2026 Bay Area Book Festival
The festival will take place May 30-31, 2026, sprawling over several venues in Downtown Berkeley during daytime, and with two ticketed headliner events both evenings at the Freight & Salvage. Saturday, May 30, will feature our Writers’ Workshops, Democracy Dialogues, Family Programming, and Sunday, May 31, will feature Inside Ideas and Bookworm Block Party. You can read about our 2026 festival theme (“Writing the Future”) here.
We encourage the nomination of authors from a wide variety of genres (fiction, nonfiction, poetry) and subgenres, including philosophy, climate and social justice, anthropology, sociology, arts advocacy, politics, science, spirituality, finance written via a social justice lens, essays, memoir, works in translation, sci-fi, fantasy, horror, mysteries, thrillers, contemporary romance, graphic novels, travel, young adult fiction, children’s books, and many more—see our full genre list on the proposal form and please note that we welcome genres outside of those listed.
We heartily encourage nominations for BIPOC/LGBTQIA+ authors and all are welcome. We do not currently have the capacity to support live cooking demos on-site at the festival.
At the Bay Area Book Festival, we are deeply grateful for the voices and visions of authors from around the world who enrich our stages and our communities. At the same time, given the current climate in the United States, we ask our international literary kin to take the necessary precautions for their own well being while traveling here, and to seek guidance and support from their consulates as they prepare for the journey. We are unable to financially support international travel at this time but we welcome publishers to support the travel and accommodation for their international authors. Please know that your presence—whether in person or online—matters profoundly. We offer limited opportunities for virtual engagements with international authors throughout the year, ensuring that your words can reach our audiences even if travel isn’t possible.
Book sales are an important part of the BABF ecosystem. Festival speakers should ideally have a book published in the year preceding the opening date of the festival, but this is not a requirement. Books must be available for our independent bookseller partners to order via their customary distribution channels or directly via the publisher. Books by self-published authors should be easily accessible for booksellers to order directly from authors or printers.
All proposals will be initially evaluated by the BABF’s programming staff for eligibility. Some proposals that meet the nomination guidelines outlined above will also be evaluated by the Literary Advisory Committee.
We are looking for work that offers broad audience appeal, shows a connection to conversations larger than ourselves, contributes to BABF’s objective of representing numerous themes and topics, connects with other speakers’ works as we consider the makeup of particular panels, and work that dares to push boundaries and imagine alternative futures. Financial feasibility will also be taken into account, especially with regards to travel and accommodation, if it is not funded by the author or publisher.
Your work has merit and we are honored to be considered. Please remember that if your work is not selected, it may not have been selected for any number of reasons and we encourage you to submit nominations again next year. While we consider all proposals, we receive many more proposals than we are able to accept.
We are unable to offer status updates on your proposal but you will hear back from us no later than January 30th, 2026.
Submit your proposals here!
We will showcase Children’s and Middle Grade programming (and some lower YA) primarily on Saturday, but also have some opportunities for children’s book read-alouds on Sunday. There will be dedicated panels with older YA books on Sunday.
If you have questions around which form to use, please email us at [email protected]
