Boots Riley

Activist, filmmaker, and musician, Boots Riley studied film at San Francisco State University before rising to prominence as the frontman of hip-hop groups The Coup and Street Sweeper Social Club. His debut feature film Sorry to Bother You premiered at the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, was acquired by Annapurna Pictures, and was released to resounding box office success and widespread critical acclaim.

Fervently dedicated to social change, Boots was deeply involved with the Occupy Oakland movement and was one of the leaders of the activist group The Young Comrades. His book of lyrics and anecdotes, Tell Homeland Security-We Are The Bomb, is out on Haymarket Press.

He is the recipient of the Independent Spirit Awards for Best Feature Film, and SFFILM’s Kanbar Award. His most recent work, I’m a Virgo, is available on Amazon and was nominated for a Gotham Award and 4 Independent Spirit Awards. He just finishedI LOVE BOOSTERS starring Keke Palmer and Demi Moore which will hit theaters on May 22nd.

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