 Good afternoon everyone. Are we ready? Did we find parking? Are we sitting down? I would like to welcome you to the 38th Annual Northern California Book Awards. My name is Kai Melner. I'm an author and a columnist at the San Francisco Chronicle. The Northern California Book Reviewers is a volunteer association whose members review books for local, regional, and national publications. They obviously review books that are written by authors from Northern California, like us. The Book Awards are presented by Poetry Flash, the San Francisco Public Library, and Friends of the San Francisco Public Library, Penn West, the Mechanics Institute Library, and the Women's National Book Association, San Francisco Chapter. After the awards, you're invited to join us immediately after the ceremony for a reception and a book signing in the Latino-Hispanic meeting room. This room is across the lobby on this floor. All books that we're going to mention today are going to be available for you to buy and to have signed by the authors who are here. Each year, the National California Book Reviewers read and discuss hundreds of titles. They sort through piles of books to find the best from Northern California authors. The books that are considered this year were published in 2018. And today we're going to celebrate all of the nominees and all of the books showcased here. So make sure you have your phones, you know, your little notes app, or if you use a notebook, make sure you write down some of these names, because this is your reading list at least until next year. So the first award is the Northern California Book Awards Recognition Award for a literary figure or project. And I'm going to introduce Northern California Book Awards member Joyce Jenkins to present this award if you'd like to come to the podium. Hi there. Well, first I'd like to thank NCBR members Jonah Raskin and David Roderick who wrote book reviews for John McMurtry. They provided the inspiration to make this NCBR Recognition Award a reality. For 11 busy years, 2008 to 2019, John McMurtry played a vital role in the literary life of the San Francisco Bay Area. As the San Francisco Chronicle Books Editor, he practiced and extended a tradition of reviewing that was nurtured and sustained by previous Chronicle Book Editors, such as Pat Holt, Alex Madrigal, Oscar Villalon, and David Kippin. McMurtry reviewed books every Sunday, enlisted local reviewers, recorded on the Bay Area literary community. He traced the hustle and bustle of the publishing industry, interviewed dozens of authors including Tom Wolf, and wrote memorable obituaries of literary legends such as Robert Stone. McMurtry created and published a stunning literary map of San Francisco with famous and not so famous writers including Gus Lee, Ishmael Reed, and Isabel Allende along with quotations from authors like Maya Angelou who said, I became intoxicated by the physical fact of San Francisco. He published the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association's List of Best Sellers and received their Friend of Independent Bookselling Award. A jury member for one City One book, San Francisco Reads and the Commonwealth Club's California Book Awards, he also collaborated with the French Consulate in San Francisco for a writing competition. Since he left the Chronicle, he has been missed. But over the past few months, he's shown that there's life after the cron. He's written for the Boston Globe, the New York Times, and the Washington Post and appeared on KQED Forum with Michael Krasny. John McMurtry is on a well-earned vacation abroad right now, but promise me that today he is lifting the glass to us here from afar. So let's give him a hand. I'm probably not supposed to be biased as the emcee, but John was such a wonderful colleague and I'm so happy to see him get this award. He did a lot for literature in the Bay Area. But now I want to introduce to you the nominees in children's literature for younger readers. The first nominee is Tadda by Kathy Ellen Davis, illustrated by Kalani Juanita. Tadda starts like a typical once upon a time story, but it quickly turns into a playful tale that challenges the notion of happily ever after. It begins with a young girl lost in imaginary play, who is interrupted by a boy pretending to be a dragon. In the end, they find collaboration actually unlocks the greatest adventures. Juanita's illustrations bring the story to life with dramatic text layouts that reflect the children's wild imaginations. The next nominee is Ode to an Onion, Pablo Neruda and His Muse by Alexandria Giardino, illustrated by Felicit... I'm going to be doing this all afternoon, by the way, just to warn you. Felicita Salla, Ode to an Onion celebrates the lives of 20th century Chilean poet Pablo Neruda and his wife, the musician Matilda Eritia. Inspired by Pablo's poem, Ode a la Cebola and Matilda's memoir, My Life with Pablo Neruda. This book teaches young readers that you can choose how to interpret the world simply by changing your perspective. The book even starts and ends with transparent paper that looks like onion skin. Third nominee, Part Time Mermaid by Deborah Underwood, illustrated by Cambria Evans. In this lushly illustrated story of a little girl who, at night, transforms herself into a mermaid, the New York Times best-selling children's author Deborah Underwood offers us a world of undersea adventures. During the day, the girl must clean her room and remember not to splash when she is in the tub. But at the stroke of midnight, she grows a powerful, glimmering tail, slides down a magical waterslide, and glides through the sea. Heroic, imaginative, the girl keeps a great ship from sinking and rescues a mer-boy, who looks a lot like her little brother. Kind and loving, her parents have no idea they are living with a part-time mermaid. The Northern California Book Award for Children's Literature, Younger Readers is Ode to an Onion by Alexandria Giardino. Thank you so much. What an honor. I saw the list of all the nominees, and I am beyond moved to be included with all of you, with all the writers, including the other nominees for this award. I love this moment in children's literature. It's as if we're having another renaissance. Thank you to the critics. It's really my honor that you considered my work and that you appreciate it. So thank you so much. I'm going to read a bit from it, if you don't mind. But before I do that, I wanted to let you know that Felicita Sala is the illustrator, and she lives in Rome. I haven't gotten to meet her in person, but isn't she talented? She brought my words into just a whole other level. So I was really honored to collaborate with her and to create something with her that will endure for all of us. I also want to thank the publisher Cameron, Cameron Kids, a local publisher. Bravo for local publishing. They are small but mighty, so keep an eye out for their books that are coming down the road because they do beautiful work, and I was really privileged to work with them. So I'm going to read just a little bit, maybe one minute. Am I doing okay for time? Okay. I was a translator of Pablo Neruda's wife's memoir, and that's what inspired this book. Matilde wrote this whimsical description of a garden from her childhood, and so that's what inspired me to write this book for kids. I'll just read the first couple of pages. How about that? Pablo was hard at work writing a long sad poem. His pen world, the pages piled high. The clock struck 12. Pablo jumped. He was going to be late for lunch with his friend Matilde. He combed his hair and wished he didn't look so gloomy. Matilde liked to laugh. She had a smile as wide as a guitar. Pablo tried to hide his glum expression behind a bouquet of poppies. No time for sadness, Matilde said as she filled a vase with water. Come, I need your help with lunch. And off they go into Matilde's garden where Pablo continues to see sad and gloomy things, and Matilde keeps reminding him to see beautiful things until finally he discovers the beauty of a humble onion. And she says, why don't you write something about an onion? And so he does. He writes an ode. And at the end they have lunch. And Matilde was a lovely person. That was her personality. I invented the story, but I was faithful to their real life and to their real emotional relationship and interactions. And at the back of the book I translated the poem from Spanish into English. So thank you again so much. This is really quite an honor. I'm very moved and I appreciate your time. Thank you. We're going to move on to the nominees in children's literature for older readers. The first nominee is Picture Us in the Light by Kelly Lloyd Gilbert. It's about high school senior Danny Cheng, who's blessed with close friends, loving parents, and a scholarship to the art school of his dreams. To pursue a career in art, however, he'll have to leave his best friend, Harry Wong. And that's a future that Danny can't quite imagine. Why should his attraction to Harry bother him so much when Harry is obviously involved with Regina Chan, a mutual friend of theirs? It's a romantic triangle. It's also about resonant universal themes that surface through the author's depiction of family dynamics and diversity in the Asian American community. The narrative interweaves the consequences of depression, suicide, and the need for human connection. Second nominee is Out of Left Field by Ellen Claggis. This is the story of 10-year-old Kathleen Curie Gordon, who has many things. She's a baseball player with a nasty knuckleball. She's a devoted San Francisco Seals fan. Wow, I haven't heard that in a while. She's a curious, creative thinker like the rest of her family, and she's not allowed to join her local Little League team. That's because it's 1957 and girls are barred from playing in Little League. Claggis has written a novel that, like its main character, is many things. A primer for research, a thoughtful introduction for young readers to civil rights, gender rights, desegregation, and the space race, and an exciting window into a little-known part of history for baseball fans and otherwise. It's an invitation to examine who writes history and what gets left out. And our third nominee is Blanca and Roja by Anna Marie McLemore. Blanca and Roja to Cisney are polar opposites and rival outcasts. Yet they're loyal to each other is unwavering because they are bound by a curse that has plagued their family for generations. One of the girls will eventually transform into a swan. And you thought your family was complicated. This is a contemporary and poignant Latinx mashup of the ugly duckling, the wild swans, and snow white, rose red. It's more than just the distillation of the fables it was inspired by. It's an entirely new class of fairy tale that examines the complexity of gender, the injustice of prejudice, and the triumph of overcoming disabilities. I imagine it's pretty hard to get through high school if you're going to be turning into a swan. Okay. The Orphan Band of Springdale by Ann Nesbitt. In the tradition of to kill a mockingbird, this is a coming of age story set in small-town America on the eve of World War II. The protagonist, Augusta, also known as Gusta, is an 11-year-old girl sent off to her grandma, Hoops Orphanage in Maine, when her German-born father must run from the law, and her mother can't earn enough in New York to care for her daughter. This novel asks some big questions that are relevant for today. How do we know what is true or right? How do you balance keeping peace with your neighbors, with doing what you think is right? And the Northern California Book Awards for Children's Literature, Older Readers, is Blanca and Roja by Anna Marie McLemore. Oh, thank you so, so much. I can't tell you what this means to me, and how grateful I am to be here. I could tell you a lot of things about why I wrote this story, other than, of course, putting my queer lepina hands all over some of my favorite fairy tales. But instead of trying to tell you the reasons I wrote this, I'm gonna let one of my characters tell you. This is Paige. Grandma Lynn had this way of reading me fairy tales, like she was telling me secrets I'd need one day. She leaned a little forward, meeting my eye, when the night discovered the trick of lulling the dragon to sleep, or when the shepherd boy found the secret door. I lowered my head to hide my blush when I thought of the witches and princesses in those stories, of catching my fingers in hair as bright as red wheat, or rich as threads of black silk. I thought of those magic-blooded girls taking me by my shirt collar to kiss me, the film of their skirts floating around us like curls of bright smoke. Grandma Lynn probably knew that. She knew in the same way she knew I would not grow out of wearing pants and collared shirts to church instead of my cousin's passed-down dresses. She knew the same way she knew to call me young man, those words like fairy tale jewels. They were crowns I had found in a misfailed palace, while the words young lady were a queen's apple or a spindle, things that might turn out to poison me but that I was expected to take. Fairy tales were a world I thought I knew, but the one I needed to know most was the one that took me the longest to understand. It wasn't until Blanca kissed me that I realized why the woods made me into a signet. It wasn't because Blanca and Roja's family came from swans. It was because a story chose me, even when I'd gotten it all wrong. I thought I knew the story of the ugly duckling, the signet who endures taunting and winter cold and being driven out of everywhere before discovering he is a swan. I thought it was all about the ugly duckling looking into the pond and discovering a magnificent bird. But it didn't happen that way. The way it happened was that the ugly duckling was so tired and cold and lonely that he'd been emptied out. He'd run from cats and children and mother ducks. He'd frozen in caves and ponds. So when he saw a flock of swans, wings shimmering like snow, he threw himself at them, deciding he would rather be destroyed by them than keep his distance. The ugly duckling's great surprise was not the moment he saw himself in the pond. That came later. His greatest shock was when the swans embraced him, took him into their flutter of wings. It was the moment they made themselves his family. It was when they recognized him before he recognized himself. I had always made a sorry imitation of a girl, awkward and miserable in dresses and shined white shoes. But with the shift of changing into jeans and a plain shirt, with letting go of trying to make myself fit the words girl and young lady, I came to understand that I was not a girl who was terrible at being a girl. I was a boy who hadn't realized it yet. The story of the ugly duckling was never about the signet discovering he is lovely. It is not a story about realizing you have become beautiful. It is about the sudden understanding that you are something other than what you thought you were and that what you are is more beautiful than what you once thought you had to be. Thank you. Can everyone hear me? Okay. Okay. Yeah, I'll have to keep pulling on this. Anna Marie, thank you. That was really beautiful. And I'm super happy that the nominees are reading a bit from their work too. It gives us like a three for one event happening here. Next up, we have the nominees for poetry in translation. And I'm so happy we have this category because there's so much actually happening in this genre. And we have two wonderful nominees today. The first is Wild Geese Sorrow, the Chinese Wall Inscriptions at Angel Island, translated by Jeffrey Thomas Leon. These anonymous poems carved in a wooden wall by non-literary writers educated in the classical Chinese tradition are a compelling testimony of an earlier episode in U.S. history and frankly, San Francisco history that dates back to when Chinese immigrants in search of a better life were inhumanely detained on Angel Island. The poems date from 1910 to 1940. And Jeff Leong, this is his first translated collection and he's bringing us an important historical document of rescued literature and rescued history. The second nominee is Poetry Comes Out of My Mouth, selected poems of Mario Santiago Papasquiaro. It's translated from Spanish by Arturo Monticon and the artwork is by Maceo Montaya. In the 1970s, when literature in Mexico City was highly controlled by the dominating political party, inforealism, sometimes called visceral realism, raised its voice in a poetics of unassimable opposition. Papasquiaro cracks open his consciousness like some demonically possessed pinata and outpours a storm of uncontrollable incantation deftly caught in Monticon's deeply informed translation. The Northern California Book Award for Translation and Poetry goes to Wild Geese Sorrow, the Chinese Wall Inscriptions at Angel Island translated by Jeffrey Thomas Leong. Thank you very much. I also am deeply honored to acknowledge this award on behalf of Wild Geese Sorrow and I'd like to also congratulate the other nominee in this category. I think it's important that this award helps to make the work of these Chinese American immigrants over 100 years ago available to the public and especially in this time of immigration hysteria and scapegoating. This morning's ICE raids were delayed but the threats are still there. So I think the work of 100 years ago does speak to us in the present. I'm going to just read to you a brief selection of poems from the book. And the book is written, I just want to say one thing, the book is written on the walls of the Angel Island immigration station which is here in San Francisco Bay Area. You can go out there, it's a public place and they were written for each other. The detainees were speaking to each other so imagine you're listening in on their conversation. Poem 20, Deep Night. In the still of night, small sounds are howling wind, shadows and ache of old wounds so I recite verse. Fog and mist drift, a gloomy sky, insects rub crick-crack beneath the moon's faint light. My sad and bitter face matches these heavens. A worried man sits alone, leans at the window sill, toy-san, formerly known as Yi. This next poem is written by a detainee who just found out that he is to be deported. Poem 49. My petition denied already half a year with no further news. Who knew that today I would be deported back to Tong Mountain? At midship, I'll suffer waves and pearl-like tears will fall. On a clear night, three times I'll find the bitterness hard to bear. Another kind of feeling and emotion that was expressed was one of frustration and anger. Poem 60. I clasped hands in parting with my brothers and classmates. Because of the mouth waited swiftly across the Pacific. Who knew that the Western barbarians bereft of compassion or reason? 100 cases of petty abuse against the Tong. Countless interrogations and still not done. What's more, must stand naked just to check the lungs. compatriots, we've come to this. All because our nation's power, too weak to protect, come that day when China unites. I myself will rip out the barbarians' heart and guts. And this last poem exemplifies one of the purposes of the poetry, which was to console each other and give each other encouragement. Poem 70. Shu of Hengsan exhorts the sojourner. When talking of going to the land of the flower flag, my face beamed with happiness. I dug up a thousand gold pieces, but leaving more difficult. Saying goodbye to my parents, I choked with sadness when parting from my wife many feelings and shared tears. Frequently waves, big as mountains, terrified as travelers. Petty bureaucracy, like a tiger, doubles the barbarian's bite. Never forget this day when you go ashore. Push hard on your journey. Don't be lazy or idle. Thank you very much. I just want to remind you that all of these incredible books we're talking about are available out in the lobby, so please support these incredible authors and the huge amount of work that they have put into these projects. We are now moving to the award for translation in prose. And the nominees for this are Posso Wells by Gabriela Alamon. Translated from Spanish by Dick Cluster. Posso Wells is a fictional small town in contemporary Ecuador. It's plagued by political and economic corruption, poverty, and disturbing happenings, including the repeated disappearances of townspeople and visitors. Dick Cluster's translation captures this small impoverished rural town that rusts uneasily upon tunnels of terror. I Didn't Talk by Beatrice Brashe, translated from the Portuguese by Adam Morris. This novel, set in the present era in Brazil, follows the life of Gustavo, a teacher who's about to retire. It's set in the 1970s, which was a time of unrest and dictatorship in Brazil. And Adam Morris' translation powerfully depicts Gustavo, his family, their relationship, and their world. Revolution Sunday by Wendy Guerrera, translated by the Spanish by Aki Obadas. And if I mispronounce that, I really apologize. On the first page, the reader slips into the world of Guerrera's tale, a woman poet's life in contemporary Cuba, where the books she writes are not available because they do not support the view of Cuban life that the government demands. The English language choices crafted by the translator reflect very well the language of the author, who was first and foremost a poet. And the Northern California Book Award for Translation in Pros goes to I Didn't Talk by Beatrice Bracher, translated from the Portuguese by Adam Morris. Thank you very much. It's an honor to accept this award for myself, but also on behalf of the author. She'll be thrilled when I tell her about it. Now, as a description from the pamphlet might suggest, this was not an uplifting text. It's narrated by a torture survivor. But nothing very much happening right now in Brazil is very uplifting either. And I know that the author has been very distressed by what's happening there. And I think the most important thing I can say right now is that she would implore all of you to inform yourselves about what's happening in Brazil, the political situation there. So without further ado, I'll just read a selection from the text. And this is Gustavo speaking in 2004, recalling the 1970s. I found out later that the organization had rules about what to say and when to say it once someone is captured. If people fell, they needed to resist a few days in silence, after which it wouldn't be so serious if they gave up addresses and names, because the information would already be useless. There were other things that could be divulged during torture sessions. Given that talking was necessary to avoid being killed, tell them whatever they want to hear, buy time for the machine to be disassembled and for your comrades to go into hiding. They started by saying what was already in the open, merely confirming what the soldiers already knew. Making subsequent depositions seem credible, feeding their torturers a few valid facts, as though they were already giving in. And then between the useless facts, the names and addresses of idiots like me, people who knew nothing and would certainly be released when it turned out they had a solid alibi. But I didn't know any of this and beneath the blows I tried to keep guessing at the language, the codes and procedures. Armando was a good militant and in spite of our close friendship, in truth because of it, he never told me anything about his activities. The torturers already knew much more than me. Armando had participated in a kidnapping and a bank robbery. He'd laundered money, prepared safe houses for fugitives. The part about safe houses I knew, later I found out the rest was just as true. In our apartment, we took in a low life from Gilganjidusul, whose nom de guerre was Joyce. He tried to seduce Eliana and all her friends. After I became a deaf widower, I learned that I could have said anything I knew. Armando would not have been affected by my words. Thank you. Adam, thank you so much. And thank you for the reading. My not-so-secret plan to have everyone read is working. And now we're going to move to the nominees in general nonfiction. The first nominee is American Prison, a reporter's undercover journey into the business of punishment by Shane Bauer. American Prison details the months that Bauer spent working undercover in a prison in Wynn Correctional Center in Louisiana. That's a privately owned prison and it's owned by the Corrections Corporation of America. Relying on evidence gathered by cameras and tape recorders that he smuggled into the prison during his daily shift, Bauer carefully builds a portrait of a system that destroys both the captured and the captors. We follow him through the realities of a job that he soon learns is both dangerous and demeaning. His portraits of fellow workers are carefully and humanely drawn and his depictions of prisoners bring us into this dangerous world. And then they were gone. Teenagers of People's Temple from high school to Jonestown by Judy Bebelar and Ron Cabral. Although well over 50 books and articles have been published documenting the Jonestown tragedy of 1978, none have explored the heartbreaking and powerful story of the teenagers who lived and died there. Judy Bebelar and Ron Cabral tell that story objectively, tellingly and finally. Both for those of us who remember and those of us who have never known. This book is testimony keeping these young people alive in our minds. Crush, The Triumph of California Wine by John Briscoe. This is the story of The Triumph of California Wine but it is also the story of California itself told through the history of the wine industry. Readers are taken inside the history of California's wine pioneers, the early barons of the industry, and then to the families and names familiar to contemporary wine buyers and drinkers. John Briscoe's prose is compelling, keeping readers enthralled with fascinating stories of catastrophe after catastrophe before finally reaching the pinnacle of success. A California wine demonstrating its triumph in the famous Paris wine tasting of 1976. Birds of Berkeley by Oliver James. This is a song of praise to the Denzians of the author's city of Berkeley, seemingly threatened by unstoppable climate change. James introduces us to 25 fellow citizens also known as birds, who occupy our daily spaces. He begins with a bird vocabulary and suggestions for identifying particular birds, ending with a brief bibliography. It would indeed be economical to love our fellow creatures who inhabit the earth with us, as James suggests we do. That love might save us all. Almost nothing. The 20th century art and life of Joseph Zabowski by Eric Carpeliz. This search for and resurrection of the Polish writer, artist, and intellectual Joseph Zabowski begins with Marcel Proust, who's search for lost time resulted in uncovering an entire cultural era. Zabowski had a privileged youth, but it spanned from lectures he gave while a prisoner in a World War II solely at prison camp, to becoming the editor in Paris of Kultura, a journal for Polish intellectuals whose work was banned under the communists. Almost nothing is meticulously researched and compellingly written about a figure of the era who we should all know more about. Although his art never received much critical attention and his writings remain largely untranslated, Carpeliz shows us what an individual life led with integrity and purpose can teach us all. And the Northern California Book Award. In general, nonfiction goes to American prison, a reporter's undercover journey into the business of punishment. Shane Bauer is reporting in the Middle East right now. So he sent over a statement, which I am going to read. Unfortunately, it means we will not have a reading from the book, so that's the only problem. But I am honored to have American prisoners recognized alongside such amazing books and authors. I wrote American prison to shed light on the private prison industry and the long history of for-profit incarceration in this country. I hope this award encourages writers and journalists out there to continue to investigate the powerful. Thank you so much to the reviewers and to the Northern California Book Awards for supporting local writers. And now we're going to do creative nonfiction. Lyric multiples. Aspiration. Practice. Eminence. Migration. By George Alban. It is a great gift to society when an intelligent, insightful reader of poetry finds a way to light up the craft for a general audience. George Alban's first four essay collection is that gift. Poetry occasions each of the essays, but it's ultimately a springboard to a wide-ranging discussion of structures, pop music, and the punk movement, among other things. In Alban's hands, the more far-flung and eccentric the analogy are parallel, the more perfectly it ends up coming together. I'm sorry, I think I said there was this first collection, which is not actually the case. The Monk of Moka by Dave Eggers. Do you want to hear my story? That's how Mokhtar Al-Khanshali, a Yemeni-American and a budding coffee impresario, addresses his captor. Al-Khanshali is improvising this shaharazadean technique after being kidnapped by a militia in Yemen, where he was traveling in the hopes of developing trade with local coffee farmers. Instead, he and other American citizens find themselves stranded when a Saudi-led coalition begins dropping U.S.-made bombs on Yemeni targets in 2014. Bombs which often hit civilians. Eggers proves to be quite a shaharazade himself as he unfolds a narrative that manages to be both suspenseful and informative. Flunk. Start. Reclaiming my decade lost in Scientology by Sands Hall. Sands Hall found herself drawn to the Church of Scientology after an incident in which her brother suffered brain damage in a fall. An intriguing investigation of the secretive cult of Scientology during the 1980s, which was the era when its founder, L. Ron Hubbard, died. This book is unique in its luminous and keen exploration of how a cult gains an unlikely member and what it takes to find one's way out again. This is a generous and penetrating book, a profound act of psychological inquiry. A Last Survivor of the Orphan Trains by William Walters and Victoria Golden. In 1930, a four-year-old boy stood on a train platform in Gallup, New Mexico. A middle-aged couple, Henry and Eleanor Walters, stepped forward and claimed him. So began the lifelong odyssey of William Walters, who was born into a loving but poor family in Pennsylvania. After his mother's death, William was put on one of the last orphan trains, which began in 1854 and were meant to place indigent children in families in the then-populated Western states. In clear and lucid prose, Victoria Golden worked intensively with Walters to capture his story, some of which he had never been able to express. Raw Material, Working Wool in the West by Stephanie Wilkes. Stephanie Wilkes might just emerge as the Alice Waters of the Sustainable Clothing Movement. In this debut, she shows a remarkable ability to write from both head and heart as she narrates her position from an alienated tech worker to certified sheep shearer and promoter of natural fibers. Lovingly and thoroughly written, Raw Material is a cutting-age peon to the next movement in sustainability and to a way of life made newly relevant by the looming threat of climate change. The Northern California Book Award in Creative Nonfiction goes to The Monk of Moka by Dave Eggers. And since Dave is unable to accept the award, we are extremely fortunate today to have Mokhtar Al-Kunshali accepting for him. Universal greetings of peace, love, and justice. Salaamu Alaikum. This is all very surreal for me. I grew up not that far from here in the Tenderloin, a neighborhood that comedian Dave Chappelle once described as and said, ain't nothing tender about that place. But it actually is. For me as a young kid growing up in that environment, it was very difficult to escape the harsh realities of life. Growing up in a one-bedroom with nine people, my dad a minibus driver. But I found my escape through books. And if you think about it, books are pretty incredible things, right? The idea that you can open up a few pages and escape to a different reality. Many of my books I borrow from the library here, sometimes indefinitely. We actually launched this book in front of the steps of City Hall last year. And then Luis Herrera, the former Saram School librarian, was there. And I asked him to forgive me for that and he forgave me for those book finds. And I left home with a library card. But Dave really wanted to be here. He just couldn't make it. He is in D.C. at the American Library Association Conference. I can't really read a lot of the book because it's awkward to read it by yourself in the third person. So please give a round of applause for my dear friend Fatima. She's somewhere here who will read some excerpts from this book. And again, thank you so much for this wonderful award. What an honor. Here it goes. Hopefully I did some justice to these beautiful words. Elad is both humble before the history he inhibits and irreverent about his place in it. But his story is an old-fashioned one. It's chiefly about the American dream, which is very much alive and very much under threat. His story is also about coffee and about how he tried to improve coffee production in Yemen where coffee cultivation was first undertaken 500 years ago. It's also about the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco. A valley of desperation in a city of towering wealth about the families that live here and struggle to live there safely with dignity. It's about the strange preponderance of Yemenis in the liquor store trade of California and the unexpected history of Yemenis in the Central Valley and how their work in California echoes their long history of farming in Yemen and how direct trade can change the lives of farmers given them agency and standing and how Americans like Muhtar al-... like how Americans like Muhtar al-Khinshahli, U.S. citizens who maintain strong ties to the countries of their history, the ancestors and who through entrepreneurial and dog labor create indispensable bridges between the developed and developing worlds between nations that produce and those that consume and those bridge makers exquisitely and bravely embody this nation's reason for being a place of radical opportunity and ceaseless welcome and how when we forget that this is central to all that is best about this country and we forget ourselves. A blended people united not by status and cowardice and fear but by irrational exuberance by global enterprise on a human scale and by inherent righteousness of pressing forward always forward driven by the courage unfettered and unyielding. I am so proud of you, Muhtar. Thank you both so much for that and Muhtar, I want you to know that perhaps your conversation with the head librarian here had a big impact because I know that the San Francisco Public Library is waiving its fees now for people so all the better to encourage children like you once were to keep reading so thank you for that. Next up is going to be the Northern California Book Reviews Groundbreaker Award and here to present it is NCBR member Francis Phillips. This is going to be a brief moment of microphone adjustment because I might be one of the shortest speakers and my recipient is one of the tallest. So 50 years ago the National Endowment for the Arts had what I think was a really good idea which was to invest in the vitality of literature by funding nonprofit print centers in a number of places across the country and nonprofit book distribution centers for small presses and Berkeley, California was lucky to land both of those, the West Coast Print Center and Small Press Distribution. Among the print centers, the one in New York closed not so long ago after a long, long history the West Coast Print Centers holdings are at mills now and the distribution centers, the one standing is Small Press Distribution. On the SPD website it says can you believe that SPD's made it 50 years without the warehouse collapsing and the books crumbling irreversibly into dust? Let us have a moment. In a contemporary literary environment populated by big corporations and quick delivery online shopping we at SPD are really proud of how far we've come in our ability to get small press books from publishers into the hands of those who'd like to read them all the while staying fiercely independent and powered by minimal staff. So this is a 50th anniversary for SPD I'm going to give you six things I love about it the sixth one is the one to grow on the others are free each decade. So first as suggested in what SPD said at a time when so much retail and book selling is collapsing and reorganizing SPD's book sales have increased in each of the last few years. It gets me to the books I can't get anywhere else. It engages readers with small press books beyond the buying and selling for instance SPD was doing a poetry swap with teenagers a while back where a teen could write a poem and exchange it for a book for free and they lead reading groups at some local public libraries. I love that it wraps books in brown paper every shipment arrives like a tidy little gift sometimes with a personal note and without a whole lot of bubble wrap. It injects independent literature into my work day I have a little prick of joy in my mind when I see the email titled SPD hand-picked books or best of all new poetry bestsellers. And finally my sixth one to grow on is it's been a place for writers who've lived and worked together I would honor going to make the mistake of forgetting many people but I think of Jean Day, Laura Moriarty Steve Dickison and Brent Kenningham who's here now who have inhaled literature by day and gone home to write it on the weekends and at night. So Brent thank you for carrying on this tradition and I'm honored to present this to you. Well thank you so very much I appreciate it very deeply and way too many people to thank of course I'm only receiving this on behalf of a lot of people's labor over a lot of decades 50 years is a lot of time I have been at SPD for 20 years myself and I often not really jokingly, maybe half jokingly say that SPD is a critical component of poetry infrastructure and poetry and fiction but it's kind of known as distributor of poetry and believe it or not poetry infrastructure is not that sexy of a term and it can be hard to sell to granting organizations it can be hard the beautiful work that you're seeing the content of these writers is a little bit more public sometimes than the background work that myself and staff of now up to I think 14 are doing every day packing these books shipping them out going to trade shows and so forth. We're you know quick numbers for you there's a little under 400 small publishers that we are the umbrella for distributed for together they publish about a thousand books a year these are people with day jobs that are publishing you know in their spare time and they without SPD it would be I'm sure there would be these books would be maybe on Amazon and they'd have a website and they'd sell them but SPD is the crucial link between these small presses where a college bookstore the jobbers the kind of background to the book industry would never touch these books without SPD as the middle person so that's really the the core thing that reason for existence and the thing that we go to work for every day and I'd say a few of the books will sell more than a thousand copies there's a few you know bestsellers the kind of respectable number for the book trade but again these are books selling not that many copies so no for-profit distributor would touch them for the most part and they would these writers would really have a little bit less sales and why is that important you know what does that matter and I think that the people here I know there's a lot of book reviewers and you know as a writer I just want to remind ourselves why that matters which is that when I was very young I thought you know want to be a writer that what mattered would be winning the National Book Award and Nobel Prize and so forth right but I've had a few books out and the difference between having zero reviews and one the difference between selling 250 and 110 these things can start to seem really meaningless from the perspective of the general literary culture but as a writer it's everything right it's absolutely everything it can make the difference between just believing you can continue on and so that's really the role for SBD and I think it's the role for a lot of reviewers out there people who are laboring at literature every little bit every little thing that so many of you in this room are doing matters crucially to just keeping the ecosystem going and you know it doesn't take away from the glory of the these wonderful prizes in the books that are great but there's this vast underpinning and it's just so nice to see it recognized in the form of SBD and we're gonna make a lot of hay with this award and we really appreciate it okay much taller than I am thank you Brent next up we have fiction which is a very exciting category I have to say I mean it's kind of my job to be like really excited by all of these books but these are really really good books that are nominated this year and again they're all gonna be outside for you to buy The Incendiaries by Auroquan this haunting debut novel glows from within Will Kindle narrates the story of the obsession his for Phoebe Lenn a glamorous student he meets at Edwards an elite American university Phoebe's obsession for finding God in the form of John Leal a charismatic leader of a secretive religious cult The Incendiaries is told in three voices Kwan's tale of extremist violence propels the back stories of Will, Phoebe and John rendered in lyrical prose the sentences pulse on the page like Rumpelstiltskin Kwan has woven pure gold The Winter Soldier Daniel Mason this historical fiction novel and profoundly gripping love story focuses on a Polish Austrian doctor from Vienna beginning with his days as a medical student in the twilight of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and ending in post World War I Europe Mason's details are so masterfully woven into the action of the text that the reader feels a part of the story rather than an outsider observing it the beautiful finale is crafted in such a way that the reader is forced to evaluate the balance of a love affair that is impossible and the freedom that comes with ultimately letting go of an obsession There, There by Tommy Orange this strong debut novel furious and tender brutal and soulful electrifying and mundane offers his entry into the often invisible world of Native Americans living in today's west and specifically today's Oakland The novel sketches in concise but telling detail a dozen characters on their way for very different reasons to the big Oakland pow wow The event will draw them together the way a kaleidoscope unites its bright fragments into a design as satisfying as it is surprising Winter kept us warm Anne Raiff This debut novel by the author of The Jungle Around Us which won the 2015 Flannery O'Connor Award follows the members of a menage à trois from young adulthood to old age The novel structure manages to span not only time but also space from Berlin to Manhattan from Los Angeles to Morocco thanks to the centripetal force provided by its three compelling characters How the trio travels to this point from their origin in Berlin is what we read to discover Hungry Ghost Theater Sarah Stone A novel is splendidly splendidly strange as its title This is an ambitious formally audacious and highly theatrical saga of three generations of a Northern California family who run the San Francisco based avant garde news of the world theater collective They specialize in dramatizing dark politically charged events such as the Abu Ghraib prison scandal The novel is set primarily in the Bay Area but we also see its characters through New York City Seoul and Zanzibar There is even a long startling section that takes place in hell That's where two of the members of the family Eva and Julia are joined by a she-wolf the lord of death the queen of the underworld and a troop of dancing hungry ghosts The Northern California Book Award in fiction goes to The Winter Soldier by Daniel Mason Thank you so much everybody for this It's a real honor for me I grew up in California living in California I've been working on this book for 14 years and began it when I was living in San Francisco So this library is a special place in my heart All that said it would be a little bit of a stretch to say that the book is set here even though it's set in World War I on the Eastern Front Nevertheless even though I never had a chance to go maybe because I never had a chance to go to Eastern Europe where the book takes place there's a lot of California in it in quiet ways and I just got back from the Sierras on Thursday and I was reminded how much the mountains in my book are actually the Sierra Nevada dressed in Central European flora So I thought I would read a scene in which has some of Northern California smuggled into a Central European spring So this is at a field hospital in an area which is now the border region of southern Poland and Ukraine and it's after an intense period of winter fighting and spring has come though with it lack of food and hunger so the men in the hospital need to find something to eat they turn to the woods those able to walk set off together it was Margarita who taught them how to gather this is the nurse in the hospital the one nurse in the hospital who taught them how to gather showed the city men from Budapest in Krakow and Vienna how to identify goose foot and club rush to select saddle fungus horse tail cones from the river sweet calamus shoots and tender bracken stems to roast on the green open slopes they picked pot herbs sorrel and salt brush dandelion, lung wart, goose foot swine thistle they found fresh pine needles to stretch their bread made gruel from the green seeds of managras they fermented hogweed and ammunition tins and boiled the budding leaves of the lindens she showed them how to strip bark from the lindens the birches, the maples the hazels to dry and roast and bake into their breads to make soups of birch buds butter out of birch sap bread from the roots of quackgrass sweet snacks from maloseed and roots of cox foot and poly putty she warned them against the roots of calamus that would make them see ghosts when they split into pairs after a week she said doctor will come with me lucius was self-conscious by his selection sensed the men exchanging glances and he told himself that it was only natural she remained cautious of soldiers as she should she wore a single soldier's great coat hemmed so as not to drag in the mud over her shoulder she hung a burlap sack from the muzzle of her rifle as if it were a milkmaid's yoke it was clear now that his early speculations as to her origins in the mountains were correct he struggled to keep up she was swift moving over stones and fallen logs without breaking stride she plunged her hands gloveless into dirt or snow tore bark from the trees brushed off a tuber before testing it with a bite he was struck by how she never hesitated but this was a familiar movement from her approach to wounds they spoke little while they walked around them the whole world seemed to be turning to water the earth was sodden the trail shimmering with runoff ferns the color of mantises unfurled from the black rock rotting mosses steam rose from the wet bark and from the upper slopes the remaining snow fields calved in little avalanches thundering through the trees at times a past woman from the village similarly following the narrow paths in search of food he felt uneasy then as if it were their woods in which he was foraging but the women seemed less suspicious there in the forest smiling with a kind of fellow spirit as they passed each other on the trail I'll just stop there, thank you very much well it's very helpful to know what we need to do in case there's a war here, right look for tubers next we have the nominees in poetry Sin Zod Le by Marcello Hernandez Castile this highly acclaimed debut collection explores the depth of the failure of languages in growing up undocumented everybody okay over there? okay, we'll continue the failure of languages in growing up undocumented not only in not being understood but also in not understanding oneself it explores equally the coming into speech the hollowness of pre-made language what it means to play expected and unexpected roles and always having to calibrate how much to reveal or not Castile we use a surreal spell to say the unsayable how to come out to his wife how to speak from the hollowness of language by inhabiting it how to mock it be with by Forrest Gander be with is Forrest Gander's latest collection of poetry it's a series of brilliant flashes into the hidden world of the emotions although occasioned by the death of his mother and his wife the death of his mother and the death of his wife not the death of one person the book is less a traditional elegy than an extended invitation on grief Gander's struggle with the ineffable offer readers cues as they contemplate their own emotional reality her mouth as souvenir by Heather June Gibbons this first full length collection speaks with astonishing clarity the voice is edgy double edged in fact and constantly honed my project is plain persistence Gibbons tells us self as spatula scraping self as burned crud off skillet as child as lover as citizen of the world her discontent follows her Gibbons was raised in the Mormon church she grew up in Utah and fled she relishes her role as outsider and outcast although she can't escape her people completely in the books valedictory poem we find her scrolling backward through a friend's facebook page knife girl Amy Amy committed suicide here it is the very last thing she wrote 3 am she can't sleep she posts a photo of a woman's mouth a bullet in her teeth extra hidden life among the days by Brynda Hillman Brynda Hillman's latest collection continues her brilliant echo poetic exploration of the natural world where the invisible is thick where all fangs from the smallest motes of leaf dust the atoms in a single cell to a grieving human heart coexist in our endangered self absorbed selfie ridden world like activists living together in a commune think of the book as a peaceful protest march a gathering of words meant to bring about critical change awake aware yet hopeful the intellectual, spiritual and poetic breath of these poems is astounding Isako Isako by Mia Ayumi Malhotra in 1940 during World War II the state of California and other western states in turn from 110,000 to 120,000 of people of Japanese ancestry Isako Isako is Mia Ayumi Malhotra's magnitude magnitude 7 earthquake of a book through three distinct sections Malhotra immortalizes the sad and lonely arc of innocent victims the permanent scars of nuclear war and the low grade fever of misery and adults from wandering and living as other flyover country by Austin Smith Smith is a native midwesterner who explores how we grapple with nature that includes the chaos and wildness that we as a species embody as we try to tame what's wild so that we can profit from it a compelling dynamic in the book is the concept of flyover country where our communal ambitions look from the sky but Smith is too smart to explore humanity through just one lens he broadens our viewpoint by grounding other poems in specific family stories and direct interactions with the quotidian the Northern California Book Award for poetry goes to Extra Hidden Life Among the Days by Brenda Hillman and since Brenda Hillman is actually teaching poetry again for the community of writers in Squaw Valley and CBR member Lee Rossi is going to accept the award on her behalf sorry about jumping the gun like that it's a real pleasure to be able to accept this award for Brenda imagine she's off teaching poetry somewhere I have a message from her a brief message and then I'll read a couple of poems first I better put on my glasses I am at a conference in the mountains otherwise I would be here with you today I am deeply honored to be in the company of the wonderful poets named as finalists and truly honored that my book was selected from among them I began this book when I was thinking about the environmental destruction of our forests and about the ongoing political and social traumas in this country along the way the writing also became a vehicle for expressing the personal losses of my father and of my friend CD Wright and for thinking about the great love and celebration of individual lives on earth despite the difficulties of being human we have our language and our love and the non-material natural non-human natural world still provides magnificent and astonishing beauty I want to thank Bob Haas specifically for his love and support thank my friends and family for being patient with the poets erratic nature and thanks to our amazing California literary community and that includes all of you so I'll read two poems from the book the first is called species prepare to exist after money it turns out bacteria communicate in color they warn each other in teal or seledon and humans assign meaning to this saying they are distressed are full of longing the wood rack makes a nest of h's it hoards the seven tiny silences crows in the pine can count specific faces like writers who feel their art has been ignored do we know like that my father spent his life thinking about money though he knew it causes most of this stupid violence and he thought of me as a sensible person you have the chemical for sensible he said there was no tragedy between us unlike how poor Joyce wrote that his daughter turned away from that battered cab man's face the world I didn't turn away because I don't know where it is it is all over and when it seems pure nothingness has come to pass I know another animal prepares itself nationless not sensible thinking of it helps a little bit and then the second poem is the first part of a an elegy you could call it an elegy or an ode rather or an ode and humans walk to the edge of the sand through a bank of verbena and fog they thought they'd never get over the deaths but they were starting to worry about money rested in their phones talk of candidates had stalled some sang graze of objects rested in their packs they had come to the edge with children or with friends big nothing quieted the crows wings of dried ink the snake had gone back to the hills to velvet and the brian grasses it digested a mouth a mouse near its spine some sang the fox went back and would never meet the steak except through the ampersand the memory of failure failed for an hour some sang the future was a cosmic particle seen once a long time ago those who had tried too often walked with those who had yet to try as doubt can walk beside a radical hope thank you now we have the fred cody award for lifetime achievement presented by the northern california book reviewers and here to present that award is joys jinkins oh my friends i saundra are you in the house there she wonderful please please start making your way up here to address us on the side here she it's a ramp i'm sorry we were trying to find you to help you and we just couldn't find you i'm so sorry but it's up the ramp so while i'm talking if you could just make it up unless you want to try the steps but the okay okay you got it we're so glad you're here and we are gratified truly gratified to present the fred cody award for lifetime achievement in literary service by the poet and critic saundra m gilbert with the publication of the mad woman in the attic the woman writer in the 19th century literary imagination saundra m gilbert and her co-author and collaborator susan gubar basically put feminist criticism on the literary map joys carol oates said the mad woman in the attic was finally published in 1979 his long sense become a classic one of the most important works of literary criticism of the 20th century that book and the writings that followed had such a broad cultural impact that in 1986 gilbert and gubar were jointly named miss magazines woman of the year for their work as head editors and an important anthology of literature by women today we're honored to celebrate her rich and eventful career as critic editor teacher mentor and prolific poet who has just published her 10th collection judgment day she is professor emerita at the university of california davis her awards and honors are distinguished fascinating and almost too numerous and she is not resting on her laurels her recent project editing the deeply important essential essays culture politics and the art of poetry by the late poet adrian rich sondra gilbert has created a new vista of rich's courageous political prose this fred codie award is especially poignant because adrian rich also received this very award in 1984 the great carol and keiser said miss gilbert's wit energy and intelligence are formidable she is well on her way to becoming one of our preeminent women of letters well my friends she is now absolutely a preeminent woman of letters and we are lucky to have her in our midst in our northern california literary community i want in here to give this time to sondra because as she taught us women should speak for themselves please welcome sondra m gilbert thank you so much oh thank you oh thank you choice thank you thank you everybody i apologize to the men over there in front of me we disturbed him because we kept wondering how i was going to get up on the stage but we ended up doing it the hard way there was another way around but i couldn't figure it out not great at topography not my forte i am just so filled and honored and grateful to be here choice thank you so much for every word you said and thanks so much to the bay area book reviewers this is quite an overwhelming moment i came to california with my husband and children more than half a century ago and by 1969 exactly 50 years ago we were settled in a north berkeley house where i still live and where most of us assemble for holidays i was a poet a teacher a critic and naturally i needed a bookstore where to go why to codie's books of course where i spent many happy hours perusing shows laden with volumes i could find nowhere else at codie's i could get my poetry fix my liquid fix my philosophy fix my fiction fix my anthropology fix and so much more and needless to say there were always great readings at codie's and i was thrilled when i myself was asked to read there on several occasions but not as thrilled as i am now to accept the fred codie award and to thank joey's jankins and everyone else who was responsible for this in the bay area book reviewers association whoever else had a hand in bestowing this amazing honor on me as i stand here brimming with gratitude i imagine that magical corner location telegraph and haste once again populated by all the poets and writers and students and readers and best of all books books books in their infinite variety just waiting for us to plunge into their delicious pages in the 60s and the 70s as so many of us became activists we were nurtured in our dreams of cultural transformation by the bold model of codie's its support of the free speech movement and its contributions to a community that yearned for better more democratic and more peaceful times as my own contribution to the ongoing struggle of which codie's books was always a part i want to end here by reading an early really early poem of mine one that i often read at codie's about immigration which as we all alas know is our country's nightmare du jour my mother's family came to america from sicily in the early 20th century not long after william and henry james those masters of new wingle and respectability defined not just sicilians but all italians as black criminals we did and to be sure i grew up in the mid 20th century surrounded by all too many jokes about sicilian mafiosi to this day i dislike watching the godfather movies and in point of fact i have never seen the whole of the very first one which i understand it's a good movie but so musing on our immigration crisis our current one in which mexicans and central americans are defined as rapists just as italians but especially Sicilians were considered mafiosi i'll read my first entity politics poem from the 70s dedicated to all refugees and immigrants everywhere and i think in a sense it was the first poem that i wrote that came from my heart that came from saying thinking something that was not something that i thought i should think in poetry i had always been thinking poetically in poetry but this was different so this is a poem called dozo from the 70s frank castello itty spaghetti in a cell at san quentin lucky Luciano mixing up a mess of bullets and calling for parmesan cheese al capone baking a sort of shotgun into a huge lasagna are you my uncles my only uncles oh mafiosi bad uncles of the baron of sicily was it only you that they transported in barrels like pure olive oil across the atlantic was it only you who got out at ellis island with black scarves on your heads and cheap cigars and no english and a dozen children no carts were waiting gallant with paint no little donkeys plume like the dreams of peacocks only the evil eyes of a thousand buildings stared across at the echoing debarkation center making it seem so much smaller than a piazza only a half dozen puritan millionaires stood on the wharf in the wind colder than the impossible snows of the abruzzi ready with country clubs and dynamos to grind the organs out of you well i want to thank you all for caring about borders frontiers, refuges and refugees and most of all i want to thank you for allowing me to be speaking to you today and thanking you for this extraordinary freight cody prize thank you so much for sharing the poem and for sharing your incredible career with us my friends we have reached the end of our program well the good news is that we now have a reception and again that's going to be in the latino slash hispanic community room which is on this level across the lobby and i'm going to put in yet another plug for all of the books of all these incredible authors which are available in the lobby partly because the amount of work and the amount of beauty that is in these books is something that we should all celebrate and that we should support and also partly because proceeds from the sales benefit the friends of the san francisco public library and through their generosity these awards also the authors are going to be glad to sign the books for you so please walk up to them don't be shy when you buy a book and have them sign it you can't return it so authors are really excited to sign those for you okay thank you and see you next year