I am so excited for BookFest! The festival, held at the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco from Thursday, February 23 through Tuesday, February 28, features a stellar lineup of writers, artists, filmmakers, and thinkers in a weekend-long series of lectures, conversations, and presentations.

Who I Can't Wait To See [Click on the link to find their work in the library catalog]:

Nicole Krauss

Joyce Carol Oates

Harold Bloom, Literary Critic

Sam Tanenhaus, Editor of The New York Times Book Review

Philip Levine, Poet Laureate of the United States 2011-2012

and Miranda July, a Berkeley-born writer, performer, filmmaker, and all-around creative icon. As a long time fan, I got to see Miranda in conversation as part of the City Arts and Lecture series last November. You may have heard the recorded interview broadcast on KQED last week. Here's an illustration of the event by San Francisco-based artist Wendy MacNaughton.

From Miranda July's book It Chooses You.

All I ever really want to know is how people are making it through life: where do they put their body hour after hour and how do they cope inside of it.

Miranda is bravely intuitive and unceasingly curious as an artist. She tackles the darkest aspects of humanity with honesty and humor, creating profound yet intimate moments of connection. To find out more, I recommend this article in the New York Times magazine, her sites here, here, and here.

This video captures an installation she made for the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo.