Events

There are oodles of renowned relationships in literary biography and maybe some surprises/revelations/insights to be unearthed. Explore the Sitting Room’s Writers Biography collection, sleuth through the indexes and chapter headings to uncover one or more of such connections.  Explore the nature of these relationships through the biography, and possibly through the Writers Letters collection. Read and share. Perhaps you will be sufficiently intrigued to see if there’s also a file on your author in the Archives to explore at a future time. Please RSVP to JoAnn Borri at joannborri@gmail.com. Limit 8.

“All my ambition is to make myself useful, known, heard and admired by the wise and the brave.” –Sui Sin Far, “The Persecution and Oppression of Me,” 1911

Join Cita Press Editorial Director Jessi Haley, editor of the collection An Immortal Book: Selected Writings by Sui Sin Far, for an exploration of a fascinating author, her literary and historical context, and the scholars working to bring her work more visibility. Penned during the early decades of Chinese Exclusion in North America, Sui Sin Far’s short stories portray Chinese characters falling in love, raising families, and navigating life in a new country. Her autobiographical essays recount her experiences working around the world as a single, biracial woman in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, expanding upon the themes of her fiction with her characteristic sharp humor and keen observations. Jessi will also present selections from other Asian American writers from the shelves of our library. Please RSVP to JoAnn Borri at joannborri@gmail.com. Limit 10.

During this creative workshop (or playshop) we will use books, art, and ephemera from the Sitting Room to prompt our writing. Nicole will invite us to play with forms as we explore the library and write expressively. Participants will have time to share writing aloud (always optional). Rather than critique just-written work, the group’s attentive listening and affirmative feedback will guide our practice. Please RSVP to JoAnn Borri at joannborri@gmail.com. Limit 10

A writing gong, qi gong workshop designed to appeal to your Creative within – be she/he a writer, painter, sculptor, weaver, musician…. For all creatives, from beginners to advanced to masters of an art form, even if that art amounts to doing life. Writing will be the act that serves to integrate the gentle movements of a qi gong practice to one’s creative practices. Participants will be prompted to write reflectively between segments of qi gong movement. For additional information and to RSVP, e-mail Fitz at thinkinc@aol.com Subject: Qi Gong. Or call/text 415-246-6804. Limit 10.

In her poem “Poetry,” Marianne Moore writes: “I too, dislike it: there are things that are important beyond all this fiddle. / Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one discovers that there is in / it after all, a place for the genuine.” Join us for a discussion on Moore, including her poems “Poetry” and “An Octopus” (copies will be provided). Bring your own favorite poems by Moore, or poems of hers you find challenging. Come offer your views on what is just “fiddle” in the greater world of poetry, and what is “genuine.” Our discussion will be led by Dave Seter, who wrote his Dominican University of California Master’s in Humanities thesis on Marianne Moore. Please RSVP to JoAnn Borri at joannborri@gmail.com. Limit 10.

Come prepared with nothing but your CURIOSITY; pick a topic or an author or an artist you want to know more about from our Archive list and then DIVE IN — and share what you found with the others and also what you’d like to add to it or even toss out of the file. Become, in short, indeed a very short time, AN ARCHIVIST! Please RSVP to JoAnn Borri at joannborri@gmail.com. Limit 6.

These Round Tables are a new way of getting small groups in conversation using the rich resources of the Sitting Room Library. Here is how we are imagining them: no cost, no advance preparation needed. And only one meeting planned. Browse the library, select a book. Each person speaks and also listens and thus we have what we all say we are wanting: conversation. Bring your curiosity!