Joyous Dawn (Bushwick Book Club Oakland)

Joyous Dawn is an Oakland based singer-songwriter, community circle facilitator, and youth educator. They create music with tender messages and healing vibes with the intention that listeners tap into their hearts, bodies, emotions and really feel something.

Their music traverses a blend of genres – folk, soul, meditative, R&B and jazz – uplifted with acoustic guitar and ethereal vocals. Their songwriting blossomed as a way to process grief and loss, and continues to tell stories inspired by queer love, connection to earth, change, and growth. Check out their new release “Whispers in the Wind” via their website: Joyousdawn.com or follow them on Instagram: @joyousdawnmusic

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