11th Annual Bay Area Book Festival: Changing the Narrative

Presented by Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria

We’re in unprecedented times, watching living history unfold. With rights imperiled, our most vulnerable communities under attack, and democratic norms upended at a breakneck pace, how do we make sense of what’s happening? More importantly, how do we take care of each other, fight back, and keep joy and possibility alive?

We believe it starts with changing the narrative. No narrative is neutral, but all narratives are powerful. They can oppress or they can empower. This year’s festival is about shifting the narrative from despair to determination, from defeatism to action, from fear and hate to creativity and joy.

In I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969), Maya Angelou writes, “The most important thing is to tell your story. If people want to hear it, they will.” Nearly 60 years later, we must continue the work of sharing our stories—not just to survive, but to thrive, connect, organize, and rise.

Enjoy this sneak peek of what this collective storytelling will look like at the 2025 Bay Area Book Festival.

Excited about the lineup so far? Become a Friend of the Festival now to secure your headliner seats and get other perks, including free access to year-round programming like our new Merritt Dialogue Speaker Series, invites to our kickoff Authors’ Party, and much more.

JOIN FRIENDS OF THE FESTIVAL

2025 HEADLINER EVENTS

This year’s headliners are intrepid thinkers unafraid to ask the big questions and engage in exhilarating, tough conversations.

WRITING AS THE OTHER

Pulitzer winner Viet Thanh Nguyen once said, “I am a refugee, an American, and a human being, which is important to proclaim, as there are many who think these identities cannot be reconciled.” In an era of constant “other-ing,” Nguyen, whose introduction to the U.S. came in the form of a refugee camp in Pennsylvania when he was four, knows what it is to be an outsider. His new book, based on a series of six lectures at Harvard, asks “what is the relationship between the role of the outsider and literary writing?” In this event, he’ll be joined by two other brilliant outsiders: Greg Sarris, Chairman of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria and celebrated author of fiction and memoir that delves into complexities of belonging and identity as a Native American, and novelist Tara Dorabji, the daughter of Parsi-Indian and German-Italian migrants, whose Call Her Freedom won the Simon & Schuster Books Like Us Grand Prize. At our Saturday headliner event, they will explore “outsiderhood” through lenses that are literary, historical, political, and familial.

Viet Thanh Nguyen

Greg Sarris

Tara Dorabji

WHO’S AFRAID OF GENDER?

During the 2024 presidential race, the Trump campaign released an anti-trans ad blitz across swing states. Once in power, he wasted no time issuing an executive order proclaiming there are only two biological sexes. Accordingly, trans protections, gender affirming care, and DEI initiatives are being dismantled nationwide. Philosopher and human rights activist Judith Butler has long been a lightning rod for society’s fears, myths, and projections about the idea of gender. Now, when we need them most, Butler is back with what critics are calling their most mainstream and urgent book yet, Who’s Afraid of Gender? It’s both an intervention and an example of rising to meet the moment. At our Sunday headliner event, Butler will be in conversation with micha cárdenas, a novelist and scholar known for her work on “transreal” identities and digital media, whose latest sci-fi novel, Atoms Never Touch, tackles themes of neurodivergence and trans identity. Moderated by Afro-Latinx educator and writer MK Chavez, Butler and cárdenas will discuss their complementary yet distinct approaches to gender theory and identity: putting Butler’s foundational concepts in conversation with cárdenas’s cutting-edge explorations of biotechnological realities.

Judith Butler

micha cárdenas

MK Chavez

FEMINISM FOR A NEW DAY

Over the past decade, Roxane Gay has become synonymous in mainstream culture with a distinctly contemporary brand of feminism—in her words, the “bad” kind, complicated, fraught, and layered. She’s back on the scene with The Portable Feminist Reader, which explores the current state of American feminism, its successes and failures, and—perhaps most importantly—what it looks like in practice. With writings from authors ranging from Audre Lorde to bell hooks to the incomparable Dorothy Allison (who we lost to cancer the day after the 2024 election), the book presents multicultural perspectives, ecofeminism, feminism and disability, feminist labor, gender perspectives, and Black feminism. At a time when the clock is turning back on hard-won rights for all women, come for our closing headliner event on Sunday, June 1 and be part of the intersectional reckoning this moment demands.

Roxane Gay

RETURNING FAVORITES

FAMILY DAY

The festival’s always-packed Family Day returns on Saturday, May 31, at the Central branch of the Berkeley Public Library in Downtown Berkeley. As always, Family Day will be filled with readings, panels, interactive sessions, and discussions featuring the most exciting and engaging names in young people’s literature.

Social media, isolation, belonging and identity: those are just a few factors impacting teenagers’ mental health across the world. This year’s Family Day programs and authors include an impactful panel discussion focused on teen mental health in diverse communities with Carolina Ixta, (Shut Up, This is Serious) Rex Ogle (When We Ride), J.R. Rice (Broken Pencils), and Clare Osongco (Midnights With You). This discussion will resonate with both teens and adults, offering insight into the universal experience of finding one’s way through the maze of mental health, family, and identity.

This year, you’ll also find panels on body autonomy, graphic novels, romance and love stories, resistance and healing, and much more to assist you in keeping grounded in community and entertained through our current times.

Carolina Ixta

Clare Osongco

Gene Luen Yang

Huda photo (c) Samreen Gazi - Sierra Pregosin

Huda Fahmy

More notable names you’ll see at Family Day:

Huda Fahmy, National Book Award finalist in Young People’s Literature for the graphic novel Huda F Cares? Her new novel, Huda F Wants to Know?, is its funny and poignant sequel.

Zetta Elliott, with The Oracle’s Door , the prequel to her bestselling Dragons in a Bag series.

Wahab Algarmi, writer, comic artist, and author of Almost Sunset.

Annie Barrows, author of the Ivy + Bean series, which has sold over 8 million copies and been adapted into a popular Netflix Original Film series. Her new book, Stella and Marigold, is the first in an acclaimed and hilarious new series about two sisters.

Katryn Bury, author of the critically acclaimed Drew Leclair mysteries, with her latest novel, We Are Not Alone, about the unlikely friendship between a recent cancer survivor and a popular girl at school as they join forces to uncover the truth about alien life in honor of a best friend’s final wishes.

Gene Luen Yang, New York Times bestselling and award-winning author and cartoonist whose latest graphic novel, Dragon Hoops, turns the spotlight on his own life, his family, and the Oakland high school where he teaches.

Stay tuned for many more middle grade, picture book, and YA authors in our Family Day lineup.

For the past eight years, the Social Justice Children’s Book Fair has gathered independent children’s book creators, publishers, and advocates at our annual event in the East Bay. We uplift books that embody the spirit of authentic, independent, and under-represented voices in children’s literature. But we also build a movement. It is a movement that not only defies book bans but that works towards a larger vision: to see a world where independent children’s book creators have the support to conceive, develop, distribute, and champion a diversity of social justice-centered stories that children, families, teachers, librarians, and book lovers need as we build a society where we can all thrive.

This year we are excited to partner with the Bay Area Book Festival in curating their Family Day programming. The Bay Area has always been a hub and a catalyst of literary movements–local, national and global. For the past decade the Bay Area Book Festival has been the place to discover and celebrate these movements up-close and personal. Through this year’s partnership, we seek to spotlight the exciting creativity and innovation that continues to thrive in the world of children’s literature. Come for fun, cute, clever, and silly. Come for awe, awakenings, and all the feelings. And come for what Rudine Sims Bishop refers to as mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors: A space for our children to see themselves, gain insight and empathy into the experiences of others, and a chance to walk between worlds.

To find out more about us, go to www.socialjusticechildrensbooks.org

“Through our partnership with the Bay Area Book Festival this year, we seek to spotlight the exciting creativity and innovation that continues to thrive in the world of children’s literature. Come for fun, cute, clever, and silly. Come for awe, awakenings, and all the feelings. And come for what Rudine Sims Bishop refers to as mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors: A space for our children to see themselves, gain insight and empathy into the experiences of others, and a chance to walk between worlds.”

– Laura Atkins, Social Justice Children’s Book Fair

WRITERS’ DAY

Aspiring and practicing writers, join us at The Marsh in Berkeley on Saturday, May 31, for the reprisal of one of our most popular (and quickly booked) offerings: our free series of eight writing workshops across several genres. Last year’s Writers’ Day featured workshops on historical fiction, generative writing in community, creative nonfiction, writing about place, and creating your own creative writing breakthrough, along with special workshops for teen and grade-school writers. Expect an equally stimulating and exciting variety of workshops this year, and come with sharpened pencils and boundless imaginations. Details on themes and instructors to come!

Outdoor street fair, 2016. Photo: M. Hitchner

OUTDOOR FAIR/LITERARY MARKETPLACE

Everyone’s favorite outdoor literary bazaar is back on Sunday, June 1! Free to the general public, this something-for-everyone showcase features more than 100 exhibitors and activations celebrating books and literature. You can stroll booths presented by small presses, mid-to-large-sized publishers, community based nonprofits, magazines/journals, literary organizations and clubs, self-published authors, and independent illustrators, artisans with book related art/crafts, and more! Also returning are our popular outdoor reading lounge, eclectic food court, youth stage, and interactive Family Fun Zone.

New this year at the outdoor fair: We’re excited to feature a new Health in Community Row, which is sponsored by the Black Arts Movement Business District, Community Development Corporation of Oakland (BAMBD CDC) and will be offering direct and indirect health services via some amazing community partner organizations, including MH First Oakland, Roots Community Health, and more.

WRITERS ON OUR POLITICAL REALITY

This year, we’re featuring several thought-provoking events curated to meet the unparalleled moment we’re in and show us how we can come together to create positive change. Get empowered and inspired by fresh and groundbreaking takes on the most pressing issues facing us today, including:

David Jay

john a powell

Building bridges across divides, about leveraging the power of community to unite and organize for the common good. If we want to build a democracy, isolating ourselves in our echo chambers isn’t an option. This moment demands that we come together across our differences, really talk to each other, and build a diverse coalition for change. It begins on the local level, and brilliant activists and thinkers like john a powell (the internationally recognized civil rights expert who leads UC Berkeley’s Othering and Belonging Institute), Yuria Celidwen, David Jay, and Aida Mariam Davis will show us where to start.

Political imprisonment, featuring Garrett Felber, a renowned historian and scholar of the American carceral state who is dedicated to abolishing the prison industrial complex in the United States. Felber was fired in 2020 from his teaching position at University of Mississippi for his outspoken antiracist positions, and now teaches at the Yale Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity, and Transnational Migration. He comes to the fest with his new book, the first biography of political prisoner and Black revolutionary Martin Sostre, A Continuous Struggle (AK Press).

Mutual aid in emergencies, featuring contributors to Red Flag Warning, an anthology on mutual aid and survival in California’s fire country, and the beloved naturalist, illustrator, and writer Obi Kaufmann. His prior books took us underwater, across deserts, and through forests. Now he brings us to an eerily timely tipping point with his latest, The State of Fire: Why California Burns (Heyday Books), and examines how we can guide our communities through the flames.

Trump 2.0, featuring journalist Zack Beauchamp, who covers challenges to democracy in the United States and abroad and right-wing populism as Vox senior correspondent; and Ari Berman, Mother Jones‘ national voting rights correspondent. If you want to know how we got here and how to prepare for what’s next, you won’t want to miss these two. Beauchamp’s The Reactionary Spirit: How America’s Most Insidious Political Tradition Swept the World traces the origins of authoritarianism in the United States and tells us how we can save democracy before it’s too late. And Berman’s Minority Rule: The Right-Wing Attack on the Will of the People―and the Fight to Resist It, praised by Hillary Clinton and Robert Reich, is a riveting account of the antidemocratic tactics that culminated in the January 6th insurrection, and the growing movement to stop them.

The racialized wealth gap: With income inequality at its highest level in over 50 years, the American Dream isn’t holding up under scrutiny—especially for Black Americans. How did the deck become so racially stacked? And how do we break the cycle? This discussion about decolonizing wealth features Bernadette Atuahene, author of Plundered: How Racist Policies Undermine Black Homeownership in America; Ralph Remington, author of Penetrating Whiteness: Navigating the Landscape of Racism, Sexism, and America’s Cultural Divide; and New York Times banking and Wall Street reporter Emily Flitter, author of The White Wall: How Big Finance Bankrupts Black America.

Bernadette Atuahene

Emily Flitter

Daniel Oberhaus

Tech and our way of life: Are you wondering what to expect after watching the biggest names in tech flank Trump on Inauguration Day? Then you need to come to our up-to-the-minute dispatch from the frontlines of the tech world, featuring insiders like The Silicon Shrink author Daniel Oberhaus, former Facebook counsel Bäri Williams, and Omar Zahzah, whose Terms of Servitude examines how social media has become a new tool of anti-Palestinian suppression.

Bärí A. Williams

Plus: a must-see panel about healthcare gaps and what we can do about them, sessions on balancing activism with the need to heal, using art as a radical practice, stories from the front lines of migration and resettling, and practical strategies for political organizing.

LITERARY FICTION, MEMOIR, AND POETRY

As always, we’re showcasing some of the best, bravest, and most necessary voices shaking up the contemporary literary scene—emerging and established, local and far-flung.

Kim Shuck

Kinsale Drake

We’re once again partnering with the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria to bring you a brilliant selection of Native literary voices: including fiction, poetry, and the bold visions of young Native essaysists. Highlights include a conversation between Greg Sarris and Stegner fellow Jon Hickey, whose debut novel Big Chief is drawing comparisons to Tommy Orange and Louise Erdrich, and poets Kim Shuck, Denise Low, Kinsale Drake, and Amber McCrary.

Plus: Alka Joshi, Rosa Kwon Easton, and Meredith Jaeger on writing and researching historical fiction; authors Rickey Fayne, Sasha Vasilyuk, Sam Sax, and Betty Shamieh on writing about intergenerational trauma in fiction; poets Shabnam Piryaei, Rachel Richardson, Amanda Hawkins, and Lynne Thompson; and Tomas Moniz (Big Familia, a PEN/Hemingway finalist), Soma Mei Sheng Frazier (author of the highly praised debut novel Off the Books), and memoirist Keiko Lane (Blood Loss: A Love Story of AIDS, Activism, and Art) on the power of creative community.

And so much more to come!

Rosa Kwon Easton

Tomas Moniz