Babylon Salon

presents a special performance

Saturday, December 9, 2023

in The Sycamore's outdoor patio

2140 Mission St, San Francisco [16th St BART]

Come for drinks at 5 // Show starts at 5.30pm

featuring

Susan Kiyo Ito

(I Would Meet You Anywhere)

“An intimate, deftly told story illuminating adoption's complications and losses, I Would Meet You Anywhere is sure to move anyone who has ever felt rootless, questioned their place within their family, or longed for deeper self-understanding."

—Nicole Chung, author of A Living Remedy

Susan Kiyo Ito co-edited the literary anthology A Ghost At Heart’s Edge: Stories & Poems of Adoption. Her work has appeared in Growing Up Asian American, Literary Mama, Catapult, Hyphen,The Bellevue Literary Review, and elsewhere. She is a MacDowell Colony Fellow and has also been awarded residencies at The Mesa Refuge and Hedgebrook. She has performed her solo show, The Ice Cream Gene, around the US. Her theatrical adaption of Untold, stories of reproductive stigma, was produced at Brava Theater She teaches at Mills College/Northeastern University and Bay Path University, and is a member of The Writers Grotto in San Francisco.

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Helene Wecker

(The Hidden Palace)

“Wecker recounts the continuing adventures of Chava, the Jewish golem, and Ahmad, the Arabian jinni, with a sequel that brings the saga into the 20th century... A blend of romance, Mary Shelley–esque horror, and folklore… Wecker skillfully combines the storylines of these and numerous other players, good and evil.”

— Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review

Helene Wecker is the author of The Golem and the Jinni and The Hidden Palace. Her books have appeared on The New York Times and San Francisco Chronicle’s bestseller lists, and have won a National Jewish Book Award, the VCU Cabel Award, the Harold U. Ribalow Prize, and a Mythopoeic Award. She currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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Ilana Debare

(Shaken Loose)

"Not a word is wasted in DeBare’s intense and challenging… debut about a college dropout navigating a decaying Christian hell in search of redemption and justice."

—Publishers Weekly

Ever since she read the 39 original Oz books in elementary school, Ilana Debare wanted to be a writer. Formerly a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle and Sacramento Bee, she’s also worked as communications director for the Golden Gate Bird Alliance (formerly Golden Gate Audubon). Ilana is author of Where Girls Come First: The Rise, Fall, and Surprising Revival of Girls' Schools (Tarcher/Penguin, 2004), a social history of all-girl schools that grew out of her experience helping start the Julia Morgan School for Girls in Oakland. Shaken Loose (Hypatia Press, 2023) is her first published novel; the sequel should be out in early 2025. Ilana lives in Oakland.

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Teresa Burns Gunther

(Hold Off the Night)

“Here we have a collection of family stories – motherhood, fatherhood, childhood – powerfully rendered with all their jagged, cutting edges. In story after beautiful story, Teresa Burns Gunther shows us how love must be enough, even when it isn’t.”

— Karen Joy Fowler, author of Booth and We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

Teresa Burns Gunther is an award-winning author whose fiction and nonfiction are published widely in US and international literary journals and anthologies. Her story collection Hold Off The Night, a Finalist for the Orison, and the Hudson Book Prizes, was published June 2023. Her stories have been recognized in numerous contests; most recently, her story "Conflagration" won the 2023 Gemini Short Story Prize and “War Paint” the 2022 New Millennium Award for Fiction. She is the founder of Lakeshore Writers Workshop where she leads workshops and offers coaching and editing services.

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Sarah Rose Cadorette

(Sonora Review; Southampton Review)

Sarah Rose Cadorette is an Oakland-based writer whose work has won prizes from The Southampton Review, Sonora Review, Blood Orange Review, and Emerson College. Their writing has appeared in Meridian, The Massachusetts Review, Barrelhouse, Desert Companion, and Abandon Journal, and they are a Prose Co-Editor for Action, Spectacle. Sarah co-coordinates SF Bay Area Mutual Aid, and was once mistaken for a wax figure at a movie monster museum. They are currently finishing a book of essays on obsessions and possessions. Their obsessions, besides writing, are Prince and their dog, Cleopatra.

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in partnership with our friends

The Booksmith

in their new location at 1727 Haight Street, San Francisco

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Free Admission!