Nomads and Homebodies

Home, you think, as you drop keycard next to desk blotter with the hotel's name across the bottom, exactly the same here as in Newark as in Indianapolis as in Madrid, the bar to your left when you exit the elevator, Starbuck's to your right, a relief, barstool knows the shape of your ass, bartender the very same guy no matter where, those deep parentheses around his mouth tell you he understands, you don't need to say more than the drink you want. Later tonight a voice on the phone will ask When are you coming home, and it will take a minute to remember the place, small bodies that used to fit against your waist now grown tall and distant, too much space between couch and coffee table, conversation goes around your face in words you almost know but can't quite translate anymore.

Come home with Portuguese Artists Colony on Thursday, April 30th, at Second Act.

Guest readers:
Poupeh Missaghi is a writer and wanderer, a translator and a PhD candidate at the University of Denver, Creative Writing program. Her work has appeared under a pen name in World Literature Today, Guernica, The Quarterly Conversation, The Barcelona Review, Short Fiction Magazine, The Baltimore Review, and elsewhere.

Chiwan Choi is the author of The Flood, Abductions, and his newest book, Ghostmaker, which he'll be writing, presenting, and destroying in 2015. He is also a partner at Writ Large Press.

Siamak Vossoughi was born in Tehran, grew up in Seattle, and lives in San Francisco. He is a recipient of the 2014 Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction, for his collection entitled Better Than War.

Colonists Maw Shein Win and Caitlin Myer.

Musical guest: Tim DeCillis

Live writing:

Vote on a prompt as you enter the show, and four writers will write on the winning topic while you watch them sweat, swear, and get inspired. Each writer will read what he/she wrote, and you get to vote on which piece you'd like to see developed into a finished story/poem/rant to be read at the next PAC performance.

Lael Gold

Colleen McKee

Tomas Moniz

Jaz Sufi

Thursday, April 30
Second Act
1727 Haight Street
between Cole and Shrader
San Francisco
Doors at 7:00 pm
Sliding scale $5-10

Apologies and Promises

Look look, we said we were sorry. Well, we're saying it now. Happy? Anyway, it's not like we weren't justified. You just don't know what we had to deal with, I mean, these people. No, we're not saying what you think we're saying. When we say These People we mean, you know, these specific people. And other people like them. Not that we're saying we didn't go a little far, I mean, accidents happen. The most important thing is to move on, right? Just keep walking. We promise, it won't happen again.

Clear your conscience with Portuguese Artists Colony on Sunday, January 18, at the Second Act.

Guest readers:

Nayomi Munaweera is a Sri Lankan-American writer. Her debut novel, Island of a Thousand Mirrors was originally published in Sri Lanka in 2012. It was long listed for the Man Asia award, shortlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian literature and won the Commonwealth Regional Prize for Asia. The novel was published in America in September 2013. The New York Times called the book "luminous."

Glen David Gold has written novels, essays, memoirs, comic books, celebrity profiles, depositions and has no opinion about the Oxford Comma, used to offset clauses.

Frances Lefkowitz is a writer, editor, and teacher. To Have Not, her memoir about growing up poor in 1970s San Francisco, was a SheKnows.com Best Memoir of 2010. She blogs about writing, publishing, and footwear at PaperInMyShoe.com and is online at FrancesLefkowitz.net.

Casey Childers stands 17.5 hands high and has most of his teeth. He's a producer of Shipwreck and of WRITE CLUB San Francisco. You can find his book "Pictures of the Floating World," She Said, and I Pretended to Understand at the Vouched table.

Musical guest: Miss Erma

Live writing:

Vote on a prompt as you enter the show, and four writers will write on the winning topic while you watch them sweat, swear, and get inspired. Each writer will read what he/she wrote, and you get to vote on which piece you'd like to see developed into a finished story/poem/rant to be read at the next PAC performance.

Siamak Vossoughi
Rohan DaCosta
Alexandra Kostoulas
Kay DeMartini

Sunday, January 18
Second Act
1727 Haight Street
between Cole and Shrader
San Francisco
Doors at 7:00 pm
Advance tickets, sliding scale $3-7
At the door, sliding scale $5-10

We are back

To celebrate Vouched San Francisco's first year of existence, we're gathering a great number of the Bay Area's literary champions at Milk Bar to celebrate one of VOUCHED PRESENTS' favorite causes: tomorrow’s writers. Join us for a night of readings, music, giveaways, and chapbook- and poetry-making stations--all to benefit 826 Valencia!

The event will also serve as a relaunch of one of the Bay Area's most beautiful reading series, Portuguese Artists Colony. Vote on a prompt as you enter the show, and four writers will write on the winning topic while you watch them sweat, swear, and get inspired; they'll read, and the piece you like best will be finished and performed at the next PAC event.

Then our featured writers and comedians will take the stage in the name of our future, with intermittent breaks for giveaways from our sponsors. Participants will receive 1 raffle ticket for each $5 donated to 826 or spent on Vouched or 826 Valencia goods!

If you think the party ends there, think again! After the readings, stick around for music and dancing!

This event is FREE, and all donations, raffle tickets, and a portion of tonight's drink and book sales go to benefit community programming at 826 Valencia.

READERS:
Maisha Z. Johnson
Kwan Booth
Scott Simpson
Maw Shein Win
Sarah Griff
Tim Toaster Henderson
Jelal Huyler
Casey Childers
Amy Berkowitz

MUSIC:
Michael Mullen, songwriter for Pocket Shelley and The Size Queens

EVENT SPONSORS:
Milk Bar
Portuguese Artists Colony
The Rumpus
Edo Salon
Litography
Quiet Lightning
Write Club SF
The Booksmith

POSTS

Eternal cakes

we're going on hiatus

while we write our hearts out, go on adventures, and generally do things that people do. Fret not: we're planning an especially lovely show sometime this fall, and we would love to see you there.

We love you most of all, and though we're taking a break, we're still here, still fake Portuguese, still colonizing literature all over the world.

Look for us in August or September of 2014. We'll have a fresh show to celebrate four years of Portugueseish love and general rowdiness.

Victimless

It isn't personal, she says. You see words falling out of her mouth and piling up in no particular order, some of them launched at bullet speed, but she isn't, she says, trying to hurt you. It's only words, you tell yourself, but still you feel them like punches, you want to check yourself for broken bones.

Let Portuguese Artists Colony lead you into safety on Sunday, January 5, at the Make-Out Room.

Guest readers:
Tom Barbash is the author of the short story collection, Stay Up With Me, published this fall by Ecco/Harper Collins. His novel, The Last Good Chance, was a Publishers Weekly Book of the Year.

Carolyn Cooke's new book is a collection of short stories called Amor and Psycho. She chairs the MFA Program at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco.

Maisha Z. Johnson is a queer writer and activist with an MFA in poetry from Pacific University. She blogs about writing and social change at www.maishazjohnson.com.

Plus! We'll hear from November's live writing winner, Nicole M. Taylor.

Musical guest: Girl Named T

New work from Founder Caitlin Myer, plus special appearances from surprise guests!

Live writing:

Vote on a prompt as you enter the show, and four writers will write on the winning topic while you watch them sweat, swear, and get inspired. Each writer will read what he/she wrote, and you get to vote on which piece you'd like to see developed into a finished story/poem/rant to be read at the next PAC performance.

Carolyn Cooke

Edward Gauvin

Ira Marlowe

Daniel Suárez

Sunday, January 5
The Make-Out Room
3225 22nd Street
San Francisco
Show at 5:00 pm
Sliding scale $5-10

Zombie love

It's over, she says, and you believe it. You nod and agree, Yes, it's over, best we go our separate ways. But then of course there's the party and it would be too awkward to back out and you've had a drink, or several, and the balloons have sunk to the floor and the two of you are dancing and your head is on her shoulder and maybe maybe you can stay over just for tonight except when she's undressing you have to open your mouth and you don't even remember what you said but in a hot second she's crying and pushing you out the door, she doesn't even care she's half-naked.

The next morning you text her an apology. It's over, you say. Yes, she texts, it's over. But neither of you believe it.

Join Portuguese Artists Colony and their undead hearts on Sunday, November 3 at the Make-Out Room.

Guest readers:
Camille T. Dungy is the author of Smith Blue, Suck on the Marrow, and What to Eat, What to Drink, What to Leave for Poison. Her honors include an American Book Award, two Northern California Book Awards, and a fellowship from the NEA.

Joe Loya is author of the memoir, The Man Who Outgrew His Prison Cell: Confessions of a Bank Robber. His TV commentary ranges from crime to politics and religion. That's why his prison zombie apocalypse ebook, The Red Mile, was no real literary stretch.

Sylvie Simmons, or as Leonard Cohen calls her, "darling", is a British, ukulele-playing, award-winning writer of fiction and non-fiction, Cohen's biographer and the subject of BBC documentary The Rock Chick.

PLUS! We'll hear from our last show's live writing winner, Christopher Worrall.

Musical guest: Three Times Bad

Live writing:
Vote on a prompt as you enter the show, and four writers will write on the winning topic while you watch them sweat, swear, and get inspired. Each writer will read what he/she wrote, and you get to vote on which piece you'd like to see developed into a finished story/poem/rant to be read at the next PAC performance.

Karen Macklin
Sylvie Simmons
Nicole M. Taylor

...and more!

Sunday, November 3

The Make-Out Room
3225 22nd Street
San Francisco
Show at 5:00 pm
Sliding scale $5-10

Little fish

Just down the street from your apartment is a little shop you've never entered. Something pulls you in one afternoon, maybe you want a prayer candle, and while you talk with the woman at the counter, you glimpse, behind a curtained doorway, people in white. You hear singing, and laughing, and, is it your imagination, or was that the strangled squawk of a chicken, the furious flapping of wings?

The woman behind the counter smiles, and you see, for a moment, that she lives at the center of a lively universe that has nothing at all to do with you. When you step out into the dark street, you feel somehow lighter, freed of the burden of your own importance.

Swim with Portuguese Artists Colony in the wide ocean of experience on Sunday, September 8, at the Make-Out Room.

Featuring guest host Alia Volz!

Guest readers:
Zahra Noorbakhsh is a writer, performer and stand-up comedian. The New Yorker Magazine dubbed her one-woman show, “All Atheists Are Muslim” a highlight of the Int’l NYC Fringe Theater Festival.

J. Ryan Stradal is from Minnesota. His recent work has appeared in Hobart, The Rumpus, Los Angeles Review of Books, Joyland, Trop, and The California Prose Directory. He likes books, wine, and peas.

Zarina Zabrisky is the author of short story collections Iron and A Cute Tombstone and a novel, We, Monsters, a three-time Pushcart Prize nominee and recipient of 2013 Acker Award.

PLUS! We'll hear from our last show's live writing winner, Mũthoni Kiarie.

Musical guest: The ever-wonderful Brooke D

Live writing:
Vote on a prompt as you enter the show, and four writers will write on the winning topic while you watch them sweat, swear, and get inspired. Each writer will read what he/she wrote, and you get to vote on which piece you'd like to see developed into a finished story/poem/rant to be read at the next PAC performance.

Michael Capozzola
Tarin Towers

Christopher Worrall
Cybele Zufolo

Sunday, September 8
The Make-Out Room - New Venue!
3225 22nd Street
San Francisco
Show at 5:00 pm
Sliding scale $5-10