- Blockparty
- Incarcerated Voices
- Incarceration
Russel Shoatz III
Sunday, June 1 -
11:00 AM - 1:00 PM
Connecting organizers, community members, and political education, CurbFest for Political Prisoners raises awareness of political prisoners held captive in the US. Curbfest encourages people to embody self determination by working together, instead of turning to the state for approval such as permits or resources we can find among our neighbors. Featuring local DJs, Performers and Artists, CurbFest brings a much needed “liberated” community vibe to the struggle towards abolition.
MK Chavez, Aya De Leon
Sunday, June 1 -
11:30 AM - 11:45 AM
Poetry Stage, Harold Way and Kittredge
We begin with invocation—of memory, of resistance, of radical possibility.
Incantations to Open Portals is the ceremonial opening of the poetry stage at the Bay Area Book Festival, co-sponsored with the Berkeley Poetry Festival, where poetry becomes spell, speech becomes spellwork, and presence becomes protest.
This opening event features incantatory offerings by
Aya de León, Berkeley Poet Laureate, celebrated poet, activist, and author, who will bring her fierce, truth-telling lyricism to this moment of collective gathering. Her work bridges the personal and political, and her incantation sets the stage for a festival rooted in justice, joy, and imagination.
MK Chavez, Co-director of the Berkeley Poetry Festival, will introduce the legacy of amplifying the voices of writers who change the world. Together, they will open the portal—with words, intention, and fierce love.
Book signing information: The Nomadic, right by the stage.
Sharon Coleman
Sunday, June 1 -
11:30 AM - 4:45 PM
Poetry Stage, Harold Way and Kittredge
Poetry Postcards is an interactive offering inviting festival-goers to write a poem and send it into the world. We provide the materials: pre-stamped postcards with poems by 7 poets and pens. You bring the intention. Write a few lines, something spontaneous, but we will also provide prompts if you need them (think poetry
Mad Libs®)—then mail it to someone who you believe needs the power of poetry—a friend, a stranger, or yourself in the future. Come and create a handwritten reminder that poetry can connect, travel across time distance, and silence to say: you are not alone.
Book signing information: The Nomadic, right by the stage.
Lourdes Figueroa
Sunday, June 1 -
11:30 AM - 4:45 PM
Poetry Stage, Harold Way and Kittredge
What grows when we plant both seeds and language? “Planting Poetry” is a participatory project that combines ecological care with poetic exchange. We’ll be distributing seed packets from local Bay Area growers—each paired with a poem by a local writer. These pairings are invitations to engage with poetry not just as something to read, but something to live with, nourish, and tend. Take a seed home. Read the poem. Plant both in soil and spirit. Together, we grow a future rooted in art, community, and sustainability.
Book signing information: The Nomadic, right by the stage.
Sunday, June 1 -
11:30 AM - 12:00 PM
Join Kellie Menendez for a joyful reading of
Patterns, Patterns Everywhere, a vibrant picture book that invites children to notice the beauty of nature all around them.
- Blockparty
- Native Voices
- Poetry
Bryan Byrdlong, Gabriel Cortez, Kinsale Drake, Cintia Santana, Audrey T. Williams, and Maw Shein Win
Sunday, June 1 -
11:45 AM - 1:25 PM
Poetry Stage, Harold Way and Kittredge
In a world contending with violence and erasure, what does it mean to plant a future?
Garden of Possibilities gathers six poets who write toward abundance, resistance, and reimagined ways of being. Through language rooted in care, complexity, and radical imagination, this reading and panel invites us to collectively cultivate what is possible.
Audrey T. Williams, a visionary voice in Afrofuturist and Black speculative poetics, crafts worlds where Black liberation blooms beyond the limits of the present. Her work is a call to remember, to dream, and imagine.
Gabriel Cortez fuses poetry with movement-building, creating work that uplifts diasporic joy, ecological kinship, and community resilience.
Cintia Santana writes into the intersections of language, translation, and exile. Her poetry navigates linguistic borders and personal geographies, tracing beauty through dislocation and cultural memory.
Kinsale Drake, a Diné poet and storyteller, brings forth visions rooted in Native sovereignty and survival. Her work speaks of land, lineage, and a future held in Indigenous hands.
Maw Shein Win tends the surreal and the sublime, her poetry offering quiet revelations from the edges of reality. Drawing from Burmese heritage and Buddhist philosophy, she brings a meditative force to the page.
Bryan Byrdlong blends history, speculation, and Afrosurrealism with craft and fire. His poetry opens portals—honoring memory while daring new futures into being. Together, these poets offer a garden where justice grows, language blooms, and imagination becomes practice.
Book signing information: The Nomadic, right by the stage.
Sunday, June 1 -
12:00 PM - 12:45 PM
Be among the first to experience the debut storytime of
Andy: A Dog’s Tale, the heartwarming new picture book adapted from the
award-winning animated short with over 10 million YouTube views!
Sunday, June 1 -
12:45 PM - 1:15 PM
In this special storytime collaboration, Laura Atkins teams up with
Drag Story Hour for a joyful reading of
Bringing the Beach Home, a heartfelt picture book that explores the healing power of nature and the love that connects families through change.
- Blockparty
- Local Interest
- Poetry
Anita Marie Julca, Edith Friedman and Serafina Mackintosh
Sunday, June 1 -
1:00 PM - 1:45 PM
Join us for a powerful
afternoon of poetic truth-telling and resilience on the
BART Plaza Poetry Stage, featuring a dynamic trio of voices shaping the Bay Area’s literary landscape: Berkeley’s 2025 Youth Poet Laureate
Anita Marie Julca, Northern California poet and award-winning chapbook author
Edith Friedman, and
Serafina Mackintosh, a three-time Oakland Youth Poet Laureate Finalist.
In her evocative performance titled
“The Vicissitudes of Girlhood,” Anita Marie Julca threads together a raw and luminous journey through early trauma and transformation. With poems like
"violets and violence," "girls on the run," "mommy and me," "dandelions in spring," and
"donde reina el amor," she explores the shadows and rebirths of girlhood, navigating abuse, healing, love, and cultural memory. A Peruvian-American poet based in the Bay Area, Julca is known for her strikingly earnest tone and unflinching imagery, using poetry as a force for domestic violence prevention and radical empathy.
Edith Friedman, whose chapbook
Reconstruction was selected by Lee Ann Roripaugh for the 2024 Lefty Blondie Press First Chapbook Award, will read from
“Traveling in Some Vehicles—poems from one woman’s various journeys.” Friedman’s poetry captures the quiet revelations of a life in motion, rich with observation and grace. Her work has appeared in
Solstice, Rogue Agent, Five Minutes, Aôthen, and
Nifty Lit.
Serafina Mackintosh, a 2023, 2024, and 2025 Oakland Youth Poet Laureate Finalist, brings a bold and heart-forward perspective to the stage. A sophomore at Oakland School for the Arts, she views poetry as both political and emotional labor—an essential tool to reflect and reshape the world around us.
Together, these three poets offer an intergenerational, deeply human conversation through verse—an
afternoon where survival, meaning, and personal transformation take center stage.
Sunday, June 1 -
1:15 PM - 2:00 PM
Get ready for sparkle, smiles, and storytime magic!
Drag Story Hour returns to read a joyful selection of picture books from The Collective Book Studio’s vibrant catalog. After the reading, stop by the CBS booth for photo ops with the performers!
Yaffa AS, Georgina Marie Guardado, Shabnam Piryaei, Rachel Richardson, Lynne Thompson
Sunday, June 1 -
1:30 PM - 2:35 PM
Poetry Stage, Harold Way and Kittredge
This reading celebrates the wild, wired, and the wondrous. Inspired, and the fierce multiplicity of the natural world, this portal brings together five poets whose work transgresses borders—of body, genre, and possibility. These poets will open portals that invite us into places of resistance and rage, that when honored transform into generative and sacred places.
Rachel Richardson’s work bends time and language, drawing from historical fragments and embodied memory to question whose stories survive and how. Her poems illuminate what’s hidden beneath the surface of the everyday. Language and spirit commingle in
Georgina Marie, Lake County Poet Laureate emeritus’s lyrical activism. She writes poems rooted in place, grief, and renewal—pulling language from the earth and the divine alike. Oakland’s
Yaffaz AS words dismantle binaries and build new grammars for queer, trans, and brown becoming. Their poetics are glitchy, expansive, and defiant.
Lynne Thompson, former Los Angeles Poet Laureate, explores diasporic identity, lineage, and the many selves we carry through history and into the future. As a conduit of worlds she create poetry that transports and brings communities together. Cinematic and visceral—
Shabnam Piryaei’s work shapeshifts across borders and forms. Her work is a philosophical inquiry and a healing journey, and luminous defiance.
This is a celebration of what refuses to be defined. Join us where the petals have teeth and language mutates into power.
Book signing information: The Nomadic, right by the stage.
Sunday, June 1 -
2:00 PM - 3:00 PM
Canine Companions returns for another heartwarming storytime featuring the new picture book inspired by the internationally
acclaimed animated short film. Meet the service dogs who inspired the story and learn how these incredible animals are trained to support and empower.
J.K. Fowler, Kris Canales, MK Chavez, Michaila Oberhoffer
Sunday, June 1 -
2:00 PM - 2:45 PM
Join us at the Downtown BART Plaza for the exciting official launch of the Bay Area Book Festival’s three affinity lit collectives: Women Lit, LGBTQIA+ Lit, and Mixed Race Lit (final collective names to be decided in their first meetings). These collectives will meet throughout the year and host collective-specific programming supported by the umbrella organization of the Bay Area Book Festival. Come to a short informational presentation to learn more and become involved by signing up. We will be breaking out into small groups to get to know each other a bit and complete a few exercises together.
If you want to sign up early, donate to become a Friend of the Festival and select the collective you are most interested in as you check out.
You can also sign up for free here.
Kris Canales
LGBTQIA+ Lit Collective Lead
MK Chavez
Mixed Race Lit Collective Lead
Michaila Oberhoffer
Women Lit Collective Lead
Amanda Hawkins, Cindy Juyoung Ok, Mia Ayumi Malhotra, Adela Najarro, Grayson Thompson
Sunday, June 1 -
2:45 PM - 4:00 PM
Poetry Stage, Harold Way and Kittredge
Enter the liminal. In this portal, hybridity is power, and contradiction is poetry.
Chimera Space brings together a group of poets whose work inhabits the monstrous, the beautiful, and the in-between—bodies, identities, and voices that resist categorization and embrace complexity.
Cindy Juyoung Ok writes into multiplicity, turning silence into disruption and fragmentation into form. Her poems invite readers into nonlinear truths.
Grayson Thompson conjures the poetic tenderness and fire, exploring queer embodiment and psychic rupture.
Adela Najarro brings the force of nature and cultural inheritance to the page, her poetry fusing eco-consciousness with the surreal.
Amanda Hawkins explores desire, disorientation, and liminality with language that glows from within. Her work vibrates with strange beauty and invites us into the sensual space of the unknowable.
Mia Ayumi Malhotra writes from the rich interstices of lineage and displacement. Her lyric inquiries unfold slowly, like memory, threading together multiple inheritances and the ghosts that come with them. Join us as these poetic guides read us into the borderlands—offering a space where transformation is not only possible, but inevitable. A panel discussion will follow the reading.
Book signing information: The Nomadic, right by the stage.
- Blockparty
- Workshop
- Writing & Publishing
Devi S. Laskar, Elizabeth Stark
Sunday, June 1 -
3:00 PM - 3:45 PM
Join authors
Devi S. Laskar and
Elizabeth Stark for a generative writing workshop! Play with voice, practice putting your vision and truth (even fictional truths) into words. Live out loud! Try out some new writing techniques and strategies. Get inspired to build a sustainable writing practice. We need your voice in the world in these uncertain times.
- Blockparty
- Climate
- Workshop
- Writing & Publishing
Faith Adiele, Jasmin Darznik, Aimee Phan, Zeina Hashem Beck, and Yalitza Ferreras
Sunday, June 1 -
4:00 PM - 4:45 PM
Taking inspiration from Barry Lopez’s urgent call, this event features CCA faculty working across fiction, nonfiction, and poetry to explore how contemporary writers confront the crises and transformations defining our moment—climate change, political instability, and social justice movements.
Each author will read fresh work that engages with the present by bearing witness, interrogating systems, and imagining new futures through the lens of literature. This theme feels especially resonant with the Bay Area’s legacy of radical art and activism, while also spotlighting the bold, genre-crossing work happening in our communities.
James Cagney, Mimi Tempestt, Marian Urquilla
Sunday, June 1 -
4:05 PM - 4:40 PM
Poetry Stage, Harold Way and Kittredge
This poetry portal explores the wound not as an end, but as a powerful beginning. Join us for a journey where language becomes a site of transformation—where grief, memory, and survival are not just revisited, but reimagined.
Mimi Tempestt breaks open conventions with a voice that insists on reclamation and the sacredness of Black queer futurity. Her work spirals through personal and collective histories, creating a radical space for becoming. Salvadoran poet
Marian Urquilla mines personal and political terrain, forging poems that speak to displacement, resilience, and empowerment. With precision and heart, her language gives shape to survival.
James Cagney, PEN Oakland award-winner and recipient of the Academy of American Poets' James Laughlin Award, delivers poems that honor vulnerability and rage in equal measure. His work reverberates with ancestral echoes and present-day urgency. Together, these poets wield poetry as a technology of resilience and a tool for new world-building. In their hands, the wound becomes a map—leading us toward a future where we do more than survive. We thrive. We bloom.
Book signing information: The Nomadic, right by the stage.
Maxine Hong Kingston
Sunday, June 1 -
4:40 PM - 4:55 PM
Poetry Stage, Harold Way and Kittredge
As the poetry stage draws to a close, we will gather for one final invocation—a moment to honor what has been conjured, created, and carried forward. Incantation for Future is both a celebration and a spell for what comes next. Legendary writer and cultural icon joins us as our closing headliner, offering a rare reading that reaches across generations, geographies, and genres. Her work, rooted in the mythic, the historical, and the personal, has long opened portals for those navigating identity, exile, and transformation.
In this culminating moment, Kingston offers not just a reading, but a blessing—an incantation for futures rooted in justice, storytelling, and radical interconnectedness. Her presence reminds us that language shapes the world, that memory is a map, and that poetry is a path toward liberation. Together, we will close the portal not with finality, but with intention—carrying the words, visions, and reverberations of the festival into the world beyond. Let this be our collective offering to the future.
Book signing information: The Nomadic, right by the stage.
