Cookies and Conversations with Joan Gelfand

Don't miss the "Cookies & Conversation" talk featuring author Joan Gelfand discussing her new book, OUTSIDE VOICES: A Memoir of the Berkeley Revolution, with Benicia Literary Arts' President Emerita, Lois Requist! This chat will be a noteworthy reunion between the two women, a relationship that goes back more than a decade. Gelfand was the first writer who Benicia Literary Arts published -- a book of her poetry titled The Long Blue Room.

Be sure to stay for your Q&A and to purchase an autographed copy of Gelfand's new book, which was the 2024 winner of high honors, including the International Book Award and the NYC Big Book Award. This memoir, both tender and tumultuous, describes Gelfand's personal journey in the early 1970s, when she moved from New York City to Berkeley.

Outside Voices will lure you in and tug at your heartstrings. It was in Berkeley that Gelfand discovered a lust for learning in the School of Life, where feminism blossomed with protests, music, poetry, and parties. Here on the 'Left Coast,' Gelfand found her way as a poet and writer.

Come and nibble a cookie or two and enjoy this very special event at the start of the new year - Sunday, January 5, 2025, at 5:30pm, Bookshop Benicia, 636 First Street in downtown Benicia.

About the author

Joan Gelfand’s reviews, stories, essays and poetry have appeared in over 150 national and international literary journals and magazines including the the Los Angeles Review of Books, The San Francisco Chronicle, PANK! The Huffington Post, Rattle, Levure Litterarie, Voice and Verse, Sycamore Review, Prairie Schooner and The Meridian Anthology of Contemporary Poetry.

Outside Voices: Election Day 1972. I arrived in Berkeley, an inaugural issue of Ms tucked into my backpack, my first vote cast for George McGovern and settled into an apartment on Telegraph and Durant. That night, in the middle of a rainstorm, I joined the protest against Nixon’s re-election on Sproul Plaza. My adventure in The Berkeley Revolution begun! Within two years, I was living with members of the Berkeley Women’s Music Collective, becoming a published poet, was Poetry Editor for Plexus and was a part of the collective that opened “Loaves and Dishes” with Suze Orman, Nancy Henderson, Jake Lampert, Debbie Lempke and Nancy Vogl …..For the next years I was enmeshed in the second wave feminism as we Berkeleyites interpreted it. The women’s movement was exploding: Women’s presses, women’s theaters, women’s restaurants, women’s music label and more were flourishing. Think Paris in the 20’s, Greenwich Village in the 60’s. We were the center of the feminist universe….

Learn more on: https://joangelfand.com/outside-voices/

Host or Publisher Benicia Literary Arts