Joan Steinau Lester

Dr. Lester is the award-winning author of six critically acclaimed books. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, USA Today, CNN, Ebony, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Black Issues Book…

Tavia Stewart

Tavia Stewart is a Bay Area writer, immersive storyteller, creative placemaker, and two-time literary nonprofit founder. She is the co-author of Ready, Set, Novel (Chronicle Books) and author of multiple novel-writing workbooks for kids and…
Andria Lo

Yalitza Ferreras

Yalitza Ferreras was a recent Fiction Fellow at the University of Wisconsin’s Institute for Creative Writing. She has received a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award and a Steinbeck Fellowship at San Jose State University. Her writing has…

Zeina Hashem Beck

Zeina Hashem Beck is a Lebanese poet. Her collection of 40 palindromic sonnets, titled This Was Supposed to Be About Beauty, is forthcoming from Penguin Poets in Spring 2027. She’s the winner of the 2023 Arab American Book Award for Poetry…

Adéniké Amin

Coming Soon!

Laura Atkins

Laura Atkins is a children's book author, editor and coach, and a member of the Social Justice Children's Book Fair organizing team. With Stan Yogi, she co-wrote Fred Korematsu Speaks Up, winner of several awards including the Carter G. Woodson Award and the Jane Addams Honor Award. And with Arisa White, she co-wrote Biddy Mason Speaks Up, which won a Nautilus and Independent Publisher Book Award. Laura worked at Children's Book Press and as an editor at Lee & Low Books and offers freelance editorial services to individuals and several publishers. With an MA in Children's Literature from Roehampton University in London, and an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts, Laura lives in Berkeley, CA. She is passionate about equity and true access to all voices in children’s publishing. www.lauraatkins.com www.fightingforjusticeseries.com https://manzanitaartisanry.weebly.com

Tina Aguirre

Tina Valentin Aguirre (they/them) is the Castro LGBTQ Cultural District Director. Tina holds a BA in Communication from Stanford University, has worked in grantwriting for decades, served as Chair of the Board of Directors for the GLBT Historical Society for four years, and has made documentaries, produced arts festivals, and is a published poet. Tina curated the "Chosen Familias" exhibition on LGBTQ Latinx family photo albums (June 7–October 20, 2019) at the GLBT Historical Society Museum. Tina has lived in San Francisco since 1987.

Ari Berman

Ari Berman is the national voting rights correspondent for Mother Jones and a reporting fellow at Type Media Center. He’s the author of Minority Rule: The Right-Wing Attack on the Will of the People—and the Fight to Resist It, Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America (finalist, National Book Critics Circle Award for nonfiction) and Herding Donkeys: The Fight to Rebuild the Democratic Party and Reshape American Politics. His writing has also appeared in The New York Times, the Washington Post and Rolling Stone, and he is a frequent commentator on MSNBC and NPR. He's won the Sidney Hillman Foundation Prize for Magazine Journalism and an Izzy Award for outstanding achievement in independent media. He lives in New Paltz, New York.

Isis Asare

Isis Asare earned a degree in psychology from Stanford University. She then lived in Ghana, where her parents are from, as part of the Peace Corps. Her subsequent life chapters were filled with graduate degrees from Columbia Business School and Harvard University, a career in tech at companies such as Microsoft, Shutterfly, and Brightroll, and starting a film entertainment site for queer women of color named Sistah Sinema which Asare sold for 2x revenue in 2010. In 2019, Isis Asare started Sistah Scifi, the first Black owned bookstore focused on science fiction and fantasy. Located primarily in cyberspace, Sistah Scifi launched three Sistah Scifi Book Vending Machine in 2023. In 2024, Isis Asare selected as the first African American executive director of Aunt Lute Books, a San Francisco based, non-profit feminist press.

Nefertiti Asanti

Nefertiti Asanti is a poet from the Bronx residing in Oakland, CA. Nefertiti is a recipient of fellowships and residencies from the Watering Hole, Lambda Literary, Anaphora Arts, Winter Tangerine, Museum of the African Diaspora, PEN America, VONA, and SeaSalted Honey. Nefertiti’s debut chapbook fist of wind won the inaugural Start a Riot! Chapbook Prize. They’re also a recipient of the 2023 SFF/Nomadic Press Literary Award. Their work can be found at Foglifter, Split Lip Magazine, Santa Fe Writer’s Project, and elsewhere.