City Lights is an independent bookstore-publisher combination in San Francisco, California, that specializes in world literature, the arts, and progressive politics. It also houses the nonprofit City Lights Foundation, which publishes selected titles related to San Francisco culture. It was founded in 1953 by poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Peter D. Martin. Both the store and the publishers became widely known following the obscenity trial of Ferlinghetti for publishing Allen Ginsberg's influential collection Howl and Other Poems. Nancy Peters started working there in 1971 and retired as executive director in 2007. In 2001, City Lights was made an official historic landmark. City Lights is located at 261 Columbus Avenue. While formally located in Chinatown, it self-identifies as part of immediately adjacent North Beach.
Dave Eggers is an American writer, editor, and publisher. He wrote the best-selling memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Eggers is also the founder of McSweeney's, a literary journal, a co-founder of the literacy project 826 Valencia and the human rights nonprofit Voice of Witness, and the founder of ScholarMatch, a program that matches donors with students needing funds for college tuition. His writing has appeared in several magazines.
The Astronomical Society of the Pacific (ASP) is an American scientific and educational organization, founded in San Francisco on February 7, 1889. Its name derives from its origins on the Pacific Coast, but today it has members all over the country and the world. It has the legal status of a nonprofit organization.
Ron Silliman is an American poet. He has written and edited over 30 books, and has had his poetry and criticism translated into 12 languages. He is often associated with language poetry. Between 1979 and 2004, Silliman wrote a single poem, The Alphabet. He has now begun writing a new poem, Universe, the first section of which appears to be called Revelator.
Heyday is an independent nonprofit publisher based in Berkeley, California.
The Center for Investigative Reporting (CIR) is a nonprofit news organization based in Emeryville, California; it has conducted investigative journalism since 1977. It is known for reporting that reveals inequities, abuse and corruption, and holds those responsible accountable.
Bao Phi is a Vietnamese-American spoken word artist, writer and community activist living in Minnesota.
Intersection for the Arts, established in 1965, is the oldest alternative non-profit art space in San Francisco, California. Intersection's reading series is the longest continuous reading series outside of an academic institution in the state of California.
Cole Swensen is an American poet, translator, editor, copywriter, and professor. Swensen was awarded a 2006 Guggenheim Fellowship and is the author of more than ten poetry collections and as many translations of works from the French. She received her B.A. and M.A. from San Francisco State University and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and served as the Director of the Creative Writing Program at the University of Denver. She taught at the Iowa Writers' Workshop at the University of Iowa until 2012 when she joined the faculty of Brown University's Literary Arts Program.
San Francisco Review of Books (SFRB) was a book review periodical published from the mid-1970s to 1997 in the Bay Area, California, United States. Founding editor-publisher Ronald Nowicki launched his publication April 1975, a time when the San Francisco Chronicle depended on the wire services for its reviews. SFRB began as a magazine and later adopted a tabloid format.
The GLBT Historical Society maintains an extensive collection of archival materials, artifacts and graphic arts relating to the history of LGBT people in the United States, with a focus on the LGBT communities of San Francisco and Northern California. The society also sponsors the GLBT Historical Society Museum, a stand-alone museum that has attracted international attention.
The Loft Literary Center is a nonprofit literary organization located in Minneapolis, Minnesota incorporated in 1975. The Loft is one of the nation’s largest and most comprehensive independent literary centers, and offers a variety of writing classes, conferences, grants, readings, writers' studios and other services to both established and emerging writers.
Symphony Silicon Valley is the professional symphony orchestra of San Jose and the South Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area. Founded in 2002 following the demise of the San Jose Symphony, the orchestra debuted to rave reviews and standing ovations on November 23, 2002 at the San Jose Center for the Performing Arts. Started initially by Ballet San Jose as a way to keep their core musicians employed and in town after the closure of the San Jose Symphony, the orchestra was so successful that it was spun off as its own separate nonprofit organization after the first year.
Kathi Kamen Goldmark was an American author, columnist, publishing consultant, radio and music producer, songwriter, and musician. Goldmark was the author of the novel And My Shoes Keep Walking Back to You, co-authored or contributed to numerous other books, wrote a monthly column for BookPage with her husband, author and musician Sam Barry and produced the radio show West Coast Live. She was a member of the San Francisco band Los Train Wreck, and founding member of the all-author rock band the Rock Bottom Remainders. As President of "Don't Quit Your Day Job" Productions inc., she supervised the production of ten music and spoken-word CDs.
Alliance for California Traditional Arts (ACTA) is a private nonprofit organization that provides advocacy, connections, grants, and other resources for folk and traditional artists in California. Amy Kitchener, a public folklorist, is the co-founder, founding director, and current Executive Director.
Erica Hunt is a U.S. poet, essayist, teacher, mother, and organizer from New York City. She is often associated with the group of Language poets from her days living in San Francisco in the late 1970s and early 1980s, but her work is also considered central to the avant garde black aesthetic developing after the Civil Rights Movement and Black Arts Movement. Through the 1990s and 2000s, Hunt worked with several non-profits that encourage black philanthropy for black communities and causes. From 1999 to 2010, she was executive director of the 21st Century Foundation located in Harlem. Currently, she is writing and teaching at Wesleyan University.
David Kipen is an author, critic, broadcaster, arts administrator, full-time UCLA writing faculty member and nonprofit bilingual lending librarian. His fiction and nonfiction have appeared in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Alta Magazine, The Atlantic Monthly, OZY.com and elsewhere. Former literature director of the National Endowment for the Arts, he lives in his native Southern California.
Based in San Jose, California, sjDANCEco is a contemporary dance company founded in 2003 by artistic directors Gary Masters and Maria Basile, and Melanie Doerner. The sjDANCEco is in residence at the San Jose State University.
Juliana Delgado Lopera is a queer writer and performer. They are the author of ¡Cuéntamelo! an illustrated collection of queer immigrant histories in the United States during the 1980s. They use creative expressions, such as writing, queer literary performance, and bilingual poetry to advance LGBT activism projects across the Bay Area. Delgado Lopera serves as the Executive/ Artistic director for the Nonprofit organization Radar Productions since 2015.
Anna Shipley Cox Brinton was an American classics scholar, college administrator, writer, and Quaker leader, active with the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC).
United States