Britta Stromeyer Esmail

Britta Stromeyer Esmail is a writer and educator passionate about raising resilient girls and writers to find their own voice. She is the author of Raina’s (UN) Happy Birthday, a picture book recipient of the Gold Seal of the Mom’s Choice…

Brenda Hillman

Brenda Hillman is an activist, writer, editor, and teacher. She has published nine collections of poetry, all from Wesleyan University Press, including Extra Hidden Life Among the Days, (Winner of 2019 Northern California Book Award), Seasonal…

Henri Cole

Henri Cole was born in Fukuoka, Japan, in 1956. He has published ten previous collections of poetry, including Touch (winner of the Jackson Poetry Prize) and Pierce the Skin (winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Award), and a memoir, Orphic…

Jonathan Franzen

Jonathan Franzen is the author of five novels, including The Corrections, Freedom, and Crossroads, and five works of nonfiction, most recently Farther Away and The End of the End of the Earth. He lives in Santa Cruz.

Thomas Brussig

Thomas Brussig is the author of seven novels, including Wie es leuchtet and Helden wie wir (Heroes Like Us, FSG, 1997). As a screenwriter, he worked with Edgar Reitz on his Heimat epic. Born in East Berlin, Brussig now divides his time between…

Lucy Jane Bledsoe

Lucy Jane Bledsoe’s new novel, Tell the Rest, features two queer characters who use their rage and creativity to take on the Christian right. Her fiction has won many awards, including a California Arts Council Fellowship in Literature, an…

Susan Beneville

Susan Beneville is an indie comic writer and screenwriter living in Oakland. Her current all-ages graphic novel, Nix, was co-created with artist Brian Hess. Her first all-ages graphic novel Awake is about a young girl and her brother who have…

Joan Baranow

Joan Baranow founded and teaches in Dominican’s MFA program in creative writing. Her poetry has appeared in The Gettysburg Review, The Paris Review, JAMA, Feminist Studies, Spillway, and other magazines. Her poetry has also appeared in anthologies…

Mia Andler

Mia Andler is a foraging expert, founder and director of Vilda—a nonprofit that connects children to nature in Northern California—and co-author of The Bay Area Forager. Originally from Finland, she has been foraging since she was a little…
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Faith Adiele

Faith Adiele writes and speaks about race, culture, and travel. She is author of Meeting Faith, a memoir about ordaining as Thailand’s first Black Buddhist nun that won the PEN Open Book Award and routinely appears on travel listicles. Her…