I asked Carl Macki to attend a meeting sponsored by Poets and Writers in  San Francisco last month. He graciously provided me with a transcript of the event, which follows. xoxoxo Geri

Poets & Writers Literary Roundtable Meeting

January 28, 2010

San Francisco Public Library

Hosts:

Cheryl Klein, Poets & Writers, Inc. cklein@pw.org

Jamie FitzGerald, Poets & Writers, Inc. jfitzgerald@pw.org

INTRODUCTION:

Cheryl Klein: Welcome and thank you for coming. I want to thank Joan and the library for hosting. I’m looking forward to hearing what’s going on with everybody. Our main purpose is to get people who work in the  literary field talking with each other, exchanging ideas, and developing relationships with one another. I’m the director of P&W’s California office.

[Introductions around the room.]

Cheryl: We are pleased to have Robin Ekiss from Litquake here today. It’s great to have a guest speaker to help inspire us, and give examples and models that we all can use. Jewel was a great guest speaker at a former meeting. Robin will speak, then we’ll have questions, a break and open conversation.

GUEST SPEAKER:

Robin Ekiss: I wanted to mention a few things that didn’t appear in my biography. I have been a water slide attendant and an AFLCIO meat cutter, although those are not as literary as what did appear.

Litquake has been the largest literary festival on the West Coast, since 1999. It didn’t seem to Jane Ganahl and Jack Boulware that writers and books were being supported in a public form. So they organized a day at the Golden Gate Park band shell. Several writers read and the event was successful overall. The program eventually expanded, and LitStalk, which was the original name, grew and grew every year. So far we have had 2,300 authors and 53,000 audience members. The festivals are always vibrant and exciting. Last year the event was held in October.

We just became a 501(c)(3), which is great because we are doing things on a shoe string budget. The festivals have been organized haphazardly, and we want there to be opportunity for booze and books to come together. It is hard to do this unless you’re sponsored by a nonprofit. In the past, Intersection for the Arts has sponsored us. Now that we’re a nonprofit, we can do it all, so expect more booze this year [laughter]. The idea is to support a variety of writers and to create an awareness of books and book culture. We want to develop a literary community. The primary focus is Bay Area writers, but we also bring in writers from outside.

This year, we have been programming all year long, and meetings have begun to take place. The festivals are primarily volunteer-run; 80 percent of the staff are volunteers. Although funding is haphazard, we have been fortunate. Eighty percent of our funding is contributed through donors, grants, the city, and fundraisers. Booze, hotel rooms, and airfare have all been provided.

The remainder, such as ticket sales, concession sales, booze, etc. comes from corporate foundations. It’s variable. Last year, there was some concern over recession, but luckily individual donors picked up slack when grants diminished. There have been some generous individuals. Seventy percent of our funding went to programming, renting the hall, the opening night gala, renting barbacks, palm trees, and musicians. Programming is the lion’s share, and we spend 26 percent on administration/costs.

The festival itself includes a broad variety of events. We have an award show, the Barbary Coast Award, which goes to a well-recognized Bay Area writer. And Kidquake at the library, in which public school children come out and get to listen to authors and get free books. The kids go home with books in hand, and are able to associate books and authors. Kidquake also includes writing workshops for about a thousand kids. Last year, we began expanding to Teenquake, which includes genre-based events on science fiction, mystery, noir, erotica, graphic novels, playwriting, and historical fiction. Industry panels, like “How To Get Your First Book Published,” in association with the Foundation Center, get filled to capacity.

Lit Crawl takes place on the final night of the festival. Five hundred authors appeared last year, and between four and five thousand people turned out. It was 14 blocks long. People were wandering the streets, and there were tons of vendors open. Bars and book stores and laundromats, a beekeeping supply store, a craft store, anywhere with open space in the Mission was filled with about 120-140 people. There were a lot of great writers. The majority of writers turn out on their own dime. It’s a free public festival, except for the opening night gala and a few other events, so the Crawl is astounding. It’s totally free; that’s the gloss over the whole thing.

How it gets put together is based on volunteer dedication: People come to us from events they’ve attended. We have occasional parties during the year to recruit. There are volunteers who keep coming back. We shamelessly recruit them to be on the committee. It seems innocent at first, but then you get sucked in. For Lit Crawl alone, we needed 130 volunteers. Clarion Alley has to be blocked off, and the volunteers go to bars and venues to put up signs, monitor traffic, and run surveys. It’s all a little off the cuff. It always seems to come together, though, which is remarkable.

We’re starting between October 1st and 9th this year. We meet once a month for four or five months. During the last five months, we hold weekly meetings with a committee of 20-25 people. Everybody is there to learn. Some are responsible for discreet areas, such as the sponsorship sub-committee, funding/donations, event planning, and Web design. We’re all motivated by the excitement of the event and the ability to take charge. There is a lot of juggling and cajoling to persuade each other about what needs to be included.

How to get your work or your organization included: Sometimes it’s a matter of somebody soliciting us, and the ideas of committee members and people involved. Sometimes we partner with organizations. For instance, we partnered with Poetry Flash at the Grace Cathedral reading. A lot of venues are starting to want to charge us as the festival gets larger and their funding decreases. We’ve managed to avoid that. At Grace we had Kay Ryan and Al Young free.

We get sponsorship, which is helpful for us. There are some things we can offer, like mailing lists from our newsletter, as collateral. We had a high turnout of about 12,500 last year, and we get a broad range of exposure, so sponsors are excited about being associated with the event. In the last two or three years we’ve had more connection with bookstores and libraries. We’ve been cross-promoting events with bookstores, and that expands the range of what we can produce and helps us gain support. Anything we can do to find organization partners with their own programming works well for us.

Dyana Ermatinger: Last year the SF Center for the Book was involved with Kidquake, and we have program ideas for this year. How can we get involved early on?

Robin: Debbie Grant is in charge of Kidquake. They’re a little crazy ambitious. They want to double their funding, have more kids’ programming and workshops, and more authors going into schools rather than holding an event just at the library. They want more outreach.

Cheryl: How did doing a festival plus year-round programming come about?

Robin: Last year we expanded to eight days. It didn’t cut into attendance; attendance was up. We had a breadth of attendance judging by our surveys; 31 percent in their 20s, 32 percent in their 30s. For 34 percent, this is the only literary event they attend. But there’s only so much we can do on a given night, and there are more events we want to throw than we can do, so we want to spread out a little. We do fundraising events that start in late spring/summer. The author is usually willing to donate time, the publisher donates books. So there’s interest in doing these things in  an informal way. Events can be irreverent, which is fun and a draw for audiences. It gives us an opportunity to do other kinds of events. Our focus is on the book itself: authors who have new books out, to promote the buying of literature. But we do include lots of authors who haven’t had a book out for a while, but who have interesting things to say. We want to showcase the full range of writing that’s happening and expand around the Bay.

Joan Gelfand: I want to thank you—as a writer, I’ve participated three years. Litquake is very inclusive, welcoming, supportive, great for one’s career.

Robin: It does end up leading to other things for people who participate.

Carl Macki: What’s your philosophy on live vs. recorded work? Do you not do videos or recordings?

Robin: We have some failed experiments. Red Room videoed a lot of readings. A documentary filmmaker this past year, for the 10^th anniversary, did a lot of recording. There’s the issue of funding and support. We changed the Web site this year, which was a beast. Jack Boulware will blog the week of the festival. The general idea is to hear words right from the author’s mouth—it’s a live-centric experience; it feels different on video. That being said, it would be great to have everything out there all the time, for people outside the Bay Area to access. But we don’t have the funding for it.

Jewelle Gomez: Have you ever worked with Poetry Center at San Francisco State? You could pick a signature event as part of their series, they video and archive it.

Robin: Great idea—we haven’t connected enough with them. Brilliant idea. Sold.

Cheryl: You said you work with 300 writers and 130 volunteers. I’m curious how, on a nitty gritty level, you coordinate with all those people and keep them organized.

Robin: The Crawl committee is small. I’m the maven, and I coordinate the coordinators. There are three phases of the crawl, which is a three-hour event with enough time between each phase for people to walk down the street. We have a coordinator for each phase. We’ll walk through Mission, check out venues. We just started partnering with NYC, and did a lit crawl two years ago in 2-3 boroughs. It was a nightmare, having to walk from Manhattan to Brooklyn. Last year they had a lit crawl—it was maybe 12 venues, all in lower Manhattan.

Each of the three phase coordinators is responsible for communicating with the venue. As a committee, we identify lit orgs, small lit mags, reading/writing groups, and we contact them. Curation is left to those orgs. We like to have big-name authors, but there is a limited group who have that draw. Small orgs decide who reads, and we just have a deadline. It’s a pretty free-for-all experience. We look at our list and say what’s missing—such as international writers. Then we put an event together or get another org to do it. It’s a juggling act.

As for the day-of logistics—the volunteers turn out, and this year we had crawl maps in addition to a full program. The volunteer coordinator handles check-in and pairs up people with venues, two for each venue. People say they will be there and then don’t show up. It gets pretty crazy, but it always seems to work out. People understand it’s wacky. That’s the appeal.

Joan Jasper: On behalf of the library, we love working with you all. You always look so cool, calm, and collected when you’re here. As an event host, it’s one of our most successful programs. The Teenquake program was hugely successful here.

Robin: A lot of the people who organized that were actual teens. We had a teen coordinator, but the teens decided on the programming. You take responsibility for your own event, bring your own audience. It’s a DIY experience.

Joan J.: Regarding live vs. taped—having authors here in person, we have fans lined up before the library opens. Then they stay all day.

Jewelle: People come for one author and stay for others. I read for the first time this past year, for this program in science fiction. The cross-fertilization is really great.

Carl: Did you say that you get funding from the Hotel Tax Fund? Is that decreasing?

Robin: Yes, we do. In general, all our funding decreased last year. This year, becoming a foundation and nonprofit, we have a committee who will help us. It’s been about sending out letters. We raise a lot of money that way.

Dorothy Lazard: What efforts have you made to get programming over to the East Bay?

Robin: Not many. It’s mostly about the lack of support staff. But I know we really want to. It would be fantastic to do something at the Oakland Public Library.

Dorothy: I would be into it, too.

Robin: I really want to see events at the Headland Center for the Arts. But their open house always coincides with our event. Doing public library stuff in Oakland would be amazing. Also, kids programming. We could start there.

BREAK

Cheryl: This is the part of the meeting where I open it up. Feel free to introduce any topics that you would like.

Joyce Jenkins: Please send us your events, and we’ll post them on poetryflash.org. We also co-sponsor the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association Awards. On April 18 at the SFPL’s Koret Auditorium, we’ll be giving Nancy Peters from City Lights a lifetime achievement award and bringing back the print version of Poetry Flash.

Dorothy: I always have the same question each meeting. I want to know how people working in agencies with a government hierarchy are faring in these economic times. Where do people get funding/support, or what have you heard? I also accept gossip. At Oakland, once our administration was beleaguered by the fight for scraps, they didn’t look at programming anymore. We’re left to our own devices.

Joan G.: I feel optimistic as a writer, but as a member of an org, our volunteerism is down, funds are down, membership is down. People are burnt out. The women are asked to do the volunteering so often. Zeek Magazine has an online and print version, beautiful art, international writers—but everything is pushing a rock uphill. It’s hard to get subscriptions. People are reading novels, but maybe not journals or fine poetry books.

Dorothy: There’s so much out there, too. When I get my bimonthly P&W, you can’t keep up with it all. I wouldn’t say the market is saturated, but there are so many choices out there, it’s hard to make your program rise above everything else.

Robin: We try to find sources of funding that are nontraditional. Finding other cultural sources that think literature is valuable can help. Canteen Magazine is funded by a guy in NY who makes his money doing online poker and needs a venue for a tax break. It’s crazy. You have to find people with sympathies for literature but whose money comes from elsewhere.

Dorothy: Public libraries are hamstrung by who you can affiliate yourself with.

Joan J.: SFPL has a great Friends group. I also work for a small nonprofit group. Our end-of-the-year appeal was hugely successful. Like with Obama—people giving small amounts adds up. I don’t know if you got that with Litquake.

Robin: We got a lot of that. We asked a lot of our authors even to donate $10. In a library situation, can you get authors to donate time?

Dorothy: We rely on volunteers. We also approach local bookstores. Diesel used to sell books at our events but stopped because they didn’t have the staff. We’re trying to foster those relationships in the community. It’s been hard. The fact that we have any kind of event is great.

Michelle Tea: We have one of our writers running the SF marathon and donating all her money to Radar. She’s raised over $1,000 for us so far. Our annual writers retreat is not funded, but it’s very successful. We have an annual gala called The Spectacle. Our events are free, but for the gala we charge. It’s amazing to have someone to run the marathon.

Ali Liebegott: With California being in such a shambles, and with Radar serving the queer population, which statistically isn’t financially well-off, it’s a miracle that we’re able to sustain the series. People come once a month for free, and once a year, we ask for support from people who’ve directly benefited from the programming. The marathon is amazing. The writer thought about how she’s benefited enormously from Radar, so it was an act of generosity directed back at us.

Joan J: Aren’t you doing a chapbook competition?

Ali: We are.

Joan J.: Is that a fundraising thing?

Ali: No. When Michelle and I met almost twenty years ago, there were a lot of literary open mics and people made their own chapbooks. Poetry is so slighted; it’s such a burden to be a poet in America, so I thought it would be a wonderful opportunity to have something open so we could get access to people we don’t know, an open call. We’re partnering with Inconvenient Press who are making the books. The winner will be given a reading slot at Radar. There’s no money involved. We’ll probably lose money. There’s a small fee to pay judges to read manuscripts. I feel like it sounds idealistic. You just have to keep pushing against the fact that nobody has money and you keep asking for it. Nobody wants to publish poets, but you keep pushing.

Margaret: Our donations at 826 are down, but volunteers are up. People have time now, so they can do something they’ve always wanted to do. There’s lots of opportunity when you let people know you need them and make it easy for them to come to you. We’ve had some wonderful people come to us because of the economy. If you can’t donate money, donate time. That appeals to a lot of people.

Dora Morales: Would Litquake partner with public libraries to bring authors to libraries that don’t have money?

Robin: We already do that. It’s often the other way around. The library has a great program, and we can promote it because we have great collateral materials—a newsletter, our mailing list. Part of the reason we wanted to go nonprofit because it’s not profitable. To be eligible for funding opportunities we weren’t before. A lot of people prefer to donate to a nonprofit. It is about getting authors in front of audiences, so it’s a liaison position. We had Kay Ryan at Grace Cathedral—there was a good turnout, and school classes showed up. This year we had younger writers, phenomenal readers, not as well-known. We use public forums to get audiences and authors together. The library is a natural place. It’s free and a magnet.

Joan J.: People who come to events here really do read books, not only because it’s a scene. The questions people ask are really great.

Cheryl: You described Litquake as a foundation. Is there a distinction between nonprofit and foundation?

Joyce: There is another level where you incorporate as a nonprofit and a foundation, a way to receive more money, more legal breadth. It gives you the ability to accept more money, which in the case of Litquake will probably happen. It’s just a matter of time.

Cheryl: As I hope all of you know, P&W has the Readings/Workshop program, which provides small grants for writers fees. You don’t need to be a nonprofit to apply. We’ve supported a lot of your events, and we actually noticed that in the past, the Bay Area has been the highest in funding, and we’ve had to reserve money for more rural areas. I’m afraid we may have been a little too successful—we are a little down in our support for the Bay Area and need to reconnect with organizations. We don’t have very much money, but I wanted to take this opportunity to let you know we do want applications from you. Also, are there new reading series and venues we should know about? Who’s not here today? We especially want to get in touch with orgs that reach underserved populations.

Stacey: If you’re applying for this money, what do people use it for? Can you send the criteria for applications again through the listserv?

Cheryl: The grants are specific, just for the writer’s fee, although that can free up funds for other things. The application process is simple. We make $50 to $500 grants. At pw.org/funding you will find the guidelines and application. It’s just fill-in-the-blank. There’s no narrative or financial statement that you need to submit. It makes it easy for grassroots orgs to apply. Radar is doing an event on April 8, we’re providing a little support.

Roy: I’ve applied for eight to nine events per year, and although they’re not always fully matched, the program has been incredibly reliable. I use it to help pay the poets.

Ali: I’ve been a recipient for a reading in a rural area.

Robin: We have so many readers. We were able to pay some authors $30. Most of our readers we don’t pay. So we can’t apply for them.

Cheryl: It is a matching grant program, but we’ll occasionally waive the requirement if the event is in a rural area or serves youth, seniors, etc.

Ellen: We receive about two grants per year. We have small workshops and we would probably lose money on them without these grants. This way we make maybe $50.

Cheryl: Our cap is $1,500 per year per org, but often we don’t fully fund this amount. It’s up to you how you want to apply—for many $50 grants or a few bigger ones. You can apply anytime during the year as long as it’s at least eight weeks before the event.

Stacey: What if you’re not financially contributing, but you contribute through time and other contributions.

Cheryl: It has to be a cash match. Although sometimes, if you give the writer cash and ask them to book their own travel, it amounts to the same thing. We are especially interested in funding workshops. Any final announcements before we break?

Ellen: We just put out our call for submission for the sixth annual intergenerational writing workshops. We partner with Intersection and pair young emerging writers with four amazing instructors. Writers get exposed to different styles and writers. Go to kearnyst.org and theintersection.org. Truong Tran, a poet and visual artist, opens Feb. 5. He has amazing work. Some poetry can’t be written. It’s gorgeous.

Joan J.: Diane di Prima will give her poet laureate inauguration here next Tuesday at 6 p.m.

Michelle: We’re having a Radar reading here on Feb. 9 with Erin Markey, Quince Mountain, Zoe Whittall, and Moe Bowstern. Quince Mountain is a trans guy who went undercover into those Christian make-you-straight camps and is writing a book on this experience. If you ask questions during the Q&A, Ali will bring you a cookie.

Joyce: We have most of these events listed on poetryflash.org.

END

Poets & Writers Literary Roundtable Meeting

January 28, 2010

San Francisco Public Library

PRESENT:

Cheryl Klein, Poets & Writers, Inc. cklein@pw.org

Jamie FitzGerald, Poets & Writers, Inc. jfitzgerald@pw.org

Shannon David, 826 Valencia shannoncdavid@mac.com

Noelle de la Paz, Aunt Lute Books marketing@auntlute.com

Robin Ekiss, Litquake robin.ekiss@gmail.com

Dyana Ermatinger, SF Center for the Book dyana@sfcb.org

Joan Gelfand, WNBA, Zeek, SFWC joan@joangelfand.com

Jewelle Gomez, SFPL jgomez@horizonsfoundation.org

Marvin Hiemstra, Bay Area Poetry Review drollmarv@aol.com

Joan Jasper, SFPL jjasper@sfpl.org

Joyce Jenkins, Poetry Flash editor@poetryflash.org

Dorothy Lazard, Oakland Public Library dlazard@oaklandlibrary.org

Stacey Lewis, City Lights stacey@citylights.com

Ali Liebegott, Radar Productions friendofducks@hotmail.com

Carl Macki, Petaluma Poetry Walk carlmacki@gmail.com

Roy Mash, Marin Poetry Center events@marinpoetrycenter.org

Margaret McCarthy, 826 Valencia margaret@826valencia.org

Dora Morales, Marin County Free Library dimorales@co.marin.ca.us

Ellen Oh, Kearny Street Workshop ellen@kearnystreet.org

Craig Santos Perez, Achiote Press craigsantosperez@gmail.com

Michelle Tea, Radar Productions michelle.bernadette.tea@gmail.com

INTRODUCTION:

Cheryl Klein: Welcome and thank you for coming. I want to thank Joan and the library for hosting. I’m looking forward to hearing what’s going on with everybody. Our main purpose is to get people who work in the  literary field talking with each other, exchanging ideas, and developing relationships with one another. I’m the director of P&W’s California office.

[Introductions around the room.]

Cheryl: We are pleased to have Robin Ekiss from Litquake here today. It’s great to have a guest speaker to help inspire us, and give examples and models that we all can use. Jewel was a great guest speaker at a former meeting. Robin will speak, then we’ll have questions, a break and open conversation.

GUEST SPEAKER:

Robin Ekiss: I wanted to mention a few things that didn’t appear in my biography. I have been a water slide attendant and an AFLCIO meat cutter, although those are not as literary as what did appear.

Litquake has been the largest literary festival on the West Coast, since 1999. It didn’t seem to Jane Ganahl and Jack Boulware that writers and books were being supported in a public form. So they organized a day at the Golden Gate Park band shell. Several writers read and the event was successful overall. The program eventually expanded, and LitStalk, which was the original name, grew and grew every year. So far we have had 2,300 authors and 53,000 audience members. The festivals are always vibrant and exciting. Last year the event was held in October.

We just became a 501(c)(3), which is great because we are doing things on a shoe string budget. The festivals have been organized haphazardly, and we want there to be opportunity for booze and books to come together. It is hard to do this unless you’re sponsored by a nonprofit. In the past, Intersection for the Arts has sponsored us. Now that we’re a nonprofit, we can do it all, so expect more booze this year [laughter]. The idea is to support a variety of writers and to create an awareness of books and book culture. We want to develop a literary community. The primary focus is Bay Area writers, but we also bring in writers from outside.

This year, we have been programming all year long, and meetings have begun to take place. The festivals are primarily volunteer-run; 80 percent of the staff are volunteers. Although funding is haphazard, we have been fortunate. Eighty percent of our funding is contributed through donors, grants, the city, and fundraisers. Booze, hotel rooms, and airfare have all been provided.

The remainder, such as ticket sales, concession sales, booze, etc. comes from corporate foundations. It’s variable. Last year, there was some concern over recession, but luckily individual donors picked up slack when grants diminished. There have been some generous individuals. Seventy percent of our funding went to programming, renting the hall, the opening night gala, renting barbacks, palm trees, and musicians. Programming is the lion’s share, and we spend 26 percent on administration/costs.

The festival itself includes a broad variety of events. We have an award show, the Barbary Coast Award, which goes to a well-recognized Bay Area writer. And Kidquake at the library, in which public school children come out and get to listen to authors and get free books. The kids go home with books in hand, and are able to associate books and authors. Kidquake also includes writing workshops for about a thousand kids. Last year, we began expanding to Teenquake, which includes genre-based events on science fiction, mystery, noir, erotica, graphic novels, playwriting, and historical fiction. Industry panels, like “How To Get Your First Book Published,” in association with the Foundation Center, get filled to capacity.

Lit Crawl takes place on the final night of the festival. Five hundred authors appeared last year, and between four and five thousand people turned out. It was 14 blocks long. People were wandering the streets, and there were tons of vendors open. Bars and book stores and laundromats, a beekeeping supply store, a craft store, anywhere with open space in the Mission was filled with about 120-140 people. There were a lot of great writers. The majority of writers turn out on their own dime. It’s a free public festival, except for the opening night gala and a few other events, so the Crawl is astounding. It’s totally free; that’s the gloss over the whole thing.

How it gets put together is based on volunteer dedication: People come to us from events they’ve attended. We have occasional parties during the year to recruit. There are volunteers who keep coming back. We shamelessly recruit them to be on the committee. It seems innocent at first, but then you get sucked in. For Lit Crawl alone, we needed 130 volunteers. Clarion Alley has to be blocked off, and the volunteers go to bars and venues to put up signs, monitor traffic, and run surveys. It’s all a little off the cuff. It always seems to come together, though, which is remarkable.

We’re starting between October 1st and 9th this year. We meet once a month for four or five months. During the last five months, we hold weekly meetings with a committee of 20-25 people. Everybody is there to learn. Some are responsible for discreet areas, such as the sponsorship sub-committee, funding/donations, event planning, and Web design. We’re all motivated by the excitement of the event and the ability to take charge. There is a lot of juggling and cajoling to persuade each other about what needs to be included.

How to get your work or your organization included: Sometimes it’s a matter of somebody soliciting us, and the ideas of committee members and people involved. Sometimes we partner with organizations. For instance, we partnered with Poetry Flash at the Grace Cathedral reading. A lot of venues are starting to want to charge us as the festival gets larger and their funding decreases. We’ve managed to avoid that. At Grace we had Kay Ryan and Al Young free.

We get sponsorship, which is helpful for us. There are some things we can offer, like mailing lists from our newsletter, as collateral. We had a high turnout of about 12,500 last year, and we get a broad range of exposure, so sponsors are excited about being associated with the event. In the last two or three years we’ve had more connection with bookstores and libraries. We’ve been cross-promoting events with bookstores, and that expands the range of what we can produce and helps us gain support. Anything we can do to find organization partners with their own programming works well for us.

Dyana Ermatinger: Last year the SF Center for the Book was involved with Kidquake, and we have program ideas for this year. How can we get involved early on?

Robin: Debbie Grant is in charge of Kidquake. They’re a little crazy ambitious. They want to double their funding, have more kids’ programming and workshops, and more authors going into schools rather than holding an event just at the library. They want more outreach.

Cheryl: How did doing a festival plus year-round programming come about?

Robin: Last year we expanded to eight days. It didn’t cut into attendance; attendance was up. We had a breadth of attendance judging by our surveys; 31 percent in their 20s, 32 percent in their 30s. For 34 percent, this is the only literary event they attend. But there’s only so much we can do on a given night, and there are more events we want to throw than we can do, so we want to spread out a little. We do fundraising events that start in late spring/summer. The author is usually willing to donate time, the publisher donates books. So there’s interest in doing these things in  an informal way. Events can be irreverent, which is fun and a draw for audiences. It gives us an opportunity to do other kinds of events. Our focus is on the book itself: authors who have new books out, to promote the buying of literature. But we do include lots of authors who haven’t had a book out for a while, but who have interesting things to say. We want to showcase the full range of writing that’s happening and expand around the Bay.

Joan Gelfand: I want to thank you—as a writer, I’ve participated three years. Litquake is very inclusive, welcoming, supportive, great for one’s career.

Robin: It does end up leading to other things for people who participate.

Carl Macki: What’s your philosophy on live vs. recorded work? Do you not do videos or recordings?

Robin: We have some failed experiments. Red Room videoed a lot of readings. A documentary filmmaker this past year, for the 10^th anniversary, did a lot of recording. There’s the issue of funding and support. We changed the Web site this year, which was a beast. Jack Boulware will blog the week of the festival. The general idea is to hear words right from the author’s mouth—it’s a live-centric experience; it feels different on video. That being said, it would be great to have everything out there all the time, for people outside the Bay Area to access. But we don’t have the funding for it.

Jewelle Gomez: Have you ever worked with Poetry Center at San Francisco State? You could pick a signature event as part of their series, they video and archive it.

Robin: Great idea—we haven’t connected enough with them. Brilliant idea. Sold.

Cheryl: You said you work with 300 writers and 130 volunteers. I’m curious how, on a nitty gritty level, you coordinate with all those people and keep them organized.

Robin: The Crawl committee is small. I’m the maven, and I coordinate the coordinators. There are three phases of the crawl, which is a three-hour event with enough time between each phase for people to walk down the street. We have a coordinator for each phase. We’ll walk through Mission, check out venues. We just started partnering with NYC, and did a lit crawl two years ago in 2-3 boroughs. It was a nightmare, having to walk from Manhattan to Brooklyn. Last year they had a lit crawl—it was maybe 12 venues, all in lower Manhattan.

Each of the three phase coordinators is responsible for communicating with the venue. As a committee, we identify lit orgs, small lit mags, reading/writing groups, and we contact them. Curation is left to those orgs. We like to have big-name authors, but there is a limited group who have that draw. Small orgs decide who reads, and we just have a deadline. It’s a pretty free-for-all experience. We look at our list and say what’s missing—such as international writers. Then we put an event together or get another org to do it. It’s a juggling act.

As for the day-of logistics—the volunteers turn out, and this year we had crawl maps in addition to a full program. The volunteer coordinator handles check-in and pairs up people with venues, two for each venue. People say they will be there and then don’t show up. It gets pretty crazy, but it always seems to work out. People understand it’s wacky. That’s the appeal.

Joan Jasper: On behalf of the library, we love working with you all. You always look so cool, calm, and collected when you’re here. As an event host, it’s one of our most successful programs. The Teenquake program was hugely successful here.

Robin: A lot of the people who organized that were actual teens. We had a teen coordinator, but the teens decided on the programming. You take responsibility for your own event, bring your own audience. It’s a DIY experience.

Joan J.: Regarding live vs. taped—having authors here in person, we have fans lined up before the library opens. Then they stay all day.

Jewelle: People come for one author and stay for others. I read for the first time this past year, for this program in science fiction. The cross-fertilization is really great.

Carl: Did you say that you get funding from the Hotel Tax Fund? Is that decreasing?

Robin: Yes, we do. In general, all our funding decreased last year. This year, becoming a foundation and nonprofit, we have a committee who will help us. It’s been about sending out letters. We raise a lot of money that way.

Dorothy Lazard: What efforts have you made to get programming over to the East Bay?

Robin: Not many. It’s mostly about the lack of support staff. But I know we really want to. It would be fantastic to do something at the Oakland Public Library.

Dorothy: I would be into it, too.

Robin: I really want to see events at the Headland Center for the Arts. But their open house always coincides with our event. Doing public library stuff in Oakland would be amazing. Also, kids programming. We could start there.

BREAK

Cheryl: This is the part of the meeting where I open it up. Feel free to introduce any topics that you would like.

Joyce Jenkins: Please send us your events, and we’ll post them on poetryflash.org. We also co-sponsor the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association Awards. On April 18 at the SFPL’s Koret Auditorium, we’ll be giving Nancy Peters from City Lights a lifetime achievement award and bringing back the print version of Poetry Flash.

Dorothy: I always have the same question each meeting. I want to know how people working in agencies with a government hierarchy are faring in these economic times. Where do people get funding/support, or what have you heard? I also accept gossip. At Oakland, once our administration was beleaguered by the fight for scraps, they didn’t look at programming anymore. We’re left to our own devices.

Joan G.: I feel optimistic as a writer, but as a member of an org, our volunteerism is down, funds are down, membership is down. People are burnt out. The women are asked to do the volunteering so often. Zeek Magazine has an online and print version, beautiful art, international writers—but everything is pushing a rock uphill. It’s hard to get subscriptions. People are reading novels, but maybe not journals or fine poetry books.

Dorothy: There’s so much out there, too. When I get my bimonthly P&W, you can’t keep up with it all. I wouldn’t say the market is saturated, but there are so many choices out there, it’s hard to make your program rise above everything else.

Robin: We try to find sources of funding that are nontraditional. Finding other cultural sources that think literature is valuable can help. Canteen Magazine is funded by a guy in NY who makes his money doing online poker and needs a venue for a tax break. It’s crazy. You have to find people with sympathies for literature but whose money comes from elsewhere.

Dorothy: Public libraries are hamstrung by who you can affiliate yourself with.

Joan J.: SFPL has a great Friends group. I also work for a small nonprofit group. Our end-of-the-year appeal was hugely successful. Like with Obama—people giving small amounts adds up. I don’t know if you got that with Litquake.

Robin: We got a lot of that. We asked a lot of our authors even to donate $10. In a library situation, can you get authors to donate time?

Dorothy: We rely on volunteers. We also approach local bookstores. Diesel used to sell books at our events but stopped because they didn’t have the staff. We’re trying to foster those relationships in the community. It’s been hard. The fact that we have any kind of event is great.

Michelle Tea: We have one of our writers running the SF marathon and donating all her money to Radar. She’s raised over $1,000 for us so far. Our annual writers retreat is not funded, but it’s very successful. We have an annual gala called The Spectacle. Our events are free, but for the gala we charge. It’s amazing to have someone to run the marathon.

Ali Liebegott: With California being in such a shambles, and with Radar serving the queer population, which statistically isn’t financially well-off, it’s a miracle that we’re able to sustain the series. People come once a month for free, and once a year, we ask for support from people who’ve directly benefited from the programming. The marathon is amazing. The writer thought about how she’s benefited enormously from Radar, so it was an act of generosity directed back at us.

Joan J: Aren’t you doing a chapbook competition?

Ali: We are.

Joan J.: Is that a fundraising thing?

Ali: No. When Michelle and I met almost twenty years ago, there were a lot of literary open mics and people made their own chapbooks. Poetry is so slighted; it’s such a burden to be a poet in America, so I thought it would be a wonderful opportunity to have something open so we could get access to people we don’t know, an open call. We’re partnering with Inconvenient Press who are making the books. The winner will be given a reading slot at Radar. There’s no money involved. We’ll probably lose money. There’s a small fee to pay judges to read manuscripts. I feel like it sounds idealistic. You just have to keep pushing against the fact that nobody has money and you keep asking for it. Nobody wants to publish poets, but you keep pushing.

Margaret: Our donations at 826 are down, but volunteers are up. People have time now, so they can do something they’ve always wanted to do. There’s lots of opportunity when you let people know you need them and make it easy for them to come to you. We’ve had some wonderful people come to us because of the economy. If you can’t donate money, donate time. That appeals to a lot of people.

Dora Morales: Would Litquake partner with public libraries to bring authors to libraries that don’t have money?

Robin: We already do that. It’s often the other way around. The library has a great program, and we can promote it because we have great collateral materials—a newsletter, our mailing list. Part of the reason we wanted to go nonprofit because it’s not profitable. To be eligible for funding opportunities we weren’t before. A lot of people prefer to donate to a nonprofit. It is about getting authors in front of audiences, so it’s a liaison position. We had Kay Ryan at Grace Cathedral—there was a good turnout, and school classes showed up. This year we had younger writers, phenomenal readers, not as well-known. We use public forums to get audiences and authors together. The library is a natural place. It’s free and a magnet.

Joan J.: People who come to events here really do read books, not only because it’s a scene. The questions people ask are really great.

Cheryl: You described Litquake as a foundation. Is there a distinction between nonprofit and foundation?

Joyce: There is another level where you incorporate as a nonprofit and a foundation, a way to receive more money, more legal breadth. It gives you the ability to accept more money, which in the case of Litquake will probably happen. It’s just a matter of time.

Cheryl: As I hope all of you know, P&W has the Readings/Workshop program, which provides small grants for writers fees. You don’t need to be a nonprofit to apply. We’ve supported a lot of your events, and we actually noticed that in the past, the Bay Area has been the highest in funding, and we’ve had to reserve money for more rural areas. I’m afraid we may have been a little too successful—we are a little down in our support for the Bay Area and need to reconnect with organizations. We don’t have very much money, but I wanted to take this opportunity to let you know we do want applications from you. Also, are there new reading series and venues we should know about? Who’s not here today? We especially want to get in touch with orgs that reach underserved populations.

Stacey: If you’re applying for this money, what do people use it for? Can you send the criteria for applications again through the listserv?

Cheryl: The grants are specific, just for the writer’s fee, although that can free up funds for other things. The application process is simple. We make $50 to $500 grants. At pw.org/funding you will find the guidelines and application. It’s just fill-in-the-blank. There’s no narrative or financial statement that you need to submit. It makes it easy for grassroots orgs to apply. Radar is doing an event on April 8, we’re providing a little support.

Roy: I’ve applied for eight to nine events per year, and although they’re not always fully matched, the program has been incredibly reliable. I use it to help pay the poets.

Ali: I’ve been a recipient for a reading in a rural area.

Robin: We have so many readers. We were able to pay some authors $30. Most of our readers we don’t pay. So we can’t apply for them.

Cheryl: It is a matching grant program, but we’ll occasionally waive the requirement if the event is in a rural area or serves youth, seniors, etc.

Ellen: We receive about two grants per year. We have small workshops and we would probably lose money on them without these grants. This way we make maybe $50.

Cheryl: Our cap is $1,500 per year per org, but often we don’t fully fund this amount. It’s up to you how you want to apply—for many $50 grants or a few bigger ones. You can apply anytime during the year as long as it’s at least eight weeks before the event.

Stacey: What if you’re not financially contributing, but you contribute through time and other contributions.

Cheryl: It has to be a cash match. Although sometimes, if you give the writer cash and ask them to book their own travel, it amounts to the same thing. We are especially interested in funding workshops. Any final announcements before we break?

Ellen: We just put out our call for submission for the sixth annual intergenerational writing workshops. We partner with Intersection and pair young emerging writers with four amazing instructors. Writers get exposed to different styles and writers. Go to kearnyst.org and theintersection.org. Truong Tran, a poet and visual artist, opens Feb. 5. He has amazing work. Some poetry can’t be written. It’s gorgeous.

Joan J.: Diane di Prima will give her poet laureate inauguration here next Tuesday at 6 p.m.

Michelle: We’re having a Radar reading here on Feb. 9 with Erin Markey, Quince Mountain, Zoe Whittall, and Moe Bowstern. Quince Mountain is a trans guy who went undercover into those Christian make-you-straight camps and is writing a book on this experience. If you ask questions during the Q&A, Ali will bring you a cookie.

Joyce: We have most of these events listed on poetryflash.org.

END