Community newsletter: One year of Local Economy

Hello! We are gearing up this week for our first birthday, which is officially on Thursday, Oct 1, and which we'll be celebrating on Saturday at Fig Leaf Gardens (you're invited). Incredibly, we've hosted 203 public events since October 1, 2025, in addition to hosting meetings for several community organizing groups and local media projects.

Just last week, we had a packed storytelling event focused on public transit with SPUR and Muni Diaries. Then we had Callaloo, the premier journal of literature, art, and culture of the African Diaspora, in the house. Then we hosted ambient musician Dream Crease and the San Francisco Estuary Institute in our partnership with Lo-Fi Oyster Co. Then we had a Zen caregiving workshop. And members could have gone to all of those for a combined $15. Not bad, in this economy.

Not exactly in honor of making it to a year, we launched a podcast that will be populated with live event recordings from the space. The first episode was a conversation with Paulina Borsook, the dyspeptic seer of Silicon Valley; and the second is a discussion between writer Carvell Wallace, novelist Keenan Norris, and Callaloo editor Kyla Kupferstein Torres about trauma and craft. You can find the pod in all the normal places.

Our October calendar is stacked with incredible programming. Some of the events are already sold out. One benefit of becoming a member is that you get early access to RSVP, which means that you'll never have that sad feeling of seeing something you want to go to, but finding there are no tickets left.

But the real reason to join the 700 members of Local Economy is that ... memberships power everything we do. They let us book all kinds of events and offer them to the public at radically accessible prices. They let us keep the doors open on what must be the best coworking deal in the Bay. They are an engine of generosity that we're shocked works as well as it does.

Thanks for a jaw-dropping first year of community and interesting ideas. We can't wait to see how this place keeps evolving. And if you've got questions, you can always reach us at hi@thelocaleconomy.com.

Warmly,

Sarah & Alexis

This Week at Local Economy

• Wed, Sep 30, 6pm: Ping Practice: A different type of journaling practice
  Sometimes a word, phrase, or quote hits us — it resonates in the body, touching some invisible place within. Maybe you capture that sort of thing in the notes app, or a paper journal, or scrawled on whatever was within reach. This evening is an opportunity to revisit those captures, reflect on them together, and talk about how they can grow into meaningful creative work. Led by Peter Pelberg, founder of the non-profit journaling method Ping Practice.
• Thurs, Oct 1, 6pm: SPUR's Ballots and Brews
  Each election, the local urban think tank SPUR releases a Voter Guide offering comprehensive analysis and recommendations on the complex measures up for vote. This evening provides a detailed examination of the local measures on the November ballot, in a relaxed setting, with some beers at hand. (This one is sold out, but there's a waitlist.)
• Fri, Oct 2, 5pm: Blueprints for Belonging: Launch Event
  Blueprints for Belonging is a 10-year, multi-state initiative dedicated to turning today's fragile community-led development momentum into durable, justice-centered infrastructure for health, prosperity, and resilience. (This one is sold out, but there's a waitlist.)
• Sat, Oct 3, 2pm: One Year Anniversary Party (!) at Fig Leaf Gardens
  Oh my, happy birthday to all of us! We'll gather at Fig Leaf Gardens for an afternoon of gratitude, good food, and some drinks. Dan Polsby from Best Friends will be pouring wine, and there will be food from a couple of excellent pop-ups you know and love: Manitas and Good Luck Bakery. There will be some light programming at 3pm, but mostly this is a hang in a beautiful place with all of us.
• Sun, Oct 4, 5pm: Andrew Boryga and Ingrid Rojas Contreras on the trauma plot
  Andrew Boryga's novel Victim was named a Best Book of the Year by NPR and the BBC. A satirical sendup of tear-jerking trauma plots, it asks what real diversity looks like and how far one man is willing to go to make his story hit the right notes. Boryga will be in conversation with Pulitzer Prize finalist (and San Franciscan) Ingrid Rojas Contreras, author of The Man Who Could Move Clouds.

Upcoming Events

• Tues, Oct 6, 6pm: Bird-tanical Drawing!
  Hannah Hirsekorn teams up with Maggie Tokuda-Hall for a special drawing class that takes Hannah's botanical specialty and mixes it with Maggie's, which we take to be pigeons (and maybe other, lesser birds sometimes). (This one is sold out, but there's a waitlist.)
• Wed, Oct 7, 6pm: Miriam Pawel on the history of the University of California
  Pulitzer Prize winner Miriam Pawel is back with California Dreams, an epic history of one of the world's elite public universities, its sweeping social impact, and its hopeful lessons about endurance in troubled times. The University of California has sat at the nexus of nearly every public policy debate and social movement since the Civil War, from women's rights to student protests to affirmative action. Pawel will be joined in conversation by Berkeleyside founder Frances Dinkelspiel, author of the New York Times bestseller Tangled Vines. (Only a few spots left!)
• Thurs, Oct 8, 6pm: KPFA Co-Presents Dave Zirin on The People's Historian, Howard Zinn
  KPFA co-presents this evening celebrating The People's Historian: The Outsized Life of Howard Zinn, by Dave Zirin, a columnist at The Nation. The book examines the life and work of the iconic radical historian whose bestselling A People's History of the United States changed the way Americans saw the past — and, despite its conservative critics, the way history is taught. Zirin will be joined by Davey D, journalist, hip hop historian, and host of Hard Knock Radio on KPFA. Co-hosted with East Bay Booksellers, who will be selling the book. (This one is sold out, but there's a waitlist.)
• Sat, Oct 10, 1pm: Oakland Noticing Club: Shadows
  Turn on your curiosity radar and join us for the latest meeting of the Oakland Noticing Club, an informal meet-up inspired by Rob Walker's “Savor of the Month” at The Art of Noticing. This month's subject is shadows. Come notice alongside your neighbors; no expertise required, just a willingness to pay attention to something you'd usually walk right past.
• Sun, Oct 11, 2pm: Motherhood and Interspecies Solidarity in a Time of Climate Crisis
  Curators and scholars Alexandra Moore and LuLing Osofsky read from their essay in The Weather and the Whale and talk about motherhood, grief, and care in the midst of climate catastrophe. Drawing on the story of Tahlequah, the orca who carried her dead calf for seventeen days, they ask what cetacean motherhood can teach us about mourning and memory, and whether a whale mother's grief might be read as a demand for action — a basis for multispecies political solidarity. In conversation with filmmaker and Local Economy member Alix Blair Darling. Books for sale with East Bay Booksellers.
• Tues, Oct 13, 6pm: Jasmine Guillory's debut YA book (& birthday celebration)
  Jasmine Guillory is Oakland's own best-selling romance novelist. Since leaving her career as a lawyer, she's written nine novels with a memorable array of diverse characters, and now she's trying her hand at young adult. It's Only Dancing is a delightful riff on Dirty Dancing: a camp, a dance instructor, being young and free. She'll be in conversation with Maggie Tokuda-Hall, who also writes lauded books for kids and teens (and draws pigeons). Aaannd we'll be celebrating Jasmine's birthday with cake, ice cream, and bubbles. Take it from Cosmopolitan: “Everything Jasmine Guillory touches turns to gold.”
• Wed, Oct 14, 6pm: WE GATHER: Fall art opening and community conversation
  A celebration of creativity, connection, and community. Artist Jen Bloomer's new collection will be up on the walls, and local author and community builder Courtney Martin will lead a panel that includes comedian and documentary filmmaker W. Kamau Bell, artist Wendy MacNaughton, community leader Stephanie Balon, urban farmer Alfred Montenegro, and bestselling author Kate Schatz. Music, refreshments, and good people abound. Free for members, $10 for non-members. Space is limited. (This one is sold out, but there's a waitlist.)
• Thurs, Oct 15, 6pm: The Art of Midlife #4: On the Possibilities of Women's Sports, with Kate Schatz and Audacious Wilson
  How do we build community in midlife? What does it mean to be a sports fan in a middle-aged body? Why are so many women of a certain age getting Valkyries tattoos? Audacious Wilson — poet, memoirist, and one of four co-founders of HYSTERIA, Oakland's first women's sports bar — joins die-hard Valkyries fan and feminist author Kate Schatz, most recently of Where the Girls Were. Against the backdrop of the Golden State Valkyries' historic playoff run, they explore why women's sports offers such a powerful entry point for community, even if you don't identify as an athlete.
• Sat, Oct 17, 10am: Storytime for Caregivers: Britt Murlas of Little Feminist
  For our first anniversary edition of Storytime for Caregivers, we're trying something special: a Saturday morning gathering, and rather than our typical focus on books for adults, this month is all about board books. We'll be joined by Britt Murlas, founder of Little Feminist, publisher of inclusive books for kids. Between reading board books for the babies in the room, we'll chat about the origins of Little Feminist and how to curate a diverse home library. Babies and toddlers welcome but not required. Hosted by member Patricia Zaballos. Free.
• Sat, Oct 17, 6pm: The steamy romance of a universal basic income
  Alexandra Romanoff's Big Fan is a romance novel in which a political strategist falls for her teenage pop star crush — and spends the book trying to get him to endorse a universal basic income campaign. Called “Highbrow/Brilliant” by New York Magazine, it's also, quietly, one of the best pop-culture arguments for guaranteed income in recent memory. Romanoff is joined by author, advocate, and Local Economy member Natalie Foster, who wrote The Guarantee: Inside the Fight for America's Next Economy. Hosted by buzzy publisher 831 Stories, their conversation will deliver romance and policy both.
• Sun, Oct 18, 10am: Because I Have To #1: Amar Lal & Paolo Bicchieri
  BECAUSE I HAVE TO is a new discussion series featuring Bay Area artists, writers, musicians, chefs, and creators who work across multiple mediums — against the grain of their professional lives, alongside them, or within them. Hosted by Jeff Wright, the conversations dig into the real whys that drive us to make things. First up: Amar Lal, an Oakland mastering engineer, musician, and artist whose latest book, Practicing Joy, collects his graphic scores; and Paolo Bicchieri, a writer and poet who heads up the Kitchen Table reading series. Sliding scale $0–$20, no one turned away; free coffee.
• Sun, Oct 18, 2pm: Get Out the Vote! Postcard Writing Session
  Come help get out the vote. Join neighbors for an afternoon of writing postcards to voters who don't always vote or may have skipped recent primaries. As we all know, the stakes are high and every vote matters. We will supply addresses, postcards, the script, pens, stamps, and snacks. You supply neat penmanship and fun banter. Suggested donation of $5 to cover materials.
• Tues, Oct 20, 6pm: Conversations with Ursula K. LeGuin on writing
  Ursula K. Le Guin is one of the greatest writers of the last century and one of the animating ancestors for Local Economy. We've been obsessed with her books and essays and talks these last couple of years, and we are not alone: a series of her books is being reissued. David Naimon, writer and host of the Milkweed Press podcast Between the Covers, was close with Le Guin, and shortly before she died the two put together a book of conversations about writing. We'll talk with him about craft, what she was like, and the continuing resonance of her work in these times.
• Wed, Oct 21, 6pm: Poet Melinda Clemmons book launch with Kim Addonizio and Tracey Knapp
  Oakland writer Melinda Clemmons celebrates the publication of Closer, her first book of poems, from Pine Row Press — “a luminous catalog of wonder,” in the words of poet Kelly Grace Thomas, “attuned to the quiet ways revelation enters our lives.” She'll be joined by Kim Addonizio, author of nine poetry collections including the National Book Award finalist Tell Me and, most recently, Exit Opera; and by Tracey Knapp, whose second collection, Swerve, came out from Pine Row this spring.
• Thurs, Oct 22, 6pm: The Philosophy of Huey Newton: Delio Vásquez in Conversation with East Bay Yesterday
  Huey P. Newton was called many things in his time: revolutionary, genius, criminal, even the most surveilled human being in world history. Yet little of the truth about him is known today, thanks to persistent distortions of his legacy. In Huey P. Newton: I Am We, a much-needed intellectual history, Delio Vásquez establishes the Black Panther co-founder as a true philosopher who theorized how the most oppressed could spearhead revolutionary change. Vásquez, a political theory scholar at NYU, will be in conversation with Liam O'Donoghue, host of the East Bay Yesterday podcast. Books via East Bay Booksellers.
• Sun, Oct 25, 10am: Tax Release: Art Installation and Public Shredding Event
  Ten days after the IRS extended filing deadline, Professor Galen Crantz will lay out her tax returns from 1963 to 2018 in a one-day installation at Local Economy, so that she can see, and share, an accumulation of bureaucratic effort that is personal to her and relatable for all of us. The public is invited to view the sheer scale of the returns, and to bring their own tax documents (older than seven years!) to shred manually onsite or drop in secure bins. At day's end, 56 years of Galen's documents will be similarly released.
• Tues, Oct 27, 6pm: Fatimah Asghar and Hieu Minh Nguyen on Daughter of the Mountains
  Fatimah Asghar's new poetry collection Daughter of the Mountains — praised by BOMB, Autostraddle, and Poets & Writers, among others — begins with a question: exiled from ancestral homelands, how can one find a place for oneself in the world? In meditative poems, it grapples with fulfillment, betrayal, love, loss, and longing, illustrating how place, lineage, and environment inform the practice of spirituality and vice versa. With wisps of humor, startling imagery, and disruptive formal invention, it is intimate and explosive at once. Asghar will be in conversation with Hieu Minh Nguyen.
• Wed, Oct 28, 7:30pm: Bedtime Club
  A gathering for non-gestational parents of all kinds — men, women, enbies, trans, cis, queer, straight, adoptive — to slow down together and sit with the stuff that doesn't always get airtime. We didn't carry the kids, but we're carrying other things. This is a small, intentional space; come ready to go a little deep. Led by member Shea Waldron.
• Thurs, Oct 29, 6pm: Tomas Moniz & Laleh Khadivi talk about their new books
  Two beloved Bay Area writers in conversation. Oakland's own Tomas Moniz has a lovely new novel out, The King of Aloe Vera, about the Mission, intergenerational friendship, and last chapters; his All Friends Are Necessary won the 2024 California Golden Poppy Award, and he edited the Rad Dad anthologies. Laleh Khadivi's new book is Female Life on Planet Earth, a novel about mothers and daughters and the secrets they keep (and expose). Khadivi chairs the creative writing MFA at USF and won a Whiting Writers' Award for The Age of Orphans.