Casi todos los pueblos han creado sistemas para el entrenamiento del cuerpo y la mente, tales como el yoga hindú, la gimnosofía griega, las danzas sagradas de África y Oceanía, y las artes marciales de China y Europa medieval. La Civilización Madre de Mesoamérica (Anawak) no fue la excepción.

KINAM es una práctica de entrenamiento psicofísico basada en la filosofía tolteca y en sus antiguas posturas de equilibrio y de poder, creada a partir de diversas técnicas de movimiento funcional, meditación, y "posturas de poder toltecas". En esta clase buscamos recuperar las raíces culturales de América Prehispánica a través de la exploración de nuestra atención y consciencia y el balance de nuestros centros perceptuales (cuerpo físico, mente, emociones y energía vital)

Materiales a traer: Un mat de yoga o un tapete, ropa comoda

*Apto para todas las edades 

Almost all cultures have developed systems for training the body and mind, such as Hindu yoga, Greek gymnosophy, the sacred dances of Africa and Oceania, and the martial arts of China and medieval Europe. The Mother Civilization of Mesoamerica (Anawak) was no exception.

KINAM is a psychophysical training practice based on Toltec philosophy and its ancient postures of balance and power, created from various techniques of functional movement, meditation, and “Toltec power postures.” In this class, we seek to recover the cultural roots of Pre-Hispanic America through the exploration of our awareness and consciousness while balancing our perceptual centers (physical body, mind, emotions, and vital energy).

Materials needed: Yoga mat and comfortable clothes
*All ages are welcomed

Join us at Medicine for Nightmares Bookstore on Saturday, 11/22, at 4pm for an evening of poetry, music and storytelling from system-impacted writers and a community-rooted poet laureate. Together, they explore the dreams and nightmares born of struggle and survival, revealing how writing opens pathways to freedom and art becomes medicine.

Antonio López is San Mateo County’s 2025-2027 Poet Laureate. López is a poetician at the intersections of the arts, policy, and social change. He is the son of immigrants from Michoacán, México who moved to East Palo Alto in the 1980s. The first in his family to graduate from college, he holds degrees from Duke University, Rutgers-Newark, and the University of Oxford as a 2018 Marshall Scholar. His poetry and essays have appeared in numerous publications, anthologies and podcasts including Poetry Foundation, Latino Poetry: The Library of America Anthology, The Slowdown, Poetry Daily, among others. His first book of poetry, Gentefication, was selected by Pulitzer Prize-Winning Author Gregory Pardlo for the 2019 Levis Prize in Poetry published by Four Way Books. His second book, The Right to Remain Violets, is forthcoming from the University of Arizona Press. Antonio served his hometown as a councilmember and mayor for the City of East Palo Alto. From 2021-2023, he worked as field representative for the California State Senate. He serves on the board of several nonprofits, including El Concilio of San Mateo County, Mannakin Dance Theater, the Catalino Tapia Scholarship Fund, among others. He is currently finishing his PhD in the Modern Thought and Literature program at Stanford University. Antonio also serves as the Associate Director for Research and Advocacy for the coast side organization Ayudando Latinos a Soñar (ALAS).

Brian Shepperd, co-creator and co-host of the podcast The Th3rd Bridge, lives a life that embodies resilience, transformation, and leadership born from lived experience. Brian spent nearly 30 years in most of California’s worst prisons. Once immersed in gangs and survival culture, he made the decision to turn his focus inward, transforming those same hard-edged lessons into tools for growth, accountability, and healing. Today, Brian, who uses the pen name b.anthony.shepperd, is the published poet behind the book Confessions of a Compassionate Felon, a community builder, and an advocate. He leads with empathy and credibility, speaking from the place of someone who has lived the realities of incarceration and emerged determined to uplift others.

Pharaoh Elisha Brooks, @Pharaoh_Elisha on Instagram and @PharaohElisha on YouTube, is the Substance Use Disorder Treatment Program Director for Kingdom Builders Transitional Program. He was fortunate enough to be found suitable from the parole board after being incarcerated for 17 and a half years. Today, Pharaoh is a writer, author, musician, producer, poet, actor, counselor, rapper, and singer. His EP, Building 18: The Hip Hop Poetry Project, is available on Spotify and Apple Music and he is working on his first novel. He feels fortunate to share his story to help uplift the same type of communities he once tore down.

Trey Xavier Watkins is a jack of many trades. A musician, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, motivational speaker, and mentor, he finds balance in the breadth of his pursuits. He has published eight novels, including his crowning work The Creation, Death, and Resurrection of Theodore C. Andrews III. Drawing from a past that includes life as a bank robber, drug addiction, and 27 years behind bars, Trey offers audiences a unique perspective on politics, relationships, and the justice system. He came to realize later in life that everything he endured had a purpose: it was his to write about. 

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 serious musical medicina..

Tonight’s heavy dose of sonic sustenance is being Mystery School(Philip Greenleif and David Boyce)

TONIGHT come hear decolonized verses, spanglish poesia, Latine spokenword, Pocho poemas 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 we are over la luna excited to be hosting Mexican journalist and author Daniela Rea who will be reading from her new book Fruto.

After the birth of her first child, the relentless work of motherhood left award-winning Mexican journalist, Daniela Rea feeling overwhelmed, despairing, and afraid of losing her identity. She took up the tools of her trade and began a series of interviews with other women, some mothers, some caregivers. As she listened to their experiences of providing care for others, sometimes under extreme circumstances, she began to find a place and a meaning for her own story. Fruto examines the personal and social contradictions of care. Fourteen voices weave in and around Rea’s own, punctuated by diary entries from her first days of motherhood and reflections on her upbringing that are sparked by a lengthy interview with her own mother. Throughout, she engages with an international women’s chorus of philosophers and feminists, poets and essayists, and the result is a compelling page turner that chronicles a journey of listening in search for meaning.

“Daniela Rea’s Fruto is a calm room late at night where women gather to talk: with their stories and their words they take care of each other and then, by sharing that, they care for all of us.”–Miriam Toews, author of Women Talking

“This transformative book is the product of eyes that see across generations, ears that truly know how to listen, and a mind that understands the complexity of systemic forms of violence. Daniela Rea’s brilliant, polyphonic imagination casts the philosophy of care in an entirely new light.”–Valeria Luiselli, author of Lost Children Archive: A Novel

Daniela Rea (Mexico, 1982) is a journalist, documentary filmmaker, author of three books of narrative non-fiction, and a contributor to various collections of essays. Fruto, published to wide acclaim in Mexico in 2023, is her most recent book. She has received various awards for her work, including Mexico's National Journalism Award (2018); the Gabriel García Marquez Prize (2017, 2019, and 2022); and the Premio Alemán for Journalism (2021). She is interested in the tension between horror and beauty, and recognized for her work on social issues, violence, social justice, and human rights. She is a founding member of the Red Periodistas de Pie; part of the Global Network of Investigative Journalism, and co-editor of Pie de página, a journalism portal created with the support of the European Union. She lives in Mexico City, Mexico.

Esta noche, ven a escuchar versos descolonizados, poesía en spanglish, spoken word Latíne, poemas pocho y chismes del barrio en Speaking Axolotl, el ciclo mensual de lecturas Latíne de larga trayectoria en el Área de la Bahía. El micrófono abierto de 10 espacios comienza a las 6:50 p.m. Los poetas participantes tienen 7 minutos para leer.

Este mes, estamos emocionadisimos de recibir a la periodista y escritora mexicana Daniela Rea, quien leerá fragmentos de su nuevo libro Fruto.

Tras el nacimiento de su primer hijo, el incansable trabajo de la maternidad dejó a la galardonada periodista mexicana, Daniela Rea, abrumada, desesperada y con miedo a perder su identidad. Recurrió a su profesión y comenzó una serie de entrevistas con otras mujeres, algunas madres, otras cuidadoras. Al escuchar sus experiencias brindando cuidados a otros, a veces en circunstancias extremas, empezó a encontrar un lugar y un significado para su propia historia. Fruto examina las contradicciones personales y sociales del cuidado. Catorce voces se entrelazan con la de Rea, intercaladas con entradas de su diario de sus primeros días como madre y reflexiones sobre su crianza, inspiradas en una extensa entrevista con su propia madre. A lo largo de la obra, dialoga con un coro internacional de filósofas y feministas, poetas y ensayistas, y el resultado es una lectura fascinante que narra un viaje de escuchar en busca de significado.

Fruto, de Daniela Rea, es un espacio tranquilo en la oscuridad de la noche donde las mujeres se reúnen a conversar: con sus historias y sus palabras se cuidan mutuamente y, al compartirlo, nos cuidan a todas. –Miriam Toews, escritora de Women Talking.

Este libro transformador es fruto de una mirada que trasciende generaciones, de una capacidad de escucha excepcional y de una mente que comprende la complejidad de las formas sistémicas de violencia. La brillante y polifónica imaginación de Daniela Rea ilumina la filosofía del cuidado desde una perspectiva totalmente nueva. –Valeria Luiselli, escritora de Lost Children Archive: A Novel.

Daniela Rea (México, 1982) es periodista, documentalista, autora de tres libros de no ficción narrativa y colaboradora en diversas antologías de ensayos. Fruto, publicado con gran éxito en México en 2023, es su libro más reciente. Ha recibido varios premios por su trabajo, entre ellos el Premio Nacional de Periodismo de México (2018), el Premio Gabriel García Márquez (2017, 2019 y 2022) y el Premio Alemán de Periodismo (2021). Le interesa la tensión entre el horror y la belleza, y es reconocida por su trabajo en temas sociales, violencia, justicia social y derechos humanos. Es miembro fundadora de la Red Periodistas de Pie, integra la Red Global de Periodismo de Investigación y es co-editora de Pie de página, un portal de periodismo creado con el apoyo de la Unión Europea. Vive en la Ciudad de México.

Tonight Jazmina Barrera discusses her new book The Queen of Swords, a portrait of the influential Mexican writer Elena Garro with Megan McDowell, translator of Garro's short story collection The Week of Colors.

About The Queen of Swords:

In what was at first meant to be a short essay about the influential Mexican writer Elena Garro (1916-1988), Jazmina Barrera’s deep curiosity and exploration give us a singular portrait of a complex life. Sifting through the writer’s archives at Princeton, Barrera is repeatedly thwarted in her attempt to fully know her subject. Traditional means of research—the correspondence, photos, and books—serve only to complicate and cloud the woman and her work. Who was Elena Garro, really? She was a writer, a founder of “magical realism”, a dancer. A devotee to the tarot and the I Ching. A socialite and activist on behalf of indigenous Mexicans. She was a mother and a lover who repeatedly shook off (and cheated on) her manipulative husband, Nobel-laureate Octavio Paz. And above all, she wrote with simmering anger and glittering imagination. The Queen of Swords is a portrait of a woman that also serves as an alternative history of Mexico City; a cry-out for justice; and an homage to the unknowable. It transcends mere biography, supplanting something tidy and authoritative for a sprawling experiment in understanding.

About The Week of Colors:

Short stories from the “cursed mother of magical realism” (El Mundo), now in English for the first time. A woman flits between two realities centuries apart, as scenes from the violent conquest of Mexico bleed their way into her comfortable contemporary life. Two little girls visit the home of a sorcerer who tortures women named after the days of the week. Girls become dogs, a laborer hides human bones in bricks he’ll use to build a new development, and an old woman appears at an acquaintance’s door one night with a knife and a bone-chilling confession. With The Week of Colors, Elena Garro laid the groundwork for the literary movements that would shape the landscape of Latin American fiction and beyond. Here you’ll find the early roots of magical realism, feminist horror, and anticolonial speculative fiction. In The Week of Colors, Garro highlights the violence in our history, our homes, and our hearts, in vivid color.

Jazmina Barrera’s books have been published in nine countries and translated to English, Dutch, Portuguese, Italian, and French. Her book Cuerpo extraño (Foreign Body) was awarded the Latin American Voices prize by Literal Publishing, and On Lighthouses was chosen for the Indie Next list by IndieBound. Linea Nigra was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle’s Gregg Barrios Book in Translation Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Autobiography Prize, CANIEM’s Book of the Year award, and the Amazon Primera Novela (First Novel) Award. She is editor and co-founder of Ediciones Antílope. She lives in Mexico City.

Megan McDowell has translated work by many of the most important contemporary Latin American writers, including Samanta Schweblin, Alejandro Zambra, Mariana Enriquez, Carlos Fonseca, and Lina Meruane. Her translations have won the National Book Award, the English PEN award for Writing in Translation, the Premio Valle-Inclán, the Shirley Jackson Prize, and two O. Henry Prizes, and have been short- or long-listed four times for the International Booker Prize, and shortlisted once for the Kirkus Prize. In 2020 she won an Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Her short story translations have been featured in The New Yorker, Harper's, The Paris Review, Tin House, McSweeney’s, and Granta, among others.

Presented by Two Lines Press.

Two poets formed in San Francisco, Gerald Nicosia and Ron Myers, read poetry in the original San Francisco Beat, oral tradition. Nicosia, the older of the two poets, was friends with many of the Beat writers including Gregory Corso and Jack Micheline, and he will read from his recent book of poetry BEAT SCRAPBOOK, which contains narrative-poem memoirs of dozens of the famous and non-famous Beat poets he knew during his many decades in the Bay Area. Ron Myers, the younger of the two, studied under Beat poet Harold Norse in the 1980’s and more recently post-Beat poet Neeli Cherkovski. Myers will read from his recently-published first book of poems, POWER SPOTS, with poems arising from many different San Francisco settings and characters he has known. Both poets deal with the core Beat themes: the importance of interpersonal relationships, tolerance toward people of different backgrounds and orientations, concerns with ecology and ending violent political conflicts, poetry that embodies an activist stance toward life, and poetry that is accessible to all people. The poets will allow time for a discussion with the audience after their reading.

Ron Myers began writing seriously after befriending Beat Hotel-resident and poet Harold Norse in the 1980s.  Ron previously studied creative writing and art at Indiana University, City College of San Francisco and San Francisco State.  He reads on several online forums and appears in dozens of anthologies, including a recent tribute to William Burroughs. Quite unexpectedly, the National Beat Poetry Foundation appointed Ron the Beat Poet Laureate of California in 2024.  A full length collection, Power Spots, mysteriously appeared in 2025.

Tonight Hatem Bazian and Omar Zahzah discuss Zahzah’s new book Terms of Servitude: Zionism, Silicon Valley, and Digital Settler Colonialism in the Palestinian Liberation Struggle.

Omar Zahzah is the author of Terms of Servitude: Zionism, Silicon
Valley, and Digital Colonialism in the Palestinian Liberation Struggle
(The Censored Press/Seven Stories Press). He is an Assistant Professor
of Arab and Muslim, Ethnicities and Diaspora (AMED) Studies in the
Department of Race and Resistance Studies (RRS) at San Francisco State
University. Zahzah holds a B.A. in Comparative World Literature and
Creative Writing from California State University, Long Beach, and an
M.A. and PhD in Comparative Literature from the University of
California, Los Angeles.
A scholar-activist of Lebanese Palestinian descent, Zahzah is the
former Education and Advocacy Coordinator of Eyewitness Palestine, a
position that saw him training delegates to Palestine on racial
justice and Palestinian political history. Previously active in
Students for Justice in Palestine and the Palestinian Youth Movement,
Omar is currently a member of US Palestinian Community Network (USPCN)
and Faculty for Justice in Palestine at San Francisco State
University.
Zahzah’s academic research focuses on how Black, Arab American and
Palestinian creatives utilize literature to resist converging projects
of securitization. In his literary criticism, Zahzah introduced the
concept of “solidarity poetics” to capture how Caribbean American
“surrealist blues” poet aja monet and Palestinian poet Mohammed
El-Kurd practice a dialogic poetry of joint struggle that undermines
globalizing colonial and carceral paradigms of racialized violence,
dispossession, and incapacitation.
Zahzah is also a self-taught journalist, and over the years has been a
recurring contributor to outlets such as The Electronic Intifada,
Mondoweiss, The Palestine Chronicle, and more. His journalism has also
appeared in outlets such as CounterPunch, InTheseTimes, and The
Nation. Zahzah’s poetry can be found in publications such as the
anthology Heaven Looks Like Us: Palestinian Poetry, published by
Haymarket Books in 2025, Social Text, and more.

ABOUT HATEM BAZIAN
Hatem Bazian is a Decolonial scholar who centers Islam's epistemology
in all his work and examines the contemporary world through a global
south lens. Bazian is the author of five books, numerous chapters,
peer-reviewed journal articles, and hundreds of press articles, as
well as a constant contributor to and participant in academic
discussions across the globe. Bazian is a leading scholar in the field
of Islamophobia Studies, having founded the Islamophobia Studies
Center, served as Editor-in-Chief of the Islamophobia Studies Journal,
and co-founded and currently serves as President of the International
Islamophobia Studies and Research Association (IISRA).
Bazian co-founded Zaytuna College, the 1st Accredited Muslim Liberal
Arts College in the United States. Dr. Bazian is a teaching professor
in the Departments of Middle East Languages and Cultures and Asian
American and Asian Diaspora Studies at the University of California,
Berkeley. Dr. Bazian between 2002-2007, also served as an adjunct
professor of law at Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of
California, Berkeley.  At the community level, Bazian is the President
of the Northern California Islamic Council, co-founder and national
chair of American Muslims for Palestine, chairman of the Board of the
Muslim Legal Fund for America and founder board chair of the Palestine
Center for Public Policy.

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 musical medicina..

Tonight’s sonic sustenance is being provided by David Boyce(1st set) and the Darren Johnston Duo.

Join us as we present TRIPTYCH a new film series highlighting Palestinian films. 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.

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)

Join Ellie Lopez at Medicine for Nightmares for one of the tour stops for the Chillona book tour! With openers, Reggie Imbat, Dina Klarisse, Ellie Celine Labampa, Lorenz Mazon Dumuk, and Vanessa Espino, it'll be a night to remember.

Ellie Lopez - Ellie Lopez (she/her) is a storyteller & photographer from the 209. Her work has been published by Sin Cesar, Maria’s at Sampaguitas, curio cabinet, hot pot magazine and mixed mag. She recently received 1st place in the City of Tracy's Annual Poetry Contest. When she’s not ear hustling for chismes or telling stories you can find her on social media @ellielopez. Ellie’s chapbook BuiLit Zine “While in Mourning” was released via Sampaguitas Press in August 2024. Her first full-length book, CHILLONA, is forthcoming with Sampaguita Press Fall 2025.

Reggie Imbat - Reggie Imbat (he/him) is an Ilocano Filipino from the Bay Area. He loves playing the guitar and watching movies with his best friends. His love language is bringing food over to the house and playing with cats.

Ellie Celine Labampa - Ellie Celine is a Filipino-American poet who resides in the Bay Area. Her writing skills are better than her juggling skills, but ask her to juggle and she’ll do it. 

Lorenz Mazon Dumuk - Lorenz Mazon Dumuk (siya/kanila/isu/isuna/him) has 3 collections of poetry, Ay Nako: Writing Through the Struggle, I Think In Poetry, and Held published by Sampaguita Press. He is a VONA alumni, and a MALI (Multicultural Arts Leadership Institute) alumni, which is a Silicon Valley based program that focuses on developing leaders of color in the arts, culture, and entertainment sectors.  He is one of the curators for, Glowing with the Moon, an open mic and interactive community space in San Jose.  Lorenz writes with, against, and through the contradictions he encounters, which allows him to explore the different silences in his life through his poetry.  An awkwardly adorable poet who can be caught doing hip-circles before a poetry reading.

Dina Klarisse is a writer and recovering Catholic whose work delves into the intersections of language, history, and identity. Her work has appeared in publications such as Arizona State University’s Canyon Voices, Chopsticks Alley, and Kalopsia Literary Journal. She is the author of the poetry chapbook Handspun Rosaries (2022). Beyond her writing, Dina serves on the Board of Directors for Philippine American Writers and Artists, Inc. (PAWA) and is a member of the organizing committee for the Filipino American International Book Festival.   

Vanessa Espino -  is a creative writer and theatre collaborator for over 15 years at the community, collegiate, and independent level. She received her undergraduate education at Cal State Fullerton University with an emphasis in Playwriting.  She was a KCACTF Regional finalist in 2012 for her original play Odilia, which was remounted for the Hollywood Fringe Festival 2016. At the 2016 Hollywood Fringe Festival, Odilia won an inaugural Hollywood Fringe Scholarship and Inkwell Playwrights Promise awards and received a Beyond Bechdel-Wallace Award nomination. Other plays include: Totally 80’s Show Musical Review - Tracy Youth Repertory theatre 2011.  I Live in Your World produced by CSUF Department of Theatre & Dance with NAMI and OCHCA at Grand Central Theatre in Santa Ana Ca. in May of 2013. Choosing Us* written in collaboration & commissioned for Evolve Theatre company and premiered at the Long Beach Playhouse, Studio Theatre in Long Beach Ca. in March of 2016.  In June of 2017 she was part of the inaugural cohort of Next at the Braid Fellowship with The Jewish Women’s Theatre company out of Santa Monica California. She has also been a contributor to Life Lab Notes Podcast in 2016 for the Audio Advent Calendar and 2021 as the writer of the Crockpot Chronicles.  Currently she performs original poetry at The Grand Theatre Center for the Arts Open Mic Nights, and is a Co-Producer of Words Bubbles an Open Mic Literary Collaborative in Tracy Ca. She engages with the digital community via collaborative writing live streams on Twitch Sunday evenings each week. She published  La Otra Chika/ The Other Girl a collection of poetry in 2025 and works as a Community Services Director for San Joaquin County.

A love letter to liberation, from Palestine to the ground beneath your feet…

When you think of freedom, where are you? And where are you headed? Dreaming of freedom from within the occupied and displaced worlds of Palestine, Letters from a Living Utopia engages with utopia as both a destination and a potential present. Addressing past and future selves among other crucial figures, Mx. Yaffa builds epistolary bridges in these pages, connecting the historical struggle for liberation of the land and its people with the intimate ways that we can recover hope–now and in the years to come. Emerging during a time of generational dispossession, monstrous genocide, and personal pain, Letters from a Living Utopia is a journey of resilient repair that will leave every reader with the deeply felt certainty that Palestine will be free, but also that Palestine has always been free.

Mx. Yaffa (they/she) is a disabled, autistic, trans, queer Muslim and indigenous Palestinian culture worker and organizer. The author of Blood Orange, Whispers Beneath the Orange Grove, and Desecrated Poppies, Yaffa is also editor of Inara: Light of Utopia and executive director of the Muslim Alliance for Sexual and Gender Diversity (MASGD).

!Our beloved Portal is turning 4 years old!

Join us for a night of musica, poesia, y other locuras to celebrate the 4 years that Medicine For Nightmares has existed on this intergalatcic pathway known as 24th street. Corazon de Cedro will open the evening with their musical medicina followed by a reading of poets who are featured in Issue #4 of Portales, Medicine for Nightmares Anthology.

If you miss this one there will be a huge hole in your corazon forever.

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 medicine is being provided by Ark of Bones.

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.

Release Party for the World Turned Into Butterfly a trilingual anthology of Mayan poetry edited by Alejandro Murguia and Pedro Uc Be. Readings by Alejandro Murguía, Ismael Chel, Steven Mayers and other invited poets

Alejandro Murguía is the author of Southern Front and This War Called Love (both winners of the American Book Award). His non-fiction book The Medicine of Memory highlights the Mission District in the 1970s during the Nicaraguan Solidarity movement. He is a founding member and the first director of The Mission Cultural Center. He was a founder of The Roque Dalton Cultural Brigade, and co-editor of Volcán: Poetry From Central America. Currently he is a professor in Latina Latino Studies at San Francisco State University. He is the author of the short story “The Other Barrio” which first appeared in the anthology San Francisco Noir and recently filmed in the street of the Mission District. In poetry he has published Spare Poems, and this year a new collection Native Tongue. He is the Sixth San Francisco Poet Laureate and the first Latino poet to hold the position.

Ismael Chel was Born in Oxcutzcab, Yucatan, México, and the founder of the Club Pueblo Maya de San Francisco at City College of San Francisco.

Steven Mayers is a writer, oral historian, and professor at the City College of San Francisco. He has interviewed Central American migrants for over a decade. His master’s thesis explored ways in which fiction can challenge historical accounts of the past, and his dissertation, analyzing the stories of Central American war refugees, focused on the themes of identity, home, and forgiveness.

Tonight we are blessed to have a very special visit by Mexican author Ignacio M. Sánchez. Profe’ Prado is in the Bay discussing his new book Taco, published by Bloomsbury as part of its Object Lessons series. The book tracks the idea of the taco as an object, by considering its manifestations in Mexico, the US and the rest of the world. Challenging the idea of “authentic” Mexican food, the book instead presents the taco as a modern food tied to industrialization and immigration. Ignacio will be in conversation with Prof. Cheyla Samuelson from San Jose State University.

Ignacio M. Sánchez Prado is a professor of Latin American Studies at Washington University in St. Louis. He is a specialist on Mexican culture of the 20th and 21st century with particular focus on food, literature and cinema.

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 David is preparing a very special Halloween surprise of a horrifically melodious musical nature. Stay tuned….

Join us as we present our second installment of 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.

October: Freedom of Movement

Presentation by Double Down Skate Zine

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 

Wild Plants of Palestine (short film, 10 mins)

Stitching Palestine, 2017 (feature film, 77 mins)

The SF Indian Classical Session at Medicine for Nightmares is back on October 29th! 7pm show starts, 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 performers;
Teed Rockwell touchstyle veena

Kamal Ahmad sitar

Sameer Gupta tabla

Krishna Parthasarathy violin

A group of Bay Area-based activists will discuss their experiences volunteering with an organization in the West Bank, Palestine. 

Since Oct. 7th, the zionist state has increased their settlements, stealing land, and making the lives of Palestinians harder with movement restrictions, settler violence, and daily harassment. 

Volunteers offer a "protective presence" to spend time in endangered Palestinian areas, with a hope that the international presence could deter zionist attacks.

TONIGHT Lit Crawl comes to La Mision!

LitQuake’s culminating evento is a poetry crawl of absolute monstrous proportion and Medicine for Nightmares is hosting not one, not two, but three events this evening;

5-6PM Unheard on Stage; Black Writers on opportunity and audience

6:30-7:30PM Kindred; All The Way Poetry Says Sisterhood

8-9PM Speaking Axolotl; !AQUI ESTAMOS!

Colossus Press began as a poetry salon in 2017. It was a creative way to express fury at the US government’s cruel immigration policy. At the end of the salon we decided to make a chapbook of the poems we had written  and use them as a fundraiser for a Bay Area immigration non profit.  Since then, Colossus has evolved into a performance project, small press, and fundraising organization for nonprofits working for change.

Our intention is to create a space where we can gather in the spirit of resistance to call out cruelty and support concrete change through art and fundraising. Readers are;Kimi Sugioka, James Cagney, Norma Smith, Dan O’Connell, Richard Loranger, Paul Corman Roberts, andJennifer Barone.

This nourishing anthology of gorgeous poems reshapes how we think about water. How one poet recalls the Boxing Day Tsunami, to another's ideas on the American River, to the myriad ways that water sustains us, the poets gathered here invite us to understand and reimagine how miraculous water truly is. This stellar book is for everyone, everywhere.

—Lee Herrick - California Poet Laureate and author of In Praise of Late Wonder: New and Selected Poems (2024)

This collection of poems feature a transcendental dance of the spirit. Moving through the various neighborhoods of the human family, worthy odes to our shared protagonist-element. Odes and calls to arms as our most sacred and shared relative persists embattled by the insanity of this mode of production, who would give the ocean itself a nightmare. The sentinels are out, the poems are written, the waters championed; the future, a return.

—Tongo Eisen Martin -8th San Francisco Poet Laureate emeritus; American book award winner and author of Blood on the Fog: Pocket Poets Series No. 62 (2021)

Featuring poetry anthology contributors;

Paul Corman-Roberts is the author of the Firecracker nominated Poetry Collection Bone Moon Palace (Black Lawrence Press, 2021) and the forthcoming chapbook 19th Street Station Volume 2 (Collapse Press.) He works as an educator and organizer somewhere on a long lost island in California.

Norma Smith was born in Detroit, grew up in Fresno, California, and lives and writes in Oakland. She worked for years in hospitals. She has also worked as a journalist, editor, and writing coach, organized events and conferences, and led writing workshops. She has long been an educator and community scholar, using oral history as data collection method for social research, focusing her interest on smashing white supremacy. Smith's writing has been published in scholarly, literary, and political journals. Her book of poems, HOME REMEDY, is available from Black Lawrence Press.

Dan O’Connell is a four-time award winning poet, and multiple finalist and honorable mention. His poems have appeared over eighty times, including in Mississippi Review, Homestead Review, America Magazine, Prometheus Dreaming, Assisi Journal of Arts & Letters, Dash Literary Journal, and Ghost Town Literary Magazine. Dan is the author of three full-length collections of poetry, Different Coasts, Theory of Salvation, and A Third Set of Teeth, and several chapbooks, including State of the Union and Sheltered in Place Poems & Art – A Collaboration. Find Dan O. at www.danoconnellpoetry.com

Oakland born James Cagney is author of MARTIAN: The Saint of Loneliness, winner of 2021 James Laughlin Award from Academy of American Poets. Please visit JamesCagneyPoet.com

K.R. Morrison is a San Francisco poet and musician who splits her time between Southern California and the Bay Area. Her first book "Cauldrons" was published by Paper Press Books, in 2021

Richard Loranger is a multi-genre writer, performer, musician, visual artist, and all-around squeaky wheel, currently residing in Oakland, CA. They are the founder of Poetea, a monthly literary conversation group. Their latest book of poetry and flash prose, Mammal, was released by Roof Books in October 2023. They’re also the author of Unit of Agency (now in its second edition), Be A Bough Tit, Sudden Windows, Poems for Teeth, The Orange Book, and ten chapbooks, and have work in over 100 magazines and journals. You can find more about their work and scandals at www.richardloranger.com.

Kimi Sugioka is a mother, educator, songwriter and poet. Her  newest book is Wile & Wing on Manic D Press. She is the poet laureate  of Alameda, CA and she believes that creating community through art is a  revolutionary act. 

75% of funds raised from sales of Colossus:Current will be donated to Whollyh2o. Whollyh2o is a Bay Area nonprofit that supports the connection between people and our natural world.

Link for Whollyh2o:

https://whollyh2o.org/

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 double dose of musical medicina is being provided by Angel and Identity Crisis.

Join Dr. Michael De Anda Muñiz, Assistant Professor of Latina/o Studies, San Francisco State University, as he discusses his new book that examines the ways that local and federal policing agencies deploy high-tech surveillance equipment, databases, and coordinated campaigns against communities of color in Chicago. He will discuss the book’s findings, community-engaged abolitionist research, and its relevance to the Bay Area.

Contact Info: Michael de Anda Muñiz, mdeandamuniz@sfsu.edu

Join us for a public talk with NAKA Dance Theater collaborators as they share insights into the artistic process for their upcoming performance, “Fugitivity” happening at Dance Mission Theater and in the 24th Street + Mission BART plaza, Saturday and Sunday, October 25 and 26, 2pm and 4pm.

Fugitivity,  is an interdisciplinary performance project that asks: Who has lost the ability to move freely? Who is forced to flee? How can we respond creatively to xenophobia and the threat of mass deportations? What underground networks are keeping people safe? If you take a path that staggers, will it throw the bloodhounds off your trail?

Collaborators include: Oka Ver, Cristina López Suárez, Kristina Giles, Amelia Uzategui Bonilla, Marshall Trammell and Juan Manuel Aldape Muñoz, and Ian Winters.

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.

Tonight the SF Latino Film Festival & Amazon Watch presents: Ancestral Guardians Shorts & Panel Discussion

 Indigenous resistance against environmental destruction and the defense of ancestral territories and ways of life. This program unites two powerful short films that chronicle the contemporary struggles of Indigenous peoples across the Americas as they fight to protect their ancestral territories, environments, and cultural integrity from external threats. 

This is a free screening with a panel discussion and a direct action element to the event.
Panelists include representatives from Amazon Watch, Cine+Más SF and an expert in the field.
Please RSVP. Limited seating.

Mukunã Aprendiz De Pajé (Mukunã Shaman Apprentice
By Rodrigo Sena ( BRZ )

Mukunã prepares to become the Shaman of the Potiguara Katu village in Rio Grande do Norte (Brazil), older than us, the power plants become the teacher teaching environmental care.

Charip: Lightning in the River
By Mullu TV, Wampis Nation
As illegal gold mining spreads through the northern Peruvian Amazon, the Wampís Nation fights to defend its ancestral territory.

Join out of town Gothic writers Colton Cuca Campbell, Elvira and Carrizal-Dukes, with locals M.M. Olivas and Scott Russell Duncan as they explore the mind-breaking darkness of the stone cold Xicanx experience.

Colton Cuca Campbell is a PhD student in Chicana/o Studies at the University of New Mexico. His interdisciplinary research and creative work explore Xicanxfuturisms, nuclear colonialism, liberation, resistance, memory, and monstrosity. He has published fiction, poetry, visual art, and academic research in Somos en Escrito, Conceptions Southwest, The Bilingual Review, Regeneración, and Xicanxfuturism: Gritos for Tomorrow. As both an educator and writer, his work centers narrative as a method of decolonial inquiry, blending critical theory with speculative storytelling and visual culture.

Elvira Carrizal-Dukes, Ph.D., M.F.A., is a Xicana educator, writer, graphic novelist, filmmaker, and community arts leader from the U.S.–Mexico borderlands. She is the CEO, writer, and Editor-in-Chief of DUKEScomics LLC, an award-winning bilingual and multicultural publishing company.

Scótt Russell Dúncan, a Xicano writer, edited the first Chicano sci-fi anthology, El Porvenir, ¡Ya!: Citlalzazanilli Mexicatl and is creator and editor of the Xicanxfuturism: Gritos for Tomorrow codex. He is director of Palabras del Pueblo writing workshop and co-creator of Maíz Poppin' Press. His novel, Old California Strikes Back, a magic memoir and meta-novel described as Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas meets Yo Soy Joaquin, is published through FlowerSong Press. www.scottrussellduncan.com

M.M. Olivas is an alumna of the 2022 Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Workshop and the 2023 Under the Volcano Writers Residency. Her short fiction has appeared in several publications, including Uncanny Magazine, Weird Horror Magazine, Apex, and Bourbon Penn. Olivas explores the intersection of queer and diasporic experiences in her fiction. She currently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area, earning her MFA in Creative Writing at San Jose State University and collecting transforming robots.

Olivas’s debut novel, Sundown in San Ojuela, is a gothic spaghetti western that follows Aztec Vampires in California’s Inland Empire and is published by Lanternfish Press.

Hosted by the Mission Art and Comic Expo at Medicine for Nightmares bookstore, this event celebrates the next issue of their comic anthology zine UNICOMIX. Their second anthology,  UNICOMIX #2 features 23 single page comics inspired by true stories. 

Featuring comic readings, a zine market featuring local artists, and free workshops including drawing games, collaborative zines, and button making. 

Founded in 2019, the Mission Art and Comic Expo celebrates the rich zine culture of San Francisco, highlighting artists of color and within the LGBTQ community. MACE is committed to uplifting comic artists in the Mission and beyond.

Edited by Alex Sodari, Cover Art by Anthony James Harmer and Alex Sodari

Single pages comics by: Alex Sodari, Anthony James Harmer, Gladys Ochoa, Jorge Garza, Jaime Crespo, Tara Benhudjiriras, Alex Sosa, Ryan Estrada, Natalie Horberg, Zachary Sweet, Andy Cruz, Dio Ruiz, Anna Nguyen, Anna Bartosz, Kayla Ferry, Lil Ant, Soupfuzz, and more!

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 we have a very potent dose of musical medicina being provided by Meltykiss and the Anhad Naad Collective.

“Meltykiss” is the duo project of drummer Max Goldstein and vocalist Ariel Vera. Meltykiss focuses on guided improvisation based off a conceptual form created collaboratively. The sound of Meltykiss is influenced by the likes of Sun Ra, Chris Corsano, Marcela Lucatelli, Zach Hill, and more blending stylistic ideas based on free jazz and heavy idioms to create charged, scribbly, loop-based noise. 

Formed in 2019, Anhad Naad Collective had its first formal concert in 2020 in San Francisco. Since then, core members Jun Ishimuro and Divya Purohit Vyas have performed across a range of local venues, including the Golden Gate Park Bandshell and SF’s Summer of Music series. Our collaborations include artists like Afro-Pop musician Bisi Obateru and NYC-based Sufi artist Umer Piracha of Falsa Music.

The name Anhad Naad—meaning “unstruck sound”—speaks to our mission of tapping into the shared, resonant core of sound across cultures and genres. Our performances aim to create an earthy, immersive experience for audiences, reflecting both introspection and connection.

Divya Purohit Vyas, Irum Aftab, and Vivek Anand, Rajnish Kamat, and Azar Alizadeh: Vocalists, Jun Ishimuro: Piano and Flute, Abhay Shankar Anand: Percussion(Tabla/Cajun) and Craig: Bass.