Bay Area Book Festival Podcast

Bay Area Book Festival
  • 4.7 (13)
  • Books
  • Updated Weekly

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.

  1. 1d ago

    Inherited Hauntings: Horror at Home

    The monsters we fear most often live behind closed doors. In this chilling and deeply human conversation, Eirinie Carson, Victor Manibo, and Tamika Thompson reveal how horror seeps into family ties, domestic spaces, and generational legacies, where the home becomes both refuge and ruin. Eirinie Carson's Bloodfire, Baby reimagines the maternal gothic through the eyes of a new mother unraveling in isolation, haunted by postpartum dread and a centuries-old specter that mirrors her buried fears. In The Villa, Once Beloved, Victor Manibo conjures a decaying ancestral estate in the Philippines, where grief, folklore, and a fractured family collide and the curse of inheritance refuses to stay buried. Tamika Thompson's The Curse of Hester Gardens brings the haunted house to public housing, reworking the genre into a fierce meditation on systemic violence and maternal sacrifice, where every hallway hums with ghosts, both social and supernatural. Moderated by Allison Mick, whose debut novel Humboldt Cutblends eco-horror with ancestral reckoning, this panel examines how horror exposes what families hide, asking what it means to protect those we love when the true terror lives within the walls we've built. This event took place in Downtown Berkeley, at the Bay Area Book Festival, May 29-31 2026.  Support our work and help to keep the Bay Area Book Festival 96% free! https://givebutter.com/writingthefuture Check out our upcoming events www.baybookfest.org Follow us on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/baybookfest/

  2. 2d ago

    Swords, Seas, and Returning Home: Epic Quests and Cultural Magic in YA Fantasy

    Magic, masks, and seadragons collide in this YA fantasy panel about young heroes who must face the past to claim their futures, drawing power from the cultures that shaped them. Sandra Proudman, Makiia Lucier, and Samantha Chong craft lush, high-stakes adventures where family, legacy, and identity are as potent as spells. In Salvación, Mexican American author Sandra Proudman reimagines El Zorro through a Latinx heroine who defends her Alta California town's mystical sal negra and her family from encroaching violence, blending swashbuckling romance with Mexican history and resistance. Makiia Lucier, who grew up on the Pacific island of Guam, channels island life and oceanic mythology in Dragonfruit, following exiled Hanalei as she studies seadragons and seizes a single, impossible chance to return home and right a terrible wrong. Malaysian writer S. Chong's Prodigal Tiger sends an exiled witch from a magical academy in New York back to Penang, where Malaysian folklore, Peranakan heritage, and vengeful ghosts force her to confront what it means to belong in the diaspora. Moderated by bookstagrammer and literary influencer Dahlia De La Vega of @ofpagesandprint, who champions YA, fantasy, romance, and historical fiction, this conversation dives into how culture, community, and home shape the new fantasies and futures young readers can now see themselves in. This event took place in Downtown Berkeley, at the Bay Area Book Festival, May 29-31 2026.  Support our work and help to keep the Bay Area Book Festival 96% free! https://givebutter.com/writingthefuture Check out our upcoming events www.baybookfest.org Follow us on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/baybookfest/

  3. 2d ago

    Mysterious Monsters and Ghostly Encounters (Read-Aloud)

    What's scarier than ghosts or monsters? Bringing nothing for show-and-tell! Rachel Wilson will show you how to befriend and build the perfect ghost trap in To Catch a Ghost, but when the moment finally arrives, will you be able to catch a friend? Best friends Valentina, Jasmine, Andy, and Xander also face something menacing in The Wild Ones by Megan and Jorge Lacera, and they must turn to the mythical monsters from their respective cultures to help them save the only home they've ever known. This adventurous read-aloud, emceed by the intrepid Cinnamongirl, will be full of mysterious monsters, ghostly encounters, and unexpected twists! This event took place in Downtown Berkeley, at the Bay Area Book Festival, May 29-31 2026.  Support our work and help to keep the Bay Area Book Festival 96% free! https://givebutter.com/writingthefuture Check out our upcoming events www.baybookfest.org Follow us on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/baybookfest/

  4. 3d ago

    Friends, Not Food! (Read-Aloud)

    Laugh out loud with these humorous, unexpected picture books that make us question how we treat different species: who are our friends, and who do we eat? Stephanie Lucianovic's Zombie and Brain Are Friends follows Zeb, a young zombie from a family of brain farmers who suddenly comes across the tiniest, pinkest, squishiest brain he ever did see! Will Zeb successfully convince his parents that his brainy bestie is better off as a member of the family than family dinner? Eight-year-old Beatrice of New York City's Chinatown feels the same way about Lillie, a tic-tac-toe-playing chicken living in a dark arcade. Based on the true story of Lillie, Tic-Tac-Toe Chicken by Kimberly Tso follows Beatrice's clever plan to give Lillie a better environment to live in. Emceed by Cinnamongirls Claire and Devin, this empowering panel showcases the natural empathy that drives us to stand up for all living beings. This event took place in Downtown Berkeley, at the Bay Area Book Festival, May 29-31 2026.  Support our work and help to keep the Bay Area Book Festival 96% free! https://givebutter.com/writingthefuture Check out our upcoming events www.baybookfest.org Follow us on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/baybookfest/

  5. 4d ago

    From Sideline to Spotlight: YA Romance

    There's nothing like the arts to uncover secrets of the past and kindle buried feelings, as the romantic YA novels of this panel reveal. In Delali Adjoa's The Free Verse Society, two teens desperate to keep their pasts hidden find fresh starts through their high school poetry club, where the power of the written word tears down the walls they've built around their secrets, and their hearts. Taking place at an exclusive writers' retreat, Love on Paper by Danielle Parker features two ambitious teenage writers from rival families of the publishing world, who must fight through writer's block, step out of their parents' shadows, and find the courage to create their own love stories for a chance at publication. For the high school exes in Eva Des Lauriers' I'm Gonna Get You Back, returning to their small town is their only way for one of them to get into their dream film school and the other to maintain a college scholarship, but any time people return to the mountain, drama follows…especially when an anonymous social media account starts airing everyone's dirty laundry. Join this tender and heartfelt panel, moderated by Lauren and Tiina of Boutique Book Retreats, to explore the power of love, arts, and second chances in drawing people together. This event took place in Downtown Berkeley, at the Bay Area Book Festival, May 29-31 2026.  Support our work and help to keep the Bay Area Book Festival 96% free! https://givebutter.com/writingthefuture Check out our upcoming events www.baybookfest.org Follow us on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/baybookfest/

  6. 4d ago

    Names Like Chameleons: Language and Identity (Read-Aloud)

    The colorful picture books of this read-aloud explore the changing names and languages we use depending on our environment, which in turn affect the meaning, history, and heritage that those words carry. In Wanjiku, Child of Mine by Ciiku Ndung'u Case, a young Gikuyu girl moves from the Kenya countryside to attend a boarding school in Nairobi, where people call her Catherine, and children are expected to figure things out on their own. But at home, she is again Wanjiku, daughter of the Gikũyũ people, who loves to hear her grandmother Cũcũ tell the origin story of her name. On the Eastern Plains of Taiwan, in Erica Schlaikjer's Wild Greens, Beautiful Girl, a young girl learns that the spiky, stalky weed she is about to pull out has a different name in the Amis language: dadugum. Her ina teaches her about the flowering shrub and its many uses, showing her to appreciate the bounty of nature and the beauty of her indigenous Taiwanese identity. Emceed by Cinnamongirl, this lyrical read-aloud will serve as a gentle reminder that what we call things matters. This event took place in Downtown Berkeley, at the Bay Area Book Festival, May 29-31 2026.  Support our work and help to keep the Bay Area Book Festival 96% free! https://givebutter.com/writingthefuture Check out our upcoming events www.baybookfest.org Follow us on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/baybookfest/

  7. Jul 24

    On Loop: Black Sonic Politics in Oakland

    As both a means of empowerment and a magnet for policing, Black dance music has transformed not only Oakland's nightlife, but also its streets, parks, and neighborhoods. From the mobilization of funk music and boogaloo dance during Black Power to the policing of the Hyphy movement in the 2000s, Black dance music is not merely a soundtrack to or record of urban resistance, argues geographer, DJ, and housing justice advocate Alex Werth in On Loop: Black Sonic Politics in Oakland. Rather, its very sound waves have animated looping clashes over development, dispossession, and Black freedom. Through studies of downtown nightclubs, Lake Merritt, and the Eastmont Mall—geographies rarely considered, yet critical to Oakland's culture and politics—Werth reveals how the liberatory sonic politics of funk, hip-hop, and hyphy rap have been met with a repetitive "war on nuisance." Joining him is Yakpasua Zazaboi, filmmaker, who is featured in the book .The Oaklandside's arts and community reporter Azucena Rasilla will moderate this discussion about studies of the geographies that are rarely considered, yet critical to Oakland's culture and politics, and how struggles over Black sound have shaped Oakland's culture, politics, and geography. This event took place in Downtown Berkeley, at the Bay Area Book Festival, May 29-31 2026.  Support our work and help to keep the Bay Area Book Festival 96% free! https://givebutter.com/writingthefuture Check out our upcoming events www.baybookfest.org Follow us on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/baybookfest/

  8. Jul 24

    Landscape as Dreamscape: Environmental Stories

    From sequoias to salt lakes, deserts to deep connections, the natural world serves as inspiration for the writers of this panel, who place nature's breathtaking landscapes not as a backdrop to, but at the center of their stories. In his 2025 Banff Mountain Book Competition Finalist graphic memoir, Eventually a Sequoia: Stories of Art, Adventure & the Wisdom of Giants, Jeremy Collins documents the people living in the endangered corners of the world whose small seeds produce enormous results. Switching the lens to the uncanny, shimmering ecosystems of salt lakes, whose rapid decline is a harbinger of rising sea levels, life-threatening dust storms, and environmental collapse, Caroline Tracey parallels their environmental journey to her personal story of finding queer love and building a home amidst ecological crises in her book Salt Lakes: An Unnatural History, which blends travel writing, memoir, and reportage in an inspiring call to fight for all that is fragile in our lives. Moderated by Rue Mapp, Founder and CEO of Outdoor Afro, the nation's foremost non-profit organization inspiring Black leadership and connections in nature, this panel will provide a glimpse into the wondrous and nurturing beauty of our natural world worth protecting. This event took place in Downtown Berkeley, at the Bay Area Book Festival, May 29-31 2026.  Support our work and help to keep the Bay Area Book Festival 96% free! https://givebutter.com/writingthefuture Check out our upcoming events www.baybookfest.org Follow us on instagram: https://www.instagram.com/baybookfest/

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Ratings & Reviews

4.7
out of 5
13 Ratings

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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.

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