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Story Time Band

In 2013, children's librarian Michael Kwende, known to Berkeley youth as "Mr. Michael," and retired librarian and guitarist Tim DeWolf, began offering musical story time programs at the Berkeley Public Library's Claremont Branch Library. Their…
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Lance Knobel

Lance Knobel is CEO and co-founder of Cityside Journalism Initiative, a pioneering nonprofit local news organization. Its award-winning sites, Berkeleyside, Oaklandside and Richmondside, have built a reputation for innovation and strong accountability…

Michael Shapiro

Michael Shapiro is the author of The Creative Spark, winner of a 2021 Independent Publishers Book Award. Among the authors he interviewed for that book: Barbara Kingsolver, Pico Iyer, and Amy Tan. He’s also the author of A Sense of Place,…

Ethel Rohan

Bio coming soon!

Amanda Mei Kim

Amanda Mei Kim writes about collective power, racism, connections to nature, and capitalism in the lives of rural Californians of color. She is a Steinbeck Fellow and a California Arts Council Fellow. Her essays on rural life have received an…

Lauren Davis

Lauren Davis is an Eisner-nominated comic book writer and cartoonist. With Mel Hilario and Katie Longua, Davis co-created the graphic novel Debian Perl, Digital Detective and the upcoming graphic novel Agent Cupcake. Her short comics have appeared…

Sandy White

Sandy White has a BFA in painting from the University of Pennsylvania in conjunction with the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. She recently graduated from Dominican University of California with an MFA in creative writing. Her poetry has…

Nichole Turnbloom

Nichole Turnbloom lives in Sonoma County and works as a yoga therapist to alleviate pain and facilitate healing with clients, which is not unlike the process of writing poetry, on some days. She is currently a graduate candidate at Dominican…

Reneé Marie

Reneé Marie moved from Vermont to Sacramento in 2006 to serve with the Army’s Wounded Warriors In Transition Program. After a deployment to Afghanistan in 2010, she made California her home. Major Marie is now a Retired Reserve, Medical Service…

Abby Peyton Laporte

Abby Peyton Laporte is an MFA student of narrative medicine. She is previously published in The Berkeley Times Poetry Edition, Unlimited Literature, and Tuxedo Literary Magazine, with two chapbooks available (Bitter Elixir and Sacred Lucidity).…