Creative Nonfiction as Reclamation and Confrontation
Bay Area Book Festival Podcast
Myriam Gurba and Ingrid Rojas Contreras Mean, and the recent essay collection, Creep, a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle award in criticism. Rojas Contreras’s dazzling debut memoir, The Man Who Could Move Clouds, explores her Colombian identity and reckons with the bounds of reality through an oral history that challenges Western notions of history and memory. The two authors will be in conversation, speaking to the urgency of writing our stories as we need to tell them, why there’s more space within creative nonfiction than Western traditions will have us believe, and why...
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Climate Fiction as a Tool for Climate Justice
Bay Area Book Festival Podcast
Charlie Jane Anders, Aya de León, Sim Kern, Rebecca Roanhorse, moderated by Keya Chatterjee Climate fiction is a unique way to approach the climate crisis through both real and imagined endings and beginnings. This panel, moderated by author and activist Keya Chatterjee, explores why writers are drawn to climate fiction (Cli-Fi), and what they hope to achieve through the genre. Charlie Jane Anders has been writing climate novels for nearly a decade. She is the international bestselling Cli-Fi author of the fantasy YA novel, Promises Stronger Than Darkness. Award-winning author Aya de León...
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The Body is Not an Apology: Radical Answers with Sonya Renee Taylor and Cinnamongirl
Bay Area Book Festival Podcast
Sonya Renee Taylor, moderated by Cinnamongirl Kailynn and Cinnamongirl Symone An empowering conversation with one of the world’s most inspirational activists and thought leaders writing and speaking today. You’ll want to bring your daughters, sons, their friends, and your friends to hear the radically powerful message of Sonya Renee Taylor, revolutionary founder of The Body Is Not an Apology, a global digital media and education company exploring the intersections of identity, healing, and social justice through the framework of radical self-love. The author of the bestselling book by...
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Are You Ready to be Un-settled? Celebrating Indigenous Horror
Bay Area Book Festival Podcast
Rebecca Roanhorse and Dani Trujillo, moderated by Kristina M Canales A not-to-be-missed conversation between Indigenous horror writers Rebecca Roanhorse and D.H. Trujillo, both of whom are featured in Never Whistle at Night: An Indigenous Dark Fiction Anthology. This groundbreaking book celebrates Indigenous resistance by highlighting themes of magic, tradition, ancestry, family, and cultural rediscovery. Making connections between horror and settler colonialism, the collection dares to ask the question: “Are you ready to be un-settled?” Both authors are known for their important...
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Page to Screen: A Dance Between Words and Images
Bay Area Book Festival Podcast
Viet Thanh Nguyen, Piper Kerman, Alka Joshi, moderated by Laura Warrell Turning a beloved book into a compelling film or series is a journey filled with creative collaboration, financial considerations, script development, casting decisions, and years of meticulous preparation. For the authors at the center of these adaptation journeys, it also involves roadblocks, setbacks, near misses, and plot twists, with lessons about letting go of control and outcome. This all-star panel brings us three celebrated authors whose books have been or are being adapted for a viewing audience. Piper Kerman’s...
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My Body, My Desire: Sexuality, Desire, and Queerness in Literature
Bay Area Book Festival Podcast
R.O. Kwon, Brontez Purnell, Sam Sax, moderated by Lucy Jane Bledsoe Join us for a captivating panel discussion moderated by author Lucy Jane Bledsoe (author of Tell the Rest and No Stopping Us Now) and featuring three acclaimed writers—R.O. Kwon, Brontez Purnell, and Sam Sax—as they delve into the rich and complex terrain of sexuality, desire, and queerness in literature. From candid reflections on personal experiences to incisive analyses of societal norms and cultural representations, this conversation promises to be both inviting and thought-provoking. R.O. Kwon, author of the...
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Let’s Eat! Decolonizing Diets
Bay Area Book Festival Podcast
Sara Calvosa Olson in conversation with Terria Smith Sara Calvosa Olson is a food writer and editor exploring the intersections of storytelling, Indigenous food systems, security, sovereignty, reconnection, and recipe development. Olson’s maternal ancestry is from the Karuk tribe whose lands are part of northwest California, and her new book, Chími Nu’am: Native California Foodways for the Contemporary Kitchen, aims to help integrate more traditional ingredients into everyday recipes. Chími Nu’am, which translates to “Let’s eat!” in the Karuk language, is a seasonal guide to...
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Legendary Artists on Identity and Remembering: Vulnerability in Creating Across Genres
Bay Area Book Festival Podcast
Joan Baez in conversation with Greg Sarris Ground-breaking Mexican-American musician, artist, and activist Joan Baez joins accomplished writer, professor, and tribal leader Chairman Greg Sarris in a conversation about writing, creating, and legacy. Sarris is co-executive producer of Joan Baez: I Am A Noise, a deeply personal, profound, and haunting documentary that follows Baez on her 2018 Fare Thee Well goodbye tour and explores memory and abuse through home videos, journal entries, photographs, and therapy tapes. In a continued pursuit of an “honest legacy,” Baez’s debut poetry...
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Changing Landscapes of Mother Earth and Motherhood: Uncertainty and the Climate Crisis
Bay Area Book Festival Podcast
Christina Gerhardt, Manjula Martin, Rosanna Xia, Jade S. Sasser, moderated by Maddie Oatman Join this essential and urgent conversation that examines the changing physical and cultural landscapes of the climate crisis. This panel centers one of the most pressing issues of our times and brings together in conversation four panelists who have written in depth aboutclimate change and its impacts on both the natural environment and human communities. Manjula Martin, Rosanna Xia, Jade Sasser, and Christina Gerhardt approach this topic from different angles, whether it’s through the lens of...
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We the People: Building a Resilient Multiracial Democracy in 2024 and Beyond
Bay Area Book Festival Podcast
Steve Phillips, Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson, Maurice Mitchell, moderated by Lateefah Simon In 2024, the threat of authoritarianism is greater than ever before. Yet our nation also has the potential to become a genuine multiracial democracy. How can we help tip the scale? Steve Phillips is a national political leader, bestselling author, and columnist. He is the author of The New York Times bestseller Brown Is the New White. His latest book, How We Win the Civil War, charts the way forward for those who wish to build a multiracial democracy and rid our nation of white supremacy once and for all....
info_outlineAnthony Cody and Paisley Rekdal, moderated by Tess Taylor
Many of us, when faced by stacks of dusty old documents, might leave the work to the archivists—or consign the mess to the recycling bin of history. In this session, we'll hear from those who instead look at archives and envision poetry. Poet Paisley Rekdal vividly documents how the heroic narrative of the transcontinental railroad is intertwined with the history of Chinese exclusion. Anthony Cody centers on the ongoing legacy of trauma along the US–Mexico border after the end of the Mexican–American War.