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Link to: All about the 2025 Festival

MAY 31 – JUNE 1, 2025

We are delighted to be starting preparations for our 2025 Festival. Save these dates and be on the lookout for exciting news!

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Upcoming Events

Sign up for our newsletter and follow us on social media to get the latest news on events and tickets!

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July 25

Erasure: Archive + Disappearance

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July 26

Narrating the Mother

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May 30-31

2026 Festival

Some of our 2025 speakers

Check out the Sneak Peek here. 

 
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Viet Thanh Nguyen

Tara Dorabji

Greg Sarris

Carolina Ixta

Judith Butler

MK Chavez

Roxane Gay

micha cárdenas

Huda Fahmy

Clare Osongco

Gene Luen Yang

Garrett Felber

john a powell

David Jay

Bernadette Atuahene

Obi Kaufmann

Zack Beauchamp

Emily Flitter

Daniel Oberhaus

Bärí A. Williams

Kim Shuck

Kinsale Drake

Rosa Kwon Easton

Tomas Moniz

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“It was perfect. Couldn’t have been better. Thanks so much for giving me the opportunity.”

Robert Reich, Author

“My experience was unbelievable. Each of the panels I attended exceeded my expectations. This Festival was the high point of my year.”

Attendee

“My best festival experience ever.”

Pulitzer finalist Hernan Diaz

“I was incredibly inspired by how this Festival provides so many writers and artists with the opportunity to share their work with such a vibrant community in the Bay Area.”

Attendee

“I was truly impressed by the scope and diversity of the panels, participants, and overall programming.”

Maw Shein Win, Author

“The panelists were clearly selected with care, and in all cases I could have listened to them speak all day.”

Attendee

“All the writers I spoke to expressed their love and admiration for the Festival. I do mean all the writers – every single one.”

Marie Mockett, Author

“I’m pretty sure that everyone who attended will agree that they will be forever changed.”

Elizabeth Rosner, Author
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2025 Festival Sponsors

 
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baybookfest

Join authors Quraysh Ali Lansana (Killing the Nega Join authors Quraysh Ali Lansana (Killing the Negative) and Daniela Naomi Molnar (Protocols: An Erasure) for a thought-provoking conversation moderated by Linda Norton (Public Gardens). 

Together, they will explore historical and ongoing acts of erasure on the socio-political front—how erasure is enacted, its deep effects on communities, and the creative and collective strategies used to resist and reclaim what’s lost. The event includes an audience Q&A and book signing. 

We’ll be gathering in-person at the @castsf 447 Minna black box theatre!

July 25, 2025 
6–7 pm 

Address: 
447 Minna, San Francisco (black box theatre)

Purchase tickets at http://Bit.ly/407dor6

or comment below and we’ll send you the link directly 🔗💙

The link can also be found in @baybookfest’s bio!
This is Carolina Ixta, one of our speakers who was This is Carolina Ixta, one of our speakers who was in this year’s panel on “Coming of Age in an Unsteady World” 

Carolina Ixta is a writer from Oakland, California. A daughter of Mexican immigrants, she received her BA in creative writing and Spanish language and literature at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and obtained her master’s degree in education at the University of California, Berkeley. She is currently an elementary school teacher whose pedagogy centers critical race theory at the primary education level. Shut Up, This Is Serious is her debut novel.

In this Short Cuts conversation, Carolina Ixta reflects on her experiences growing up in Fruitvale, Oakland, and how it has shaped her identity as a writer and educator. She discusses the importance of critical race theory in her teaching, the impact of her family’s journey as immigrants, and the complexities of belonging within the Latino community. Carolina also shares her thoughts on the beauty of Oakland and how it influences her writing, emphasizing the need for nuanced conversations about identity and community.

🎙️Listen to the full conversation on Youtube or Spotify, and comment below if you’d like us to send you the link directly !
Join the @baybookfest and @litquake for an intimat Join the @baybookfest and @litquake for an intimate (virtual) conversation with Iman Mersal and Kate Briggs, two writers who reshape our understanding of motherhood and the art of living. 

Mersal (@mersaliman), acclaimed Egyptian-Canadian poet and essayist who most recently authored Motherhood and Its Ghosts, excavates the invisible labor and haunting absences of motherhood, blending irony, empathy, and unsparing honesty as she searches for lost women and lost selves. Her work is a bridge between personal memory and cultural critique, always aware of what remains unsaid. Briggs, Rotterdam-based author of The Long Form, reinvents “mom-lit” with philosophical, fragmentary prose, capturing the daily improvisations of new parenthood and the shifting architectures of care. Together, they invite us to witness the fragile, ever-changing forms of family and friendship, and the radical potential of the everyday. This conversation promises to be as nuanced and expansive as their writing, and will be moderated by beloved Sri Lankan American author Nayomi Munaweera (@nayomimunaweera).

July 26, 2025 
10-11 AM PST 

RSVP at http://bit.ly/3G5NCMU 
or comment below and we’ll send you the link directly 💐 

the link to RSVP also be found in @baybookfest’s bio!
What does your dream Bay Area Book Festival look a What does your dream Bay Area Book Festival look and feel like?

As we plan for and look ahead to next year’s festival, we want your ideas! 💡

Let us know at: tinyurl.com/ideasforBABF

If you comment “ideas” below, we’ll make sure to send you the link directly :) 

Save the date for next year’s festival: May 30-31, 2026!
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