Thank you so much for joining us at this years festival. Join us for the Merritt Dialogues on the 8 July.
Thank you so much for joining us at this years festival. Join us for the Merritt Dialogues on the 8 July.
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+ Lit Collective exists to celebrate and support LGBTQIA+ readers and writers—this collective offers a safe, affirming space to explore your stories and layered identities through community gatherings and collaborative programming.
The Mixed Race Lit Collective honors the layered identities of people who identify as multiracial, multiethnic, or as part of a mixed cultural heritage. This collective is a space for navigating in-between places and creating new ones—through writing, dialogue, reading, events, and community.
Women Lit was created in 2018 during the #metoo movement to elevate the voices of women and all those who identify as women, including trans and nonbinary individuals. Members are a vibrant community of writers and book-lovers—gathering in beautiful places to connect, share stories, and meet renowned authors.
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
