Ben Ehrenreich / Launch Party for "Hold Still"

Litquake presents Ben Ehrenreich in conversation with Daniel Gumbiner City Lights celebrates the publication of Hold Still By Ben Ehrenreich Published by City Lights Books One of Literary Hub's Most Anticipated Books for 2026! A profound and deeply personal, genre-bending book about finding one's way back to life after the death of a parent. In the months after his mother Barbara's death, Ben Ehrenreich set himself the task of writing a story every day. Leaving open the question of what a "story" might be, he wrote daily entries for three or four months as a way to grapple with his grief and to try to understand this new phase of life, which meant continuing on after his mother's death. Some of these daily entries ended up being short stories of a sort, often fable-like tales involving animals doing surprising things. Others were closer to journal entries, many of them about his daughter, who was nearly three at the time, and who was trying to understand death herself at the same time that she was voraciously exploring the living world. Other entries raised the question: What is it that even makes a story a story? This deeply moving collection of those daily journeys into storytelling-a finely crafted combination of fiction, memoir, and poetic prose-is both profound and satisfyingly whimsical. An innovative, versatile writer, Ben Ehrenreich takes his reader into the difficult emotional terrain of grief, and then safely escorts them to the other side, leaving them inspired, uplifted and hopeful. Ben Ehrenreich is the author of four previous books, most recently, of the New York Times Notable Book, Desert Notebooks: A Road Map for the End of Time. He has also published The Way to the Spring: Life and Death in Palestine, based on his years of reporting from the West Bank, as well as two novels, The Suitors and Ether, which was also published by City Lights. Daniel Gumbiner's first book, The Boatbuilder, was nominated for the National Book Award and a finalist for the California Book Awards. His latest novel, Fire in the Canyon, was a finalist for the California Book Awards and was also named a New Yorker Best Book of the Year. He is the Editor of The Believer, which won the 2026 National Magazine Award for Essays. Litquake is a project of the Litquake Foundation, a 501\(c\)3 nonprofit registered in the state of California. Litquake's diverse live programs aim to inspire critical engagement with the key issues of the day, bring people together around the common humanity encapsulated in literature, and perpetuate a sense of literary community by providing a vibrant forum for Bay Area writing. Because they believe in literature as a public good, they work to produce events that are accessible to all. Visit them at This event is made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation.