Bo Lu

Bo Lu moved from the bustling streets of Taipei to the quiet suburbs of Kansas as a little girl, knowing just three English words: Apple, Banana, and so-so. Before she could express herself in English, her drawings became the bridge between her two worlds. She now lives in San Mateo with her husband and their two daughters. Her debut book, Bao’s Doll, won an Ezra Jack Keats Illustrator Honor and tells the story of a girl who, after stealing a doll, creates one that ultimately becomes the bridge connecting her and her immigrant mother.

Where to find me at the festival

Dan Alter

Dan Alter’s poems, reviews and translations have been published in journals including Field, Fourteen Hills, and Zyzzyva; his first collection My Little Book of Exiles won the 2022 Cowan Poetry Prize. A volume of translations Take a Breath, You’re Getting Excited, from the Hebrew of Yakir Ben-Moshe, was published by Ben Yehuda Press in September 2024, and Hills Full of Holes, a second collection of poems, by Fernwood Press in March 2025. He lives with his wife and daughter in Berkeley. He works at the Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life at UC Berkeley.

2025 Writers’ Workshops

Speaker A Compass in the Wilderness: Poetry in the Age of Environmental Crisis