Seema Vennam

Seema Vennam (@diversifyyourshelf) is a voracious reader and literary influencer committed to the idea that you’re not well-read if you’re not reading diversely. With tens of thousands of followers across social media, she joyfully encourages folks to read more books by authors of color, disabled/chronically authors, and queer authors. A native Southerner, Seema lives with her spouse in Nashville. With or without a book, she spends as much time as possible in the sunshine, admiring flowers and watching bees.

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