlone language from a deep sleep. It remained unspoken and unheard for seventy- five years, until Vincent, with the help of wax cylinder recordings from the 1930s and field notes from linguists of the last century, relearned it, and now speaks it with great force, grace, and fluency. I’m touched and honored that Vincent has agreed to open this course with a story and a language that will allow us to catch a hint of the Bay Area’s oldest and deepest sense of itself. • Robert Bringhurst. A resident of Canada, Robert will be in the area to accept the Oscar Lewis Award from the Book Club of California. A poet and polymath, he has translated works from Haida and Navajo, as well as ancient Greek and Arabic. He has also written books on typography. He will address the question of what constitutes a literary enterprise, and he will comment on the role of literature in tribal cultures, ancient Greece, pre-Guttenberg Europe, and the present. By helping us understand what literature does, why it is necessary, and how it is treated and conveyed, we will be able to better understand what constitutes a healthy literary culture.

1:55-2:05 PM Break

2:05-3:00 The second hour of this session will be devoted to a three-way discussion between Malcolm Margolin, Dave Eggers, and Robert Hass about the major features of literary enterprise in the Bay Area. • Dave Eggers. A prolific and much admired writer of books and articles, both fiction and nonfiction (his best known work is A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius), Dave has also created several magazines and a wildly innovative and national significant book publishing operation, McSweeney’s. More, he has launched a literary center for youth, 826 Valencia Street, which grew out of a storefront in San Francisco’s Mission District and now has outposts nationwide. Active in social justice issues throughout the world, he carries himself with a matter-of-fact humility that contrasts sharply with work that I feel is more than beneficial: it’s heroic. • Robert Hass was US Poet Laureate from 1995 to 1997. His poetry has received a National Book Award, a Pulitzer Prize, and Hass himself was a recipient of a MacArthur “genius” Award. He has taught at U.C Berkeley, and has been involved with countless community projects. Strong concerns for environment and social justice permeate both his poetry and his life. He co-founded River of Words, to promote the writing of poetry by young people about natural history. He has worked with other language speakers on translations, notably Haiku from Japanese masters and a substantial body of work from his good friend, the Polish poet Czeslaw Milosz. To read what Hass has written is a joy, to hear him speak is, as the poet Robert Bly once said, reason enough to live in the Bay Area.

Session 2, April 4. Unique Strengths and Recent History (Part 1) This session will feature a series of half hour interviews about various aspects of Bay Area publishing and writing that are of special significance, with an emphasis on the role the 1970s played in creating the shape and substance of the contemporary Bay Area publishing and bookselling enterprise. • Victoria Shoemaker. Now a literary agent, Victoria has been involved with Bay Area bookselling, publishing, and writing since the late sixties. We will draw on her keen memory and gift for storytelling to help reimagine the ferment of the 1970s that gave rise to so many of the publishers who have set the tone for publishing today. • Kenneth Brower. An author of books and articles on the environment (among them The Starship and the Canoe), Ken also worked with his father David Brower, on many of the Sierra Club Exhibit Format Books. The discussion will revolve around natural history and environmental advocacy writing and publishing, long one of the Bay Area’s most significant contributions to world culture. • Susan Griffin. The author of some twenty books (including Woman and Nature, A Chorus of Stones, and Wrestling with the Angel of Democracy), Susan’s work, both poetry and prose, ranges widely. An early feminist, Susan will discuss women’s writing in the Bay Area from the time Alta formed Shameless Hussy Press, the first feminist press in America, to the present. • Adam Hochschild. The author of books such as King Leopold Ghost, To End All Wars, and the newly published Spain in Our Hearts, Adam also worked as an editor of Ramparts Magazine and was a co-founder of Mother Jones. He’s taught at UC Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism for many years, and has been a mentor to a generation of journalists. He’ll discuss the continuing Bay Area tradition of writing, publishing and bookselling to advocate for human rights and social justice.

Session 3, April 11 Unique Strengths and Recent History (Part 2) 1:00 – 1:55. The first hour will be devoted to two more half hour interviews. • Ron Turner. A man of Rabelaisian appetites, keen business skills, outrageous in-your-face tastes in art and literature, and a capacious sense of community, Ron founded Last Gasp in 1970 as a publisher, distributor, and promoter of what were then called “Underground Comics.” Among those he published were Robert Crumb, Bill Griffith, Spain Rodriguez, and Robert Anton Wilson. Turning in recent years to graphic novels and manga, Ron will discuss the role he and other Bay Area writers, graphic artists, and publishers have played in expanding what is permissible for publishers to publish and the public to read. • Al Young. A poet with a superb sense of the musicality of language, Al has been a major figure in the literature of the Bay Area. Look at virtually any group photograph of writers taken anywhere in the last fifty years, and you are bound to see Al. He seems to have been everywhere and known everyone. Formerly Poet Laureate of California, winner of many awards, and proficient in many genres, he was especially influential in his work with Ishmael Reed to support multi-cultural literature. 1:55 – 2:05. Break

2:05 – 3:00. Gary Kurutz. Gary recently retired from the California State Library after serving nearly 40 years as Director of Special Collections. A bibliophile of deep learning and great personal charm, with a contagious enthusiasm for books, he will discuss the history and ongoing practice of high quality book publishing in the Bay Area.

Session 4, April 18, Book Arts Ink on paper, since the illuminated manuscript, has a long history of artistic tradition and innovation. The Bay Area is especially rich in practitioners of highly evolved book arts. This session will pay tribute to beauty, skill, and the delights of the human imagination. Guests will include… • Peter Koch. Master printer, poet, and philosopher. Along with his personal artistic accomplishments, he has created and administers the Codex Fair, a biannual gathering of book artists from around the world. • Betsy Davids. Founder of Rebis Press, Betsy has long astounded those in the book arts world with her one-of-a-kind and limited edition artist books that exhibit great imagination, intelligence, playfulness, and (inexplicably) a satisfying appropriateness. • Jessica Hische. A commercial book designer, her specialty is lettering. The ever-so familiar 26 letters of the alphabet dance to her command. • Tom Killion. A woodcut artist, working in the traditions of the Japanese masters, Tom has produced hand-printed limited-edition books, paradoxically lush and restrained at the same time. He has also partnered with the poet, Gary Snyder, to create luxurious trade books on the Sierra, Mount Tam, and the California Coast. Uncompromising in his craft, a multiple colored woodcut might take up to 300 hours of exacting labor; yet his images, instead of looking overworked, have a startling freshness of a world newly born.

Session 5, April 25. Changes 1:00-1:55. The changes in the bookselling world have been profound. For the last four decades independent bookstores, once the linchpin of the literary world, have been assaulted by chains, by ebooks, and by Amazon. Their numbers dwindled, and the demise of the independent bookstore seemed a certainty. But in the face of challenges, independent bookstores have evolved a new identity, and over the last couple of years their numbers have increased. Commenting on these changes and speculating on the bookstores of the future will be two of the Bay Area’s most dynamic booksellers. • Elaine Petrocelli, Book Passage. Elaine has made Book Passage in Corte Madera succeed and indeed expand—they have a second store in the Ferry Building and this spring they’ve opened a third in Sausalito. She’s done so by having an excellent selection of books, but also by turning the Corte Madera store into something like a community center or a university. • Paul Yamazaki, City Lights Books. City Lights Books could very well have rested on its well-deserved laurels—visited by tourists hungry to reconnect with the Beats, one might expect a good selection of coffee mugs with pictures of Allen Ginsberg, baseball caps with the City Lights logo, and a selection of books from the 1950s and 60s. Yet walk into City Lights Books, and what you will find is an amazingly diverse and vibrant selection of contemporary books, from both domestic and overseas publishers. The mind catches fire in this bookstore. This is largely due to Paul Yamazaki, book buyer for City Lights, and for as long as I can remember a generous participant all aspects of Bay Area book culture.

1:55-2:05: Break

2:05-3:00: Maxine Hong Kingston and Earll Kingston. Spending time with Maxine is a joy, a revelation, and an inspiration. Among the most widely read and well- regarded writers of our era, her books include Woman Warrior, China Men, Tripmaster Monkey, and The Fifth Book of Peace. Among her awards are a National Book Critics Circle Award, A National Book Award, and a National Humanities Medal. In 1913 President Barak Obama honored her officially with a National Medal of Arts, perhaps more so with a statement of personal gratitude. Maxine will discuss the way in which living in the Bay Area has shaped her writing and activism, the varieties of her publishing, experiences, and some of the changes she’s seen over the last four decades. Her husband, Earll Kingston, will join us in conversation. Earll is an actor, for many years performing a one-man show about John Wesley Powell, the man who explored the Grand Canyon. He has performed at the Aurora Theater Company, ACT, and at the Magic Theater. His knowledge of theater and his ability to tell great stories make him a valuable addition to the program.

Session 6, May 2. Publishing for the future

The changing role of publishing, especially in the Bay Area, will be discussed by three guests in half-hour interviews and concluding remarks by Malcolm Margolin: • Frances Phillips. A published poet and former arts administrator (she served as executive director of Intersection for the Arts), Frances has been a program officer with the Walter and Elise Haas Fund for more than twenty yeays She also created and administers the Creative Work Fund, which supports collaboration between artists of various genres and nonprofit agencies. Active in the national organization, Grantmakers for the Arts, she will talk about government and foundation funding for writers and publishers, the extent to which publishing good literature is more of a cultural service than a commercially viable enterprise, and if the current administration succeeds in eliminating the National Endowment for the Arts, how much of an impact will this have on the Bay Area literary scene. • Elaine Katzenberger. As publisher of City Lights Books, Elaine is heir to a tradition marked by risk, idealism, political engagement, and continual innovation. She walks the tight rope between the past and the present , and she does so with an intelligence and style that as gained her the admiration of the literary world. She will talk about the cultural wealth of City Lights, and what she sees for it and other literary presses in the future. • Steve Wasserman. Steve grew up in Berkeley and drank deeply from its waters, getting involved with the Free Speech Movement and the anti-war protests when he was scarcely a teenager. Leaving Berkeley after graduating from Cal he went on to a varied career in the upper echelons of publishing, serving at various times as book review editor of the Los Angeles Times, editor-in-chief of New Republic Books, editorial director of Times Books, publisher of Hill and Wang, a literary agent, and editor at large at Yale University Press. Last summer he returned to Berkeley to become the publisher of Heyday Books. With his deep knowledge of publishing and his astonishing array of friendships in the book world, there is no one better able to comment on the state of the “Literary Industry” in the Bay Area. • Concluding Remarks. Malcolm Margolin will conclude the course with a reflection on richness of our literary environment and what strategic actions are needed to preserve it.