As part of the PBS Arts Fall Festival, selected events in the San Francisco Bay Area are being highlighted. The largest independent literary festival on the West Coast, Litquake is a nine-day literary spectacle for booklovers, complete with cutting-edge panel discussions, unique cross-media events, and hundreds of readings. For more information on PBS Arts, go to pbs.org/arts

One of the featured events is the Lit Crawl, which was created by the Litquake literary festival back in 2004, and the idea was simple: transform an ordinary bar crawl into a mob scene of literary mayhem. Could it take over a neighborhood, or two, add pop-up events to every venue that might allow it, invite dozens of authors to read from their work, and watch hundreds of literati tromp the route and get drunk on words -- all for free? Judging by the past couple of years, the answer is a resounding yes! Join KQED's The Writers' Block for 'News Kids on the Block,' a night featuring five young writers as fresh as your favorite '80s boy band, from 7:15 to 8:15pm on October 13, 2012 at Bruno's in SF's Mission district. Check the Litquake site at litquake.org for details. Also, find out more about The Writers' Block.