SPD Bee-In: May 19th, 2008 Crown Point Gallery, San Francisco

More fun than ever was had at this year's Bee-In, a spelling bee to benefit Small Press Distribution, the nation's only remaining non-profit distributor of literary small press books.

To read Jon Carroll's column about this year's Bee-In in the SF Chronicle, please click HERE.

Our heartfelt thanks to our major sponsors:

• Crown Point Gallery (thanks Sasha!) at 20 Hawthorne Street
• Craft Distillers & HANGAR ONE Vodka!
• Chronicle Books
• Library Journal
• Poetry Foundation
• Rasputin's Music
• Peter Wiley / John Wiley & Sons

Thank you also to Chez Panisse , Bucci, Laïola and O Chamé and to Monterey Market, Parkway Speakeasy Theater, Landmark Theaters and the Berkeley Repertory Theaters.

Thank you to our publisher-sponsors Stanford University Press, Harper Perennial, Berkley Trade, Hyperion, St. Martin's Minotaur, Marsh Hawk Press and Open City Books.

Thanks to SPD staff, interns and volunteers, and the entire SPD board.

PLUS special thanks to: Our rocking emcee monologist & TV host Josh Kornbluth Our fair but tough judge cultural leader Penny Cooper.

And thanks to ALL our superfabulous Spellers: 2008 King Bee, former New York state Spelling Bee champion, poet, novelist and biographer Kevin Killian (Little Men) "Writers with Drinks" diva & last year's Queen Bee Charlie Anders (Choir Boy) Cookbook Guru Mollie Katzen (The Enchanted Broccoli Forest) San Francisco Chronicle columnist Jon Carroll KQED host of Forum Michael Krasny (Off Mike: A Memoir of Talk Radio and Literary Life) Artist Catherine Wagner (Works represented at Museum of Modern Art N.Y., the Whitney, SF MOMA, among others) Novelist & Oprah's List author Lalita Tademy ( Red River ) Ex-stripper Stephen Elliott (Happy Baby and Sex for America: Politically Inspired Erotica) Novelist and poet Kim Addonizio (My Dreams Out in the Street) Political commentator George Lakoff (Don't Think of an Elephant!) Crime novelist Dominic Stansberry (The Ancient Rain) Crime novelist Marc Lecard (Vinnie's Head and Killer Year: A Criminal Anthology) "Body+Soul" columnist, biographer and memoirist Frances Lefkowitz (David Letterman and Marilyn Monroe) Poet and novelist Mary Mackey (The Notorious Mrs. Winston and Breaking the Fever) Eco-feminist author Susan Griffin (Wrestling with the Angels of Democracy: On Being American) Former tag-team haiku champion, activist, and author Thea Hillman (For Lack of a Better Word) Award-winning playwright and TV comedy writer Patricia Cotter (The Breakup Notebook, Win Ben Stein's Money) Craft Distillers, alcohol sponsor of the event, very graciously donated Hangar One vodka as 'Bee's Knees' andprovided tastings of delicious artisan spirits, for which we cannot thank them enough.

Photos by AJ Craft, Laura Moriarty and Alan Bernheimer