Lit Crawl San Francisco 2026: Full Schedule

One of the most anticipated literary nights of the year, Lit Crawl San Francisco is a massive, one-night literary pub crawl through San Francisco’s Mission District on Saturday, October 25th from 5:00-9:00pm. Join us to cap off another great festival, and don’t miss out on the afterparty at Drawing Room Annex!

ATTENTION: We’ve turned off the My Schedule tool as Sched has changed its pay structure recently and it’s no longer feasible for us to use. No RSVPs are necessary, just show up! Seating + space are first come, first serve. Sorry for the confusion!

8:00pm PDT

Black Sentimentality of Survival, Song & Overjoy

Saturday October 24, 2026 8:00pm - 9:00pm PDT

Grand Coffee Too (2544 Mission St, San Francisco, CA 94110)

Black Sentimentality of Survival, Song & Overjoy is a poetic showcase of an eclectic grouping of multidimensional minds. Heralding from Los Angeles, New York, and the Bay Area, this is a diasporic radical figment of the Black consciousness playing out in real-time. If time is what the Black consciousness even has. We're overjoyed for the counting moments of our breathe. Multidisciplinary in our attack and overjoyed by the audacity of our creations. Overjoyed to be overjoyed and harkening on our survival through poetic sound waves transmitted for ear-hustling pirates looting for the falsehood and overstandings. Tssskkkkk. This is for us, by the utmost shoulder shrug non-shimmying against social or political relevance. Raucous against being endangered. Sentimental for the longing of bearing witness to our greatness. We're shielded from the world's wrongdoings. Cloaked in psychic protection. For the love of living. This is ours...life. Poetry...life. Life........BlLLLLlllLLLLAaaaCCCccckkkkkk.........life.

Saturday October 24, 2026 8:00pm - 9:00pm PDT
Grand Coffee Too (2544 Mission St, San Francisco, CA 94110) 2544 Mission St, San Francisco, CA 94110, USA

PHASE 3

Genre mixed genre, poetry, BIPOC, Black culture

8:00pm PDT

CCA Presents: The Last Word is Never the Last

Saturday October 24, 2026 8:00pm - 9:00pm PDT

Et al. etc. (2831a Mission St, San Francisco, CA 94110)

The final graduating class of California College of the Arts' MFA in Writing takes the Litquake stage for the program's last appearance after decades of nurturing distinctive literary voices. Every generation of writers inherits the world as it is and imagines the world as it might become. In a cultural moment that often rewards speed over reflection and certainty over complexity, these emerging writers remind us that literature remains one of our most powerful ways of paying attention to one another, to history, and to ourselves. Through fiction, memoir, poetry, and hybrid forms, these writers move across borders, histories, families, and imagined futures with wit, ambition, and emotional precision. This is more than a farewell to a beloved program. It is an introduction to the writers who will carry its legacy forward and a reminder literature is always unfinished and always becoming. The last word is never the last.

Authors & Performers

Leela Smelser

Leela Smelser’s truest devotion is Sci-Fi/Fantasy, but he dabbles in poetry and has been known to microdose screenwriting on the side. With a BA in Creative Writing and Classics from Bryn Mawr College, he is now in his second and final year in the CCA MFA Writing program.

Saturday October 24, 2026 8:00pm - 9:00pm PDT
Et al. etc. (2831a Mission St, San Francisco, CA 94110) 2831a Mission St, San Francisco, CA 94110, USA

PHASE 3

Genre memoir, mixed genre, fiction, nonfiction, poetry, sponsor

8:00pm PDT

Cracking the Code: Tweens & Teens Share Their Life Hacks

Saturday October 24, 2026 8:00pm - 9:00pm PDT

Muddy Waters Café & Lounge

Our youth are our future. Clear-eyed and unjaded, they hold a special kind of wisdom. Come hear the poems and stories of eight 6th-9th graders as they share their life hacks: clever and moving new ways of living, doing, and being that will make life better for everyone.

Saturday October 24, 2026 8:00pm - 9:00pm PDT
Muddy Waters Café & Lounge 521 Valencia St, San Francisco, CA 94110, USA

PHASE 3

Audience All Ages
Genre Youth Readings, Youth Voices, mixed genre, poetry

8:00pm PDT

Flying Rabbit Presents: It's a Mad Mad Madman World, Madam

Saturday October 24, 2026 8:00pm - 9:00pm PDT

San Francisco Mime Troupe (855 Treat Ave, San Francisco, CA 94110)

If you’ve been wondering why everyone has been pushing you to accept AI into your everyday life…why there continues to be massive layoffs and rising prices…why humanity is not investing more into the preservation of our planet…You’re not alone. This year, our performers are holding the magnifying glass up to American greed, consumerism, and government and corporate hypocrisy.

Saturday October 24, 2026 8:00pm - 9:00pm PDT
San Francisco Mime Troupe (855 Treat Ave, San Francisco, CA 94110) 855 Treat Ave, San Francisco, CA 94110, USA

PHASE 3

Genre cultural commentary, mixed genre

8:00pm PDT

Happy Endings (For Real! Probably.)

Saturday October 24, 2026 8:00pm - 9:00pm PDT

The Drawing Room: ANNEX (599 Valencia St, San Francisco, CA 94110)

Happy Endings brings together a variety of Bay Area storytellers to explore the outrageous and elusive notion of happiness. Join them tonight (and every second Tuesday at the Make-Out Room) as they tackle this tall order. The audience’s favorite will return or tap a writer they love to take their place.

Authors & Performers

Alexandra Clemente

Alexandra was born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela. She writes about her experience as a Venezuelan living in the diaspora. She's lived in San Francisco for more than a decade. You can find her at aleclemente.com

Rebecca Rubenstein

Rebecca Rubenstein is a writer and editor based in San Francisco. Originally from Chicago, they hold an MFA in Fiction from the Bennington Writing Seminars and various words of theirs can be found in The Rumpus, No Contact, X-R-A-Y, and HAD, among others. Their writing has been supported... Read More →

Saturday October 24, 2026 8:00pm - 9:00pm PDT
The Drawing Room: ANNEX (599 Valencia St, San Francisco, CA 94110)

PHASE 3

Audience 18+
Genre mixed genre

8:00pm PDT

Journalists With a Bite: Bay Area Reporters Share Their Hottest Takes

Saturday October 24, 2026 8:00pm - 9:00pm PDT

Fingersnaps Media Arts

Is cereal soup? Are people in SF or Oakland more fashionable? Does Charlie XCX sound like Taylor Swift with vocal effects?

What's your funniest, hottest, or most polarizing take? COYOTE Media Collective rounds up local journalists to kick objectivity to the curb and share their most extreme opinions.

Authors & Performers

Cecilia Lei

Cecilia Lei is a reporter, producer and podcast host based in the East Bay. She covers immigration, the criminal legal system, AAPI issues, as well as other local communities. Her work has appeared in KQED, Apple News podcasts, SF Chronicle, NPR and Vox Media. Cecilia is also a co-founder... Read More →

Reo Eveleth

Reo Eveleth is an award-winning reporter and writer who covers the strange and consequential with equal enthusiasm. They're also a sculptor, union organizer, plant propagator, powerlifter, and the curator of the COYOTE Media Collective weekly calendar.

Saturday October 24, 2026 8:00pm - 9:00pm PDT
Fingersnaps Media Arts 3527 20th St, San Francisco, CA 94110, USA

PHASE 3

Genre journalism, cultural commentary, sponsor

8:00pm PDT

KALW's Crosscurrents Live: Where I'm From

Saturday October 24, 2026 8:00pm - 9:00pm PDT

Monkeybrains

Where I'm from explores stories of home. Whether it's the heritage people bring to the Bay, or the culture the Bay sends out to the world. Through dynamic performances, insightful conversations, and cinematic music, we'll show you where we're from.

Saturday October 24, 2026 8:00pm - 9:00pm PDT
Monkeybrains 933 Treat Ave, San Francisco, CA 94110, USA

PHASE 3

Genre san francisco stories, music, cultural commentary, mixed genre, sponsor

8:00pm PDT

Kitchen Table Presents: On Cookbooks, Poems, and Flock Cameras

Saturday October 24, 2026 8:00pm - 9:00pm PDT

Teeth Bar SF (2323 Mission St, San Francisco, CA 94110)

Through themes of creation, ritual, and tradition, these writers trace patterns carried across generations—from our mythical origin, to a lost motherland, to the present day and beyond. This reading invites us to witness how inherited stories—both told and untold—bind us, fracture us, and offer the possibility of new life. It asks: What do we inherit? What do we choose to carry forward? And what do we lay to rest?

Saturday October 24, 2026 8:00pm - 9:00pm PDT
Teeth Bar SF (2323 Mission St, San Francisco, CA 94110) 2323 Mission St, San Francisco, CA 94110, USA

PHASE 3

Genre cultural commentary, healing, diasporic stories, food

8:00pm PDT

KQED Presents: Glitter and Rage—Poems for Resistance

Saturday October 24, 2026 8:00pm - 9:00pm PDT

Latin American Club (3286 22nd St, San Francisco, CA 94110)

In dark times words become weapons and visions become lifelines. In these turbulent times, queer, immigrant, and trans writers take the stage to speak truth, bear witness, and dare to imagine something better. This is a night of resistance and radical dreaming — where poetry and prose push back against fascism and reach toward a future where all of us are free. Curated and hosted by Baruch Porras Hernandez, this gathering brings together voices that refuse to be silenced, stories that refuse to disappear, and a community that refuses to stop fighting for joy, dignity, and belonging. With performances by Preeti Vangani, Gio! And special musical guest Mobby Rosas!

Authors & Performers

Preeti Vangani

Preeti Vangani is a poet & writer from Bombay based in San Francisco. She is the author of the poetry collections, Mother Tongue Apologize (2019) and Fifty Mothers, (River River Books, 2026). Her work has appeared in AGNI, The Georgia Review, Gulf Coast, among other places. Vangani... Read More →

Mobby Rosas

Mobby Rosas aka Mobbylicious, is a DILF, baddie, and queer musical artist from Berkeley CA. Their work includes collaborations with legends such as Snoop Dogg, Lil Wayne and Gucci Mane. They are ever pushing the envelope with their provocative live performance and genre bending d... Read More →

Saturday October 24, 2026 8:00pm - 9:00pm PDT
Latin American Club (3286 22nd St, San Francisco, CA 94110) 3286 22nd St, San Francisco, CA 94110, USA

PHASE 3

Genre BIPOC, LGBTQIA+, sponsor, radical joy

8:00pm PDT

Making Mythos in the Mundane: Creating a Cosmic Literary Universe via Improv

Saturday October 24, 2026 8:00pm - 9:00pm PDT

The Sycamore (2140 Mission St, San Francisco, CA 94110)

Ever long to be a Troubadour? This program is part standup, part musical act, part word-association, but all creative joy. Crowd participants will be asked to shout out mythos ideas—what does every literary universe need? Who are the epic heroes? What quests must they undertake? What boons do the characters gain?

These ideas will be documented by the host and then the writers will craft an epic poetic narrative from the free-association, live on stage. The host will sing/perform the final act aloud for the audience with musical accompaniment. Saddle up for a wild wild adventure.

Saturday October 24, 2026 8:00pm - 9:00pm PDT
The Sycamore (2140 Mission St, San Francisco, CA 94110) 2140 Mission St, San Francisco, CA 94110, USA

PHASE 3

Genre audience participation, immersive storytelling, improv, radical joy

8:00pm PDT

Pochex Deluxe: An Ode to the Californiana Lengua

Saturday October 24, 2026 8:00pm - 9:00pm PDT

Medicine for Nightmares (3036 24th St, San Francisco, CA 94110)

Pochex Deluxe is a celebration of Pochos continuing to shape the California tongue within our collective BIPOC communities. It collapses the refrain that we are neither from here nor from there into a declaration: we are the makers of larynx, the makers of now and tomorrow’s literary landscape.

This reading honors the intersection of our tongues—a language that undoes, restores, revolts, and transmutes, continuously rehumanizing our gaze. It celebrates the present Californiana poem a that mimics and becomes cosmos, a poem that can only have the limbs of California.

Pochex, Pocha, Pocho, Poches is further defined here as a descendent body of migrating bodies that insists on being not only the ear, but the mouth of tomorrow’s poem.

Pochex Deluxe because it tears at the seams of tongues.

Authors & Performers

Josiah Luis Alderete

Josiah Luis Alderete is a ful blooded spanglish speaking Pocho left handed callejero de Aztlan. He is the curator and host of the long running Bay Area Latine reading series Speaking Axolotl and currently tends the Portal on Calle Veint Cuatro known as Medicina Para Pesadillas. His... Read More →

hector son of hector

hector son of hector is from Long Beach, CA and currently lives in Oakland. He is the child of Mexican immigrants, works in a hospital, dreams of short stories and writes poetry in secret.

María Guerrero

María Guerrero is a proud queer Chicanx, born in San Francisco, raised in Bayview–Hunters Point. Es maestra por el día y poeta a las 3 de la mañana. María writes about her experience living in her childhood home, her ancestors, her communities, y medicina

Mimi Tempestt

Mimi Tempestt (she/they) is a multidisciplinary artist, writer, and daughter of California. She has a M.A. in Literature from Mills College, and a Ph.D in Literature & Creative/Critical Writing from UC Santa Cruz. Her first book, the monumental misrememberings, is published with Co-Conspirator... Read More →

Saturday October 24, 2026 8:00pm - 9:00pm PDT
Medicine for Nightmares (3036 24th St, San Francisco, CA 94110) 3036 24th St, San Francisco, CA 94110, USA

PHASE 3

Genre BIPOC, latine readings, memoir, poetry

8:00pm PDT

Sacramento Noir: Mayhem in the Capital

Saturday October 24, 2026 8:00pm - 9:00pm PDT

Red Poppy Art House (2698 Folsom St, San Francisco, CA 94110)

That city you all drive past on 80 and rarely think twice about? It's both lovelier and creepier than you know. Join 7 authors from 2025's award-winning SACRAMENTO NOIR anthology for an hour of unsettling tales of capital crimes and misdemeanors. Readings by Luis Avalos, Shelley Blanton-Stroud, Maureen O'Leary, Janet Rodriguez, Nora Rodriguez Camagna, and Jen Soong. Moderated by Naomi Williams. Come for the spine-tingling stories; stay for some fun audience giveaways!

Saturday October 24, 2026 8:00pm - 9:00pm PDT
Red Poppy Art House (2698 Folsom St, San Francisco, CA 94110) 2698 Folsom St, San Francisco, CA 94110, USA

PHASE 3

Genre noir, fiction, california stories, fabulous prizes

8:00pm PDT

Stanford Continuing Studies Presents: The Date From Hell

Saturday October 24, 2026 8:00pm - 9:00pm PDT

Curio Bar SF @ The Chapel (775 Valencia St, San Francisco 94110)

Stories in which something goes badly awry, excerpted from novels created in Stanford Continuing Studies' Online Writer's Certificate Program, read by students who've just completed their 2 years of coursework.

Saturday October 24, 2026 8:00pm - 9:00pm PDT
Curio Bar SF @ The Chapel (775 Valencia St, San Francisco 94110) 775 Valencia St, San Francisco, CA 94110, USA

PHASE 3

Audience 21+
Genre fiction, sponsor

8:00pm PDT

ZYZZYVA Fall All-Stars

Saturday October 24, 2026 8:00pm - 9:00pm PDT

Dog Eared Books (900 Valencia St, San Francisco, CA 94110)

Short readings from a trio of illustrious past and current contributors to ZYZZYVA, showcasing the breadth and the excitement of the writing that the acclaimed San Francisco literary journal has been publishing for more than four decades. We invite you and your friends to hang out with our featured authors and the ZYZZYVA staff before and after the readings.

Saturday October 24, 2026 8:00pm - 9:00pm PDT
Dog Eared Books (900 Valencia St, San Francisco, CA 94110)

PHASE 3

Audience All Ages
Genre fiction, nonfiction, poetry

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