Babylon Salon

Babylon Salon Babylon Salon is a quarterly reading & performance series based in San Francisco

"Grayson Thompson writes with a quiet dignity that belies his formal mastery and his clever command of language. A Congr...
03/13/2026

"Grayson Thompson writes with a quiet dignity that belies his formal mastery and his clever command of language. A Congregation of Alligators is many things—a reminiscence, an affirmation, a brave and painstaking assessment of personal traumas—but its power comes from resisting the reinvention, the clean break."
— J. Howard Rosier, Board Member of the National Book Critics Circle

What a swoon-worthy blurb! Grayson Thompson contains multitudes, and so does his poetry. Winner of Write Bloody Publishing's 2024 Jack McCarthy Book Prize, his full-length collection, A Congregation of Alligators, asks how does one become a person? How do we make sense of the outline of home?

Want to go deeper? Don't miss this gorgeous interview with Foglifter Journal: https://www.foglifterjournal.com/grayson-thompson-interview

And join us TOMORROW! 3/14 at The Sycamore for our Babylon Salon Spring 2026 Performance!!

- Stephen Patrick Bell in conversation with Grayson Thompson - By Stephen Patrick Bell Foglifter Press and Still Here San Francisco have collaborated to create a poetry chapbook prize for local emerging q***r and trans Black writers, indigenous writers, and writers of color. Grayson Thompson, winner...

Here's one for the readers who love the City as much as we do! 🌉 Mark Ernest Pothier's breathtaking novel, Outer Sunset,...
03/12/2026

Here's one for the readers who love the City as much as we do! 🌉 Mark Ernest Pothier's breathtaking novel, Outer Sunset, blossomed from a Chicago Tribune/Nelson Algren Award-winning short story into a full novel about life in one of San Francisco's most beloved neighborhoods—a process that took 30 years!

The SF Chronicle calls it an "a wise, elegantly written book about a transformational moment for a family and their city." Check it out! https://www.sfchronicle.com/entertainment/books/article/review-outer-sunset-sf-bittersweet-novel-unfolds-17925868.php

We can't wait to welcome Mark to our Babylon Salon Spring 2026 Performance! This Saturday, 3/14 at The Sycamore!

In “Outer Sunset,” novelist Mark Ernest Pothier pens a bittersweet tale of San Francisco on the edge of transformation in the ’90s.

We are over the 🌙 moon 🌙to celebrate our very own Lauren C. Johnson at our Babylon Salon Spring 2026 Performance on 3/14...
03/11/2026

We are over the 🌙 moon 🌙to celebrate our very own Lauren C. Johnson at our Babylon Salon Spring 2026 Performance on 3/14!

Lauren's debut novel, The West Façade (SFWP, March 2026), is set in 1348 Paris, where the statues of the Notre-Dame Cathedral come to life on the night of the new moon. One of them, Sainte Geneviève, can't resist biting into a forbidden fruit that was left as an offering. What follows is, as Unruly Figures puts it, "lush and sensorial... a deeply empathetic book, full of very relatable human wants and worries." Peep the full review: https://unrulyfigures.substack.com/p/book-review-the-west-facade-by-lauren

Join us Saturday, 3/14 at The Sycamore, 2140 Mission St, San Francisco (near 16th St Mission BART). Join us for drinks and curly fries at 5pm! Show starts at 5:30pm in the outdoor covered patio.

Statues are coming to life in Paris, plus a few other things I've read lately

What happens when a writer picks up a photo and follows where their imagination leads? ✍️📸 For Grant Faulkner, this proc...
03/10/2026

What happens when a writer picks up a photo and follows where their imagination leads? ✍️📸 For Grant Faulkner, this process was the inspiration for his seventh book, “something out there in the distance.” Faulkner calls his latest work a “flash novel of super-short stories" woven together with images by LA photographer Gail Butensky.

"This was so joyful and organic," Grant told Berkeleyside. "I just picked a photo and if it spoke to me I would write about it."

Grant is the co-founder of Memoir Nation (and also the co-host of the Memoir Nation podcast), the co-founder of the Flash Fiction Institute, the co-founder of 100 Word Story, and an executive producer on America’s Next Great Author. He’s has published All the Comfort Sin Can Provide, Fissures, Nothing Short of 100: Selected Tales from 100 Word Story, and so much more!!!

Check out the Berkeleyside feature and join us this Saturday, 3/14 for our Babylon Salon Spring 2026 Performance 🌿🌷

Plus, in other new Berkeley books: Michael Pollan on consciousness — and a deeply researched novel about two famed women pirates of history.

"Charlie Jane Anders writes the kind of stories that break your heart and expand your mind simultaneously. Charlie Jane ...
03/09/2026

"Charlie Jane Anders writes the kind of stories that break your heart and expand your mind simultaneously. Charlie Jane is a true gem in the literary world. I am a proud fan.”
— Janelle Monáe“

What 🙌A 🙌 Blurb!

We are so thrilled to welcome Charlie Jane Anders to our Babylon Salon Spring 2026 Performance on 3/14! Charlie Jane Anders is the award-winning, nationally bestselling author of Lessons in Magic and Disaster. Her other books include All the Birds in the Sky, The City in the Middle of the Night, and the young adult Unstoppable trilogy. She also published a book about how to use creative writing to get through tough times called Never Say You Can't Survive.

Can't wait for the show? Smart Bi***es Trashy Books called Lessons in Magic and Disaster "moving on a lot of levels, and when it ended I wanted to go straight back to page one to read it all over again." Go check out the full review here: https://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/reviews/lessons-in-magic-and-disaster-by-charlie-jane-anders/

Get excited to join us this Saturday, 3/14 at The Sycamore As always, admission is free, but please tip your lovely bartenders! More deets: https://www.babylonsalon.com

Lessons in Disaster is such a beautiful, finely crafted book that I feel kind of humbled to have been able to read it. It’s not a perfect book - it ends

"Break the Frame is an illuminating and entertaining guide to some of the best film and television directors working tod...
12/06/2025

"Break the Frame is an illuminating and entertaining guide to some of the best film and television directors working today. Not just a guide to what female artists have accomplished, but also a primer on where some of the best minds in Hollywood are headed. -- Mauren Ryan, Vanity Fair.

Film and TV-lovers rejoice! We're thrilled to welcome Kevin Smokler to our Babylon Salon Winter 2025 Performance! 🎥🎞️

Kevin is the author of Break the Frame: Conversations with Women Filmmakers and director of the full-length documentary films VINYL NATION and MIDDLE GROUNDS.

We can't wait to hear him share his work tomorrow! 12/6! Come on down to The Sycamore for drinks at 5pm in the outdoor covered patio in back! Reading starts promptly at 5:30pm. As always, admission is free.

Interviews with more than two dozen female filmmakers from a wide range of genres.

"Sometimes, [YA] ends up being the most important literature in many people’s lives. Those books are our companions duri...
12/05/2025

"Sometimes, [YA] ends up being the most important literature in many people’s lives. Those books are our companions during adolescence and are so formative to creating a sense of who we are and who we want to be — trying on all these different identities and making mistakes with these characters whom we grow to love and admire." ~ Aimee Phan, author of The Lost Queen

We are so excited to hear Aimee Phan read from her soaring, spellbinding novel, The Lost Queen at our Babylon Salon Winter 2025 Performance! If you love coming of age stories, dragon myths, and books about girls with "too much fire and will" you will love The Lost Queen!

See you this Saturday, 12/6 at 5:30pm! 🐉✨

Aimee Phan discusses “The Lost Queen,” her young adult fantasy novel inspired by two legendary Vietnamese sisters.

"Lori Ostlund is one of our country's finest short story writers, a true national gem. Are You Happy? showcases her clea...
12/03/2025

"Lori Ostlund is one of our country's finest short story writers, a true national gem. Are You Happy? showcases her clear-eyed, emotionally astute, and often slyly funny prose. With a deft hand, one that manages to float gently as it cuts deeply, Ostlund explores recognizable American lives reckoning with injustice and seeking connection." —Heidi Pitlor, author of The Daylight Marriage

Lori Ostlund is an absolute rock star ⭐ We cannot wait to hear her share from her new book, Are You Happy at our Babylon Salon Winter 2025 Performance! This Saturday, 12/6!

https://www.publishersweekly.com/9781662603020?fbclid=IwY2xjawKB_exleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBicmlkETF5ejJGaGdESGc1cEc5NUM2AR5RACbUOhoFpfQUtsN0603C13CzUNvqbo5_6JqeeKyMwoNv6BBxlYhSHbQVyQ_aem_SQjbeRSBQWmcoCRf9dt2bQ

Ostlund (After the Parade) explores q***r identity and complex truths in this piercing collection. The le***an college senior in...

“Earthquake Shack is a unique love letter to the San Francisco of our past, present, and future, not to mention a rollic...
12/02/2025

“Earthquake Shack is a unique love letter to the San Francisco of our past, present, and future, not to mention a rollicking ride with a vibrant cast of characters. Fun, q***r, and unforgettable, the novel is a must-read for historians, romantics, and diehard locals.” –Brittany Newell, author of Soft Core

Now that, friends, is one heck of a blurb! We can't wait to welcome Susie Hara to our Babylon Salon Winter 2025 Performance! Her mystery novel, Earthquake Shack, is a perfect read for long winter nights. Check out some of these blurbs, then get excited to hear Susie read this Saturday, 12/6 at The Sycamore!

Published September 30, 2025 Order the Book Earthquake Shack “It’s not just this mystery’s San Francisco setting that conjures Dashiell Hammett: Like a classic-noir regular, Sadie is a hard drinker and a just-as-hard smoker who stays fit boxing at the gym. Then again, classic noir isn’t know...

"We’re all surrounded by the ways we are told we should be, how women should act, how Mexicans should be, what types of ...
09/13/2025

"We’re all surrounded by the ways we are told we should be, how women should act, how Mexicans should be, what types of q***rness are valid—it’s all bu****it! And in framing the narrative into such a rigid sense of rules, I hope what my audience takes from “Sangronas” is the desire to step out of these confines, to unashamedly spread your wings and fly." ~ M.M. Olivas

This interview with M.M. Olivas in Uncanny Magazine, about her story, "¡Sangronas! Un Lista de Terror" is just the medicine we all need. Give this interview a read and check out Sangronas in Uncanny Magazine (link in comments).

We promise M.M. Olivas will leave you spellbound at our Babylon Salon Fall 2025 Performance! Tomorrow!! Sept 13 at our usual stomping grounds, The Sycamore!

M. Olivas is an alumna of the 2022 Clarion Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers’ Workshop and the 2023 Under the Volcano Writers Residency. She received her bachelor’s degree in creative writing from the University of California Riverside and once worked as an associate editor for Escape Pod maga...

"Whatever sort of surprise you’re after—funny, devastating, sexy, shocking, savage, tender, illuminating—Detonator will ...
09/11/2025

"Whatever sort of surprise you’re after—funny, devastating, sexy, shocking, savage, tender, illuminating—Detonator will supply it, in Mountford’s exquisitely tuned and attentive prose. Like Mary Gaitskill, Mountford has a gift for creating crystalline articulations of the messiness inside us. I loved these stories, and I learned from them." ~ Karen Russell, author of The Antidote, on Peter Mountford's new short story collection, Detonator!

Now that's what we call a blurb!

Give this interview with Peter a read, add Detonator to your fall TBR list, and get excited to meet Peter at our Babylon Salon Fall 2025 Performance! This Saturday, 9/13 at The Sycamore!

Anne Gimm: Your story collection, Detonator, opens with a flash piece about a car accident that involves a goose. Why did you decide to start there?

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