Hang Out With Your Favorite Bay Area Authors at Reem’s Gaza Ceasefire Event

For months, Bay Area artists have been vocal about the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Indie folk singers have sold mixtapes to provide aid to Palestinian children, silkscreen artists have distributed hand-printed protest signs, and queer DJs and drag performers have organized street protests. Through it all, members of the local food community and literary scene have been especially outspoken.

To wit, Reem’s, the much-lauded Mission District Arab bakery, will host a Gaza fundraiser and ceasefire letter-writing event tonight with a notable literary bent: Many of the Bay Area’s most celebrated writers — including, quite possibly, your favorite writer — will be on hand to help champion the cause.

Among those attending are Pulitzer and National Book Award–nominated memoirist Ingrid Rojas Contreras; acclaimed novelists Esmé Weijun Wang, R.O. Kwon and Jamil Jan Kochai; anti-capitalist thinker Jenny Odell; superstar children’s author Maggie Takuda-Hall; and more. It’s a rare opportunity for Bay Area book lovers to hang out in a casual setting with so much literary talent in one room.

The main focus of the event will be for attendees to spend an hour or two writing letters to their state and federal representatives (on postcards provided by City Lights Bookstore), demanding that they push for a ceasefire in Gaza. As an added perk, chef Reem Assil’s team will serve pastries, mezzes and drinks to everyone who attends. (Assil’s Hospitality for Humanity — a pledge signed by food and beverage workers calling for a ceasefire in Gaza — is probably the most prominent ceasefire advocacy group, nationally, within the food industry.)

The letter-writing campaign comes as the Israeli military’s siege of Gaza rapidly approaches its fourth month, with a death toll of more than 25,000 Palestinians in the aftermath of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack, which killed approximately 1,200 Israelis and took another 250 hostage.

Tickets can be purchased in the form of a donation of at least $5 to a fundraiser, organized by Rojas Contreras, benefitting World Central Kitchen’s operations to provide hot meals to Palestinians on the ground in Gaza.

The letter-writing event at Reem’s (2901 Mission St., San Francisco) takes place on Monday, Jan. 29, from 5–7 p.m. The entry fee is a donation of at least $5 to World Central Kitchen’s relief efforts in Gaza.