Events - Modern Times Bookstore

Modern Times is now investing 10% of the total sales on all events books to community organizations... Read more »

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Tede Matthews Initiative Special Events The Tede Matthews Initiative (TMI) is a new project of Modern Times Bookstore. Honoring the fierce cultural legacy of founding collective member Tede Matthews’ queer literary cultural activism, TMI partners with Mission District community cultural organizations, schools, artists, and educators to launch a series of performances, workshops and free to low cost cultural events to support the Bay Area's activist, artistic, and literary communities. To support us or find out more, click here.

The Art of Comics: Making a Mini-Comic Led by Justin Hall - Sunday, March 7 - 2 PM-5 PM - Cost: $20 - For ages 16+ Do you love comic books, but were always too intimidated to make one? Do you have a great graphic novel idea but aren’t sure how to start putting it down on paper? Do you long to draw a comic strip, but need some motivation to get your characters out of your head and onto the page? Then this workshop is designed for you! Comic books are an incredibly complex medium, but also a DIY art that requires nothing but a pen, paper, a stapler, and a healthy imagination. This relatively young art form, one of the few that is distinctly American, is just beginning to flex its muscles and show what it’s capable of. In this workshop we explore the remarkable storytelling possibilities of comics, first by reviewing the nuts and bolts of the medium and then by hands-on exercises that will show you how to make your own mini-comic. Justin Hall is an award-winning cartoonist best known for his series True Travel Tales, Hard To Swallow, and Glamazonia the Uncanny Super Tranny. His work has also appeared in the Houghton Miflin Best American Comics, The Book of Boy Trouble, and the S.F. Bay Guardian, among others, and he has been profiled in publications such as the S.F. Chronicle, Out Magazine, and Strip. He has had shows at the S.F. Cartoon Art Museum, and has lectured on comic art at the California College of Art, S.F. State, U.C. Santa Cruz, and the Oakland School of the Arts. top of page

Poet Against Empire: The Prophetic Books of William Blake a talk by Lew Finzel - Monday, March 8 - 7 PM presented by Modern Times in Cooperation with the Institute for the Critical Study of Society The painter and poet, William Blake, was born and raised in London England and was inspired by both the American and French revolutions; but, he was appalled and dismayed by the industrial revolution. Lew Finzel, self-described 'Blake freak' will offer his thoughts on Blake's relevance for today's world. top of page

Anarchist Book Fair Free Kidz Table! - Saturday March 13 and Sunday March 14 - 10-6 PM Saturday, 11-5 PM Sunday - OFF SITE: Anarchist Book Fair, SF County Fair Building, Golden Gate Park Modern Times will have a bangin' radical kids table at the Anarchist Book Fair. Sharing with Rahula Janowski (Joybringer zine) and Tomas Moniz (Rad Dad zine), we'll bring you some of our favorites from our awe-inspiring kid's section! If you're a new parent, old parent, thinking-about-who-the-sperm-donor-will-be prospective parent or have kids you love in your life, come check out hard-to-find progressive, queer-friendly, bilingual and en espanol kids' books and radical parenting resources, from Nikki McClure board books to gender liberated picture books to fierce girl of color powered YA lit. top of page

Busting from the Heart a writing workshop with national touring artist Kirya Traber - Monday, March 15 - 7 PM - Admission by donation! No One turned away! A workshop for those who dream of bringing crowds to their feet, but shake when raising their hands in class. We'll translate beating hearts into words we can speak. A poet must bust from the heart to tell a true story. top of page

Free Kidz' Story Hour Facilitated by Melissa Merrin - Saturday, March 20 - 1 PM-2 PM - All ages! Free! Come to this fantastic, free monthly kids' story hour, hang out with other parents without even thinking about a play date, and give your kids a chance to chill and listen to wonderful, progressive children's lit! We even got Veggie Booty and juice. Free Kidz fearless leader Melissa Merin believes that active story telling is a key component to unleash the critical thinking skills necessary for young children to navigate the broader worlds around them and hope that Children's Story Hour provides an opportunity for children to listen, to speak, and to act! top of page

Boundary Setting, Self-Care & Social Change workshop Cristien Storm, author of Living in Liberation - Saturday, March 20 - 2-5 PM - Free! Want to have sane boundaries while fighting for social justice? Want keep fighting the good fight without totally losing your shit from five-hour collective meetings? In this workshop, participants will practice boundary setting strategies while attending to larger social and political contexts and talk about how we can use creativity to heal and find resilience in the middle of both societal oppression and the fight to change it. top of page

Water from the Well a FREE writing workshop with national touring artist Kirya Traber - Monday, March 22 - 7 PM - Admission by donation! No One turned away! To write well for ourselves and others, we call upon our deepest reservoirs--dreams, memories, childhood. Join acclaimed poet, teacher, and performer Kirya Traber (Sister Spit, Youth Speaks) for a session on how to draw cool, clean water from the wellspring of our personal histories. top of page

Modern Times Community Love Fund At Modern Times, we love the communities of resistance that support us- and we want to support them back. So we're kicking off our new Community Love Fund! On the last Friday of each month, Modern Times will give back to our communities by donating 10% of our sales to different Bay Area community organizations working for social justice. By shopping at Modern Times, you support two amazing community institutions- us and our sponsee of the month! Friday, March 26: AROC (Arab Resource and Organizing Center) Located only a few blocks down Valencia Street from Modern Times Bookstore is the Arab Resource and Organizing Center (AROC). The Arab Resource and Organizing Center is a grassroots organization working to empower and organize our community towards justice and self-determination for all. AROC members build community power in the Bay Area by participating in leadership development, political education, and campaigns. Through leadership development, legal services, know your rights and political education, and recruitment of members, AROC supports the empowerment of Bay Area Arab communities. Thus, our communities are then better able to organize and advocate together for changes in policy, media representation, and human and civil rights. top of page


	Reading Girldrive Nona Willis Aronowitz With Bea Sullivan and Rebecca Rosenfelt - Friday, March 5 - 7 PM In October 2007, Nona Aronowitz set out on a cross-country road trip, meeting with nearly 200 women to discuss their thoughts and feelings about the issues that mattered to them—and about feminism. The result of these interviews, Girldrive: Criss-Crossing America, Redefining Feminism, is a roadtrip-in-a-book, chronicling the struggles, concerns, successes, and insights of young women who are grappling to find, define, and fight for gender equity. top of page

	Reading The Melting Season Jami Attenberg With Joshua Mohr (Some Things that Meant the World to Me, voted one of O magazine's top ten reads of 2009) - Tuesday, March 9 - 7 PM Catherine Madison heads to Vegas with a suitcase full of cash that isn't hers, leaving her small town Nebraska home and husband and the dysfunctional family she's never quite been able to escape On the road, she was going to become a new person- but running away from the past isn't as easy as she had hoped. The Melting Season tells the story of how one woman's life falls apart and is woven back together again. top of page

	Launch Party black chick Kirya Traber - Wednesday, March 10 - 7 PM black chick is a hand bound manuscript that exposes the beautiful, profane, and transformative experiences of growing up biracial in rural California. A debut publication from performance poet Kirya Traber, black chick welcomes the reader into a life of wandering, weirdness, and wings. Hold this book carefully- it has life inside. Kirya Traber is a 2004 Brave New Voices Poetry Slam Champion and the winner of a Robert Redford Sundance Summit Award. Her work has been featured at the Living Word Festival, SanFrancisco's Lit Quake, The Stern Grove Festival, and the National Queer Arts Festival, and on tour across the nation with Sister Spit: The Next Generation. She is the Residency Program Manager at Youth Speaks. top of page

	Reading My Baby Rides the Short Bus: The Unabashedly Human Experience of Raising Kids with Disabilities Edited by Jennifer Silverman, Sarah Talbot and Yantra Bertelli Contributors Thida Cornes, Kim Mahler, Jennifer Byde Myers, Kathy Briccetti and Shannon Des Roches Rosa will read. - Friday, March 12 - 7 PM My Baby Rides the Short Bus is a groundbreaking anthology telling the untold stories of “alternative” parents raising kids with disabilities. From professional writers to novice storytellers (including Robert Rummel-Hudson, Ayun Halliday, and Kerry Cohen) there's no telethons or "perfect angel" kids here- just real stories of resisting ablism and celebrating difference from parents at the fringe. Come join us for readings from this groundbreaking anthology by bay area contributors Thida Cornes, Kim Mahler, Jennifer Byde Myers, and Shannon Des Roches Rosa followed by a Q&A with the authors and co-editor Jennifer Silverman. top of page

	Off-site event! Cheesemonger: A Life On the Wedge Gordon Edgar - Saturday, March 13 - 6:30- 8:30 PM - OFF-SITE: Amnesia Bar, 853 Valencia Street, San Francisco Free local artisinal cheese!!! Loud music, beer and wine! Cheesemonger: A Life on the Wedge is the story of local hero Gordon Edgar’s unlikely career as a cheesemonger at San Francisco’s worker-owned Rainbow Grocery Cooperative. Bluffing his way into his job knowing nothing, Gordon quickly discovered the world of small farmers, cheese snobs and the politics of food, culture, money and fat. Cheesemonger dives into the wonders and weirdness of fancy food culture, worker-owned joy, and the fat and flavor of cheese with awesome storytelling and punk rock juice. Come join Edgar for a reading, local artisinal cheese and loud music. top of page

	Reading The Colony Jillian Weise - Wednesday, March 17 - 7 PM In the alt-science fiction novel The Colony, Anne Hatley has only one leg and walks with a computerized limb. Hoping to makes easy money, she accepts an invitation from a research colony where scientists want to make her the first patient to generate a new leg. Anne drifts into a relationship with the rakish Nick, carrier of the “suicide gene”; becomes friends with Charles Darwin, who inexplicably pops up for chats when she’s distressed, questions what it means to change from one physical form to another and begins to resist the societal pressure to do so. The Colony is a fascinating, radical novel interrogating the politics of disability and conformity. top of page

	Reading Living In Liberation: Boundary Setting, Self-Care & Social Change Cristien Storm With Wendy O Matik - Thursday, March 18 - 7 PM What happens when a collection of artists, musicians, and radical activists imagine self-defense as a revolutionary tool for social justice? Home Alive co-founder Cristien Storm’s new book, Living In Liberation: Boundary Setting, Self-Care and Social Change outlines this innovative and radical approach to boundary setting, self-care, and self-defense offering practical skills that interrupt victim-blaming, fear-based approaches and locate healing within the social context of community, individual safety and social justice. top of page

	Reading Dying Empire: US Imperialism and Global Resistance Francis Shor - Friday, March 19 - 7 PM Presenting a wide-ranging synthesis of approaches, the book attempts to shed light on the construction of and challenges to the military, economic, and cultural imperial projects of the United States in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Opposing US imperialism and global domination, Francis Shor combines academic and activist perspectives to analyze the crises endemic to empire and to propose a vision for the realization of another more socially just world. The text incorporates the most recent critical discussions of US imperialism and globalization from above and below to illuminate the practices and possibilities for global resistance. top of page

	Spanish Book Club/ Circulo de Lectoras/ es de Literatura en Espanol Book of the Month: La Catedral del Mar Ildefonso Falcones - Tuesday, March 23 - 7 PM Join us for our Spanish language book group A mix of native speakers and advanced level hablantes, the group has been meeting in the Mission District on a monthly basis for nine years. Participants receive a 10% discount on their book purchases. Los libros estan en la seccion de libros en espanol. Las personas que participan en el grupo reciben 10% de descuento al comprar los libros. top of page

	Reading Bluebird: Women and the New Psychology of Happiness Ariel Gore - Wednesday, March 24 - 7 PM "Can a woman be smart, empowered, and happy?" Ariel Gore wanted to know, so she began a "study in living"- a journey into the feminine history, science, and experience of happiness. Bluebird: Women and the New Psychology of Happiness, chronicles the often surprising answers.Internationally known for her creation of Hip Mama and many groundbreaking works on radical parenting, Gore is also the author of numerous books on parenting, the novel The Traveling Death and Resurrection Show, and the memoir Atlas of the Human Heart. Come hear her always edge-of-the-seat entertaining reading. top of page

	Reading Palestine, Israel and the US Empire Richard Becker - Thursday, March 25 - 7 PM Written by the Western Regional Coordinator of the ANSWER Coalition (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism), Palestine, Israel and the U.S. Empire provides a sharp analysis of historic and current events in the struggle for Palestine—from the division of the Middle East by Western powers and the Zionist settler movement, to the founding of Israel and its regional role as a watchdog for U.S. interests, to present-day conflicts and the prospects for a just resolution. Q and A to follow! top of page

	Queer Open Mic - Friday, March 26 - 7 PM sign-up for performers - 7:30 PM start time Queer Open Mic is a regular event offering a mixed bag of open mic performances (usually poetry and short stories, sometimes music or comedy) and kick-ass features. Primarily serving the queer community, it’s been running since 2004. All ages and minds of queer writers are welcome- just bring that rough draft or polished gem! Five minutes max, $3-5 donation, no one turned away, and lots of queer literary love. For more information: queeropenmic.com top of page

	The Burger Queen Social - Saturday, March 27 - 5:30 PM From the minds that brought about Gay Shame and Ships in the Night comes the Burger Queen Social—a fun and exciting opportunity to meet other radical queer, trans, and genderqueer folks to hook up with for political witchery and discussion. With free vegan eats and a wildly engaging DJ! top of page

	Reading Talking with Sartre John Gerassi - Wednesday, March 31 - 7 PM No one except Simone de Beauvoir knew Sartre as well as John Gerassi. Part of the Sartre inner circle since his birth, in 1970 Sarrte asked Gerassi, a former editor of Time and Newsweek, to write his biography. Talking with Sartre is the result of Gerassi's years of interviews with Sartre, as well as material from the lunchtime conversations the two had every Sunday from 1971 to 1974. The result is a one-of-a-kind book- an intimate, complicated portrait of the life and work of "the greatest mind of the 20th century, as wrong as he often may have been." Come hear Gerassi read and speak about Sartre's intimate life. top of page

	Gay Shame Weekly Meetings - Saturdays - 5:30 PM Gay Shame seeks nothing less than a new queer activism that foregrounds race, class, gender and sexuality, to counter gay consumerism and the increasingly hypocritical left. Come to a general meeting: all are welcome. top of page