Future Myths: Blood and Chosen Kin

In Future Myths: Blood and Chosen Kin three poets explore the shifting terrain of kinship: the families we inherit, the ones we lose, and the ones we build along the way. If blood once defined belonging, these writers ask what else might hold us together as we imagine the futures still forming. Pretti Vanghni writes with a mythic sensibility, weaving ancestry, cultural memory, and spiritual imagination into poems that feel both ancient and newly born. Achy Obejas brings her luminous clarity to the intertwined questions of exile, language, and queer belonging, reminding us that chosen kinship has long been a survival practice. Ally Ang's work moves through intimacy and rupture, tracing how care and solidarity can grow in the spaces where traditional structures fall away. Together, these poets reimagine kinship as something living and unfinished. Blood may tell one story. Chosen family tells another, one written in acts of care, resistance, and possibility. 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/