(By Joe Kukura) Yes, that photo at right is depicting exactly what it appears to – Beth Lisick mowing down her own fans onstage in a leg-wrestling competition at last night's "Litquake Fuck Sports!" event at the Edinburgh Castle. Beth's kind of unbeatable… to this day she still holds the Saratoga High School long jump record. She read a rather uproarious chapter from Helping Me Help Myself about her experience doing preggers yoga at......

Are you a poet? Do you know it? (Ouch.) Well, Poets Eleven, a citywide poetry contest showcasing prose created by residents of each of San Francisco's 11 districts, above, is now accepting submissions. You work will be scrutinized by San Francisco Poet Laureate Jack Hirschman, so snap on your thinking and creativity caps, kids. Local poets are asked to submit up to three works for review. Mr. Hirschman, we're told, is interested in pieces......

(Check out the actual chin scratching occurring, lower right, at an intelligentsia event. Har!) Here we have novelist Dave Eggers at the National Book Critics Circle nominee announcement at City Lights. We're in love with his bulky v-neck sweater. Very nice. Image credit: Flickr user Steve Rhodes.......

Another public display of commemorative prose, folks. What with this plus the animals trying to escape from the zoo, you'd think the end is nigh, a big earthquake is on its way, or Aunt Flo has come for an extended visit. While mincing down Third Street to AT&T Park to catch some tasty waves, we came across the most darling bouquet of fresh flowers, above, lying on the sidewalk. While trying to steal them, we......

Good news for students of the struggle of the proletariat: even if you don't have time to read Marx, there are alternatives. Like Paul Krugman, Harpers, Howard Zin, Noam Chomsky, the Guardian of London -- and even our very own home-grown SF Bay Guardian. This reading list is the result of a conversation that started innocently enough on the SFBG's blogs, in a post about homelessness in Golden Gate Park and, tangentially, the Spanish......

After winning the 2007 Nobel Prize for literature today, reporters asked Doris Lessing how she felt. Her response? "Oh Christ...I couldn't care less." That famous dry British wit! Congrats, Doris. We've yet to read one word of your feminist-fiction oeuvre, but...kudos. We guess.......

Don't just read any words -- read good words, accurate and specific, tasty and gratifying and placed in sequences that make you shake your head in disbelief that anyone could possibly have ever used those words in sentences other than the ones on the page in front of you. You certainly won't find that here; but check out Booksmith tonight, Modern Times tomorrow, and 826 Valencia on Monday for that snake-charmer of the English......

Even though he defected to Los Angeles, we were tickled when local fave Keith Knight took home a Harvey Award. Now another Bay Area sequential artist is up for a prestigious comics industry award. Melanie "Minty" Lewis was nominated for an Ignatz Award for her P.S. Comics #3, a book we bought at this years' Alternative Press Expo and totally loved....

Dave Eggers, well-known author and tutoring activist via 826 Valencia and its affiliates, has been awarded a grant from the Heinz Family Foundation. $250,000 smackers. ...

The 20th Annual Harvey Awards (named for Harvey Kurtzman, genius cartoonist, founder of MAD Magazine, and lont-time Playboy contributor to boot) were announced this weekend at the Baltimore Comic Con. According to comics news site Newsarama, local cartoonist Keith Knight won in the panel strip category! ...

We’re thrilled when our commute ends up boring rather than late or, say, riddled with crushed pedestrians and such. It turns out that this commute, well, it’s the stuff that dreams are made of: kids' fantasies. Apparently, CalTrain is so dreamy and hot that it's now a center spread in the newly released Timmy and Tammie’s Train of Thought. TTTT, for short. Other local trains featured in the book include MUNI's F-line and the......

With their usual whimsy, those folks from 826 Valenicia celebrated their 5-year anniversary on 8/26. They did so with a community festival at Mission Playground, which is right near the store. Entry was free; folks purchased tickets to engage in many of the activities. Kids and adult-sized kids engaged in music, games, pie-eating contests, and tried their hand at dunking folks. Seemed like everyone was having a swell time for a swell cause....

Okay, there's a very troubling article in today's New York Times about a road trip with Laura Albert (reg. req'd.). Laura Albert is, of course, the 41-year-old mother and local literary scenester who made up the character of JT LeRoy, and then got her sister in law to dress up (in shades and a blond wig) as the gay, male, former teen hustler when his purported "memoir" hit the big time. Albert was later sued......

Remember Marcus Thiele and Kevin Buckley (perhaps this interview will refresh your memory)? They are the co-creators of "The Strange and Many Eyes of Dr. LeFaux," a comic book property that has just landed them in the Top 10 of AT&T and Platinum Studio's "Comic Book Challenge" contest, in which the winner receives a "multi-media development and publishing deal."...

Holy Cow, Bat Segundo! What do you mean you moved to Brooklyn?!? A podcast that's truly fun, quirky, and valuable for fans of literature, this pseudonymously produced program made its home base here in San Francisco until only a few months ago. We were thrilled to come across the show's recent interview with one of our boyhood idols, Mr. Berkeley Breathed (of Bloom County, Outland, and Opus fame); when we contacted the show's proprietor to give him his deserved praise for landing such an interview, he informed us of his relocation. Alas....

Photo of costumed teens posing happily with their new books. These guys were great. They'd never heard of SFist before, so we skipped the questions about Ed Jew and recent shenanigans on the J-Church. We hate lines and we shy away from new things -- we're definitely a second- or third-generation adopter for tech, and a wait-for-the-paperback guy for books. But we guess this Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows turned things sideways. We......

We told you a few weeks ago about Platinum Studios' "American Idol"-style contest for comic creators, through which the winners will get a "multimedia development and publishing deal" based on their concept. At that time, we spoke to local guys Kevin Buckley and Marcus Thiele about their entry. We've just talked to another local writer/artist team with an entry in the Top 50: Navin Prasad and Chris Weiermiller....

Platinum Studios, a comic book publisher (KISS 4k (yes, about the band) and Hero by Night) is hosting a sort of "American Idol" for comic creators. A few of those contestants are from right here in the Bay Area. Kevin Buckley is the writer on this project and an artist in his own right, though Marcus Thiele, his partner, is the artist on their pitch: "The Strange and Many Eyes of Dr. LeFaux." Kevin and Marcus took a few minutes to talk about their art and living in the Bay Area. ...

Let's face it, the great American cycling novel has yet to be written (not lately, anyway). And what cycling-related literature there is falls into one of three categories: inspiration, celebration, or perspiration. If you want to read about a one-legged mother of six who bicycled across the country to raise awareness about the papilloma virus, or Lance Armstrong's latest deep philosophical musings, or Chris Carmichael's detailed instructions for sprint repeats and heart rate monitor training, the world is your oyster. But if you're looking for compelling, engaging prose that explores the relationship between literature and cycling, well you're basically stuck watching Breaking Away for the 20th time (yeah, we know it's a movie).

Fear not for cyclerature though, because into the breech have stepped editors Paul Diamond and Erich Schweikher with a little ditty they like to call Cycling's Greatest Misadventures, a new anthology of original nonfiction cycling stories from Casagrande Press.

While San Francisco is known globally for a certain worldview, those of us who actually live here know that when it comes down to particulars, we don't often agree. We can't agree on Blue Angels. We can't agree on a Muni solution. Heck, we can't even agree on what to do about Ed Jew (oh no!). But you know a banner we can all unite under? The One City One Book: San Francisco Reads program. Imagine, hordes of people reading a sort of narrative story on paper! No electricity required (save, perhaps, for reading lights). ...

We usually keep things pretty simple around here -- so if you want something a little more literary, there's a plethora of clever, quirky, cute, smart, and wonderful writing at McSweeney's Quarterly Concern and associated publications (books, The Believer, and DVD-based magazine, Wholphin). Seems that the McSweeney's crew has fallen on some hard times financially, and needs to raise a few bucks and quick.They're letting interested parties know that every single item in their store is on sale....

Friend of SFist Charlie Anders reminds us that her nifty and unusual spoken-word group, Writers With Drinks, will be experiencing yet another stupendous explosion of literary greatness this Saturday, the 9th, from 7:30 to 9:30 at The Make Out Room. Presenters include: - Judy Budnitz, author of Nice Big American Baby and If I've Told You Once - Clifford Chase, author of Winkie - Sesshu Foster, author of Atomik Aztex - Anthony McCann, poet......

Please allow us to let our geek flag fly for a few moments. If you've never read a comic book, never participated in a pen-and-paper role playing game, or if you don't know who any of Robert Asprin, George R.R. Martin, Wendi & Richard Pini, or Glen Cook are, maybe just skip to the next entry. But if any of the above apply to you, please read on. We've recently encountered the most wonderful comic book anthology -- it's called "Elfworld." ...

Flight was already at the top of our list of books to read. Then we read the New York Times review of it this past Sunday and felt a new urgency to go out and buy it. The review was beautifully written, sincere, and completely lacking the typical elitist jargon one usually finds while reading reviews of books in well-known papers. And so on our flight back to San Francisco we read Flight in......

Yesterday, we posted a contest in which we're giving away a copy of Matt Silady's "The Homeless Channel," a new graphic novel. Matt, a Berkeley resident, was both the writer and artist of this creative yet grounded fiction about the woman behind a 24-hour broadcast network devoted to covering the homeless. This Friday, the Isotope turns into party central (as it often does) to celebrate the book's launch, which anyone can attend....

A few months ago, when we talked to Larry Young, the frontman of San Francisco-based comic book publisher AIT/Planet Lar, he pointed to Matt Silady's then-pending book, "The Homeless Channel," as one he was excited about. For good reason. The book's out. We read it. We quite enjoyed it. And now you can too -- we're giving away our review copy to a lucky SFist reader....

On Saturday, fantastic Hayes Valley comic book store Isotope played host to Ed Brubaker, who's as hot a writer in the comics industry as anyone. Recently, a story of Brubaker's made headlines nationwide (and Colbert, of course): the death of Marvel Comics' icon Captain America. ...

Author/artist/director/performer/etc Miranda July came by Modern Times Bookstore in The Mission last night to read from her new collection of short stories, and the arty-coiffed standing-room-only crowd of fans spilled out the door onto the sidewalk....

Some fights seem really really important to the folks involved, and utterly mystifying to everyone else. You know like when you see two pigeons fighting over a hamburger bun, and you can't decide which one to root for because it seems like they both want the same thing and they'd just be better off sharing? Or another example: the unnecessary feud going on at the Cable Car Museum. Yesterday we mentioned a book by......

The Commonwealth Club's 76th Annual California Book Awards have been announced, and two Cal faculty members are big winners this year: Ishmael Reed for "New and Collected Poems, 1964-2006," and journalism professor Michael Pollan for "The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals."...