Amy Tan and Nalo Hopkinson at Writers With Drinks

Writers With Drinks closes out the year with one of our most amazing line-ups. Including some of our all-time favorite writers!

When: Saturday, December 8, 2012, 7:30 to 9:30 PM, doors open at 6:30 PM
Who: Amy Tan, Nalo Hopkinson, Michael Krasny, Jason Roberts, Emanuel Xavier and Ned Rozell
Where: The Make Out Room, 3225 22nd. St., San Francisco
Admission: $10 to $20 sliding scale, all proceeds benefit the CSC and the Transgender Law Center

About the writers/readers:

Amy Tan's next book is The Valley of Amazement. Her other books include The Joy Luck Club, The Kitchen God's Wife, Saving Fish from Drowning, The Hundred Secret Senses, Rules for Virgins and Saving Fish from Drowning. She wrote the libretto for the opera of The Bonesetter's Daughter, and was a member of the band the Rock Bottom Remainders. She wrote two children's books, The Moon Lady and Sagwa, The Chinese Siamese Cat, as well as numerous articles for magazines, such as The New Yorker, Harper's Bazaar, and National Geographic. At Writers With Drinks, she'll be reading “Fifty Shades of Tan: what I learned after nineteen years of whipping the boys in the band.”

Nalo Hopkinson is currently working on "Donkey," a contemporary fantasy novel, and on "Blackheart Man," a fantastical alternate history set in an imagined Caribbean. Her previous books include the novels Brown Girl in the Ring, Midnight Robber, The Salt Roads and The New Moon’s Arms, and the story collection Skin Folk. She is a recipient of the John W. Campbell Award, the World Fantasy Award, the Gaylactic Spectrum Award, and a two-time recipient of the Sunburst Award for Canadian Literature of the Fantastic. Her novel "Midnight Robber" received Honorable Mention in Cuba's Casa de las Americas prize for literature written in Creole.

Michael Krasny, Ph.D., is host of KQED's award-winning Forum, a news and public affairs program that concentrates on the arts, culture, health, business, and technology. Since 1970, he has been a professor of English at San Francisco State University and has taught at Stanford University and University of California, San Francisco. He is the author of Spiritual Envy: An Agnostic's Quest, published in fall 2010, and "Off Mike: A Memoir of Talk Radio and Literary Life," coauthor of the textbook "Sound Ideas," and creator of the DVD presentation "Masterpieces of Short Fiction." He is the recipient of many awards and honors, including The S.Y. Agnon Gold Medal for Intellectual Distinction, The Eugene Block Award for Human Rights Journalism, The Inclusiveness in Media Award from The National Conference for Community and Justice, and a Koret Foundation Fellowship.

An Equality Forum GLBT History Month Icon, Emanuel Xavier is an award-winning NYC based spoken word artist of Ecuadorian/Puerto Rican heritage best known for his appearances on Russell Simmons presents Def Poetry on HBO. As a former homeless gay teen, he has staged many benefits for queer youth and is a longtime activist. His poetic manifesto from 1997, Pier Queen, was officially published this year along with a revised edition of his poetry collection, Americano: Growing up Gay and Latino in the USA. He is also author of If Jesus Were Gay & other poems and the novel Christ Like.

Jason Roberts is the author of A Sense of the World: How a Blind Man Became History's Greatest Traveler. He founded the educational website Learn2.com and was the editor of The Learn2 Guide. He's also contributed to McSweeney's, McSweeney's Internet Tendency, The Village Voice, The Believer, and the San Francisco Chronicle. He was the inaugural winner of the Van Zorn Prize for short fiction in the tradition of Edgar Allan Poe, judged by Michael Chabon, for his story in McSweeney's Enchanted Chamber of Astonishing Stories, and he was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for biography.

Ned Rozell is a science writer in Alaska, whose column called “Alaska Science Forum” appears in the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, the Anchorage Daily News and smaller papers around the state. He is the author of Finding Mars, Alaska Tracks: Footprints In The Big Country From Ambler To Attu and Walking My Dog, Jane: From Valdez to Prudhoe Bay Along the Trans Alaska Pipeline.


About Writers With Drinks:

Writers With Drinks won "Best Literary Night" from the SF Bay Guardian readers' poll six years in a row and was named "Best Literary Drinking" by the SF Weekly. And it was namechecked in Armistead Maupin's latest Tales of the City novel. The spoken word "variety show" mixes genres to raise money for local worthy causes. The award-winning show includes poetry, stand-up comedy, science fiction, fantasy, romance, mystery, literary fiction, erotica, memoir, zines and blogs in a freewheeling format.