Litquake San Francisco 2018

Writer Kevin Sharp of Palo Alto will appear at 2018’s Lit Crawl, part of San Francisco’s annual LitQuake festival. Lit Crawl typically features up to 20 events per hour, all held at different locations around the Mission District.

As defined by the Litquake website:

One of the most anticipated literary nights of the year, San Francisco's Lit Crawl is a massive, one-night literary pub crawl throughout the city’s Mission District. Lit Crawl SF brings together 500+ authors and close to 10,000 fans for the world’s largest free pop-up literary event. Started in 2004, Lit Crawl cultivates a unique, resonant brand: smart and silly, worldly and wacky events presented in venues usual (bars, cafes, galleries, and bookstores) and unusual (police stations, tattoo parlors, barbershops, and laundromats).

Sharp's event is “Celebrating Nothing Short Of: Selected Tales from 100 Word Story…”

The Bay Area literary journal 100 Word Story is celebrating the publication of its first anthology dedicated to micro fiction. Nothing Short Of: Selected Tales from 100 Word Story represents 116 favorite stories from the journal's first seven years. Meet the anthology's co-editors, Grant Faulkner, Lynn Mundell, and Beret Olsen, and the book's San Francisco publisher, Jon Roemer from Outpost19. Pick up a broadside of a story from the book—a treasure to take home and inspiration for your own future micro writing.

Scarecrow Video

Featured among a group of other writers, Kevin Sharp of Palo Alto, CA has his Top 10 Movies list on display at Seattle’s Scarecrow Video store — one of the largest remaining such stores in the country. As stated in its own press materials…

From its passionate founder George Latsios and former owners Carl Tostevin & Mickey McDonough… Scarecrow has existed with one vision: to bring people and film together. It began with a few hundred tapes in the back of a record store, and for more than 28 years its devoted caretakers have gradually accumulated the largest independently owned video and physical media library in the country, currently boasting over 130,000 titles. 

In this age of streaming content, most physical media video stores have closed down. Passionate film fans still support places like Scarecrow and others around the country; one big reason why is that titles come and go off streaming services, while a physical copy will always be available. In addition, video stores create a community of film fans among those behind the counter as well as the customers.

In 2014, Scarecrow's inventory became part of the Scarecrow Project, and the store reopened as a non-profit. Scarecrow also supports local film organizations and hosts  screenings.

Their new mission statement reads as follows:

Scarecrow Video is dedicated to championing the indispensable role of film arts in community, cultural, and civic life.   

Flash Fiction Forum

Writer Kevin Sharp of Palo Alto is a regular attendee and performer at the Flash Fiction Forum, a bi-monthly reading series held in San Jose, CA. FFF is the brainchild of local authors Tania Martin and Lita Kurth. According the site:

"The idea for the forum emerged out of a local writers workshop in San Jose, CA where members routinely read their work aloud. We noticed that although the South Bay has a wealth of poetry reading events, there was not a regular spoken word venue for fiction.  If up to now, you’ve only written and published, but never read in public, we encourage you to join us. This platform allows the writers to get an immediate response to their work. Join us and expose your fiction!"

Each forum presents a diverse lineup of writers, reading 500 word (or shorter) fiction, non-fiction, and poetry. In 2016, FFF partnered with the Los Gatos, CA Listowel Writers Festival for a "Lit Crawl" held at a series of coffee shops and bars.

The site of the forum is the WORKS Gallery in San Jose. Founded in 1977, the space is a non-profit art and performance venue with a regularly rotating series of exhibits. WORKS' mission statement reads as follows:

"Works/San José believes that thriving communities support artistic experimentation. Therefore, we serve as the South Bay community’s creative laboratory where people can experiment, exhibit and engage with art and with each other. We achieve our mission by providing an accessible, supportive and welcoming art center."

Readers interested in learning more about FFF can visit their website at flashfictionforum [dot] com.