Bay Area Book Festival Podcast

World-renowned Buddhist teacher Frank Ostaseski discusses the tenets of a life well lived and share simple suggestions everyone can practice. Sponsored by North Berkeley Investment Partners.

These esteemed reviewers take us inside the process: Lydia Kiesling, editor of The Millions; Paul Laity, non-fiction reviewer at The Guardian; Ismail Muhammad, reviewer for The Millions and contributor to Slate and the Paris Review; and Jane Ciabattari, BBC reviewer and former president of the National Book Critics Circle.

Memoir writers have the especially challenging task of confronting their own past and creating themselves as a character. In their memoirs, these writers address the U.S. Border Patrol, the experience of Holocaust survivors and growing up mixed-race in America.

Come hear how writers dream up, and then capture on the page, entirely new people who are exceptionally complicated. With the support of the Norway House Foundation, NORLA - Norwegian Literature Abroad, the Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation, and the Consulate General of Sweden in San Francisco.

One of the Bay Area’s most famous activists talks with a movement insider on the history and future of activism. How have past movements used disruptive tactics to catalyze change? Is there hope in the dark, and how do we act on it? Sponsored by UC Berkeley Arts + Design.

This smart, compassionate woman — who arrived in this country as a near-penniless immigrant student and became one of the founding board members of Salesforce — gives other smart women the tools they need to win. Sponsored by Strong Legacy Planning.

As women across the world make their painful experiences visible, men have begun to grapple with how the masculine identity shapes the power imbalance.

Nina LaCour’s characters look a lot like her readers. This awardwinning author has devoted her life to young adults: first as a teacher, then as a writer. Her new novel “We Are Okay” deals with trauma, isolation, coping and change.

Writers shoulder a responsibility as voices for their time. Faculty members from CCA’s MFA in Writing program, spanning travel, memoir, fiction and poetry, interrogate the role of creative practice in the 21st century. Sponsored by the California College of Arts MFA in Writing Program.

Greg Sarris’s book, “How a Mountain Was Made,” mythologizes the Northern California landscape with Native stories — fables with universal resonance and beauty. Sponsored by the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria.