Native Voices

It can take just one brief touchpoint to forever bend the directions of our diverging paths, as the 2025 NCBA Fiction Finalists reveal. In R.O. Kwan‘s Exhibit, young photographer Jin Han meets an alluring, injured world-class ballerina at a party in San Francisco, which unleashes a complex exploration of ambition, desire, and a familial curse spoken aloud. Sometimes, convergence occurs in the form of multiple lives meeting at a single path, creating reflections, distortions, and unexpected revelations. Headshot by Rita Bullwinkel features the lives of eight teenage girl boxers, each with their own sacrifices and reasons for competing, in their fight for the prize. Nina Schuyler’s short story collection, In This Ravishing World, bridges nine stories of dreamers, escapists, activists, and artists who reckon with the climate crisis, urging all inhabitants of Nature to resist and fight to preserve its exquisite beauty in the face of destruction. The future is uncertain, but so is the past— the speculative stories in How We Know Our Time Travelers by Anita Felicelli reimagine time traveling as an everyday occurrence, given the fragility and unreliability of our memories that warp our understanding of the future. What, then, is the value of preservation? For the two crow sisters in Greg Sarris’ The Forgetters, who recall stories in the classic style of Southern Pomo and Coast Miwok creation stories from dawn to dusk, these shared histories hold the key for voyagers to repair the rifts in their own lives and the world. Moderated by author, editor, and critic Jane Ciabattari, this panel will peer closer into those translucent moments that hold the power to change the course of our past, present, and future.

We’re honored to again present the talented youth of the annual Graton Writing Project, a series of writing workshops designed for middle and high school Native students from Sonoma County, California. The program culminates in a published anthology of their work, highlighting the students’ creativity and unique perspectives. Each year, participants collaborate with writing mentors to craft original pieces centered around a specific theme. Past themes have explored topics such as the environment/climate change, impacts of the coronavirus pandemic, preserving cultural heritage through the stories of Native American ancestors, and more broadly, their hopes for the future. This year, the students’ works will be inspired by exploring how the struggle for social justice within California Indian communities has impacted their respective families – and what responsibilities they have to ensure that any progress made is upheld moving into the future. Greg Sarris (The Forgetters,The Last Human Bear ), Chairman of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, will moderate this moving showcase, highlighting the powerful stories from the 2026 cohort. Presented by the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria.

Providing stellar examples of excellence in youth literature, the acclaimed authors of this panel pave the way for Native youth readers to see their own cultures reflected in stories that are written by authors with similar backgrounds. In her picture book I Love Salmon and Lampreys, Brook M. Thompson draws from her experiences growing up in the Yurok and Karuk Tribes to tell an inspiring story about a river, a successful Native-led movement for environmental justice, and the making of a scientist. Ojibwe and Lakota author Byron Graves’ young adult novel Medicine Wheels tells the unforgettable story of a gifted young Ojibwe learning to ride in his father’s footsteps while practicing for a skateboarding championship. Printz Award-winning Legendary Fry Bread Drive-In, edited by Cynthia Leitich-Smith, features the voices of both new and acclaimed Indigenous writers in a collection of interconnected stories about laughter, love, Native pride, and the world’s best frybread. The future of youth literature is brightly paved by the remarkable authors of this panel moderated by TBD, and there is no doubt that they will continue to enhance and expand the worldviews of young readers.

Blurring the lines between journalism and memoir, the indigenous writers of this panel look outward at the people, cultures, and history around them to form a personal understanding of what it means to be a world citizen today. Terria Smith, who longed for adventure growing up on the Torres Martinez Reservation in Southern California, observed that travel is deeply rooted in Native traditions of reciprocity, risk-taking, bridging, and holding differences, but there remains a lack of Indigenous voices in the travel writing space. Her memoir, I Love You So Many, recounts Smith’s stories from her ancestral homelands to Cuba, Iceland, and Guyana with humor and exuberance, an irresistible tribute to getting out and living a life in full. For journalist and Oscar-nominated filmmaker Julian Brave Noisecat, correcting the erasure, invisibility, and misconceptions surrounding the First Peoples of this land compelled him to travel across the continent. Translated from “tscwinúcw-k,” a traditional Secwépemc morning greeting, We Survived the Night paints a portrait of contemporary Indigenous life by blending history, memoir, and reportage in the style of a “Coyote Story,” a legend about the trickster who was revered for his wit and mocked for his tendency to self-destruct. Traverse the roads connecting past, present, and future with the authors of this dazzling panel, moderated by queer Indigenous artist, poet, and curator Viola LeBeau.

Sometimes, being forced to work together on a project might not be so bad… especially when it leads to falling in love. At the Crooked Rock Urban Indian Center in Pamela Sanderson’s Heartbeat Braves, Rayanne Larson’s special project is unexpectedly handed over to the underachieving nephew of the Center’s new leader, and she is determined to keep her distance until a crisis forces the two of them closer together. In Native Love Jams by Tashia Hart, Winnow is hired to cook for the first Indigenous Food Days in a rural Minnesota village, where she and her unwelcoming host Niigaanii must pull thorns from their past to harvest their own love story. Dani Trujillo’s When Stars Have Teethtakes place in the San Francisco Urban Indian Center, where employee Buffy Yellowbird agrees on an associates-with-benefits arrangement with an ultra-suave immigration lawyer who leaves her longing for more. Emerging from a past abundant with problematic Indigenous tropes, the romance genre is greatly enriched by the novels of this panel, which showcase genre fiction created by authors who identify with the cultures represented. Moderated by the content creator behind publishing imprint Boozhoo Books Naomi Darling, this lovely panel celebrates Indigenous romance writing and the sparks that arise in partnership.

In 2018, only 12% of San Francisco’s street names, statues, parks, and public art honored women, but not because they didn’t exist. How many notable women who deserve public recognition have been written out of the history of our region? Drawn from award-winning journalist Rae Alexandra’s KQED Arts & Culture series “Rebel Girls From Bay Area History,” Unsung Heroines: 35 Women Who Changed the Bay Area is a collection of 35 short profiles honoring the contributions of a diverse group of women from San Francisco, the East Bay, and the greater Bay Area, from the very first years of the founding of San Francisco to the present day. Together, their stories constitute a new telling of the history of Northern California from the vantage point of women who made a difference. Joining Alexandra to discuss the process of uncovering and writing about these stories is the visionary Jewelle Gomez, activist and author of the double Lambda Award-winning novel, The Gilda Stories. She has served on literature panels for the National Endowment for the Arts, the Illinois Arts Council, and the California Arts Council, and is currently Playwright in Residence at New Conservatory Theatre Center. This triumphant conversation will permanently alter readers’ perspective with the realization of just how many untold stories have been lost to time, encouraging them to scan their own environment for traces of women whose stories deserve to be recovered and told. Moderated by author of Where the Girls Were and Rad American Women A-Z Kate Schatz this panel will be, as Gomez declares, “a real celebration of these daring human rights activists who cross boundaries of time, ethnicity, and class and invite us all to join in.”

In this triumphant and revelatory return of the award-winning novelist and Chairman of the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria Greg Sarris, The Last Human Bear is an epic story about a Pomo woman who is haunted by an inescapable tradition that has been passed down from her stepmother. She has inherited the ability to shapeshift into a Human Bear who can menace and poison enemies. A mystery even to herself, she learns to pass between Native and white societies, tenaciously carving her own path as an independent woman as she comes of age in 1930s California. But as she explores love and desire, family inherited and chosen, and the secrets of the natural world, one question gnaws at her: Is she fated to do harm? This wry and richly lyrical book, inspired by the Native women elders who shaped Sarris’ youth, will be on special early sale with the Bay Area Book Festival following an incredible conversation between Greg Sarris and Susan Straight, author of Sacrament, celebrating independence, healing, and brilliant Native writing.

This chilling and visionary conversation brings together three groundbreaking voices in contemporary horror and speculative fiction who use storytelling to interrogate history, identity, and the legacies that refuse to stay buried. Through unsettling narratives and fearless imagination, they reveal how horror becomes a vital tool for reckoning, resistance, and truth-telling.

Tananarive Due, award-winning author and scholar, is a leading force in Black horror and speculative fiction whose work draws on Black history, family, and lived experience to explore generational trauma, injustice, and survival. From the multi-award-winning The Reformatory to classics like The Good House and My Soul to Keep, Due transforms real-world horrors into powerful narratives of memory and reckoning. Stephen Graham Jones, The New York Times bestselling author and professor, reshapes contemporary horror through Indigenous perspectives that challenge colonial myths and genre conventions. In works such as The Buffalo Hunters Hunter, The Only Good Indians, and My Heart Is a Chainsaw, he interrogates violence, belonging, and cultural endurance with relentless innovation and emotional force.

Moderated by Ayize Jama-Everett, novelist and cultural thinker whose own boundary-defying work spans horror, science fiction, philosophy, and spirituality, this conversation will explore how horror functions as cultural critique, creative liberation, and a mirror to the fears societies try to bury. Join us for a compelling discussion on the power of horror to illuminate hidden histories, disrupt dominant narratives, and imagine new ways of surviving and storytelling in a haunted world.

Introductory live music performance by Bushwick Book Club Oakland

Celebrate laughter, love, Native pride, and the world’s best frybread with the phenomenal Cynthia Leitich Smith, critically-acclaimed Mvskoke author and curator of Heartdrum, a Native-focused imprint at HarperCollins publishing. She has written several bestselling books, including Jingle Dancer, Eternal, and Hearts Unbroken, which won the American Indian Youth Literature Award. Her latest book, Legendary Frybread Drive-In: Intertribal Stories, features stories from Indigenous writers connected by the big green-and-gold sign of Sandy June’s Legendary Frybread Drive-In, and it won the Michael L. Printz Award for Excellence in Young Adult Literature and the American Indian Youth Literature Award! In this incredible session, Cynthia Leitich Smith will be joined by moderator Laura Atkins—children’s book author, editor, and co-organizer of the Social Justice Children’s Book Fair and YouthLit at the Bay Area Book Festival—to discuss her renowned stories, her advocacy for Native writing, and the inspiration behind her latest legendary book.

To write an inclusive future, we must publish diverse voices who represent our collective interests and stories. The publishers and imprints represented in this headliner panel will discuss the implications of the current political climate on the future of publishing and put forward creative solutions to the lack of opportunities for publishing underrepresented stories. Tiny Reparations Press, founded by standup comedian, bestselling author, producer, and actress Phoebe Robinson, is a highly curated imprint dedicated to fiction and nonfiction that pushes the conversation forward. HeartDrum, an acclaimed imprint of HarperChildren’s featuring stories that emphasize the present and future of Native peoples and the strength of young Indigenous heroes, will be represented by its author-curator and award-winning writer Cynthia Leitich Smith. Turning the page to publishers, Palestinian American author and book worker Hannah Moushabeck runs Interlink Publishing alongside her family, the only Palestinian-owned independent publishing house in the United States offering global perspectives to readers through works of literature-in-translation, history, activism, politics, art, cultural guides, award-winning cookbooks, and illustrated children’s books. Through publishing talented writers whose works have been overlooked by large-scale publishers, co-founder Kate Gale of Red Hen Press fosters diversity, promotes literacy in local schools, and supports the Greater Los Angeles Area and international communities with arts-based events and literary advocacy. Moderated by acting Co-CEO of the intersectional, feminist press Aunt Lute, María Mínguez Arias, this inspiring panel is a celebration of the innovative and diverse members of the publishing industry dedicated to creatively curating and publishing the voices of our future.

Introductory live music performance by Bushwick Book Club Oakland