I am thrilled to be one of the performers at this event: 7X7 Presents Joan Didion Power Hour at Litquake Literary Festival.
Join 7×7 in this special Lit Crawl tribute to Joan Didion as five authors read stories from the fringes, fissures and evocative intersections of contemporary Californian culture in honor of the 50th Anniversary of Didion’s seminal Summer of Love essay, ‘Slouching Towards Bethlehem’.
In the essay, Didion documented drugs, drug consciousness, environmentalism, capitalism, alternative lifestyles and technology; all have manifested in California, but not in the ways she might have imagined back in 1967. California’s 21st-century Bethlehem, with its couture psilocybin, income inequality, artisanal foods and technological hopes, is rife with the open-ended social contradictions Didion addressed during the Summer of Love. This evening’s writers will delve into the fertile, flourishing, comedic jumble of the Golden State’s abundant cultural microcosms, all thriving at the Pacific’s edge.
Our Didionic participants include:
Alex DiSclafani, a day-time techie who writes on her long commutes.
Nada Djordjevich, writer and founding editor of ‘On the Page’ magazine.
Kris Malone Grossman, whose guerrilla action The Big Flash Grab, a counter narrative to Trump’s first 100 days, was recently sponsored by 100daysaction.
Kate Haug, an artist whose recent SF Arts Commission project on the Summer of Love, lead to her obsession with Joan Didion’s essay «Slouching Towards Bethlehem.»
Allison Muir, a writer, artist, and interior designer whose recent fiction has appeared in The Murmur House’ and ‘The Ginger Collect’ literary magazines.
Plus, drinks! All guests must be 21+. Event is free to attend.
(Photo credit: Joan Didion, Summer of Love Trading Cards
Kate Haug/ Ivan Uranga 2017
Original Photo: Ted Streshinsky Photographic Archive/Corbis Premium Historical/Getty Images)
Nada Djordjevich 