Here is the third podcast from our June event. It features Cassie Alexander.

Cassie reads from her novel, Shapeshifted.

Everything is stopping for Worldcon at the moment, but coming up soon we have some wonderful events for you.

Saturday September 14: Our September reading features Nick Mamatas and Greg Bossert.

Saturday September 21: Don’t lick that doorknob! Join us for the Variety/Wonderfest screening of “Contagion”, with special guest Prof. of Microbiology and Immunology, Dr. Bob Siegel! Tickets are available here.

Friday October 18: Join Litquake and SF in SF for “Super Stories of Heroes & Villains” with editor Claude Lalumiere, and authors Tim Pratt and Camille Alexa.

Saturday, August 24

Join us for Doctor Who — The Movie! Starring Paul McGann as The Doctor

Doors and cash bar open at 4:00PM
Event begins at 5:00PM
Suggested $5-$10 donation at the door
Seating is limited; first come, first seated

We’ll be giving away some special prizes in our trivia contest — plus, we’ll be serving up Sonic Screwdrivers at the bar, and of course, free popcorn for everyone!

Screening and prizes by gracious courtesy of BBC Home Entertainment

The Doctor is returning home to Gallifrey, with the remains of his arch-nemesis, the Master. Forced off course, the TARDIS arrives in San Francisco on New Year’s Eve, 1999, where the Doctor is critically wounded in a gangland gun battle. At the local hospital, Dr. Grace Holloway fights — and fails — to save his life… Later — in the morgue — the Doctor wakes up a new man. But he is not the only one — the Master has also found himself a new body! As the clock counts down to the start of the new millennium, can the Doctor stop his oldest enemy from destroying all life on Earth????

We’ll be showing some special extras after the movie as well – so stay in your seats!

The Variety Preview Room Theatre
The Hobart Bldg., 1st Floor — entrance between Quiznos and Citibank
582 Market Street @ 2nd and Montgomery
San Francisco, CA 94104

Don’t Drive — BART/MUNI Montgomery Street station is right at our front door, and parking in San Francisco sucks!!! Street parking ($3.50 per hour) is metered M-Sat., til 6PM; find a parking garage here.

Here is the second podcast from our June event. It features Heather McDougal.

Heather reads from her novel, Songs for a Machine Age.

We are delighted to now be able to offer our own podcasts of our readings. Here is Part 1 of the June reading, featuring Cliff Winnig.

Cliff has kindly provided a link to the picture on which his flash fiction story was based. Here it is (courtesy of Hadley Rille Books):

Technology willing, all future readings should be available as podcasts. Hosting is being provided by Wizard’s Tower through their Salon Futura feed. If you use iTunes you will be able to find our podcasts here.

Saturday, August 17

Doors and cash bar open at 6:00PM
Event begins at 7:00PM
Suggested $5-$10 donation at the door benefits Variety Children’s Charity
Seating is limited; first come, first seated

Join SF in SF for fantasy authors Laura Anne Gilman and Chaz Brenchley (aka Daniel Fox) in conversation with author Terry Bisson!

Each author will read a selection from their work, followed by Q&A with the audience, moderated by Terry Bisson. Booksigning and schmoozing follows in the lounge. Books will be for sale at the event, courtesy of Borderlands Books. You may also bring books from home for authors to sign.

Laura Anne Gilman is an American fantasy author. Born in New Jersey, she received a Liberal Arts education from Skidmore College in Saratoga Springs, New York, and is a member of the Phi Alpha Theta honors society. She started her career in publishing as an editorial assistant in New York City. After publishing several short stories (her first pro fiction sale was in 1994 in Amazing Stories), some media tie-ins, and a job as an executive editor, she published her first original novel, Staying Dead, a “Cosa Nostradamus”-universe “Retrievers” book, followed by Curse the Dark, Bring it On, Burning Bridges, Free Fall, and Blood from Stone. In 2010, Gilman began another series in this same universe, called “Paranormal Scene Investigations.” Titles are Hard Magic, Pack of Lies, Tricks of the Trade, and Dragon Justice.

Flesh and Fire, the first novel in the “Vineart War” series, was released in 2009, followed by Weight of Stone, and The Shattered Vine. The “Vineart War” series deviates from the urban fantasy setting of the Cosa Nostradamus books, having more of a traditional fantasy feel. Flesh and Fire was nominated for the 2009 Nebula Award for Best Novel. Currently residing in New York City, where she also runs d.y.m.k. Productions, Laura Anne Gilman is a member of the BookView Cafe, SFWA, and Novelists, Inc..

Chaz Brenchley is a British writer of novels and short stories, associated with the genres of horror, crime and fantasy. Residing now in California, and newly married to Karen Williams, Brenchley also writes under the name of Daniel Fox. Brenchley was the winner of the British Fantasy Society’s August Derleth Award in 1998 for Light Errant. He has also published three books for children and more than 500 short stories in various genres. His time as Crimewriter-in-Residence at the St Peter’s Riverside Sculpture Project in Sunderland resulted in the collection Blood Waters. Charles de Lint praised Dispossession as “one of those increasingly rare books that remind you just how satisfying fiction can be.”

Writing as Fox, Brenchley published the epic fantasy series, Moshui, the Books of Stone and Water, which was spurred by a visit to Taiwan at the millennium. The titles are Dragon in Chains, Jade Man’s Skin, and Hidden Cities. The resultant obsession led to learning Mandarin and writing about the country in three different genres. Before this Brenchley had published a couple of dozen books and many hundreds of short stories, under a clutch of other names. He has also written award-winning poetry and plays.

The Variety Preview Room Theatre
The Hobart Bldg., 1st Floor — entrance between Quiznos and Citibank
582 Market Street @ 2nd and Montgomery
San Francisco, CA 94104

Don’t Drive — BART/MUNI Montgomery Street station is right at our front door, and parking in San Francisco sucks!!! Street parking ($3.50 per hour) is metered M-Sat., til 6PM; find a parking garage here.

Saturday, July 20th: Nalo Hopkinson, Madeleine Robins & Deborah J. Ross

Doors and cash bar open at 6:00PM
Event begins at 7:00PM
Suggested $5-$10 donation at the door benefits Variety Children’s Charity
Seating is limited; first come, first seated

We’ll be featuring three fabulous authors on Saturday, July 20th. Nalo Hopkinson, Madeleine Robins, and Deborah J. Ross will be joining us for short readings and conversation, with author Terry Bisson.

Each author will read a selection from their work, followed by Q&A with the audience, moderated by Terry Bisson. Booksigning and schmoozing follows in the lounge. Books for sale courtesy of Borderlands Books.

Nalo Hopkinson is a Jamaican science fiction and fantasy writer and editor who splits her time between Southern California and Canada. Her novels, including Brown Girl in the Ring, Midnight Robber, The Salt Roads, The New Moon’s Arms, and her new novel, Sister Mine, and short fiction collected in Skin Folk, often draw on Caribbean history and language, and its traditions of oral and written storytelling. Hopkinson is currently an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at the University of California, Riverside. She received her M.A. in writing popular fiction from Seton Hill University, and her teaching specialty is creative writing, with a focus on the literatures of the fantastic such as science fiction, fantasy and magical realism. She is a recipient of the John W. Campbell Award, the World Fantasy Award, the Gaylactic Spectrum Award, and a two-time recipient of the Sunburst Award for Canadian Literature of the Fantastic. Her novel Midnight Robber received Honorable Mention in Cuba’s Casa de las Americas prize for literature written in Creole.

Deborah J. Ross, once Deborah Wheeler, is an American science fiction and fantasy author. A born storyteller, she has tried on several careers for size, including degrees in biology and psychology, work as a bacteriologist, a librarian, a chiropractor, and a preschool gym teacher. Towards the end of the 1970’s, Wheeler became friends with Marion Zimmer Bradley, and in 1984 submitted a short story for the first Sword and Sorceress anthology, “Imperatrix”. Under the name of Deborah Wheeler, she continued to write short fiction, appearing in many of Bradley’s anthologies, and in Asimov’s, F&SF, Star Wars: Tales From Jabba’s Palace, and Sisters of the Night. In addition, Wheeler published two novels, Jaydium, and Northlight (DAW). Before Marion’s death in 1999, Ross was invited to work on a project with her set in Darkover, resulting in the books The Fall of Neskaya (2001), Zandru’s Forge (2003), A Flame in Hali (2004), The Alton Gift (2007), Hastur Lord (2010), and the forthcoming The Children of Kings (2013).

Madeleine Robins is an American speculative fiction writer, born in New York City. Robins holds a degree in Theatre Studies from Connecticut College, and attended the Clarion Science Fiction Workshop in 1981. She is a founding member of the Book View Cafe, an online cooperative publishing venue, where you’ll find her first five books. She is also the author of the dark urban fantasy The Stone War (a New York Times Notable Book), Daredevil: The Cutting Edge, and three Regency-noir mysteries, Point of Honour, Petty Treason, and The Sleeping Partner, featuring the redoubtable Sarah Tolerance, Agent of Inquiry. A lifelong and passionate fan of cities and all things urban, Robins currently works as a production editor at Klutz, a children’s activity book publisher, and lives in San Francisco with her family and dog.

The Variety Preview Room Theatre
The Hobart Bldg., 1st Floor — entrance between Quiznos and Citibank
582 Market Street @ 2nd and Montgomery
San Francisco, CA 94104

Don’t Drive — BART/MUNI Montgomery Street station is right at our front door, and parking in San Francisco sucks!!! Street parking ($3.50 per hour) is metered M-Sat., til 6PM; find a parking garage here.

Saturday, June 29

Doors and cash bar open at 4:00PM
Event begins at 5:00PM

Suggested donation of $5-$10 per person at the door helps us bring you more films and events like this! No one turned away for lack of funds — but seating is limited and is first come, first seated. Get here early to get a good seat!

Classic Doctor Who returns on Saturday, June 29th! We’ll be screening The Caves of Androzani, and SF in SF welcomes back the hostess with the mostest, Charlie Jane Anders! She’ll be giving away some special prizes in our trivia contest — plus, stick your name in the hat for a special raffle for a 3-D PRINTED TARDIS!!! (courtesy of Deezmaker). We’ll be serving up Sonic Screwdrivers at the bar, and of course, free popcorn for everyone!

Screening courtesy of BBC Home Entertainment! Many thanks!!

Doctor Who: The Caves of Androzani

Length: Approx. 99 minutes + bonus materials!

On the cave-riddled world of Androzani Minor, the Fifth Doctor (Peter Davison) and Peri inadvertently find themselves enmeshed in a war fought between the ruthless General Chellak and the sinister Sharaz Jek and his army of androids. The duplicitous politician Morgus wants Chellak to execute the time travelers as spies, while the disfigured Jek seeks to keep Peri forever hostage within his stronghold. But the Doctor soon realizes an even more gruesome fate awaits them – they have been infected with fatal spectrox toxemia, and there is no cure!! Hunted by both factions and with death just hours away, how far must the Doctor go in order to save his friend’s life?

The Variety Preview Room Theatre
The Hobart Bldg., 1st Floor — entrance between Quiznos and Citibank
582 Market Street @ 2nd and Montgomery
San Francisco, CA 94104

Don’t Drive — BART/MUNI Montgomery Street station is right at our front door, and parking in San Francisco sucks!!! Street parking ($3.50 per hour) is metered M-Sat., til 6PM; find a parking garage here.

Join SF in SF for another great author event!

Saturday, June 22

Doors and cash bar open at 6:00PM
Event begins at 7:00PM
Suggested $5-$10 donation at the door benefits Variety Children’s Charity of Northern California
Seating is limited; first come, first seated

We’ll be featuring three fabulous local authors on Saturday, June 22! Cliff Winnig, Heather McDougal, and Cassie Alexander will be joining us for short readings and conversation, moderated by author Terry Bisson. AND….it’s Debut Novel Drink Night! In honor of a debut novelist at the event — Ms. Heather McDougal — we’ll be serving up a specialty cocktail. All proceeds benefit Variety — so come imbibe, and have a good time with fiction!

Each author will read a selection from their work, followed by Q&A with the audience, moderated by Terry Bisson. Booksigning and schmoozing follows in the lounge. Books for sale courtesy of Borderlands Books.

The Variety Preview Room Theatre
The Hobart Bldg., 1st Floor — entrance between Quiznos and Citibank
582 Market Street @ 2nd and Montgomery
San Francisco, CA 94104

Don’t Drive — BART/MUNI Montgomery Street station is right at our front door, and parking in San Francisco sucks!!! Street parking ($3.50 per hour) is metered M-Sat., til 6PM; find a parking garage here.

Doctor Who returns on Saturday, June 29th! Courtesy of BBC Home Entertainment, we’ll be screening The Caves of Androzani. As an extra treat, we’ll be showing the bonus materials for this feature — and giving away some special prizes in our trivia contest, including buttons, DVDs, and a special 3-D printed TARDIS, courtesy of Deezmaker. We’ll be serving up Sonic Screwdrivers at the bar, and of course, free popcorn for everyone!

Doors and cash bar open at 4:00PM
Screening starts at 5:00PM
Suggested donation of $5-$10 per person at the door helps us bring you more films and events like this! No one turned away for lack of funds — but seating is limited and is first come, first seated. Get here early to get a good seat!

Doctor Who: The Caves of Androzani

Special Edition

Length: Approx. 99 minutes + bonus materials/ 2-disc set

On the cave-riddled world of Androzani Minor, the Fifth Doctor (Peter Davison) and Peri inadvertently find themselves enmeshed in a war fought between the ruthless General Chellak and the sinister Sharaz Jek and his army of androids. The duplicitous politician Morgus wants Chellak to execute the time travelers as spies, while the disfigured Jek seeks to keep Peri forever hostage within his stronghold. But the Doctor soon realizes an even more gruesome fate awaits them – they have been infected with fatal spectrox toxemia, and there is no cure. Hunted by both factions and with death just hours away, how far must the Doctor go in order to save his friend’s life?

The Variety Preview Room Theatre
The Hobart Bldg., 1st Floor — entrance between Quiznos and Citibank
582 Market Street @ 2nd and Montgomery
San Francisco, CA 94104

Don’t Drive — BART/MUNI Montgomery Street station is right at our front door, and parking in San Francisco sucks!!! Street parking ($3.50 per hour) is metered M-Sat., til 6PM; find a parking garage here.