Affinity Lit Collectives
In June 2025, we officially launched Bay Area Book Festival’s three affinity lit collectives: Women Lit, LGBTQIA+ Lit, and Mixed Race Lit. Whether you are a writer, reader, or just a lover of all things literature, these collectives are free and open to join with donations encouraged to support programming and pay the lead member for each collective for their time in organizing activities and events with (and for) each collective.
In alignment with the Bay Area Book Festival’s mission to change the narrative by platforming historically marginalized voices, these three Affinity Lit Collectives center connection, creative community, and the power of underrepresented stories. Each collective will host meetups, workshops, and special events and programming throughout the year, all supported by the umbrella organization, Bay Area Book Festival.
The LGBTQIA+ Affinity Lit Collective is a queer community space rooted in creativity, connection, and support. We bring together folks across identities, backgrounds, and disciplines for writers, readers, and dreamers alike, to co-work, share ideas, and find inspiration!
What began as a writing-focused group has grown into something more expansive: a space to talk, reflect, and build community. Each session centers conversation and connection, and closes with an (optional) writing prompt to help capture the moment or spark something new. We’re always excited to welcome new voices into the space.
Come show up, share, and be in community.
Betwixt Writers Collective is a literary community for mixed-race, multiracial, and in-between writers. We create space for writers living across cultures, languages, lineages, and identities to gather, write, share work, and build creative kinship. Rooted in the belief that the “in-between” is not a lack but a powerful site of imagination, Betwixt celebrates the many ways writers make meaning from multiplicity. Through workshops, readings, conversations, and community gatherings, we support writers in telling the stories that only they can tell.
Women Lit is a community and welcoming space for women, those who identify as women, and advocates for women in the arts. Here, you will find a tribe of like-minded, supportive creatives ready to lift you up and walk alongside you. We celebrate life’s victories and find comfort in its sorrows through literature and meaningful connection. We meet once a month to chat, collaborate, and explore the many ways the arts interweave with our everyday lives , providing that deep connection we all seek. Join us! We’d love to have you. ♥
The Collectives are member led and initiated, so if you have ideas of collectives you want to start, please email us. we are able to support a couple new groups each year.
Dan Alter’s poems, reviews and translations have been published in journals including Field, Fourteen Hills, and Zyzzyva; his first collection My Little Book of Exiles won the 2022 Cowan Poetry Prize. A volume of translations Take a Breath, You’re Getting Excited, from the Hebrew of Yakir Ben-Moshe, was published by Ben Yehuda Press in September 2024, and Hills Full of Holes, a second collection of poems, by Fernwood Press in March 2025. He lives with his wife and daughter in Berkeley. He works at the Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life at UC Berkeley.
Speaker – A Compass in the Wilderness: Poetry in the Age of Environmental Crisis
