Mike Drucker and Mariko Tamaki at Writers With Drinks September 8, 2012

This Saturday's Writers With Drinks features drugs, monsters and comedy! What more could you want?

When: Saturday, September 8, 2012, 7:30 to 9:30 PM, doors open at 6:30 PM
Who: Michael Drucker, E. Lily Yu, Mariko Tamaki, Cassie Alexander and Steven Martin
When: The Make Out Room, 3225 22nd. St., San Francisco
How Much: $5 to $10 sliding scale, all proceeds benefit the CSC.

About the readers/performers:

Mike Drucker was a finalist in Disney's "So You Think You're Funny" contest and the runner-up for Philadelphia's Funniest. Since then, he has performed at colleges and in comedy festivals across the country including the Boston Comedy Festival, Seattle International Comedy Competition, New Orleans Comedy Festival, New York Underground Comedy Festival and more. With his sharp jokes and unusual topics, Mike has also been lucky enough to contribute writing to "Saturday Night Live," the Onion, The Onion News Network on Comedy Central, "Late Night With Jimmy Fallon," McSweeney's, Nintendo, College Humor, the Mark Twain Awards and the ESPY Awards.

E. Lily Yu just won the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer of Science Fiction and Fantasy. She was also nominated for a Hugo Award for her short story "The Cartographer Wasps and the Anarchist Bees." Her short stories have appeared in Clarkesworld, The Kenyon Review Online, Cicada, and The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year, and have been shortlisted for the 2012 Hugo, Locus, Million Writers, and Nebula Awards.

Mariko Tamaki’s first short novel, Cover Me, was published in 2000. Since then Mariko has published two collections of humorous short fiction, True Lies: The Book of Bad Advice and Fake ID. Largely, Mariko’s work examines her fascination with the complexities of the social world and the struggles of those people who cannot seem to easily fit into it. Skim, the graphic novel co-created with illustrator/cousin Jillian Tamaki, was an attempt to get into the world of high school teenage girls. Since it’s publication in Toronto, Skim has won an Ignatz Award for Best Graphic Novel and was recognized as one of the Best Illustrated Children’s Books by the New York Times.

Cassie Alexander is a registered ICU nurse at an undisclosed location in the Bay Area. Her urban fantasy trilogy deals with a nurse who treats supernatural patients -- Nightshifted came out this past May, Moonshifted will be out in November, and Shapeshifted, will be out June of next year. At work, she's seen necrotizing fasciitis, gangrenous scrotums, and had her hands entirely inside other people's body cavities, only not in a good way.

In the late 1980s, San Diego native Steven Martin left the U.S. to live in Southeast Asia. Twenty years later he was the world’s foremost authority on Chinese opium-smoking paraphernalia—and a forty-pipe-per-day opium addict. After taking the cure in a Buddhist monastery in Thailand, Steven wrote a memoir, Opium Fiend: A 21st Century Slave to a 19th Century Addiction, chronicling his obsession with the world’s oldest and most seductive drug.

About Writers With Drinks:

Writers With Drinks won "Best Literary Night" from the SF Bay Guardian readers' poll six years in a row and was named "Best Literary Drinking" by the SF Weekly. And it was namechecked in Armistead Maupin's latest Tales of the City novel. The spoken word "variety show" mixes genres to raise money for local worthy causes. The award-winning show includes poetry, stand-up comedy, science fiction, fantasy, romance, mystery, literary fiction, erotica, memoir, zines and blogs in a freewheeling format.

Official Website: http://www.writerswithdrinks.com