San Francisco Motorcycle Club: City Landmark (And Fun-Loving Home To Our Release Party)

This granddaddy of motorcycle clubs celebrated its centenary in 2004. As the second oldest motorcycle club in the United States, the San Francisco Motorcycle Club (SFMC) is an iconic city landmark, a symbol of free-spirited bikers crisscrossing the American landscape.

Started in 1904, it gypsied from one place to the other before finding a home on 2194 Folsom Street in the Mission. The club website proudly proclaims its philosophy: they are not fixated with a particular motorcycle brand, open to all age groups (over 18), and members must take the business and the art of motorcycling seriously. The SFMC also likes to support the city's aspiring literary masterminds, and has played host to the Fourteen Hills release party for several years running.

Is there a reason these too seemingly disconnected groups -- writers and bikers -- go so well together? Of course there is, according to SFMC member John A. Sweeney. “The writer and the motorcyclist are kindred spirits," he explains. "We search for our souls in the blank sheet of paper and the open road.”

When you step inside the club this Friday at 7 p.m. for a night of readings, prizes, and literary celebration, you'll enter a plush wood interior to see trophies and historical photographs lining the walls. Take a seat, because this gorgeous room will quickly fill up with poets, writers, artists, bike riders, and more, reciting, bantering, and dancing. Voila, the next Fourteen Hills release party is born.

- Ashutosh Bhuradia, Fourteen Hills staff

From A Boudoir Studio Session To Delicious Ice Cream, These Raffle Prizes Can Be Yours at Our Release Party

At Fourteen Hills, the launch of a new issue is a community affair. Our upcoming release party will have not only amazing readers, but fabulous prizes donated by local Bay Area businesses, including gift certificates to some of the best eateries, bookstores, and movie houses in the city.

Here is a list of the participating businesses, and the amazing prizes that could be yours on May 21 for the price of a $2 raffle ticket!

Prizes to eat and drink

Wine-Tasting for Ten at Periscope Cellars Winery, Valued at $200
You and nine guests will tour Periscope Cellars, a leader in the Urban Wine Revolution. Winemaker Brendan Elasion will guide you through a barrel tasting from the previous harvest, as well as his award-winning current releases. This urban winery operates out of a WWII submarine repair facility, and specializes in yielding wines of unique character and quality. Periscope is the current winner of one Gold and three Silver medals in the SF Chronicle Wine Competition.
1410 62nd Street, Suite B (@Hollis) Emeryville, CA 510-655-7827

$50 Gift Certificate for Internos Wine Café
Internos Wine Café & Merchant, a new edition to the Inner Richmond and Laurel Heights neighborhoods, is a relaxed and cozy rustic wine bar that offers a sophisticated list of wines by the glass or bottle. For food, munch on Mediterranean inspired plates that compliment the wine selections.
3240 Geary Boulevard SF, CA 415.751.2661

$50 Gift Certificate for the Front Porch
The Front Porch is a gem in the heart of the outer Mission. Serving up Southern-style food and hospitality, guests can catch dinner nightly from 5:30—10:30PM. Yelpers praise The Front Porch as the best soul food in the Bay Area.
65A 29th Street SF, CA 415.695.7800

Free Club Entry and Drinks for Two at 222 Hyde, Valued at $40
Located in the Tenderloin, 222 Hyde is an awesome destination for nightlife in San Francisco. The events range from their famed J’adore Happy Hour that takes place the first Thursday of every month, to a wide array of DJs that spin experimental tunes to groove to.
222 Hyde SF, CA 94102 415-345-8222

(2) $25 Gift Certificates for the Mercury Café
Mercury Café is a favorite destination for café goers in the city. The restaurant is light and airy, specializes in drip coffee, and serves a great espresso, has great bagels and friendly baristas, plenty of outlets and free Wi-Fi.
201 Octavia Street SF, CA 415.252.7855

$25 Gift Certificate for Bi-Rite Creamery
Bi-Rite Creamery products are crafted in small batches. They specialize in artisanal ice creams, sorbets and dreamy confections. Bi-Rite strives to use local, organic ingredients, and maintains a commitment to operating in a sustainable manner. Situated in the heart of the Mission at Dolores Park, Bi-Rite is the perfect place to stop in for a treat.
3692 18th Street SF, CA 94110 415.626.5600

$20 Gift Certificate for Mocha 101
This neighborhood café located in the Parkside neighborhood of San Francisco has great salads, crepes and sandwiches. Mocha 101 also provides free Wi-Fi, low-key atmosphere, and is a lovely place to study, or grab a bite.
1722 Taraval Street SF, CA 94116 415.702.9869

Code Orange Organic Espresso Beans
These coffee beans from Ethos Coffee are great for French press or drip maker. This 12 oz. gift is yours to enjoy. Ethos coffee brewers roast their own beans to ensure pure drinking pleasure in a cup.

Prizes to help you woo a lover

$250 Professional Boudoir Studio Portrait Session
One lucky person will enjoy 60 effortless minutes of boudoir deification and a 10X20 vignette style framed print, compliments of Alba Fiore Photography.

$30 Gift Certificate for the Red Vic Movie House
The Red Vic is a collectively run cinema that offers an eclectic mix of independent, foreign and blockbuster films. This theater is a fabulous place to catch some local San Francisco culture, and a unique cinematic experience.
1727 Haight Street SF, CA 415.668.3992

Prizes to put on your body

(2) Sock Monsters, Valued at $60
The Sock Monsters were some of the most sought-after raffle prizes last year, so they are back by popular demand! Andrew Kornblatt handcrafts these awesome gifts, and you can try your luck at winning them in the raffle.

(2) $25 Gift Certificates for Fiftyseven-Thirtythree
This company makes all of their clothing in East Oakland using water based, solvent free inks. Fiftyseven-Thirtythree creates unique, inspired street wear for all. They sell urban accoutrements, from skate decks to hoodies.
4125 Piedmont Avenue, 2nd Fl. Oakland, CA 94611 510.547.5733

Prizes to awaken your mind

$70 Prize Pack of Omnibucket Illustrated Books
Win this fabulous set of three limited edition, illustrated Omnibooks. The Book of CLAV, God’s Acre book one: The Ravens & the Rhyme, and Eleventy Billion Miles Away are fascinating reads, complete with original artwork.

$25 Gift Certificate for Green Apple Books
This awesome local bookseller is the perfect place to sell, trade or buy books. If you are a lover of the written word, you will find informed, passionate staff at Green Apple Books.
506 Clement Street & 6th Avenue SF, CA 415.387.2272

$25 Gift Certificate for Pegasus Books
Pegasus and Pendragon Bookstores specialize in rare, used and out-of print books. With three locations to shop, this fine bookseller with stores in Berkeley and Oakland is a great destination for book-lovers in the Bay area.

$35 One-year membership for Modern Times Bookstore
Modern Times Bookstore is at the vanguard of progressive booksellers in the Bay area. With this one-year membership, the winner is guaranteed 10% off all purchases, on top of existing discounts. You will also receive a monthly events calendar in the mail, and participate in special member-only sales. Members also get their admission to events waived, as well as reduced rates on classes and workshops.
888 Valencia Street SF, CA 415-282-9246

$40 Free Membership to the Poetry Center & American Poetry Archives
Free year long membership to the SFSU Poetry Center which curates a distinctive reading series in both the Spring and Fall in locations all over the bay area. Readings are given from visiting writers from all over the world and archived in the largest archive of poetry in the country dating back to the 1950s, including Ginsberg, Langston Hughes, Williams Carlos Williams and thousands more. Membership includes access to these recordings.

“Voices” by Pam Benjamin: Hot New Release from Ink. Press
Ink. Press is a San Francisco publisher focusing on interesting, accessible work from the hotbed of creativity that is the Bay Area writing community. Ink. is dedicated to minimizing their carbon imprint as much as possible by using 30-100% post consumer waste to make their books and literary magazines. Ink. Reviewed is the literary magazine attached to the press, and explores writing, art and photography. Look for the forthcoming issue this summer featuring.

Limited Edition Broadside by Annemarie Munn
This prize is one of only ten custom prints of “Underwear Girl,” a poem by 16.2 contributor Elizabeth Hazen, made exclusively for Fourteen Hills by Annemarie Munn.

The Fourteen Hills Release Party is a great way to experience a vital part of the San Francisco literary community, and enjoy a great social event with food, drinks and new friends. The raffle prizes are yours to win, and we hope you’ll join us for what is sure to be a fantastic event.

If you haven’t bought your tickets, you can pick them up the night of the party. Raffle tickets will be sold for $2 each or three for $5. All proceeds from the raffle go to our non-profit literary journal, so we can continue to publish exciting writers and celebrate as a literary community for many years to come.

May 21, 2010 7:00 PM
Fourteen Hills: The SFSU Review 16.2 Release Party
At THE SAN FRANCISCO MOTORCYCLE CLUB
2194 Folsom St. (@18th St.) SF, CA
FREE ADMISSION
RSVP on Facebook

Can't wait to see you there.
-Safiya Martinez, Fourteen Hills staff

Art You Can Eat Right Off A Stick: Our May 21 Release Party Menu

Cooking is a form of creative expression, and just like Fourteen Hills: The San Francisco State University Review looks for unique and innovative fiction and poetry to light up your senses, we believe the food at our release party should be just as delicious and unforgettable.

If you attended our release last semester, hopefully you had a chance to try the gourmet Middle Eastern food prepared by Janna K. Denig.  This semester, on May 21, Fourteen Hills will continue the tradition of culinary excellence with catering by Jason Lujick, Lamont Perriman, and yours truly, Stephen Rosenshein.

For starters, we’ll have delicious and savory chicken and pork yakitori skewers, marinated in a sauce of mirin, soy, saki and sugar, carefully grilled over charcoal until perfectly tender and juicy, and then sprinkled with sesame seeds. A can’t-miss treat, sure to please your taste buds!

On the sweeter side of things we’ll have a bouquet of hand-selected fresh fruit from around the Bay Area. Don’t let the lovely floral arrangement fool you, this beautiful mix of melon, strawberry, grapes, and pineapple is perfectly edible.

Last, but definitely not least, are two focaccia pizzetta platters, focaccia bread topped with marinara sauce and an abundant helping of fresh mozzarella cheese, a generous donation from our friends at Bi-Rite Market.

Located in the center of the Mission, Bi-Rite Market is San Francisco’s premier neighborhood market, serving up fresh, local products to the area since 1940. Fourteen Hills would like to take this opportunity to thank Bi-Rite for their thoughtful donation and for supporting literary arts in the Bay Area community.

You can help support the community -- and eat tasty snacks for free -- at 7 p.m. on May 21 at the San Francisco Motorcycle Club. We hope you will join us in celebration of this issue’s authors, Bay Area community, and the beauty of art: literary, visual and culinary. RSVP today.

See you there!

-Stephen Rosenshein, Fourteen Hills Asst. Poetry Editor

Meet The Writers Who Plan To Wow You At Our Release Party On May 21

Come by the San Francisco Motorcycle Club on Friday, May 21, at 7pm to listen to our featured writers read from the Spring/Summer issue of Fourteen Hills, The San Francisco State University Review. Linger over delectable finger foods, listen to our awesome contributors, and dance the night away. For a taste of what the night will bring, check out this review of our last release party.

Jeannine Hall Gailey lives in the North Bay. Her first book, Becoming the Villainess, was published by Steel Toe Books. Poems from the book were featured on NPR’s The Writer’s Almanac and on Verse Daily; two were included in 2007’s The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. She volunteers as an editorial consultant for Crab Creek Review and currently teaches at the MFA program at National University.

Lauren Hamlin is a New England native currently living in San Francisco. She recently received her MFA from the University of Montana and is at work on her first novel.

Johnny Horton co-directs the University of Washington's summer creative writing program in Rome. He teaches writing the rest of the year in Seattle. He's published poems in Notre Dame Review, Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Willow Springs, and other magazines. He was recently a fellow at Ragdale and at the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.

Zara Raab’s poems and literary journalism have appeared (or will soon) in Flash, West Branch, Arts & Letters, Nimrod, Spoon River Poetry Review, and major newspapers such as the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Her Book of Gretel was published in spring 2010; Swimming the Eel will come out in 2011 from David Robert Books. She lives and writes in San Francisco.

Michael Schmeltzer earned an MFA from the Rainier Writing Workshop at Pacific Lutheran University. He is the publicity coordinator and poetry co-editor for A River & Sound Review and his work appears or is forthcoming in New York Quarterly, Water~Stone Review, Los Angeles Review, and Rosebud, among others. He was recently nominated for a Pushcart Prize.

Shanthi Sekaran's first novel, The Prayer Room, was released in 2009, and was first published in Best New American Voices 2004. She is a California native, and has recently moved back to the Bay Area after six years in England. She volunteers with 826 Valencia, and is working on her second novel. She now lives in Berkeley with her husband and two-year-old son.

Joseph Voth is a writer living in San Diego. He has recent/upcoming poetry in Epoch, South Carolina Review, and Cold Mountain Review among many others. He has just finished writing his first collection of poems, entitled Living with Noise and he teaches at San Diego State University.

I know you won’t want to miss this, so please RSVP on Facebook to let us know you’ll be there.  Come early to get seats, because our events get packed. It will also be your first chance to buy issue 16.2 of Fourteen Hills. Can’t wait to see everyone on May 21!

-Min K. Kang, Fourteen Hills staff

From The Archives: A Poem About A Peep-Show On Noah's Ark

Writer Jason Stumpf took on the unexpected in his short prose poem published in Spring/Summer 2007, Issue 13.2. Here it is in its entirety:

Noah's Ark Peep-Show

First suppose a raven and a dove. The heart heard in the ears.
He took her by two shoulders as if to wake her. This is how,
he said, hard truths are told. She stood in a waxy way as he
ran a hand across the velvet of her dress. Out the window:
water, and inside, too, the moon held sway. The parlor was
the pallor of a veil. She sighed, So here we are. We are, he
echoes, almost asking. A wide-shot over water: two birds
with nothing in their claws.

Thanks for letting us take a moment to share a favorite from the archives. If you have any pieces you remember fondly from past issues, or if you're a former contributor who'd like to be featured in this space, please let us know.

We'd also like to apologize for not updating much lately; we're very busy. Several updates are in the works, however, including a profile about great bookstores where you can find Fourteen Hills: The SFSU Review, bios of the fabulous readers appearing at our release party on May 21, and details about the raffle prizes you could win. More updates! More frequently! That's our (new) mantra.

More soon,
Leanne Milway Chabalko, Fourteen Hills assistant poetry editor

Save The Date: Fourteen Hills Spring Release Party Friday May 21

Hello fellow writers and readers. Thanks to everyone who came out to hear Adam Johnson read from his novel-in-progress on Thursday night. You can read the full story about the event on SFGate's Culture Blog (thanks, Alex!).

Now it's time to gear up for one of Fourteen Hills' favorite events: the release party for the issue we've been working on all semester. Behold the beautiful cover with artwork by Alec Laughlin, and come out to the San Francisco Motorcycle Club on Friday May 21 at 7 p.m. to hear from featured writers Jeannine Hall Gailey, Lauren Hamlin, Zara Raab, Michael Schmeltzer, Shanthi Sekaran, and Joseph Voth.

There will be mouth-watering treats, fabulous raffle prizes, DJs and dancing. RSVP on Facebook and stay tuned right here and on Twitter for updates.

Who Is Adam Johnson? (Find Out On April 15)

Reading Thursday at 7 p.m. in the Poetry Center is writer Adam Johnson, recipient of the 2010 Gina Berriault Award. Johnson won several big money awards in the last couple of years, not least of which was the Whiting Writers Award in 2009.

Caroline Chen of The Stanford Daily writes: "The Whiting Award, currently in its 25th year, praises Johnson as 'fearless' and 'dazzling.' Johnson joins the ranks of other famous award-winners such as authors David Foster Wallace (1987), Michael Cunningham (1995) and one of his heroes, English Prof. Tobias Wolff (1989)."

Johnson is in very good company. If David Foster Wallace and Tobias Wolff are your cup of tea, then Adam Johnson is likely to impress you, and there’s no excuse for you to miss this event. Fiction writers are encouraged to take advantage of Johnson’s campus visit, because how often does the Poetry Center feature notable fiction writers who give you a privileged sneak preview of their work (Johnson is currently working on a new novel about North Korea that he describes as "a North Korean Casablanca")?

Johnson is a senior lecturer at Stanford, but he is not just your average English teacher. His short story collection Emporium was described by Michiko Kakutani in the New York Times as "funny-sad-bizarre," which is fitting, because his work takes us places that may seem like our own backyards, but are actually chunks of familiar terrain situated on another plane of reality.

Need another reason to attend? Where else, outside of Matthew Davison’s classes, can you get this kind of anecdote:

"As an undergraduate, I liked writing short stories and was happy to be in the air conditioning, rather than out banging nails in the Arizona heat. It was cool to hang out with other people who loved books and go to smarty-pants parties. But it was a teacher who took me aside, a mentor who made me strive, a writer who showed me that all my perceived faults — lying, exaggerating, daydreaming, rubbernecking — combined to make something good called a story." ­­­

That's Adam Johnson, sharing stories on Jewcy.com. Join us April 15, Humanities Room 512 at San Francisco State University, to hear from this rising star in person.

-Amy Glasenapp, Fourteen Hills fiction editor