J. K. Fowler is a current fellow in the CA for the Arts Grassroots Artists Advocacy Program (GAAP), Executive Director of the Bay Area Book Festival, Policy Analyst and Special Programs/Community Outreach with BAMBD, CDC, and Operations Support for APEN and APEN Action. Previously, he founded and ran Nomadic Press, a community rooted publishing house headquartered in Oakland and sat on Oakland’s Cultural Affairs Commission, during which time he helped launch the Oakland Poet Laureate Program. He believes deeply in the transformational power of self-determination, mycelial curiosity and inquiry, and the act of intentionally weaving (and tending to) community. For more information, visit jkfowler.com.

Samee is a veteran Bay Area marketing professional and event producer who joined the festival in 2016 as Heart of the Town Events, where she played a key role in revitalizing the outdoor fair. In 2017, Samee was appointed Managing Director, where she built the necessary administrative, fiscal, and organizational frameworks to support the festival’s growth. In 2019, her duties expanded to include marketing and promotion, developing strategies to enhance the festival’s brand and broaden its audience. Samee also manages the festival’s partnership with presenting sponsor Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, overseeing an annual writing workshop for Native high school students that culminates in a live festival presentation and a published anthology of their work.

Dora La Flora Czifra is a seasoned event and web professional who has been a key member of the BABF Leadership Team since 2018. She holds a Master’s degree in American Literature and Culture from Uppsala University in Sweden and has lived in Berkeley for over a decade. With a diverse background in educational administration, cannabis investment conferences, and nonprofit work, Dora currently directs all aspects of BABF Festival programming and manages multiple websites for local Bay Area organizations.

A passionate advocate for storytelling in all its forms, she is committed to amplifying voices through writing, art, film, music, and video games. Dora also serves as a judge for the prestigious Audie Awards and enjoys exercise, popular culture, and spending time with her beloved cat, Schmuley.

Scott became the Festival COO in 2017 and quickly steered the event to hire the Bay Area’s best production talent and move the organization from volunteer based to professionals. He has produced live events and  entertainment for over 40 years in the Bay Area, and brought the festival onlineto the rest of the world in 2020, along with other international literary festivals and events.

Steven Tiffin, a seasoned Bay Area event producer, became involved with the festival in 2016 festival as Heart of the Town Events, where he took on the responsibility of producing the 2017 outdoor fair. Over the years, he has played a key role in enhancing the festival by introducing various innovations aimed at improving production quality, increasing exhibitor participation, and enhancing the audience experience. His efforts have been instrumental in transforming the event into a beloved annual tradition. Additionally, Steven contributes fiscal and administrative support to the festival, handling tasks like bookkeeping and other business services, ensuring smooth operations behind the scenes.

Piper Kerman is the author of the memoirOrange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison,which was adapted into an Emmy Award-winning original series for Netflix. She serves on the board of directors of the Women’s Prison Association and the advisory boards of the PEN America Writing for Justice Fellowship, InsideOUT Writers, Healing Broken Circles, and JustLeadershipUSA. Piper is a frequent invited speaker to students of law, criminology, gender and women’s studies, sociology, and creative writing, and also to groups that include the International Association of Women Judges, the National Association of Counties, the National Conference of State Legislatures, the National Criminal Justice Association, the American Probation and Parole Association, the American Correctional Association’s Disproportionate Minority Confinement Task Force, public defenders, justice reform advocates, and formerly and currently incarcerated people. Piper has taught writing in Ohio state prisons as an Affiliate Instructor with Otterbein University. She’s a graduate of Smith College and lives in Berkeley, California.

Aida Salazar is an award-winning author, arts activist, and translator whose writings for adults and children explore issues of identity and social justice. She is the author of the critically acclaimed middle grade verse novels, The Moon Within; Land of the Cranes; and A Seed in the Sun. Her other works include the picture book anthology, In the Spirit of a Dream: 13 Stories of Immigrants of Color; the bio picture book Jovita Wore Pants: The Story of a Mexican Freedom Fighter; and the anthology Calling the Moon: Period Stories by BIPOC Authors. Aida is a founding member of LAS MUSAS, a Latinx kidlit author collective. She lives with her family of artists in Oakland, California.

George Rehm is a founding partner of aeris CAPITAL AG. He has over 30 years of experience as a lawyer and executive in international licensing, technology transfer, and investment and privatization transactions in the US, Europe, and Asia. George has held board or observer positions in numerous transformational healthcare companies, including Crescendo Biosciences, Adamas Pharmaceuticals, and Ion Torrent, Inc. George continues to manage the aeris Life Science portfolio and serves as a director of GenomeDx Inc., PFS Genetics, Butterfly Networks, LAM Therapeutics Inc., Solstice Biosciences, G2i and Jiff Inc. He received his BSFS from Georgetown University, and a JD from the University of California, Hastings College of Law in parallel to graduate studies in City Planning at the College of Environmental Design, UC Berkeley and served as graduate assistant at the Earl Warren Legal Institute, UC Berkeley, Boalt Hall. He lives in Berkeley, California.

Aya de León teaches creative writing in the African American StudiesDepartment at UC Berkeley. She is acquiring editor for a new climate justice fiction imprint at She Writes Press. Fighting Chance Books will publish novels by authors of all genders about people taking collective action in the here and now to solve the climate crisis. Aya is the author of ten novels, published by Kensington, Candlewick, and Orion, all focused on racial, gender, class and climate justice. Her books have won the Jane Addams Award for peace and social justice in children’s literature, and multiple International Latino Book Awards and Independent Publisher Awards. Aya’s work has appeared inHarper’s Bazaar, Ebony, Guernica, Bitch Magazine, VICE, The Root, Ploughshares,and onDef Poetry. In 2022, she organized an online conference entitled Black Literature vs. the Climate Emergency and she works on the issue of climate with the Black Hive, which is part of the Movement for Black Lives. She currently has two novels-in-progress and is working on an intersectional memoir-in-progress about race, gender, war, body image, and the environment.

Brooke Warner is publisher of She Writes Press and SparkPress, president ofWarnerCoaching Inc., and author ofWrite On, Sisters!, Green-light Your Book, What’s Your Book?, and three books on memoir.Brookeisa TEDx speaker, weekly podcaster (of “Write-minded” with co-host Grant Faulkner of NaNoWriMo), and the former Executive Editor of Seal Press. She has served on the Boards of the Independent Book Publishers Association, including for two years as Chairperson; the National Association of Memoir Writers; and the Book Industry Study Group. She has also been on the Board of the Bay Area Book Festival since its first year in 2014. She has been Chairperson since 2000. Brooke writes a regular column forPublishers Weekly, and weekly Substack @brookewarner. She lives and works in Berkeley, California.

Terria Smith is a tribal member of the Torres Martinez Desert Cahuilla Indians and a proud original Californian. She is the editor of News from Native California magazine and director of the Berkeley Roundhouse, Heyday’s California Indian publishing program. In 2023, the anthology she edited Know We Are Here: Voices of Native California Resistance was published, which she is also the audiobook narrator for. Terria received her undergraduate degree at Cal Poly Humboldt (formally Humboldt State University) and earned her master’s degree at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. She currently has a memoir in progress which focuses on her international travel experiences and perspectives as an Indigenous woman.

Gabriel Cortez is a poet, educator, and organizer. He is a VONA fellow, 2023 YBCA Creative Corps awardee, board secretary at Performing Arts Workshop, and the inaugural poet in residence with the Shelterwood Collective and the Ecology Center in Berkeley. From 2014 to 2023, Gabriel served as Lead Poet Mentor and Director of Programs at Youth Speaks, one of the world’s leading presenters of spoken word performance, education, and youth development programs. Gabriel is a member of the artist collective, Ghostlines, and co-founder of The Root Slam, an award-winning poetry venue dedicated to inclusivity, justice, and artistic growth, as well as Write Home, a project working to challenge public perceptions of houselessness and shift critical resources to houseless Bay Area youth through poetry and arts programming. For more on Gabriel, visit www.gabrielmcortez.com