about the authors
Kim Addonizio
Kim Addonizio is an award-winning author of 13 books, an NEA and Guggenheim fellow, winner of two Pushcart Prizes, and a National Book Award Finalist for her collection Tell Me.
Thursday, Apr 5 , 2018 • 6:30–8:30pm
ADMISSION: $10 Members; $15 general
Called "the most entertaining reading series ever" by the LA Times, Literary Death Match is in over 60 cities worldwide. The live show brings together four authors to read their most electric writing for seven minutes or less before a panel of three all-star judges. After each pair of readers, the judges take turns spouting hilarious, off-the-wall commentary—in the categories of literary merit, performance, and intangibles—then select their favorite to advance to the finals. The two finalists then compete in a vaguely literary competition to determine who takes home the Literary Death Match crown.
For this Passover inspired edition, LDM pairs authors Kim Addonizio, Sara Faith Alterman, Katie Flynn, and Matthew Siegel with all-star judges Rachel Levin, Natasha Muse, and Irene Tu. Two finalists will compete to determine who takes home the crown!
Sign language interpretation (ASL) and CART real-time captioning can be requested for all programs with at least two weeks notice by emailing access@thecjm.org or by calling 415.655.7856 (relay calls welcome). FM assistive listening devices for sound enhancement (ALDs) are available for all talks and tours. Visit our Accessibility page to learn more.
Kim Addonizio is an award-winning author of 13 books, an NEA and Guggenheim fellow, winner of two Pushcart Prizes, and a National Book Award Finalist for her collection Tell Me.
Sara Faith Alterman is a writer, performer, and a co-producer of Mortified, a storytelling stage show and podcast that explores and celebrates the extraordinary things we created as kids. Alterman was a primary caretaker for her father during his battle with Alzheimer's, which taught her to find and embrace humor every day, in every way. She is also author of the novels My Fifteen Minutes and Tears of a Class Clown.
Katie M. Flynn is an award-winning short story writer, recipient of a 2018 fellowship from the San Francisco Writers’ Grotto and winner of the Colorado Review’s Nelligan Prize for Short Fiction. She is a fiction editor at Split Lip Magazine
Matthew Siegel is a former Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford, author of Blood Work, and winner of the Felix Pollak Prize in Poetry from University of Wisconsin-Madison. He teaches literature and creative writing at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music.
Rachel Levin is the SF restaurant critic for Eater and a freelancer journalist who has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times, Outside, and elsewhere. Her new book, LOOK BIG: And Other Tips for Surviving Animal Encounters Of All Kinds, comes out April 10, 2018.
Comedian Natasha Muse is a regular at SF Punchline and Cobb’s Comedy Club. She was named an SF Weekly “Comedian to Watch” in 2014 and an “Artist to Watch” in 2016.
Comedian, actor, and writer Irene Tu was named one of the “Bay Area’s 11 Best Stand Up Comedians” by SFist and one of 20 “Women to Watch” by KQED in 2017; she hosts a handful of shows around the Bay Area including Man Haters, The Mission Position, and Millennials Ruin Everything.
Public Programs are made possible by the Koret Foundation and The Al and Rosanne Levitt Fund for Public Programs.
Header image: photo by Jason Gutierrez. Authors: Kim Addonizio photo by JKA Photography;. Judges: Irene Tu photo by Pat Mazzera.