Babylon Salon

Babylon Salon Babylon Salon is a quarterly reading & performance series based in San Francisco

"In 'God Made Dirt, & Dirt Ain’t Popeyes,' a meticulously constructed broken sestina, [Bernardo Wade] describes the hung...
06/12/2026

"In 'God Made Dirt, & Dirt Ain’t Popeyes,' a meticulously constructed broken sestina, [Bernardo Wade] describes the hunger of New Orleans as a city where 'someone / simmers the cayenne-soaked grease bucket like / God lit the fire because He felt a mother’s pressure, like / he wanted a day off from feeding these children.' Some of the most haunting moments in these poems are tied closely to their landscape, a place where blue lights and sirens are always 'knifing through the night' after 'hot-blooded men.'"

Bernardo Wade’s poetry stopped us in our tracks and gave us the chills in the best of all possible ways. Bernardo’s going to give a phenomenal reading at our Babylon Salon Summer 2026 Performance and we can’t wait to hear it!

Tomorrow! 6/13 at 5:30pm. Our usual stomping grounds, The Sycamore!

At the core of this collection is Wade’s complex relationship with his father, whose presence is at once both painful and familiar.

Jesus Sierra is such an anchor in the Bay Area literary community. We love his insightful essay and reflection on Manuel...
06/12/2026

Jesus Sierra is such an anchor in the Bay Area literary community. We love his insightful essay and reflection on Manuel Muñoz's short story, “Anyone Can Do It.”

We're so thrilled to welcome Jesus Sierra back for our Babylon Salon Summer 2026 Performance! This Saturday, June 13 at 5:30pm!

The short story “Anyone Can Do It” in Manuel Muñoz’s collection, the February CBC selection, illuminates immigrant hardship.

“I think it’s safe to say that the book is a little strange. A little offbeat. So, if you’re into books that get a bit w...
06/11/2026

“I think it’s safe to say that the book is a little strange. A little offbeat. So, if you’re into books that get a bit weird, if you’re interested in language or in the unknowable depths of what it means to be alive, you may enjoy reading.”

We love strange. We love offbeat. We love author and Point Reyes Books manager, Samantha Kimmey!

Check out this glowing write-up and get stoked to hear Samantha read from her novel, The Extremities! This Saturday, June 13, at our Babylon Salon Summer 2026 Performance at the beloved The Sycamore!

Pt. Reyes author Samantha Kimmey's debut novel, the The Extremities!, plunges readers into the world of a newspaper reporter who loses the ability to type.

"I had a teacher who told me, 'I don't know how to help you, because this is so far from what I think fiction is, you kn...
06/09/2026

"I had a teacher who told me, 'I don't know how to help you, because this is so far from what I think fiction is, you know?'...That was soul-crushing for a while. But at the same time, it was really a gift because I was like, 'You're right, not everybody reads the same thing.' Some teachers are not good in certain areas. I appreciate that she was more upfront about it."

Poet, editor, and speculative fiction author, Heidi Kasa, talks about trusting her own voice in this wonderful conversation on NJ Knight's "A Little Bit Punk Rock, A Little Bit Art Deco" substack.

Give it a read and get excited to meet Heidi at our Babylon Salon Summer 2026 Performance this Saturday, June 13 at our favorite spot, The Sycamore!

In Which Heidi Kasa Talks Art School, Motherhood and How To Create During the Horrors

"Portia Elan’s debut is a gentle hymn to found families – the kin we choose rather than inherit – and it’s fitting that ...
06/08/2026

"Portia Elan’s debut is a gentle hymn to found families – the kin we choose rather than inherit – and it’s fitting that it reads that way, assembled from allegiances. Elan knows what her characters will discover: stories are how we claim one another."
— The Guardian

We are such Portia Elan fans, and we can't wait to hear her read from the gorgeous, gorgeous Homebound this Saturday, June 13, at our Babylon Salon Summer 2026 Performance!

Join us for an evening with Portia Elan (Homebound), Heidi Kasa (The Bullet Takes Forever), Samantha Kimmey (The Extremities!), Bernardo Wade (A Love Tap), and Jesus Sierra (At Times of Loss and Other Cuban Stories).

Come early for drinks at 5pm in the outdoor covered patio in back! Reading starts promptly at 5:30pm. As always, admission is free.

The Sycamore is located at 2140 Mission St in San Francisco (near 16th St Mission BART).

From 1980s Cincinnati into the interstellar darkness, the stories of four women interconnect across the centuries in a gentle hymn to found families

"Grayson Thompson writes with a quiet dignity that belies his formal mastery and his clever command of language. A Congr...
03/13/2026

"Grayson Thompson writes with a quiet dignity that belies his formal mastery and his clever command of language. A Congregation of Alligators is many things—a reminiscence, an affirmation, a brave and painstaking assessment of personal traumas—but its power comes from resisting the reinvention, the clean break."
— J. Howard Rosier, Board Member of the National Book Critics Circle

What a swoon-worthy blurb! Grayson Thompson contains multitudes, and so does his poetry. Winner of Write Bloody Publishing's 2024 Jack McCarthy Book Prize, his full-length collection, A Congregation of Alligators, asks how does one become a person? How do we make sense of the outline of home?

Want to go deeper? Don't miss this gorgeous interview with Foglifter Journal: https://www.foglifterjournal.com/grayson-thompson-interview

And join us TOMORROW! 3/14 at The Sycamore for our Babylon Salon Spring 2026 Performance!!

- Stephen Patrick Bell in conversation with Grayson Thompson - By Stephen Patrick Bell Foglifter Press and Still Here San Francisco have collaborated to create a poetry chapbook prize for local emerging q***r and trans Black writers, indigenous writers, and writers of color. Grayson Thompson, winner...

Here's one for the readers who love the City as much as we do! 🌉 Mark Ernest Pothier's breathtaking novel, Outer Sunset,...
03/12/2026

Here's one for the readers who love the City as much as we do! 🌉 Mark Ernest Pothier's breathtaking novel, Outer Sunset, blossomed from a Chicago Tribune/Nelson Algren Award-winning short story into a full novel about life in one of San Francisco's most beloved neighborhoods—a process that took 30 years!

The SF Chronicle calls it an "a wise, elegantly written book about a transformational moment for a family and their city." Check it out! https://www.sfchronicle.com/entertainment/books/article/review-outer-sunset-sf-bittersweet-novel-unfolds-17925868.php

We can't wait to welcome Mark to our Babylon Salon Spring 2026 Performance! This Saturday, 3/14 at The Sycamore!

In “Outer Sunset,” novelist Mark Ernest Pothier pens a bittersweet tale of San Francisco on the edge of transformation in the ’90s.

We are over the 🌙 moon 🌙to celebrate our very own Lauren C. Johnson at our Babylon Salon Spring 2026 Performance on 3/14...
03/11/2026

We are over the 🌙 moon 🌙to celebrate our very own Lauren C. Johnson at our Babylon Salon Spring 2026 Performance on 3/14!

Lauren's debut novel, The West Façade (SFWP, March 2026), is set in 1348 Paris, where the statues of the Notre-Dame Cathedral come to life on the night of the new moon. One of them, Sainte Geneviève, can't resist biting into a forbidden fruit that was left as an offering. What follows is, as Unruly Figures puts it, "lush and sensorial... a deeply empathetic book, full of very relatable human wants and worries." Peep the full review: https://unrulyfigures.substack.com/p/book-review-the-west-facade-by-lauren

Join us Saturday, 3/14 at The Sycamore, 2140 Mission St, San Francisco (near 16th St Mission BART). Join us for drinks and curly fries at 5pm! Show starts at 5:30pm in the outdoor covered patio.

Statues are coming to life in Paris, plus a few other things I've read lately

What happens when a writer picks up a photo and follows where their imagination leads? ✍️📸 For Grant Faulkner, this proc...
03/10/2026

What happens when a writer picks up a photo and follows where their imagination leads? ✍️📸 For Grant Faulkner, this process was the inspiration for his seventh book, “something out there in the distance.” Faulkner calls his latest work a “flash novel of super-short stories" woven together with images by LA photographer Gail Butensky.

"This was so joyful and organic," Grant told Berkeleyside. "I just picked a photo and if it spoke to me I would write about it."

Grant is the co-founder of Memoir Nation (and also the co-host of the Memoir Nation podcast), the co-founder of the Flash Fiction Institute, the co-founder of 100 Word Story, and an executive producer on America’s Next Great Author. He’s has published All the Comfort Sin Can Provide, Fissures, Nothing Short of 100: Selected Tales from 100 Word Story, and so much more!!!

Check out the Berkeleyside feature and join us this Saturday, 3/14 for our Babylon Salon Spring 2026 Performance 🌿🌷

Plus, in other new Berkeley books: Michael Pollan on consciousness — and a deeply researched novel about two famed women pirates of history.

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2140 Mission Street
San Francisco, CA
94110

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