Tag: Bay Area

Q&A with Emil DeAndreis: ‘Tell Us When to Go’ & a Changing San Francisco

by Isabelle Edgar

Posted on by Zack Ravas

Emil DeAndreis’ third novel, Tell Us When to Go (260 pages; Flexible Press), follows two college friends, Cole and Isaac, as their journey into post-recession San Francisco pulls them in very different directions. It’s a humorous and heartfelt story of friendship and baseball and the growing pains of both the city they love and the people who love it. DeAndreis, who is also the author of Beyond Folly (2013)and Hard to Grip (2017), teaches English at College of San Mateo. This interview was conducted over email and has been edited for length and clarity. ZYZZYVA: San Francisco feels like a […]

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The Bay Area Issue: Editor’s Note

by Laura Cogan

Posted on by editor

One day in July I ran into a colleague on my way to lunch. We commiserated about the state of the world, briefly, and then he asked me if I’d been to the Flower Piano program at the San Francisco Botanical Garden yet. He said he’d just been, and that after one of the professional performers finished her set, a few of the people milling around took turns playing. One played David Bowie’s “Life on Mars,” singing softly under his breath. Another, a child of about ten, played a classical sonata, with astonishing beauty. There’s still art here, he said […]

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How to help those affected by the California fires

by ZYZZYVA Staff

Posted on by Zack Ravas

Northern California is once again faced with wildfires. We encourage you to explore this link from the Northern California Grantmakers on ways you can help the many people displaced by the fires. NCG provides a number of options, including vetted wildfire relief and recovery funds such as the Center for Disaster Philanthropy and the Solano Disaster Relief Fund. Please feel free to share links to similar relief efforts in the Comments below. […]

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How we can help those affected by the California fires

by ZYZZYVA Staff

Posted on by Zack Ravas

Raging wildfires have devastated both Northern and Southern California over the last several weeks. The situation has been impossible to ignore here in the Bay Area, as smoke from the fires has led to tremendously poor air quality. We feel for those more immediately impacted by the fires –– the numerous missing and displaced –– and have assembled a list of places seeking donations. 7×7 has compiled a list of local causes we can contribute to, including Disaster Relief funds and donation collections. The San Francisco SPCA has set up a fundraiser, specifically to provide care and treatment for animals affected […]

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‘A Theory of Small Earthquakes’: Q&A With Meredith Maran

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Posted on by editor

A Theory of Small Earthquakes (Soft Skull Press; 352 pages) is the first novel by award-winning author Meredith Maran. Known for her several nonfiction books, including My Lie: A True Story of False Memory (2010), Dirty: A Search for Answers Inside America’s Teenage Drug Epidemic (2003) and Class Dismissed: A Year in the Life of an American High School, a Glimpse Into the Heart of a Nation (2000), Maran worked on her story of love, friendship and family for eight years (“from start to publication”). Humorous and heartfelt, and breezy yet serious, her story of the long and evolving relationship […]

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Piropo

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Leticia del Toro is a writer living in El Cerrito. Her short story “Piropo,” which was published in ZYZZYVA’s Spring 2011 issue, marks her first time in print. (Not counting the liner notes she’s written for Tex-Mex CDs from Arhoolie Records.) The story’s narrator, Carolina, is a woman asserting herself in a man’s world of manual labor. (She disguises her sex to get work). Meanwhile, she contends with Joaquin, the feckless father of her little boy back in Mexico, and navigates the unpredictable world of well-meaning Anglos. The following is an excerpt from “Piropo.”

On June 4, Leticia del Toro will be reading with D.A. Powell, Michael Jaime-Becerra, Peter Mountford and others as part of Babylon Salon in San Francisco.

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‘Parrot in the Oven’: An Appreciation of Victor Martinez

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Posted on by me

I first read Victor Martinez’s novel Parrot in the Oven: Mi Vida when I was eleven, just a couple years younger than Manuel Hernandez, the book’s narrator and titular perico. Parrot won the National Book Award in 1996, making it more or less required reading for anyone my age (except where it was banned). Like many of the adolescents who read it, my life was radically different from Manny’s. I didn’t have to work. My parents left books, not loaded rifles, lying around the house. I didn’t have to look after my baby sister; my parents hired people to look […]

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National Geographic

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Posted on by me

Victor Martinez was eight years away from winning the National Book Award for his novel “Parrot in the Oven: Mi Vida” when ZYZZZYVA published a poem of his in its Summer issue of 1988. (At the time, Martinez was editing Humanizarte, the publishing arm of Aztlan Cultural/Centro Chicano de Escritores in Oakland.) Alternately terrifying and comic, “National Geographic” captures a besieged state of mind, one cataloging the dangers of a sinister society and a corrupted environment. Victor Martinez died Feb. 18 in San Francisco. He was 56.

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