Kathryn Otoshi

KATHRYN OTOSHI is an award-winning author, illustrator, and speaker known for picture books that pair bold visual design with powerful social themes.

Her acclaimed titles, including One, Zero, and Two, are widely used to spark conversations about inclusion, empathy, and emotional literacy.

Based in Temecula, California, she creates stories that encourage children to stand up for others and lead with kindness.

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