Between audio books? Curious about the writers themselves? Listen to full-length sessions from the Bay Area Book Festival, where readers and writers meet each year in Berkeley, CA, to engage with their favorite authors, including Pulitzer Prize winners, chefs, and activists, to discuss writing, race, love, mystery, and more.
Bay Area Book Festival Podcast
Claim This Podcastby Bay Area Book Festival
4.7(12 reviews)
374 episodes
Updated Daily
Accepts GuestsHas SponsorsLocation 🇺🇸
55
Podcast Authority
BetaFairBased on show quality, social media presence, reviews, charts, and more
Quality42
Social0
YouTube86
Engagement85
Podcast Overview
Between audio books? Curious about the writers themselves? Listen to full-length sessions from the Bay Area Book Festival, where readers and writers meet each year in Berkeley, CA, to engage with their favorite authors, including Pulitzer Prize winners, chefs, and activists, to discuss writing, race, love, mystery, and more.
Language
🇺🇲
Publishing Since
10/19/2017
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55
Podcast Authority
BetaFairBased on show quality, social media presence, reviews, charts, and more
Quality42
Social0
YouTube86
Engagement85
6
Excellent Areas
2
Good Performance
11
Growth Opportunities
excellent
Episode Length
48 minutes
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good
Publishing Consistency
Every 9 days
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needs improvement
Show Notes Quality
2.0/5
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Recent Episodes
July 9, 2026
Exploring the Ups and Downs of Creating Early Chapter Book Series
<p>What is it like to work on early chapter book series? The award-winning writers and illustrator on this panel are here to tell us more! <strong>Donna Barba Higuera</strong> will introduce Don't Eat the Birthday Boy!, the second book in her Unlikely Aventuras of Ramón and El Cucuy series, which takes place at Ramón's monster-filled birthday party. The author of the thirteenth book in The Kids in Mrs. Z's Class series, <strong>Mike Jung</strong> introduces Theo Chang, who must find a way to befriend his family's newly adopted cat before they give up and take him back to the shelter in Theo Chang Is Not a Cat. Twirling in with another feline friend who wreaks havoc, The Princess in Black and its illustrator <strong>LeUyen Pham</strong> are back with The Princess in Black and the Kitty Catastrophe to share what it's like to illustrate a series that has been in publication for over ten years. The fun never stops with the early chapter book series in this marvelous panel, moderated by Supervising Librarian Librarian <strong>Shani B</strong>!</p> <p>This event took place in Downtown Berkeley, at the Bay Area Book Festival, May 29-31 2026. </p> <p>Support our work and help to keep the Bay Area Book Festival 96% free! <a href= "https://givebutter.com/writingthefuture">https://givebutter.com/writingthefuture</a></p> <p>Check out our upcoming events <a href= "https://www.baybookfest.org">www.baybookfest.org</a></p> <p>Follow us on instagram: <a href= "https://www.instagram.com/baybookfest/">https://www.instagram.com/baybookfest/</a></p>
July 9, 2026
Hope is a Time Traveler: Globalist Pasts & Potentials
<p>In the midst of white nationalism, global capitalism, and authoritarian regimes that drive individualism and isolation, a look to our past and envisioned futures reveals the prevailing strength of creativity and rebellion across time. By surveying a world that has changed dramatically since 1960 in her book The Beginning Comes After the End: Notes on a World of Change, historian and activist <strong>Rebecca Solnit</strong> unveils the sheer breadth and scale of social, political, scientific, and cultural changes that have shaped a more interconnected, relational world which embraces antiracism, feminism, a more expansive understanding of gender, environmental thinking, scientific breakthroughs, and Indigenous and non-Western ideas. Because transformation is obscured within a longer arc of history, its scale is seldom recognized, but change is inevitable, brought about by dismantling an old civilization and building a new one, whose newness is often the return of the old ways and wisdoms. Poet, performer, and director <strong>Saul Williams</strong> charts his own creative visions for change in Martyr Loser King, his graphic novel about a global cyberattack rebellion in a small East African country where the Black population and the land are exploited for the mining of the precious ore coltan. Simultaneously a cautionary tale and hopeful vision for the future, this cyberpunk fable raises incisive questions about capitalism, colonialism, and the future of technology. Moderated by writer, producer, and activist <strong>Christie George</strong>, who is working at the intersection of media, technology, and social change, this headlining conversation features the creative minds who are mapping and shaping the trajectory of our futures despite the forces seeking to turn back the clock on history.</p> <p>Introductory live music performance by Origin Stories (Bushwick Book Club Oakland)</p> <p>This event took place in Downtown Berkeley, at the Bay Area Book Festival, May 29-31 2026. </p> <p>Support our work and help to keep the Bay Area Book Festival 96% free! <a href= "https://givebutter.com/writingthefuture">https://givebutter.com/writingthefuture</a></p> <p>Check out our upcoming events <a href= "https://www.baybookfest.org">www.baybookfest.org</a></p> <p>Follow us on instagram: <a href= "https://www.instagram.com/baybookfest/">https://www.instagram.com/baybookfest/</a></p>
July 8, 2026
When the Past Comes Calling: Crime Fiction Across America's Fault Lines
<p>Crime fiction becomes a lens on buried history, fractured families, and the uneasy relationship between past and present in this electrifying conversation featuring <strong>Naomi Hirahara, Susie Hara, Faye Snowden, Élan Les Vies,</strong> and <strong>Shobha Rao</strong>. Though their settings range from early 20th-century California to post-1906 San Francisco, from the contemporary South to a fogbound Northern California cove in the 1980s, these authors share a fascination with what lingers: generational trauma, cultural displacement, family secrets, and the long shadow of violence. Their novels probe how history imprints itself on communities and on the individuals who attempt reinvention in places shaped by exclusion, secrecy, and survival. In Crown City, Hirahara uncovers anti-Japanese violence and artistic intrigue in early California, illuminating overlooked chapters of regional history within a classic investigative mystery. Hara's Earthquake Shack introduces Sadie García Miller, a half-Mexican, half-Jewish investigator pulled into a mystery involving a vanished 1906 earthquake cottage and her own family's criminal past. Set in San Francisco's Mission District, Hara's noir blends intergenerational conflict, buried histories, high-stakes danger and the moral gray areas of family loyalty. In A Killing Breath, Snowden continues her gripping Southern gothic series featuring homicide detective Raven Burns, the daughter of a notorious serial killer. As Raven hunts a new predator, she must confront the terrifying possibility that her father's darkness lives on within her. Her work has been called "intense," "and a pulse-pounding contribution to a genre lacking in Black women authors". In Indian Country, Rao's novel about the ramifications of colonialism westward expansion, a young couple moves from India to Montana, where the husband becomes a scapegoat when his colleague is found drowned. This death is one in a long history of people of color paying the price for the white man's arrogance and expansionism. In The Lemon Twist, Les Vies follows a search for truth sparked by a cryptic clue tied to a long-ago disappearance. Through fractured memory, cassette recordings, and coastal isolation, the novel explores identity, shame, and the dangerous undertow of unresolved pasts. Across their work, these writers examine how communities respond to displacement, how families transmit both resilience and harm, and how investigators navigate systems that marginalize or erase. Together, they will discuss historical noir, Southern gothic suspense, California crime fiction, and the craft of writing mysteries that are as socially resonant as they are gripping. The conversation will be moderated by <strong>Randal Brandt</strong>, Head of Cataloging and Curator of the California Detective Fiction Collection at the Bancroft Library at the University of California, Berkeley and creator of Golden Gate Mysteries, an annotated bibliography of crime fiction set in the San Francisco Bay Area.</p> <p>This event took place in Downtown Berkeley, at the Bay Area Book Festival, May 29-31 2026. </p> <p>Support our work and help to keep the Bay Area Book Festival 96% free! <a href= "https://givebutter.com/writingthefuture">https://givebutter.com/writingthefuture</a></p> <p>Check out our upcoming events <a href= "https://www.baybookfest.org">www.baybookfest.org</a></p> <p>Follow us on instagram: <a href= "https://www.instagram.com/baybookfest/">https://www.instagram.com/baybookfest/</a></p>
374 total episodes available
Recent guests on Bay Area Book Festival Podcast
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Carolina Ixta
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Naomi Klein
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John King
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Eric Porter
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