An event organized by writer Joan Gelfand.

International Women’s Day is celebrated every March 8th around the globe, though its profile in the United States has generally been pretty low through the decades — we’d guess partly because of the patriarchy and partly because of the taint associated with that damned socialist impulse behind its first observance back in the spring of 1909, when the Socialist Party of America organized “Women’s Day” in New York City, that dual bastion of capitalism & revolution!

Getting out ahead of the celebration by a couple of days — to get you ready to take to the streets on Friday — we’ll open the doors of Bird & Beckett to four writers and a moderator (herself a novelist, as well) to discuss the state of things for women and feminism in the here and now… discovering new narratives, as it were…

Participating in this event are:

JOAN GELFAND, whose book, Outside Voices: A Memoir of the Berkeley Revolution (Post Hill Press, 2024) has just been published. Joan has three volumes of poetry to her credit, as well as an award-winning chapbook of short fiction, and a novel, Extreme, which was a finalist in the International Book Awards. Her poem about Lawrence Ferlinghetti was the basis for a film, The Ferlinghetti School of Poetics, which was featured in over twenty international film festivals. Her writing has appeared in more than 150 literary magazines and journals, including Huffington Post, LA Review of Books, Levure Litteraire, Chicken Soup for the Soul, and the San Francisco Chronicle, which published her tribute to Ferlinghetti upon his death. A teacher and mentor, Joan is President Emeritus of the Women’s National Book Association (WNBA) and a member of the National Book Critics Circle. Her guide You Can Be a Winning Writer: The 4 C’s Approach to Author Success is an Amazon #1 bestseller. Joan holds a BA from San Francisco State University and an MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College. She lives in San Francisco with her husband, Adam Hertz.   https://joangelfand

DEVI S. LASKAR, whose third novel, Midnight, at the War is forthcoming in 2025 from Mariner Books. She is a poet, novelist, photographer, former newspaper reporter and lifelong Tar Heel. Her debut award-winning novel The Atlas of Reds and Blues (Counterpoint, 2019) was named by The Washington Post as one of the 50 best books of 2019. Her second novel, Circa (Mariner Books, 2022) was selected as a Goop Book Club and Book Club Girl pick. She holds degrees from UNC – Chapel Hill, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Columbia University. She now lives in California with her family. https://www.devislaskar.com

MARISSA MOSS, whose new non-fiction book, Spying on Spies: How Elizebeth Smith Friedman Broke the Nazis’ Secret Code (Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2024), describing the life of one of the first code breakers working for the U.S. government, from WWI through Prohibition to WWII, will be released March 12th. She has written more than seventy children’s books, including the ever-popular Amelia’s Notebook series as well as picture books and middle-grade and young adult novels. Many of her non-fiction titles feature women who have made major contributions but been forgotten or ignored by history. Her recent book, The Woman Who Split The Atom: The Life of Lise Meitner (Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2022) tells the story of the physicist who should have gotten the Nobel Prize for discovering nuclear fission, garnering 4-star reviews and winning numerous awards. https://www.marissamoss.com/

NINA SCHUYLER, whose short story collection, In This Ravishing World won the W.S. Porter Prize and the Prism Prize for Climate Literature and is slated for release by Regal House in July 2024. Her novel, Afterword was published in 2023 and was named a Top 100 Notable Book by Shelf Unbound and a Top Book by Alta Journal. Her novel, The Translator won the Next Generation Indie Book Award for General Fiction and was a finalist for the William Saroyan International Writing Prize. Her novel, The Painting was a finalist for the Northern California Book Award. Her nonfiction book, How to Write Stunning Sentences is a bestseller. She teaches creative writing for Stanford Continuing Studies and The Writing Salon. She lives in California. https://ninaschuyler.com

TANIA MALIK , moderator for today’s event and author of the novel Hope You Are Satisfied (Unnamed Press, 2024). Hope You Are Satisified was recommended by NPR and named one of the best espionage novels of 2023 by CrimeReads. Her previous novel, Three Bargains, received a Publishers Weekly starred review and a Booklist starred review. Her work has appeared in Electric Literature, Off-Assignment, Lit Hub, Salon.com, Calyx Journal, Baltimore Review and other publications. She lives in San Francisco’s Bay Area. More information at https://www.taniamalik.com/

 

Individual donations from a great many generous members of the Bird & Beckett community are necessary to keep our programming robust. If you can and haven’t, please join their number. Bird & Beckett will always be a work in progress… Thanks for being part of the solution with your dollars, ears, intellect and loyalty!