Friday January 18, 7pm
Booksmith, 1644 Haight Street, San Francisco
Launch of a new quarterly from The Fray storytelling empire. This premier issue is titled “Busted: True Stories of Getting Caught in the Act.” Readers include Joe Loya, Steve Silberman, Kirk Read, Kate Kotler, and myself. Emcee: Fray editor/publisher Derek Powazek. My piece details the experience of smuggling a severed swordfish beak from Chile into the United States (which a few of you might have heard on Air America Radio).

Saturday January 19, 730 pm
Edinburgh Castle, 950 Geary, San Francisco
Accompanying my pal Chuck Thompson, who’s on tour for his new book, “Smile When You’re Lying: Confessions of a Rogue Travel Writer” (Holt), which is getting rave reviews:

“(Thompson) knows the score and he tallies it accurately. … A dead-on demolition job. … The book is a savagely funny act of revenge.”—The New York Times

“Consistently irreverent, Thompson is wickedly entertaining … reminiscent of Chuck Klosterman and David Foster Wallace. … Thompson asks the right questions about why we travel, how we travel and what we expect from the experience. The unvarnished reality in these pages might just make you more eager than ever to hit the road.”—San Francisco Chronicle

Books will be for sale at both events.

Winston Churchill’s baby clothes. A 10-foot-tall toilet. UFO abductions. They’re all part of Ireland’s most eccentric castle.
Read the rest of this entry »

Being chased by a bull is Martin Kiff’s job. And yeah, there’s an art to it. But the bigger question is, how does Martin Kiff fit 26 rodeo clowns into one truck?
Read the rest of this entry »

The Melting Point
Whether or not you believe in global warming, the fact remains that a vast majority of the world’s glaciers are shrinking.
Read the rest of this entry »

Fray publishing, 2008.

A new quarterly from San Francisco’s Fray storytelling community.

“Fray began as a website. We presented individually designed, true first-person stories. Each one ended with a question that prompted the audience to tell their stories, too. Then it evolved into a series of live storytelling events, Fray Days and Fray Cafes, that took place all over the world, attended by thousands of people. And now Fray is evolving again – this time into a quarterly series of independently produced books. Each one will be on a central storytelling theme, and include personal stories, articles, and original art. They will come out quarterly. They will be awesome.”

Buy copies here.