Bay Area Book Festival Podcast

Enter the liminal. In this portal, hybridity is power, and contradiction is poetry. Chimera Space brings together a group of poets whose work inhabits the monstrous, the beautiful, and the in-between—bodies, identities, and voices that resist categorization and embrace complexity. Cindy Juyoung Ok writes into multiplicity, turning silence into disruption and fragmentation into form. Her poems invite readers into nonlinear truths. Grayson Thompson conjures the poetic tenderness and fire, exploring queer embodiment and psychic rupture. Adela Najarro brings the force of nature and cultural inheritance to the page, her poetry fusing eco-consciousness with the surreal. Amanda Hawkins explores desire, disorientation, and liminality with language that glows from within. Her work vibrates with strange beauty and invites us into the sensual space of the unknowable. Mia Ayumi Malhotra writes from the rich interstices of lineage and displacement. Her lyric inquiries unfold slowly, like memory, threading together multiple inheritances and the ghosts that come with them. Join us as these poetic guides read us into the borderlands—offering a space where transformation is not only possible, but inevitable. A panel discussion will follow the reading.

Amidst current challenges like book bans in schools and libraries across the country, record numbers of legal restrictions on the human rights of immigrants and trans people, especially trans youth, in our community, creators play a crucial role when they come together in a unified voice of resistance. We have many models of people who resisted under the most repressive circumstances, including Maria van Lieshout’s Song of a Blackbird, a historical graphic novel based on a true story about a collective of artists in the Dutch Resistance during WWII who used their creativity to save children and to support community resistance in heavily oppressive times.There are also many organizations pushing back now, today, demonstrating the pivotal role of the creative spirit in highlighting problems, providing possible solutions, and bringing us together to lift us up. Hear from Maggie Tokuda-Hall of Authors Against Book Bans, Rhonda Roumani of Story Sunbirds, and Robert Liu-Trujillo of the Social Justice Children’s Book Fair on how they are pushing back against book bans, fighting for children in the face of war, and uplifting social justice children’s books in their community. For everyone and anyone who cares about young humans, this panel, moderated by author and professor Tomas Moniz, will invite creatives and organizers to share what gives them hope, what they do, and how we can all get involved.

A sense of place is something we all deserve. For children whose roots lie in lands and cultures that are often under- or even mis-represented, the concept of home can be complex. When the politics of war propaganda and media stereotypes permeate our lives, children’s books offer insight, better understanding, and for some a path home. From Iraq, Palestine, and Iran, three authors share their homeland journeys. Mona Damluji (I Want You to Know) and Maysa Odeh (A Map For Falasteen). Moderated by Khalil Bendib, host of Voices of the Middle East and North Africa on KPFA (94.1 FM).

The talented woman sleuths of this panel have once again found themselves in unexpected conundrums that hit close to home. Join Parisian PI Aimée Leduc on her quest for innocence after being framed for the murder of her daughter’s father in Murder at la Villette, the 21st installment of Cara Black’s New York Times bestselling mystery series. Alternatively, travel from France back to California with The Serial Killer Guide to San Francisco by Michelle Chouinard, in which the granddaughter of a suspected serial killer suddenly finds herself as the prime suspect for murder. Peaceful seaside town Haven, California is the setting for Rachel Howzell Hall’s latest thriller, Fog and Fury, a town hiding more secrets than LAPD cop Sonny had anticipated when she first relocated there with her elderly mother. Family businesses take the stage in The Library Game, Book 4 of the Secret Staircase Mysteries by Gigi Pandian, which follows Tempest Raj and her family construction business’s newest project to transform a home into a public library that celebrates history's greatest fictional detectives, but the mood quickly sours when their celebratory event, a murder mystery dinner and a literary-themed escape room, ends in murder and a vanished body. Speaking of libraries and detectives, this thrilling discussion will be moderated by the Curator of the California Detective Fiction Collection at the UC Berkeley Bancroft Library, Randal Brandt.

Whether in a comic panel or at a panel discussion, these earnest graphic novel stories are here to remind us to stay true to ourselves, our beliefs, and our passions! Follow Huda Fahmy’s exhilarating and chaotic family vacation to Disney World, where self-conscious Huda quickly realizes that her family’s public prayers make them stand out; and while she is proud of her religion and who she is, she sure wishes she could just think: Huda F Cares? Like the people Huda encounters in Florida, the students and teachers at Hassan’s middle school are also particularly uninformed about the traditions of Ramadan in Wahab Algarmi’s Almost Sunset, and Hassan must learn to balance it all during this hectic holy month of fasting, prayer, reflection, and community. Time plays a mischievous role in You and Me On Repeat by Mary Shyne, a swoony and hilarious rom-com graphic novel about two former friends who are trapped in a time loop that repeats their high school graduation day over and over and over. Written by high school teacher and award-winning graphic novelist Gene Luen Yang, Dragon Hoops recounts his life-changing journey following the men’s varsity basketball team as they shoot for their ultimate goal: the California State Championships. Celebrating both the comical and meaningful moments in life, this compelling panel, moderated by librarian and children’s author Elaine Tai, offers an endearing and intimate look into the multidimensional lives of graphic novel protagonists.

This panel unites four transformative leaders pioneering the incorporation of healing into activism, demonstrating how personal transformation fuels collective liberation. Their work bridges social justice and healing, emphasizing the need for community care in the fight for a just future. Dr. Ayodele Nzinga, poet laureate of Oakland and founder of Lower Bottom Playaz and BAMBD CDC, uses poetry as a tool for Black liberation. In Sorrowland Oracle, she redefines healing and justice through a Black gaze, centering Black space as essential for universal liberation. Myisha T. Hill, writer, social entrepreneur, and healer, leads a revolution of heart, mind, and soul. Her book, Heal Your Way Forward, challenges us to envision an antiracist future for the next seven generations, offering practical guidance on healing and meaningful change. Kazu Haga, nonviolence and restorative justice educator, argues that activism and healing must be inseparable. His book, Fierce Vulnerability, calls for centering relationships and addressing trauma, reminding us that we cannot “shut down” injustice any more than we can “shut down” pain. Malaika Parker, Executive Director of Black Organizing Project, has worked toward a racially just SF Bay Area for 25 years, addressing police accountability, racial justice in education, and race-based inequities in the child welfare system. She is the founder of Hummingbirds Urban Farming Collective, which promotes food sovereignty and ecological justice for Black children and their communities. Moderated by Renata Moreira, trauma-informed social impact consultant and Reiki Master Teacher, this conversation will explore how embracing vulnerability, addressing trauma, and incorporating healing into activism can create lasting social change.

As we face increasing attacks on our bodily autonomy from our federal and state governments, these books provide essential resources and narratives that approach the topic with acuity and compassion. Award-winning author Zetta Elliott reflects the voices of Black women and girls for whom body policing has long been an issue in Say Her Name, a collection of poems that pays tribute to victims of police brutality as well as the activists championing the Black Lives Matter cause, revealing the beauty, danger, and magic found at the intersection of race and gender. In Seema Yasmin’s Unbecoming, a near-speculative novel that has predicted our anti-abortion world with terrifying accuracy, two Muslim teens in Texas create an illegal guide to abortion that includes how to secure safe medications and navigate underground networks of clinics that sprung up in response to unfair laws that prohibit the right to choose. Breathe: Journeys to Healthy Binding by bestselling author Maia Kobabe and Public Health Assistant Professor Sarah Peitzmeier, offers a real-life a graphic novel guide to chest binding as gender-affirming care not only for trans and nonbinary folks but also for anyone interested in what it means to be on a journey of expressing one’s gender in ways that are joyful, healthy, and affirming. Screenwriter, poet, and educator Shia Shabazz Smith will moderate this panel, building from the crucial book Our Bodies, Ourselves, that advocates for bodily autonomy for all bodies, all selves.

Long before politicians weaponized book bans across the country, mainstream publishers have controlled which books get published, carrying out “soft book bans” through gatekeeping. For as long as books have been published (and censored), indie and alternative publishers have challenged these gatekeepers, who have often excluded and marginalized diverse voices. As these same institutions preemptively buckle to pressures from above, we must uplift true grassroots, community-based publishers that bring out books by and for their communities. Hear from Zetta Elliott (The Oracle’s Door) of Rosetta Press, a self-publisher of children’s books that reveal, explore and foster a Black feminist vision of the world; Robert Liu-Trujillo (Fresh Juice) of the Social Justice Children’s Book Fair; and Maya Gonzalez (When a Bully Is President) and Matthew Smith of Reflection Press, a POC, queer, and trans-owned independent children’s book publisher. This candid conversation, moderated by Laura Atkins of the Social Justice Children’s Book Fair, will focus on envisioning and creating alternate pathways in order to bring underrepresented stories to life. With expertise in self-publishing, hybrid models, and micropresses, the creative minds of this panel will share about their work, the books they produce, the challenges they face, and how they find ways to thrive as they create important and meaningful books.

We begin with invocation—of memory, of resistance, of radical possibility. Incantations to Open Portals is the ceremonial opening of the poetry stage at the Bay Area Book Festival, co-sponsored with the Berkeley Poetry Festival, where poetry becomes spell, speech becomes spellwork, and presence becomes protest. This opening event features incantatory offerings by Aya de León, Berkeley Poet Laureate, celebrated poet, activist, and author, who will bring her fierce, truth-telling lyricism to this moment of collective gathering. Her work bridges the personal and political, and her incantation sets the stage for a festival rooted in justice, joy, and imagination. MK Chavez, Co-director of the Berkeley Poetry Festival, will introduce the legacy of amplifying the voices of writers who change the world. Together, they will open the portal—with words, intention, and fierce love. In a world contending with violence and erasure, what does it mean to plant a future? Garden of Possibilities gathers six poets who write toward abundance, resistance, and reimagined ways of being. Through language rooted in care, complexity, and radical imagination, this reading and panel invites us to collectively cultivate what is possible. Audrey T. Williams, a visionary voice in Afrofuturist and Black speculative poetics, crafts worlds where Black liberation blooms beyond the limits of the present. Her work is a call to remember, to dream, and imagine. Gabriel Cortez fuses poetry with movement-building, creating work that uplifts diasporic joy, ecological kinship, and community resilience. Cintia Santana writes into the intersections of language, translation, and exile. Her poetry navigates linguistic borders and personal geographies, tracing beauty through dislocation and cultural memory. Kinsale Drake, a Diné poet and storyteller, brings forth visions rooted in Native sovereignty and survival. Her work speaks of land, lineage, and a future held in Indigenous hands. Maw Shein Win tends the surreal and the sublime, her poetry offering quiet revelations from the edges of reality. Drawing from Burmese heritage and Buddhist philosophy, she brings a meditative force to the page. Bryan Byrdlong blends history, speculation, and Afrosurrealism with craft and fire. His poetry opens portals—honoring memory while daring new futures into being. Together, these poets offer a garden where justice grows, language blooms, and imagination becomes practice.

In the face of climate catastrophe, it’s natural to react with grief, sorrow, and hopelessness to the constant reminders of how fragile and impermanent our world is. Lauren Markham reckons with her grief in Immemorial, a speculative synthesis of reporting, memoir, and essay describing her desire to memorialize something in the process of being lost and mourn the abstracted casualties of what’s to come. The climate crisis affects all areas of our lives, especially motherhood for Rachel Richardson, who questions how best to raise her young daughters amidst a string of record-breaking fires across the California landscape in Smother, a collection of poems that weaves environmental and physical predation—both on the earth and on the female body. Obi Kaufmann offers a solution in The State of Fire, presenting fire as a force of regeneration rather than apocalypse, essential for a healthy and biodiverse Golden State, and sharing a refreshingly hopeful vision of California’s future in which we learn from the teachings of our surroundings. A future of regeneration is precarious but reassuringly within reach, and this panel, moderated by Environmental Studies Associate Professor Vijaya Nagarajan, will be both a validation of our sorrow for the burning world and a beacon of hope as we work to revitalize it. Co-presented with Litquake, San Francisco's literary festival. Litquake’s diverse live programs aim to inspire critical engagement with the key issues of the day, bring people together around the common humanity encapsulated in literature, and perpetuate a sense of literary community by providing a vibrant forum for Bay Area writing