No Kings, No Queens Chess Club is the super-chill community chess club that gathers the 1st Sunday of every month in the galeria. Hosted by Danny Cao, all ages and skill levels are encouraged to come. Never played chess? We'll teach you! Come hang out, talk chess and play a few games.

Charras is the true story of Efraín "El Charras" Calderón Lara, a twenty-six-year-old union leader and student activist, and the Yucatean government's successful plot to kidnap and murder him. Acclaimed Mexican novelist Hernán Lara Zavala combines real-life newspaper articles and interviews with renderings of key events, laying the state-sanctioned narrative of Charras's death beside the actual experiences of those involved. To kaleidoscopic effect, Zavala enters not only the mind of the hero but also those in his orbit: the governor of the Yucatán, Charras's bureaucrat brother-in-law, even the mercenary hired to carry out the kidnapping—the chilling "you" whose point-of-view the reader must inhabit to unravel what took place during that fateful spring of 1974. This is the first time that Charras has been translated into another language. 

Translator Bio: Christopher Louis Romaguera is a Cuban-American writer who lives in New Orleans, Louisiana. He was born in Hialeah, Florida and graduated from Florida International University in Miami, Florida. He has an MFA in Creative Writing (Fiction) at the University of New Orleans. Romaguera has been published in Passages North, New Orleans Review, Pleiades Magazine, Catapult, Massachusetts Review and other publications. He was a monthly columnist at The Ploughshares Blog from 2018-2023 and was the Poetry Editor at Peauxdunque Review. Romaguera was an Editorial Intern at Electric Literature. He is a VONA alum and was a 2023 Periplus Fellow.

Daniel S.C. Sutter Bio: A current Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, Daniel S.C. Sutter holds a Ph.D. from Florida State and an M.F.A. from the University of New Orleans Creative Writing Workshop. His fiction has appeared or is forthcoming in The Georgia Review, The Greensboro Review, Mississippi Review, Carolina Quarterly, BOOTH, Fugue, and elsewhere and has won The Robert Watson Literary Prize for Fiction. His collection, Debris, is forthcoming May of 2026 as the winner of the Press 53 Award for Short Fiction. He is from Tampa, FL

María Esquinca delivers a searing collection of poems that traverse borders—both physical and emotional. Set against the backdrop of El Paso and Ciudad Juárez, these experimental works weave fragmented verses, striking imagery, and bold typography to confront the brutal realities of immigration and identity. With the precision of a journalist and the heart of a storyteller, Esquinca exposes injustice while celebrating resilience and hope. Her work is shaped by the intersection of cultures, histories, and experiences found in the US-Mexico borderlands. Each poem is a tribute to those who have endured and a call to challenge the systems that oppress. Where Heaven Sinks is a love letter, a memorial for those lost, and a testament to the transformative power of language.https://unpress.nevada.edu/9781647792183/where-heaven-sinks/

María Esquinca is a Xicana poet, educator and journalist. A fronteriza, she was born in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua, Mexico and grew up in El Paso, TX. Her debut collection “Where Heaven Sinks” was the winner of the 2024 Andrés Montoya Prize, and was selected by Juan Felipe Herrera.  She currently teaches English language learners in San Francisco.

Scott Oshiro  is a Bay Area-based fluatist and music technology researcher. As an African and Okinawan American, Scott’s creative and academic work incorporates influences from his heritage and combines them with Jazz, Hip Hop, and Electronic music. He recently received his Ph.D. at the Center for Computer Research in Music & Acoustics (CCRMA) at Stanford University, where he researched the intersection between quantum computing, music, and culture. Scott is an Asian Improv aRts fellow, developing quantum computer music improvisation systems for an album featuring BIPOC artists, showcasing the connection between music and quantum physics.

jj peña (pronouns he/they) is the winner of 92NY Discovery Poetry Contest (2023), Fractured Literature's Micro Contest (2021), Tinderbox Journal Editor's Prize (2021), Santa Clara Review's Flash Contest (2021), Mythic Picnic's Post Card Prize (2020), CutBank's Big Sky/Small Prose Contest (2019), & Blue Earth Review's Flash Non-fiction Contest (2019). jj is a 2021 Periplus Fellow, a 2022 Woody & Gayle Hunt Fellow for Aspen Summer Words, & a 2023 Editorial Fellow for Shenandoah Literary. jj holds a BA in both English and Anthropology, & an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of Texas at El Paso.  jj's work has been published widely & anthologized in places like Best Short Fictions of 2022, Best Micro-Fictions of 2020, & Wigleaf Top 50 Short-Shorts. jj currently reads for Splitlip Magazine. 

Other Dimensions in Sound is our Friday music series curated and hosted by Boohaabian multi reed player extraordinare David Boyce. Each week David will be inviting different musical guests to join him in our galeria for a night of sonic sustenance.

Tonight violinist Lucien Balmer. Lucien will fuse European classical and Indian classical music together into a unique blend of musical medicina.

Other Dimensions in Sound is our Friday music series curated and hosted by Boohaabian multi reed player extraordinare David Boyce. Each week David will be inviting different musical guests to join him in our galeria for a night of sonic sustenance.

Tonight’s musical medicina is being provided by ObandoBoyce/Funkonya

Join us as we present TRIPTYCH a new film series highlighting Palestinian films in September, October, and November. TRIPTYCH will be showcasing the subversive power of softness through meditative observation, falling in love, skating, surfing, music, Tatreez, art, and femme relationships. Each screening will be introduced by an artistic presentation that embodies the themes of the film to bring a local perspective. Palestinian-Cuban pop-up ASÚKAR will be outside the bookstore for attendees to purchase food. Organized by Connie Mae Oliver and Andrew Totah fundraising for Sameer Project in collaboration with Black Hole Cinematheque.

September: Love Story

Poetry reading: Zeina Hashem Beck 

Bonbone, 2017(short film, 13 min)

Gaza Mon Amour, 2020 (feature film, 87 mins)

October: Freedom of Movement

Reading: (Jose Vadi)

Epicly Palestine'd: The Birth of Skateboarding in the West Bank, 2015 (short documentary film, 15 mins)

Gaza Surf Club, 2016 (feature film, 96 mins)

November: Art as Resistance

Collab event with SF Bay Area Tatreez Circle

Activity: Tatreez Circle from 5-7pm 

Artist speaker: Tala Totah 

Ayny, 2016 (short film, 11 mins)

Stitching Palestine, 2017 (feature film, 77 mins)

The SF Indian Classical Session at Medicine for Nightmares is back on September 24th! 7pm show starts, $10! The Indian Classical Sessions are an informal gathering dedicated to sharing the meditative beauty, ecstatic energy, and sheer majesty of South Asian music. Hosted by percussionist, drumset and tabla player Sameer Gupta, this gathering focuses on curating 4 short live sets that represent different influences and traditions surrounding South Asian music. Our goal is to connect, build our raga music loving community, and share South Asian classical music in an impromptu, casual and attentive setting.

Featured sets are:

Marcus Stephens & Sameer Gupta sax + tabla

Swati Jhaveri north Indian vocal

Arvind and Akhil Sundararajan south Indian vocal

Souryadeep Bhattacharyya sarod

 Write Now! SF Bay presents "Civil Liberties at Risk," a reading by diverse writers of conscience from Lake, Mendocino & Sonoma Counties, Santa Cruz/Watsonville, and the Bay Area. Featuring Adela Najarro, Amanda Cruise, Beulah Vega, Esperanza Cabrales, Georgina, Marie Guardado, MK Chavez, Norma Smith,Peggy Morrison, Shaquam Edwards, Shizue Seigel, and Tehmina Khan.  

Adela Najarro serves as a board member of Círculo de Poetas y Writers, working with the nationwide Latinx community to promote creative writing and social justice. Her four poetry collections include Variations in Blue (Letras Latinas/Red Hen, 2025). www.adelanajarro.com.

Amanda Cruise lives in Mendocino on unceded Northern Pomo land. Her poetry and visual art have appeared in the Noyo Review, The Bloom, The Spirit of Place: Mendocino County Women Poets Anthology, and elsewhere. Amandacruise.com

Beulah Vega is a first-generation Latine political poet, horror writer, and theatrical artist living in the North Bay Area. Her poems were most recently published in Writers' Resist and La Raiz  and she produces plays through the series Heroines, Harlots, and Harpies: A Woman Speaks.   

Brenda Marie Yeager, Poet Laureate of Lake County, co-hosts New Darlings online monthly. A finalist for the 2022 Jane Underwood Poetry Prize, she’s been published in Noyo Review and The Bloom, and is seeking publication for her chapbook,Captain America.

Esperanza Cabrales is a queer Xicana slam poet, performer, teaching artist, zine maker, earring creator, and pun enthusiast who grew up in the San Joaquin Valley and now lives in Oakland.

Georgina Marie Guardado is the Poet Laureate Emerita of Lake County (2020-2024) and Poets Laureate Fellow (Academy of American Poets). She is Board President of the Mendocino Coast Writers’ Conference. She’s been published by Poets.org, Gulf Coast Journal, Yellow Medicine Review, The Muleskinner Journal, and more.

MK Chavez is an Afro-Latinx writer, educator, and founder of Ouroboros Writing Lab, which offers creative coaching, workshops, and community engagement. The author of Dear Animal, Mothermorphosis, and Virgin Eyes, she has been honored with the Pen Oakland Josephine Miles Award. 

Norma Smith, author of Home Remedy, is a writer, social researcher, editor, writing coach, and organizer. She grew up in Fresno in an Ashkenazi Jewish household and has been active in anti-racist/anti-oppression work since high school.

Peggy Morrison is a European-American poet who raised her daughter in Watsonville while working as a bilingual teacher. She’s been published in multiple journals and anthologies. She co-edited the anthologies Day Without Art (2019) and Colossus:Body (2023). 

Shaquam Edwards is an emerging Richmond writer. After a teaching career in early childhood and higher education, she is diving into a memoir about her struggle for belonging as a biracial Black/White female growing up amidst unhealed generational trauma.

Shizue Seigel, director of Write Now! SF Bay, is Japanese American writer, visual artist and community activist based in San Francisco.  She was most recently published in Panorama, Journal X, and Porter Gulch Review.

Tehmina Khan, daughter of Indian immigrant scientists, teaches College Writing at UC Berkeley and Poetry for the People at City College of San Francisco. Her work appears in Civil Liberties United, The City is Already Speaking, Muslim American Writers at Home, and more.

Medicina Para Pesadillas is keeping the very special Mission tradition of poets reading on the street alive and well with this literary series. Come hang and enjoy poets reading their work to Calle Veinte Cuatro. This month we are featuring poets from the Palomas y Piratas Writing Workshop(Maria Esquinca, Rolando Andre Lopez Torres, Lourdes Figueroa, Hector son of Hector and Diego Plascencia Vega)

Join us this afternoon for an art talk with Jackie Houston, whose group show Threaded Truths: Current Explorations in Fiber is currently up in our galeria.

Threaded Truths: Current Explorations in Fiber. This exhibition is a snippet of my current explorations in fiber. My work is about connecting to the past, honoring my ancestors, and bringing their voices to the present. Quilting is an art form that communicates an act of love and patience. Quilts, past and present, are often given as gifts to honor a loved one and provide a functionality that conveys warmth and care. I take deep dives into history as a way to make sense of the present realities we find ourselves in. I have been exploring the idea of how and when Western society reduced our identities to a color and its development as a way to divide those who were enslaved and those who were not. I have been looking to the early US colonies and considering not only those who were known in history, but those who were unknown. I considered the unbearable travel endured by African peoples during the transatlantic slave trade. How much was lost when language, ritual, and sense of place was taken through forced slavery?  These quilts are tributes to them.  Textiles, specifically Indigo, have a rich and varied history throughout Western Africa, the region of my ancestors. Each quilt is sewn with either my Indigo fabric or a deep black dye to emphasize composition. Actively creating art, sorting through the ups and downs of the process itself, is also a metaphor for my own personal experience. Each quilt contemplates the past, abstract compositions revealing stories through color, line,and shape. The narrative quality of these quilts act like a portal or bridge, a connection to the commonalities we all share as human beings. I invite you, the viewer, to engage with my quilts and feel a connection to their own space and time.  

Shashari Kiburi is a visual artist and educator working primarily in textiles. As a child she felt a deep connection to creating. Growing up in a sewing household, she sat by her mom’s sewing machine often, pulling the pins out of fabric as her mother made many of the clothes she and her siblings wore. While studying Anthropology at UC Berkeley, she had the opportunity to learn printmaking from painter Mary O’Neal. This work inspired a deep passion for abstract art and eventually led to using fiber as medium for storytelling. Shashari’s work in quilting came about when her children were young. It was a medium that she could fit into her busy life as a mother of four children. She was able to seamlessly apply her practice in drawing and photography with textiles. Drawing upon her ancestry she also dyes indigo fabrics as a foundation for her quiltmaking. Indigo puts her voice into each of the quilts and helps to close the gaps between her ancestors’ past and her present. She has shown her work at the Oakland Museum, the Steinbeck Museum in Salinas, Ca, the Ontario Museum, the Crocker Museum in Sacramento, Ca, and Medicine for Nightmares in San Francisco. Her work was recently published in Patchwork Deutschland, a quarterly fiber arts magazine and she recently contributed to the Modern Quilt Guild’s education resource library.  Shashari currently teaches visual arts in Sacramento where she lives with her four children. Follow her current creative work on Instagram @ulaludie. 

Jackie Houston; Art is the vehicle by which I express myself both politically and spiritually. It motivates me to express my feelings in a form to which others can relate. I want my work to be accessible to a large and diverse audience, even (perhaps especially) those who are not the usual gallery population. Although I have been an artist for more than 50 years, I discovered a whole new dimension when I found that the colors and patterns in fabric could animate my art in bold and exciting ways. Since then, I have explored themes of politics, family, music, and dance in fabric portraits. As an African American artist, my eyes and ears are open to the people and issues that engage my community. From rappers Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls to young people chanting “Hands up, Don’t shoot!”, my quilts bring the viewer images that are not frequently found in the “soft art” of quilting.  But my message is also one of contrast. If the outside world is steeped in violence and pain, I offer instead a portrait of my grandson in his own moment of baby “tragedy,” tears brimming, bubbles cascading from his mouth. He shows me, and so I show the world, that even in the midst of pain “Life Is Precious.” Similarly, rather than just focus on the beauty and grace of a dancer, I drill down to show the strength of the muscles, the severely curved arch that supports that grace. Frequently, I “hide” things within my work: images from the African savanna subtly placed on the face of Nelson Mandela, or the lyrics of a song by Louis Armstrong threading its way through my piece “Nawlins.”  

Other Dimensions in Sound is our Friday music series curated and hosted by Boohaabian multi reed player extraordinare David Boyce. Each week David will be inviting different musical guests to join him in our galeria for a night of sonic sustenance.

Tonight’s musical medicina is being brought to you by the Boyce/Huegel/James Trio.

Come gather and hear decolonized verses, spanglish poesia, Latine spokenword, Pocho poems and neighborhood chisme at Speaking Axolotl, the Bay Area’s long running monthly Latine Reading series. 10 slot open mic goes up a las 6:50PM. Open mic poets have 7 minutes to read.

This month’s feature is Lidia Yadira and Luz Barranco

BIOS;

Lidia Yadira;

Hola! Mi nombre es Lidia! I was born in Mexico and grew up in Hollister, California. I currently live in San Francisco, and I am a painter, poet and teatrista! I recently began working on public murals and completed my first one this past April. I hope to continue painting and bring more stories to life through art and poems! 

Most of my poems are written in Spanish because it’s the language I connect with most and the one in which I best understand myself. My writing focuses on my experiences as a first-generation Latina woman in the United States. I write about my life as a mujer, navigating identity, love, and personal growth. I also write about my Latine community, my ancestors, and my family both past and present. My work honors their experiences as trabajadores de la tierra both in the U.S. and Mexico, and their lucha for their family’s well being. I have shared my poems with my friends, family members and at community events. 

I also care deeply about community health and believe in the power of collective support and healing. I am currently working toward my degree with the goal of becoming an elementary school psychologist, while blending in all of my passions!!! 

Luz de Nácar ;

"Luz de Nácar was born in East Los, raised in Puebla and Veracrúz, and currently survives in Oakland. As a transterritorial two-spirit romantic, they sometimes write prayers out of their gut for the feeding of ancestors and Spirit, y a veces nomás porque sí. Le gusta pasar el tiempo tocando cumbia, dibujando, bailando wepa y construyendo altares."

NOTA; Speaking Axolotl is a BIPOC reading series which means black and brown poets ONLY on the mic. Whyte folks are more than welcome to listen and enjoy but their presence is not requiered.

Un espacio íntimo para compartir lecturas latinoamericanas, recorrer paisajes y voces únicas de la región, y abrir conversaciones que nos atraviesan y nos invitan a pensar juntxs.

An intimate space to share Latin American literature, explore the region’s unique voices and landscapes, and open up conversations that move us and invite us to think together.

Líneas del Sur is a book membership program designed to connect passionate Spanish-speaking readers with the rich literary landscape of Latin America. Members explore fresh voices from the region through carefully curated books, contextual articles, and editorial notes. The experience is enriched by lively conversations in both online and in-person book clubs, fostering a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts.

This month’s book is Buenas Costumbres by Denise Phé-Funchal. Copies are available for purchase her at Medicina.

Join us for the launch of Magma, Lucía Arrocha's second poetry book. This searing collection of poems palpitates with intimacy, perception and delicate subversion. Arrocha traces the emotional landscapes of memory, longing, and transformation, from love’s irregular terrains to the seismic shifts of identity and inheritance. The night will feature live readings by Lucía Arrocha and guest poets Garrett Schlichte and Win Mixter. We will end the evening with a writing exercise and book signing.

Lucía Arrocha is an artist hailing from Buenos Aires and living in San Francisco. Her multicultural background has fostered in her a proclivity for language, as well as a profound fascination for different ways of living and emoting. Poetry was her first love and she has been writing for over two decades, but she has also found her voice through various artistic endeavors such as filmmaking and DJing under the moniker Iris Umbra.

Garrett Schlichte is an award-winning columnist, writer, and chef living in San Francisco. Garrett's work has appeared online and in print in The Washington Post, The New York Times, THEM, Jezebel, Slate, and other outlets. Garrett has worked in restaurants across the Bay Area for the past five years, is the co-creator of Virgo Supperclub, and was a finalist on Season 1 of America's Test Kitchen: The Next Generation.

Win Mixter is a queer, SF-based artist, inventor, and poet. His multidisciplinary practice combines analog & digital methods of making. His main focuses are printmaking, illustration, air brushing, and lighting design. He is a waterbird docent on Alcatraz and a board member of the Book Club of California.

Other Dimensions in Sound is our Friday music series curated and hosted by Boohaabian multi reed player extraordinare David Boyce. Each week David will be inviting different musical guests to join him in our galeria for a night of sonic sustenance.

Tonight’s potent dose of musical medicina is being provided by Red Fast Luck(David Boyce-reeds and efx, PC Munoz-percussion, boom stick, and intergalactic hook rug)

Transanything is a disturbance of the constructed norm, a troubling, an offering, a series of encounters and insights encouraging a full aliveness--a transanything. In Jones' mythography of self and world, A hermit crab retires its shell, lovers drift apart, a self-proclaimed “nature essay” misbehaves, wandering away from the hummingbird outside Jones’s window. Transanything takes on a global web of colonial systems that seek to divide us, disrupting loneliness and forging space for queerness and transness to be radical aliveness. Miah Jeffra, co-founder of Foglifter, said, "The aliveness of this book has an ethic, a power, inspired by love. As a queer reader, I am filled with relief, with gratitude, with a sense of my own presence, and release.”

Ever Jones is a queer/trans author and artist based in Tacoma, WA and is super excited to meet writers and readers in the Bay Area. Ever will be in conversation with local writer and immersive experience creator Syr Beker and we'd love to hear your stories and thoughts about queer & trans possibility in this historical moment, especially as it intersects with climate change and forever-crisis. There will be free stickers, BE TRANSANYTHING merch for sale, as well as a special art print made by Ever Jones to raise funds for critical needs in Gaza.

Ever Jones (they, them) is a queer trans nonbinary author and artist based in Tacoma, WA. They are the author of Transanything as well as two books of poetry, nightsong and Wilderness Lessons. Ever is an educator at heart and with heart. Visit everjones.com to view writing and artwork.

Syr Hayati Beker (they/them) is a queer nonbinary Turkish-American writer, immersive experience creator, horror nerd, and art top in search of the queer love language of climate change. Their book, What A Fish Looks Like, is coming out September 4, 2025, from Stelliform Press.

No Kings,No Queens Chess Club is the super-chill community chess club that gathers the 1st Sunday of every month in the galeria. Hosted by Danny Cao, all ages and skill levels are encouraged to come. Never played chess? We'll teach you! Come hang out, talk chess and play a few games.

Other Dimensions in Sound is our Friday music series curated and hosted by Boohaabian multi reed player extraordinare David Boyce. Each week David will be inviting different musical guests to join him in our galeria for a night of sonic sustenance.

Tonight’s musical medicina is being provided by Charlotte Law and her guitar.

Bay Area poets Rolando André López, Denise Newman, Dean Rader, and Sarah Rosenthal read inventive new work that probes issues from the environmental crisis to the precarity of embodiment. This event celebrates three recently published books: Newman’s The Redesignation of Paradise (Kelsey Street Press), Rader’s Before the Borderless (Copper Canyon Press), and Rosenthal’s Estelle Meaning Star (Chax Press). Ranging in age from 30s to 60s, representing different poetry communities from spoken word to academic to performance, these poets share a drive for transforming the lyric to speak to our moment.

Denise Newman is the author of five poetry collections, most recently, The Redesignation of Paradise (Kelsey Street Press, 2024), and, forthcoming, Reality Is Occurring in the Cracks in Reality in Bay Area Suite, a collection of four chapbooks with Elizabeth Robinson, Randy Prunty, George Albon (Selva Oscura/Three Count Pour, 2025). Her writings and translations have appeared in journals such as Chicago Review 75th Anniversary Anthology, Posit, World Literature Today, and Asymptote. For many years she has collaborated with composers providing lyrics for choral works and songs. Newman is also the translator of three novels by the late Danish poet Inger Christensen, and Naja Marie Aidt’s Baboon (winner of the PEN translation award) and When Death Takes Something From You Give It Back (long listed for the National Book Award and a finalist for the Kirkus Prize). She teaches at the California College of the Arts. denisenewman.net

Dean Rader has authored or co-authored thirteen books. His debut collection of poems, Works & Days, won the 2010 T. S. Eliot Poetry Prize. His 2014 collection Landscape Portrait Figure Form was named by The Barnes & Noble Review as a Best Poetry Book. Other titles include the poetry collection Self-Portrait as Wikipedia Entry and the anthologies Native Voices: Contemporary Indigenous Poetry, Craft, and Conversations and Bullets into Bells: Poets and Citizens Respond to Gun Violence. Rader writes and reviews regularly for The San Francisco Chronicle, The Huffington Post, BOMB, Ploughshares, Artforum, and The Los Angeles Review of Books, where he co-authors a poetry column with Victoria Chang. In 2020, he was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Balakian Award. His most recent collection of poems, Before the Borderless: Dialogues with the Art of Cy Twombly, was named by Bookriot as one of ten “mesmerizing” books of modern poetry. Rader’s writing has been supported by fellowships from Princeton University, Harvard University, the MacDowell Foundation, Art Omi, and The Headlands Center for the Arts. He is a 2019 Guggenheim Fellow in poetry and a professor at the University of San Francisco.

Sarah Rosenthal is the author of the full-length collections Estelle Meaning Star (Chax, 2024), Lizard (Chax, 2016), Manhatten (Spuyten Duyvil, 2009), and two books in collaboration with Valerie Witte: One Thing Follows Another: Experiments in Dance, Art, and Life Through the Lens of Simone Forti and Yvonne Rainer (Punctum, forthcoming 2025) and The Grass Is Greener When the Sun Is Yellow (The Operating System, 2019), as well as several chapbooks. She edited A Community Writing Itself: Conversations with Vanguard Writers of the Bay Area (Dalkey Archive, 2010). Her collaborative film We Agree on the Sun won Best Experimental Short at the Berlin Independent Film Festival. Her new collaborative film, Lizard Song, is currently on the film festival circuit. She has received the Leo Litwak Fiction Award, a Creative Capacity Innovation Grant, a San Francisco Education Fund Grant, and residencies at This Will Take Time, Hambidge, New York Mills, Vermont Studio Center, Soul Mountain, and Ragdale, as well as a two-year term as Affiliate Artist at Headlands Center for the Arts. From 2012 to 2023, she served as a juror for the California Book Awards. More at sarahrosenthal.net. 

Rolando André López, from San Juan, Puerto Rico, is an educator, writer, and translator. His work appears in Passages North, ORCA, and more, with citations in Best American Essays. A 2023 Puerto Rican Artist Fellow at MASSMOCA, he writes hybrid fiction, poetry, and essays. López lives in Oakland, California.

Join us on Wednesday, September 3 from 7-9 p.m. to write letters to Cata Xóchitl (SO-CHEEL) Santiago - a DACA recipient, farmworker, and beloved community member who was unjustly detained by border patrol on August 3rd. The event is one of several that has taken place across the country demonstrating the outpouring of national support for Xochitl.

Cata was detained at the El Paso International Airport by two border patrol agents before she boarded a domestic flight for work. Cata showed her valid DACA work authorization card (offering proof of protection from deportation) and was still abducted by DHS without warrant, cause, or access to legal representation. Since then, the Department of Homeland Security has lied to the public to paint Xochitl as a threat. She is currently being detained at the El Paso Processing Center - an immigration detention center with a well-documented history of abuse and neglect.  This is a national litmus test in defending activists and Dreamers from the administration’s attacks.

Hosted by Maria Esquinca

Art opening celebration tonight for Threaded Truths; new works by Jackie Houston& Shashari Kiburi.

Threaded Truths: Current Explorations in Fiber. This exhibition is a snippet of my current explorations in fiber. My work is about connecting to the past, honoring my ancestors, and bringing their voices to the present. Quilting is an art form that communicates an act of love and patience. Quilts, past and present, are often given as gifts to honor a loved one and provide a functionality that conveys warmth and care. I take deep dives into history as a way to make sense of the present realities we find ourselves in. I have been exploring the idea of how and when Western society reduced our identities to a color and its development as a way to divide those who were enslaved and those who were not. I have been looking to the early US colonies and considering not only those who were known in history, but those who were unknown. I considered the unbearable travel endured by African peoples during the transatlantic slave trade. How much was lost when language, ritual, and sense of place was taken through forced slavery?  These quilts are tributes to them.  Textiles, specifically Indigo, have a rich and varied history throughout Western Africa, the region of my ancestors. Each quilt is sewn with either my Indigo fabric or a deep black dye to emphasize composition. Actively creating art, sorting through the ups and downs of the process itself, is also a metaphor for my own personal experience. Each quilt contemplates the past, abstract compositions revealing stories through color, line,and shape. The narrative quality of these quilts act like a portal or bridge, a connection to the commonalities we all share as human beings. I invite you, the viewer, to engage with my quilts and feel a connection to their own space and time.  

Shashari Kiburi is a visual artist and educator working primarily in textiles. As a child she felt a deep connection to creating. Growing up in a sewing household, she sat by her mom’s sewing machine often, pulling the pins out of fabric as her mother made many of the clothes she and her siblings wore. While studying Anthropology at UC Berkeley, she had the opportunity to learn printmaking from painter Mary O’Neal. This work inspired a deep passion for abstract art and eventually led to using fiber as medium for storytelling. Shashari’s work in quilting came about when her children were young. It was a medium that she could fit into her busy life as a mother of four children. She was able to seamlessly apply her practice in drawing and photography with textiles. Drawing upon her ancestry she also dyes indigo fabrics as a foundation for her quiltmaking. Indigo puts her voice into each of the quilts and helps to close the gaps between her ancestors’ past and her present. She has shown her work at the Oakland Museum, the Steinbeck Museum in Salinas, Ca, the Ontario Museum, the Crocker Museum in Sacramento, Ca, and Medicine for Nightmares in San Francisco. Her work was recently published in Patchwork Deutschland, a quarterly fiber arts magazine and she recently contributed to the Modern Quilt Guild’s education resource library.  Shashari currently teaches visual arts in Sacramento where she lives with her four children. Follow her current creative work on Instagram @ulaludie. 

Jackie Houston; Art is the vehicle by which I express myself both politically and spiritually. It motivates me to express my feelings in a form to which others can relate. I want my work to be accessible to a large and diverse audience, even (perhaps especially) those who are not the usual gallery population. Although I have been an artist for more than 50 years, I discovered a whole new dimension when I found that the colors and patterns in fabric could animate my art in bold and exciting ways. Since then, I have explored themes of politics, family, music, and dance in fabric portraits. As an African American artist, my eyes and ears are open to the people and issues that engage my community. From rappers Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls to young people chanting “Hands up, Don’t shoot!”, my quilts bring the viewer images that are not frequently found in the “soft art” of quilting.  But my message is also one of contrast. If the outside world is steeped in violence and pain, I offer instead a portrait of my grandson in his own moment of baby “tragedy,” tears brimming, bubbles cascading from his mouth. He shows me, and so I show the world, that even in the midst of pain “Life Is Precious.” Similarly, rather than just focus on the beauty and grace of a dancer, I drill down to show the strength of the muscles, the severely curved arch that supports that grace. Frequently, I “hide” things within my work: images from the African savanna subtly placed on the face of Nelson Mandela, or the lyrics of a song by Louis Armstrong threading its way through my piece “Nawlins.”  

Medicina Para Pesadillas is keeping the very special Mission tradition of poets reading on the street alive and well with this literary series. Come hang and enjoy poets reading their work to Calle Veinte Cuatro. This month’s featured poets are part of When The Smoke Comes, a creative writing space that explores the inextricable link between our social, economic, and political reality and the human experience we are having or hope to have in the future. This workshop is intended to be a starting place, a jumping-off point for broader anti-imperialist political practice. Simply put, When The Smoke Comes is a creative writing workshop that seeks to not only imagine an end to oppression, but better prepare us to bring it about. Featured poets are Darius Simpson, Kevin Madrigal Galindo, Sarah O’Neal and Aniya Butler.

Other Dimensions in Sound is our Friday music series curated and hosted by Boohaabian multi reed player extraordinare David Boyce. Each week David will be inviting different musical guests to join him in our galeria for a night of sonic sustenance.

Tonight’s musical medicina is Jordan Boyd (crystal singing bowls, horns), Edward Pollard (bass), and Tomek Sidori (guitar) 

Jordan, Edward, and Tomek will explore sonic improvisation and sound as healing vibration.  Consonance and Consciousness investigation. Sound Be....

The SF Indian Classical Session at Medicine for Nightmares is back on August 27th! The Indian Classical Sessions are an informal gathering dedicated to sharing the meditative beauty, ecstatic energy, and sheer majesty of South Asian music. Hosted by percussionist, drumset and tabla player Sameer Gupta, this gathering focuses on curating 4 short live sets that represent different influences and traditions surrounding South Asian music. Our goal is to connect, build our raga music loving community, and share South Asian classical music in an impromptu, casual and attentive setting.

Featured musicians are;

Srikanth Narahari viola

Arjun Ravi Shankar vocal

Mallar Bhattacharya sarod

Lucian Balmer  violin

7pm show starts, $10 at the door!

Shaded Space will be celebrating our latest short story release, "Beth Hendricks", at Medicine for Nightmares with an evening of readings by the author, Finn Finneran, as well as by local poets Wendy Trevino and David Buuck. Signed copies, previous Shaded Space releases, and a selection of free zines will also be available.

Finn Finneran (he/they) is a writer, student, and organizer living in the Bay Area, CA. Originally from the south, Finn left home and high school as a teenager seeking something like a life one might find in a Diane di Prima poem. He thinks he’s mostly succeeded in this regard. An eventful life and a free ride at City College of San Francisco inspired Finn to write stories and poems. He’s self-published three issues of his zine Slap Back Sylvia, and has since transferred as a re-entry student to UC Berkeley to study literature, history, and political theory in the American Studies department. He’s also a worker-owner at Rainbow Grocery Cooperative in San Francisco. Finn is queer, trans, working class, and rooting for the Intifada and all the underdogs!

Shaded Space is a resting place for printed media that doesn't have a home elsewhere. We print and distribute a wide variety of work ranging from artist’s books and zines to short stories and Islamic manuscripts. We believe most of all in providing a physical object you can hold in your hands and enjoy.

A live late show just like the good old days! El Late Show with host Marisol Medina Cadena will take on local politics, culture and consejos before a live audience and trade chismes y cuentos with special guests from La Mision. On tonight’s episode cumbia barn band Rascuaches stops by for a jam, Marisol takes a visit to “Herencia”, 24th street’s latest bougie gastronoeria, and El Late Show is visited by a pinche puppet.

Other Dimensions in Sound is our Friday music series curated and hosted by Boohaabian multi reed player extraordinare David Boyce. Each week David will be inviting different musical guests to join him in our galeria for a night of sonic sustenance.

Tonight we have a double dose of sonic sustenance for you with Dahveed Behroozi(vocalist and synth) and Ark Of Bones(Chris Evans-cello, David Boyce-reeds and efx) and special guests Evelyn Ficarra on sound design and PC Munoz on percussion.

Come gather and hear decolonized verses, spanglish poesia, Latine spokenword, Pocho poems and neighborhood chisme at Speaking Axolotl, the Bay Area’s long running monthly Latine Reading series. 10 slot open mic goes up a las 6:50PM. Open mic poets have 7 minutes to read.

This month’s feature are Lucía Arrocha and Abraham Garcia.

Lucía Arrocha.is an artist hailing from Buenos Aires and living in San Francisco. Her multicultural background has fostered in her a proclivity for language, as well as a profound fascination for different ways of living and emoting. Poetry was her first love and she has been writing for over two decades, but she has also found her voice through various artistic endeavors such as filmmaking and DJing under the moniker Iris Umbra.

Abraham Garcia is a San Francisco native with Nicaraguan and Guatemalan roots. He finds inspiration in nature and often spends his free time writing and reflecting outdoors. He is the author of Love and Nature / Amor y Naturaleza, a bilingual collection in Spanish and English that explores the connections between romantic relationships, the natural world, God, and self-reflection. Self-published, the book blends themes of love, spirituality, and the beauty of the earth through a heartfelt poetic lens.

NOTA; Speaking Axolotl is a BIPOC reading series which means black and brown poets ONLY on the mic. Whyte folks are more than welcome to listen and enjoy but their presence is not requiered.

Un espacio íntimo para compartir lecturas latinoamericanas, recorrer paisajes y voces únicas de la región, y abrir conversaciones que nos atraviesan y nos invitan a pensar juntxs.

An intimate space to share Latin American literature, explore the region’s unique voices and landscapes, and open up conversations that move us and invite us to think together.

Líneas del Sur is a book membership program designed to connect passionate Spanish-speaking readers with the rich literary landscape of Latin America. Members explore fresh voices from the region through carefully curated books, contextual articles, and editorial notes. The experience is enriched by lively conversations in both online and in-person book clubs, fostering a vibrant community of literary enthusiasts.

This month’s book is Las Aventuras de la China Iron de Gabriela Cabezon Camara. Copies are available at Medicina Para Pesadillas.

Hosted by a black queer author based in the Bay Area, the Fable Storytelling Writing Workshop is about using the imagination to come up with tools for personal liberation. In this guided writing workshop that focuses on the structure of the fable, participants will use their real lives to craft fantasy narratives in tiny books.

Duane Horton is a black queer fantasy writer and educator who believes in writing his intersection of identity into his stories to widen the cannon and so that folks who share his intersection can see themselves represented on the page. Duane graduated with his MFA in 2019 and since then, has published his first book - NO HERO ALONE. As well as having numerous short stories appear in literary magazines. When Duane isn't reading or writing, you can find him teaching classes, hosting a radical book club or playing with his cat.

Event Brite Link:

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/fable-storytelling-workshop-tickets-1458916992999?aff=oddtdtcreator