Modern Times Bookstore in San Francisco presents Denise Low June 12

Denise Low presents trickster Jackalope’s gender-bending narratives in the GearsTurning Poetry series, hosted by Kim Shuck, June 12 Sunday, 4 to 6 pm at Modern Times Bookstore in the Mission, San Francisco with music by Ed Dang. 2919 24th Street San Francisco, CA 94110

About Denise Low’s Jackalope: "JACKALOPE is a perfect blend of stories, poetry, and strangeness. Denise Low has created a collection that is simultaneously myth and not-myth, a shining delight."—Kij Johnson, Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Awards winner

"Trickster takes center stage in Denise Low's JACKALOPE, a collection of prose and poetry recounting the adventures of its title character, Jackalope Kelley. This anthropomorphic animal is the cryptid on postcards you see at gas stations across the American Midwest—a rabbit with two iconic pronghorn antlers. Jackalope Kelley shifts between male and female identities: Jack when he's a man, Jaq when she's a woman. He drinks a gin and tonic in a Twitter bar. She passes through Seattle, Santa Fe, Minneapolis, Colorado, and Roswell, among other places. He vomits when he sees the head of one of his ancestors mounted above the door in a Wyoming bar. And she searches for a gynecologist—or does he need a urologist? All of these scenes give the book a playful feel, but there's also plenty of time for reflection. In quieter moments, Jackalope tries to explain his complicated heritage to others. ... This merging of shape-shifting identities with shape-shifting trickster narratives is no accident. The language of the book is steeped in the Native American mythologies and vocabularies that Low understands so well."—Ben Pfeiffer, Interviews Editor, The Rumpus Reviews and Other Links  Ben Pfeiffer @ KCUR Public Radio  Lisa McLendon @ The Wichita Eagle  Fred Whitehead @ Penniless Press

 Denise Low, Ks. Poet Laureate 2007-09, is award-winning author of 25 books, including Melange Block (Red Mountain Press, 2014), and Kansas Poems of William Stafford. Her fiction has earned two Pushcart Prize nominations. Low is past board president of Associated Writers and Writing Programs. She blogs, reviews, and co-publishes Mammoth Publications. Her professional workshops have national reach, and she teaches at Baker University. She has British Isles, German, Delaware, and Cherokee heritage. She has an MFA and PhD. 

About Kim Shuck: Kim Shuck is a poet, weaver, educator doer of piles of laundry, planter of seeds,

traveler and child wrangler. She was born in her mother's hometown of San Francisco, one hill away from where she now lives. Her ancestors were and are Tsalagi, Sauk and Fox and Polish, for the most part. She earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in weaving in 1998 from San Francisco State University. As a poet Kim has read her work around the US and elsewhere. In late 2005 she toured through Jordan with a group of poets from all over the globe in the interest of peace and communication. Shuck reads her work on local radio frequently. Kim's visual art has been included in shows both locally and abroad such as a textile show at the National Museum of Taiwan in Taipei and Art, Women, California at the San Jose Art Museum. She consults with museums and galleries around California on the subjects of Native artwork and community inclusion. Kim continues working in schools and has taught at all levels: at San Francisco State University as well as many elementary schools. Her work with the Exploratorium, a hands on museum in San Francisco, is included in that museum's "Across Cultures" series. She's been teaching since 3rd grade when she organized and taught a class on crochet. Her work generally touches on poetry, art, math, storytelling, humor, and whatever else seems useful at the time. 

About Rabbit Stories: "What Kim Shuck is writing is vital and vibrant. She is blending tradition with modernity, history with humor and her own Indigenous perspective witheverything else. She is kind enough to invite us all into her mind, her life and her tribe through her writing and to smile at us when we realize that we are glad we came, glad we read this evocative book and glad that we met this powerful and significant poet."—Dr. Dawn Karima Pettigrew, author of The Marriage of Saints: A Novel (University of Oklahoma Press, 2006) 

About Modern Times Bookstore: “Our politics also shape the organization of our business. Modern Times has operated as a collective since the very start. All important management decisions are discussed collectively, and staff members are eligible to become worker-owners. Modern Times is a member of NoBAWC, the Northern California Alliance of Worker Collectives. We’re happy to be a part of a larger network of independent businesses working together to create worker friendly, conscientious, alternative models of business. And it’s Modern Times’ collective management structure that allows people to give so much of themselves, and pour so much of their creativity into a store that truly reflects the personalities of everybody who works here. Modern Times is a member of the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association, Calle 24 Cultural District and Merchants Association and the United Booksellers of San Francisco.”- See more at: http://moderntimesbookstore.com/about/history/#sthash.e11dNOTu.dpuf