Bay Area Book Festival Podcast

In Future Myths: Blood and Chosen Kin three poets explore the shifting terrain of kinship: the families we inherit, the ones we lose, and the ones we build along the way. If blood once defined belonging, these writers ask what else might hold us together as we imagine the futures still forming. Pretti Vanghni writes with a mythic sensibility, weaving ancestry, cultural memory, and spiritual imagin...

As women's rights are increasingly violated in the US, the historical narratives and personal accounts of this crucial panel discussion will remind us of the work we've already done and inspire us to continue pursuing a world where women are truly free. Just Pills: The Extraordinary Story of A Revolution in Abortion Care documents journalist Rebecca Kelliher 's research into the little-known histo...

What is it like to work on early chapter book series? The award-winning writers and illustrator on this panel are here to tell us more! Donna Barba Higuera will introduce Don't Eat the Birthday Boy! , the second book in her Unlikely Aventuras of Ramón and El Cucuy series, which takes place at Ramón's monster-filled birthday party. The author of the thirteenth book in The Kids in Mrs. Z's Class ser...

In the midst of white nationalism, global capitalism, and authoritarian regimes that drive individualism and isolation, a look to our past and envisioned futures reveals the prevailing strength of creativity and rebellion across time. By surveying a world that has changed dramatically since 1960 in her book The Beginning Comes After the End: Notes on a World of Change , historian and activist Rebe...

Crime fiction becomes a lens on buried history, fractured families, and the uneasy relationship between past and present in this electrifying conversation featuring Naomi Hirahara, Susie Hara, Faye Snowden, Élan Les Vies, and Shobha Rao . Though their settings range from early 20th-century California to post-1906 San Francisco, from the contemporary South to a fogbound Northern California cove in...

Invocation of the Poetry stage by Nick Johnson The future is not a clean horizon. In Carrying the Land: Bodies and Belonging , five poets consider how land lives within us and how we are shaped by the terrains we cross, inherit, and survive. If the future is to be imagined differently, it must begin with what we are already carrying. Abi Pollokoff writes with a fierce tenderness toward landscape a...

In this workshop, we will focus on setting development which plays a crucial role in situating your reader as well as invigorating and enriching your prose. Participants will leave with a better understanding of the setting's impact on their writing through reading examples, conversation, and generative writing prompts. Exercises and readings will focus on Bay Area locales. This session is designe...

The Center for ArtEsteem (ArtEsteem) presents "Unleashing the Super Hero Within," a panel exploring Executive Director Amana Harris's curriculum Self As Super Hero: Handbook on Creating the Life-Size Self-Portrait .ArtEsteem students and teachers will engage in dialogue about today's youth, their creative needs, and the Self As Super Hero curriculum as a critical catalyst of self-reflection, famil...

In this digital age, young people are not only eager to learn about and discuss the realities of media ownership, production, and distribution, they also deserve to understand the differential power structures in how media influences our culture. Professor of media studies and founding member of the Critical Media Literacy Conference of the Americas, Nolan Higdon brings expertise in podcasting, di...

In this triumphant and revelatory return of the award-winning novelist and Chairman of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria Greg Sarris , The Last Human Bear is an epic story about a Pomo woman who is haunted by an inescapable tradition that has been passed down from her stepmother. She has inherited the ability to shapeshift into a Human Bear who can menace and poison enemies. A mystery even...

Join the Creative Writing professors of San Jose State University for a combined panel and workshop where the professors will discuss the ins and outs of MFA programs and lead attendees in a series of writing exercises for prose writers and poets. SJSU MFA program coordinator Nick Taylor and faculty members Keenan Norris, J. Michael Martinez and Brook McClurg have guided numerous aspiring writers...

To write an inclusive future, we must publish diverse voices who represent our collective interests and stories. The publishers and imprints represented in this headliner panel will discuss the implications of the current political climate on the future of publishing and put forward creative solutions to the lack of opportunities for publishing underrepresented stories. Tiny Reparations Press, fou...

What makes Californian literature shine? Writer Kathleen Alcott suggests that the diversity of California's landscape has gifted a unique sense of time and change to its inhabitants, who are "used to the colors out the window turning over entirely, and to stop seeing trees and to start seeing water" within a few hours' drive. In California Rewritten , editor, author, and host of Alta 's California...

In times of danger and despair, kid-friendly stories and symbols can help families approach heavy topics, such as the ones in this panel. Touching on the difficult experiences of Japanese-Americans during the Japanese Incarceration in Hawai'i during World War II, Sharon Fujimoto-Johnson 's Shell Song tells ofthe true story of her grandfather's detainment in an island prison, where he collected, la...

Being a writer means coming up against self-doubt. But what if it doesn't have to be so scary? What if the blank page felt more like an invitation than a cliff? Does it sometimes seem like your novel is trying to kill you? Have you considered divorcing a story? Me too. In this gathering we will work through a few exercises designed to bring joy and a sense of possibility and invention so that you...

Where is the boundary between a dream and a lie? The award-winning authors of this panel write about the elusive and deceptive dreams—of assimilation, of youth, of success— that impact their Asian American communities. In Lisa Lee 's American Han, the Kim family dutifully embodies the model minority myth in 1980s San Francisco, until their son goes missing, and they are forced to confront the faca...

What is it like to stand up for our beliefs as members of universities in today's social and political climate? UC Davis free speech and equity law scholar Brian Soucek argues that institutional neutrality is a myth in The Opinionated University, which takes a deep dive into prominent campus controversies that demonstrate how those pushing for neutrality are only preventing universities from stand...

Providing stellar examples of excellence in youth literature, the acclaimed authors of this panel pave the way for Native youth readers to see their own cultures reflected in stories that are written by authors with similar backgrounds. In her picture book I Love Salmon and Lampreys , Brook M. Thompson draws from her experiences growing up in the Yurok and Karuk Tribes to tell an inspiring story a...

From a Tennessee farm to California's Central Coast, the action-packed road trips of this panel navigate the complicated, winding paths of familial connection with heart, humor, and sincerity. Kevin Wilson's Run for the Hills takes off with an unexpected road trip across America when Madeleine's long-lost half brother asks her to leave home to join him on a crazy road trip to track down every sing...

Drawing from real-life situations that kids may face, the graphic novels of this panel combine art and words to tell meaningful stories. In Marshmallow & Jordan,Alina Chau depicts a young basketball player's experience after an accident leaves her paralyzed from the waist down, whose encounter with a mysterious elephant helps her discover a brand new sport. It can be hard to feel different from ou...

As authoritarian assaults increasingly restrict our media, championing press freedom and critical media literacy is more important than ever. From The Censored Press editorial board member T.M. Scruggs is State of the Free Press 2026: Fiftieth Anniversary Edition, a collection that highlights the year's most significant independent journalism—including original, investigative reports on ICE survei...

"The master's tools will never dismantle the master's house" (Audre Lorde), but the tools that have been used for dismantling in the past might just be the ones we use to build the future. For Octavia Butler, science fiction stories were her tools for speculating the devolution of the American empire and simultaneously offered cautionary tales about our propensity for violence and sanguine manifes...

Sometimes, being forced to work together on a project might not be so bad… especially when it leads to falling in love. At the Crooked Rock Urban Indian Center in Pamela Sanderson's Heartbeat Braves, Rayanne Larson's special project is unexpectedly handed over to the underachieving nephew of the Center's new leader, and she is determined to keep her distance until a crisis forces the two of them c...

What happens when visionary worldbuilding meets movement building? In this rare and unmissable conversation, acclaimed novelist Nnedi Okorafor, whose Africanfuturist fiction reshapes the boundaries of speculative literature, sits down with legendary organizer Marshall Ganz, architect of modern grassroots leadership models. Guided by co-founder of Wakanda Dream Lab Calvin Williams, the conversation...

Cartoonist Judd Winick's presentation surrounding his latest title, HILO PRESENTS: THE MIGHTY, involves a 17 question Q&A with himself as the creator. From answering questions about his artistic process and the process behind creating a HILO book, to sharing innumerable photos of his two cats (Troy and Abed), Judd's session will cover not only his unique career in the graphic novels/comics space b...