And we have two exciting events for you.
First up this coming Saturday (May 7th, doors open 6:00pm, start 7:00pm) we will be hosting a reading with Andrea Hairston and Howard Hendrix.
Andrea Hairston is a novelist and playwright, and a Clarion West 1999 graduate. In March, 2011, she was honored with the International Association of the Fantastic in the Arts Distinguished Scholarship Award for “distinguished contributions to the scholarship and criticism of the fantastic.” Ms. Hairston is the Artistic Director of Chrysalis Theatre and has created original productions with music, dance, and masks for over thirty years. She is also the Louise Wolff Kahn 1931 Professor of Theatre and Afro-American Studies at Smith College. Ms. Hairston has received many playwriting and directing awards, including an NEA Grant to Playwrights, and a Shubert Fellowship for Playwriting. Since 1997, her plays produced by Chrysalis Theatre and others have been science fiction plays.
Ms. Hairston’s first novel, Mindscape (Aqueduct Press, 2006) won the Carl Brandon Parallax Award and was shortlisted for the Phillip K. Dick Award and the Tiptree Award. She is a frequent attendee at WisCon, the longest-running Feminist Science Fiction Convention in the world. She has published numerous short stories and essays, such as “Griots of the Galaxy,” (So Long Been Dreaming: Postcolonial Visions of the Future), “Romance of the Robot: From RUR & Metropolis to WALL-E” (The WisCon Chronicles: Vol. 4) “Lord of the Monsters—Minstrelsy Redux: King Kong, Hip Hop, and the Brutal Black Buck,” (Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts) and “Octavia Butler—Praise Song to a Prophetic Artist,” (Daughters of Earth).
Redwood and Wildfire, her second speculative novel, was recently published by Aqueduct Press in April 2011. “At the turn of the 20th century, minstrel shows transform into vaudeville which slides into moving pictures. Hunkering together in dark theatres, diverse audiences marvel at flickering images. This “dreaming in public” becomes common culture and part of what transforms immigrants and “native” born into Americans.” We are delighted to welcome this wonderful artist to our SF in SF program for the first time.
Howard V. Hendrix is “one of the best novelists working in science fiction today” according to author Kim Stanley Robinson. Nominated for Nebula Awards, a Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award winner, and a 1st prize winner in the Writers of the Future Contest, Hendrix is a professor of English literature at CSU Fresno, and coordinates the annual Eaton Science Fiction Conference at UC Riverside. His many publications include dozens of shorter experimental and science fiction stories, political essays, book reviews, and works of literary criticism, including his book-length study of apocalyptic elements in English literature from Langland to Milton, The Ecstasy of Catastrophe (1990). Hendrix’s most widely available works of shorter science fiction and near-miss thrillers are available in the Full Spectrum series (Bantam Books) and in The Outer Limits, Volume 1 (Prima). His novels include Spears of God (2006) and The Labyrinth Key (2004), Empty Cities of the Full Moon (2001) Lightpaths (1997), Standing Wave (1998), and Better Angels (October 1999). Hendrix also created a stir among SFF fans and authors with an LJ posting on April 12, 2007, discussing authors who offer their works for free on the internet, either as written works, or recorded as podcasts. His comments have drawn discussion, compliments, and criticism, and resulted in “International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day.”
He lives with his wife Laurel in central California, where they enjoy backpacking in the Sierras and mushroom forays in the foothills. He is also, incidentally, one of the nicest guys you could hope to meet, and SF in SF is delighted to welcome him back.
Our other event is the May movie night on Wednesday May 11th (doors open 6:00pm, start 7:00pm) which features everyone’s favorite barbarian, Conan (as played, of course, by the former Gubernator). In addition to Arnie’s first Conan movie (Conan the Barbarian) we will be showing The Whole Wide World, a bio-pic about Conan’s creator, Robert E. Howard.
The Variety Preview Room Theatre
The Hobart Bldg., 1st Floor — entrance between Quiznos and Citibank
582 Market Street @ 2nd and Montgomery
San Francisco, CA 94104
Don’t Drive — BART/MUNI Montgomery Street station is right at our front door, and parking in San Francisco sucks!!! Street parking ($3.50 per hour) is metered M-Sat., til 6PM; find a parking garage here.