Evan Leikam

Evan Leikam grew up among the forests of central Oregon reading fantasy and science fiction from a young age. While touring the United States and Europe with an independent rock band, he began tinkering with his own stories to pass time in vans and music venues. Apart from writing he enjoys cooking, producing music, riding his bike, and From Software games. He is the host of the Book Reviews Kill podcast, and his social media pages have turned thousands on to new books. He currently lives in Portland, Oregon.

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