“San Francisco is supposed to be welcoming to all types, and it’s getting harder and harder to be artsy,” Matthew DeCoster tells me in an interview over the phone.
DeCoster is one of the producers at Literary Death Match, a long-running event where authors read their work in a semi-game-show format that encourages a raucous and engaged crowd. If you’ve ever had to read your work in front of an audience, that last part almost sounds too good to be true. But it’s real.
Two nights later, Literary Death Match is on at Elbo Room in the Mission. People greet one another with hugs and enthusiastic waves, the space already standing room only underneath multicolored lanterns and disco-ball lights. The conversation is at a steady hum, the guests chatting about events they’ve already attended for Litquake and who they know that’s a part of tonight’s reading.
Pairs of authors battle in a “read-off” in front of a live audience and a panel of judges, culminating in a quiz-show-style round of questions between teams. The winner gets bragging rights, and everyone goes home with a few drinks in their system and some new emerging writers to watch for.
DeCoster takes the mic, thanking everyone for coming, and passes around the donation bucket (literally). He briefly mentions the tenuous existence of the National Endowment for the Arts — a potential nationwide loss that could mean it’s getting harder and harder to be “artsy” anywhere. Then it’s time for the game to begin.
Pairs of authors battle in a “read-off” in front of a live audience and a panel of judges, culminating in a quiz-show-style round of questions between teams. The winner gets bragging rights, and everyone goes home with a few drinks in their system and some new emerging writers to watch for.
At one point, DeCoster moves through the crowd looking for a pen. I volunteer mine, wondering at a bar full of what DeCoster refers to as “word nerds” who seem to be lacking pens. “Whether you’re a reader or a writer, you’re a word nerd, and there’s very few places for word nerds to get together,” says DeCoster. “The writer’s life is such a solitary endeavor. When writers can get together to share a community, it can’t be anything but good.”
Part of that good comes from the juxtaposition of award-winning and established writers like Pulitzer prize-winner Jane Smiley or Saturday night’s Pushcart-winning competitor, Molly Giles, with emerging writers who are at an earlier stage of their careers — like Luna Malbroux, playwright and author of How to Be a White Man, and JiaJing Liu, poet and editor whose work has appeared in The Awl.
The writer’s life is such a solitary endeavor. When writers can get together to share a community, it can’t be anything but good.
The event has been partnering with Litquake, San Francisco’s nine-day literary festival, since 2013. That first year, Smiley competed and won. This year, Smiley returned as a judge. This sense of the cyclical isn’t accidental. DeCoster cites the Litquake and Literary Death Match community as being integral to what makes the event so important.
“What I most appreciate about Litquake is what I most appreciate about Literary Death Match,” says DeCoster. “It’s a mixing of emerging writers to be featured or onstage with an established writer…It’s an enormous confidence booster.”
This round of Literary Death Match ends with Liu victorious, approaching the mic at the end of a rapid-fire quiz round to receive a crown from Adrian Todd Zuniga, the creator and host of Literary Death Match. Liu takes a moment to place both hands over her heart and say how she’s leaving the night with more friends—and given the way the contestants and judges are laughing and hugging, this seems like a true statement.
The next morning, at another Litquake event, I recognize a young man who had been standing next to me at Literary Death Match the night before. I introduce myself, and he asks me immediately, “Did you ever get your pen back?” I laugh and say no, I didn’t. It’s all right — I’ll consider this my first-ever contribution to the Litquake community.
LitQuake continues this week, ending in a full-on multi-location Lit Crawl on October 14. You can get the entire week’s schedule and start planning your Saturday crawl at Litquake’s official site. If you want to catch Literary Death Match in all its word-nerd glory, check out their website for details. And be sure to bring a pen.
