Bay Area Book Festival Podcast

In a country that tries to erase our troubled history of the oppressive treatment of certain groups, today’s youth are forced to find their footing in an increasingly unsteady world that rejects their exploration of different identities and experiences. Join Oakland writers Carolina Ixta (Shut Up, This is Serious) and J.R. Rice (Broken Pencils) for an impactful panel discussion focused on teen mental health and the difficult choices that young people face as they come of age. Cognizant of the unique struggles that come with growing up in diverse Bay Area communities, these novels present adolescence in a brutally honest and heart-wrenching light, touching on topics like teen pregnancy, drugs, and sexual harassment, while treating readers with both tenderness and tough love in a way that teaches us to demand respect for ourselves, no matter our origins. Joining them will be Rhonda Roumani (Tagging Freedom) whose book follows Kareem Haddad, a young graffiti artist from war-torn Damascus, is inspired to use his art to protest the violence around him, while his cousin Samira in the United States grapples with fitting in and standing up for what’s right. As Kareem’s secret messages spark a movement, both teens must confront the power of activism and the personal choices they must make in the face of war and societal pressure. Moderated by social justice advocate and community leader Xochtil Larios, whose social reform work has earned her the California Endowment 2018 Youth Award and a Soros Youth Justice Fellowship, this discussion will resonate with both teens and adults, offering insight into the universal experience of finding one's way through the maze of mental health, difficult choices, family, and identity.

The for-profit American healthcare model has left gaps in the system that harm everyone by stripping away the human element and emboldening shifty ethical and legal practices. The authors of this panel draw on their medical expertise to propose new frameworks for healing by targeting specific areas of today’s complex healthcare system. In My Brother's Keeper, UCSF psychiatrist Dr. Nicholas Rosenlicht introduces a paradigm shift toward real and lasting solutions in mental health care built on a deep understanding of larger social and economic forces, while clinical psychologist Dr. Yamonte Cooper centers the Black male experience and addresses racial trauma from a clinical lens in Black Men and Racial Trauma: Impacts, Disparities, and Interventions, which equips mental health professionals across all disciplines to be culturally responsive when serving Black men. In All This Safety is Killing Us, a comprehensive, multimedia guide to abolition through the lens of healthcare and medicine, health justice advocate Dr. Carlos Martinez combines political strategy with evidence-based medical and social science research to envision a post-carceral society co-created by the voices our justice systems should be protecting. Those working within public health and medical fields have a critical role to play in ensuring inclusive care, and the advocates of this panel, along with moderator Dr. Vanessa Grubbs, are paving the way toward a truly safe and flourishing society.

The only thing better than an awesome story? An awesome story with pictures, perfect for early readers and middle graders! Follow along with Stella & Marigold as they explore secrets involving blankets, a terrible storm, and two brave children in Annie Barrows’ bright new series about a pair of sisters adventuring through their imaginary worlds. Nine-year-old Ella from Nina LaCour’s Ella Josephine: Resident in Charge also knows what it’s like to have secrets in her perfect apartment house on Poppy Hill, which is inhabited by residents who are as much family as they are neighbors. The beloved Batcat graphic novel series returns to cook up something special in Batcat: Cooking Contest by Meggie Ramm, a story celebrating food, friends, found family, and festivities. Author Lisa Moore Ramée and Laila of Cinnamongirl Inc. will moderate the joyful discussion between these authors, whose stories help us figure out the world and our place in it—and who we want by our side.

While the tightrope of technological advancement is proving quite difficult to navigate, experts from the frontlines of the tech industry are here to offer insights on how we can move forward as a society. First, we must look critically to the scars etched by generations of systemic segregation, as journalist Alexis Madrigal does in The Pacific Circuit, using vibrant and untold stories from the city of Oakland as a backdrop to reveal how our markets and our world really function. Vulnerable communities are hurt most by big tech, and former Facebook lead attorney Bärí Williams recounts balancing on glass cliffs while battling the burnout that so often forces out Black women in her book Seen Yet Unseen, which demonstrates how the industry’s lack of Black women not only harms the businesses themselves but has troubling ramifications for their products. The mental health community is also particularly at risk, and science writer Daniel Oberhaus’ The Silicon Shrink  tells the inside story of how the quest to use AI in psychiatry has created the conditions to turn the world into an asylum by applying deeply flawed psychiatric models of mental disorder at unprecedented scale. The cost of moving quickly in tech is falling victim to its deception. In Terms of Servitude, Omar Zahzah examines the paradox whereby Big Tech companies and prominent digital platforms that initially facilitated the expression of activism and advocacy for Palestinian liberation have come to fortify Zionist settler-colonialism through censorship and erasure often justified by so-called “terms of service” violations. Join us in this panel, moderated by CalMatters tech reporter Khari Johnson, amplifying counter-narratives in tech.

Fight hate, make art, and build community with these graphic novels, based on true stories, that depict the importance of fighting for justice in whatever ways we can. For Eddie Ahn, author of Advocate, becoming an environmental justice lawyer for non-profits defies his Korean immigrant family’s notions of economic success but allows him to confront the most immediate issues the country is facing today, from the devastating effects of California wildfires to economic inequality, all while combating burnout and racial prejudice. Maria van Lieshout, inspired by documents written by her grandparents about their experiences during the Nazi occupation, created Song of a Blackbird, which follows a group of artists who helped pull off the greatest bank heist in European history to fund the Dutch Resistance. Also based on a family story, Josh Tuininga’s We Are Not Strangers follows a Jewish immigrant’s efforts to help his Japanese neighbors, whose lives were upended by Executive Order 9066 that authorized the incarceration of nearly all Japanese Americans during World War II. Timely and rousing, this panel portraying the value of a life of service and civic responsibility will be moderated by Breena Nuñez, a cartoonist and educator whose diary comics help BIPOC folks give themselves permission to express their personal stories through the language of comics.

These days, there are so many ways to get your book out into the world, choosing the best option can be daunting. Join us as a published author from each pathway — the Big 5 (Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, and Hachette Book Group), other traditional publishers, small presses, university presses, hybrid presses, and self publishing - shares their own experience, both good and bad.   Janis Cooke Newman, Saeeda Hafiz, Janine Kovac, Tania Malik, Joan Steinau Lester, Bridget Quinn

As critical works and perspectives are being increasingly censored by the federal government’s hypocritical campaign for its distorted vision of “free speech,” our strategies for organizing and mobilizing communities must adapt to most effectively resist these attacks on justice. Here with an urgent reminder that feminism is expansive rather than definitive is Haitian-American writer and self-proclaimed “bad feminist” Roxane Gay, whose latest collection, The Portable Feminist Reader, depicts the feminist canon as one that represents a long history of feminist scholarship, embraces skepticism, and invites robust discussion and debate. According to the Starred Library Journal, she “provides accessible entry points into feminism and offers even advanced scholars new ways of viewing the complex, intersectional histories of feminist thought, literature, and action” by presenting multicultural perspectives, ecofeminism, feminism and disability, feminist labor, gender perspectives, and Black feminism. Intersectionality and having diverse voices is crucial in the fight for justice, and in conversation with Gay is another powerful voice in media and co-creator of #BlackLivesMatter and the Black Lives Matter Global Network, Alicia Garza, who will be the first to say that “hashtags don’t start movements. People do.” Thus, the first step forward is to equip oneself with knowledge from experts like Gay and Garza, who encourage people to carry their power within, allowing them to adapt and transform, but never conform, in their intersectionality.

Within societies that have been constructed in ways that separate generations and sever connections to storytelling traditions, Indigenous and colonized communities see high rates of teen depression, disenfranchisement, and suicide. In response, projects in rematriation and revitalization of land have emerged to restore this lost connection through research, art, and storytelling. Queer Chamoru writer and interdisciplinary artist Lehua Taitano strengthens her communities as the co-founder of Art 25: Art in the Twenty-fifth Century, current Program and Community Manager at Kearny Street Workshop, and author of several award-winning works that investigate modern indigeneity, decolonization, and cultural identity in the context of diaspora. As an educator, Tongan poet, community organizer, and farmer, Loa Niumeitolu uplifts vulnerable groups in many ways through her work within programs that support Tongan writers, Pacific Islander prisoners and ex-prisoners, and the LGBTQ indigenous community. The talented and inspirational writers of this panel will speak about their contributions toward connecting people across generations, addressing some of the cultural damage that has been done, and re-establishing collective and interconnected communities.

Fiction is often a vehicle for confronting political issues, and the mystery genre is no exception. Former newspaper reporter Jennifer K. Morita’s debut mystery, Ghosts of Waikīkī, features an out-of-work journalist looking into the murder of a controversial land developer and explores timely issues in Hawai’i, including locals getting priced out of paradise. If, as Morita claims, “a good story is like mochi—slightly sweet with a nice chew,” then Leslie Karst takes the phrase quite literally in the second book of the Orchid Isle series, Waters of Destruction, a cozy culinary mystery featuring a feisty queer couple who swap surfing lessons for sleuthing sessions in tropical Hilo, Hawai’i. Follow Mud Sawpole from D. M. Rowell’s Silent Are the Dead as she investigates a murder while also pursuing evidence to permanently stop frackers from destroying the Kiowas’ ancestral homeland, water, and livelihoods. Large institutions also play a big role in Not Long Ago Persons Found by J. Richard Osborn, a debut novel about a biological anthropologist tasked with explaining (in a way that satisfies multiple political regimes) why the body of a young boy is found floating in a river with little to identify him other than pollen in his lungs from what has to be some warm green valley distant from the city in which he has turned up dead. Moderated by the decorated and beloved detective fiction writer Laurie R. King, this panel will explore mystery stories of the modern day as a voice against corruption, land grabs, and other forms of injustice.

Nefertiti Asanti, Natasha Dennerstein, Edward Gunawan, Miah Jeffra, Baruch Porras-Hernandez, Grayson Thompson Community members of the Bay Area's beloved LGBTQ+ collaborative, Foglifter Journal and Press, discuss the role of queer and trans publishing in a time when the nation has further precluded being a place of support and comfort, and shape a vision for queer/trans writing both as celebration and resistance. Panelists will share tips and exercises to cultivate writing in this time of duress.