All Episodes
Bay Area Book Festival Podcast — 419 episodes
Preserving Ancestral Knowledge as BIPOC Writers
Kaleidoscopic Convergence with 2025 NCBA Fiction Finalists
Indicator Lights: Fine Tuning the Past to Drive Your Story into the Future
Unfinished Atlas: Begining When the World has Ended
Out of the Darkness: Translators and Editors Shine Light on a New Treasure Trove of Swedish Literature
Conjuring & Conjugating: Siguanabes in Future Tense
Brevity: Souls of Short Stories
Unsung Heroines: Visionary Women of the Bay Area
Youth Building a Better Future
Taking Pride in Transformative Latin American Works
A Time to Hide: Marion Seidemann Fredman and Elisa Kleven
Post-Disaster Futures: Sci-Fi Visions of Survival and Renewal
Abominable Squiggle Time!
What the Magic Hides: Moral Truths and Mystery in YA Fantasy
Walking to the Beat of Our Streets
Who Did It? A Thriller Panel of Secrets and Suspicion
Protecting Nature's Patterns
Speculative Belonging: Crafting Queer-Centered Realities
Flying High with Crows & Ravens
Inherited Hauntings: Horror at Home
Swords, Seas, and Returning Home: Epic Quests and Cultural Magic in YA Fantasy
Mysterious Monsters and Ghostly Encounters (Read-Aloud)
Friends, Not Food! (Read-Aloud)
From Sideline to Spotlight: YA Romance
Names Like Chameleons: Language and Identity (Read-Aloud)
On Loop: Black Sonic Politics in Oakland
Landscape as Dreamscape: Environmental Stories
Hair Hugs (Read-Aloud)
"Yeah I'm a Writer. Now What?" A panel discussion for emergent authors and literary program alums looking for advice on what's next
Tales for Littles (Read-Aloud)
Maker, Mentor, Muse: The Spirit of the Work
Fighting for Our Right to Read
Maps for Worlds Still Becoming: Experiments in Genre, Language, and Form
From the Frontlines of the Culture War: Advocates for Youth Share Their Stories
Catastrophic Catalysis: Women Taking Risks for Humanity
What Haunts Us Still: Surviving and Storytelling
Illustrious Inventors: Picture Book Biographies (Read-Aloud)
Heartware: Robots, Relationships, and the Future of Us
Creative Futures: Making Room Together
Dark Nights of the Soul: Mental Health in Translation
Staying True to Our Futuristic Minds
A Field of Stillness and Fire
How to Become an Audiobook Narrator
Future Myths: Blood and Chosen Kin
In Terms of Freedom: Women's Rights, Bodily Autonomy, and the Future of Ethical Care
Exploring the Ups and Downs of Creating Early Chapter Book Series
Hope is a Time Traveler: Globalist Pasts & Potentials
When the Past Comes Calling: Crime Fiction Across America's Fault Lines
Invocation of Poetry Stage + Carrying the Land: Bodies and Belonging
What is That Beautiful House: Crafting Engaging Settings and Playful Prose
Unleashing the Super Hero Within
Media Literacy In and Out of the Classroom
The Last Human Bear: Exclusive Early Book Launch with Greg Sarris
The Ins and Outs of MFA programs with SJSU
Publishing the Future
Best of California
Shells, Lions, and Pomegranate Trees: Picture Books Approaching Difficult Topics
Getting Unstuck with Ramona Ausubel
Dreams Can Be Deceiving: Asian American Identities
Academic Free Speech
Bright Futures Ahead for Native Youth Lit
Taking the Long Roadtrip Home
Artful Solutions Middle Grade and YA Graphic Novels
Preserving Press Freedom
Black Feminist Futurescaping
From Colleagues to Courtship Indigenous Romance
Building Worlds, Building Power
HILO PRESENTS THE MIGHTY
Shadows of Liberty: Immigrant Detention, Incarceration, and the Demand for Dignity in the USA
Civil Rights and Structural Attacks
Traveling the Pages of Indigenous Memoirs
Mindful Democracy
Library Joy with Mychal Threets!
Short Cuts: Bay Area Book Festival Week is Here!
Short Cuts: Bridgette Yang of Youth Speaks - Workshops and Open Mic at the Festival!
Short Cuts: Rob Liu-Trujillo: YouthLit at BABF 2026
Short Cuts: Tamika Thompson - The Curse of Hester Gardens
Short Cuts: The 2026 Festival Schedule is LIVE!
Short Cuts - Bushwick Book Club Oakland: opening for all headliners of 2026
Short Cuts: Boutique Book Retreats - A Romance Renaissance at BABF!
Short Cuts: MK Chavez - Poetry Stages
Short Cuts: Terria Smith - I Love You So Many
Short Cuts: Jeremy Engels - On Mindful Democracy
Short Cuts: Renee Swindle - Francine's Spectacular Crash and Burn
Short Cuts: Introducing the 2026 Festival & new BABF podcast Hosts
Short Cuts: Nico Lang
Narrating the Mother
So Many Stars: A Celebration of Trans, Nonbinary, Genderqueer, and Two-Spirit People of Color
A Memoir for Remembrance
Wound is the Portal: Healing into the Future and Incantation for Future: Closing Headliner & Portal Closing
Seeking Justice in Historical Fiction
Women, Cyborgs, Revolutionary Petunias, and Other Creatures
In Search of Sanctuary: Stories of Migration, Hardships and Hope
Living Legacies: Native Authors on Memoir and Memory
Essay as Form
Chimera Space: Monstrous, Lovely, and Liminal
Creators' Collective Action
Homeland to Home
Murder in Mysterious Places
Follow Your Heart to Graphic Novels
Healing, Activism and Collective Liberation: Strategies for Building a New World
All Bodies All Selves
Storming the Gatekeepers: Past, Present, & Future Publishing Alternatives
Poetry stage: Incantations to Open Portals + Garden of Possibilities
Our Beautiful, Burning World
Coming of Age in an Unsteady World
Bridging the Gaps: Redefining Healthcare Through a Justice Lens
Pages and Pictures from Early Reader to Middle Grade
Problematic Reports from the Frontlines of Tech
Drawn to Justice: Graphic Novels and the Power of Social Action
Paths to Publishing: From the Big Five to DIY
Portable Intersectionality: Roxane Gay in conversation with Alicia Garza
Bringing our Youth Back to the Land
Mystery writers Unmasking Larger Issues
Panel: We Will Not Disappear: Queer/Trans Voices in a Time of Backlash
Nightmares Revealed: The Rise of Latinx Horror Fiction
Becoming an Authorpreneur
Redefining Home
Ghosts of Justice: Exposing the Failures and Reimagining the Future of the American Legal System
Strength and Solace in Numbers
Who's Afraid of Gender?
Telling Our Futures: Speculative Fiction and Social Change
Organized Resistance From the Ground Up
"Writing as an Other"
Decolonizing Wealth: Confronting Systemic Barriers, Creating Lasting Change
The Embodiment of Care
In Dialogue: Building Communities that Thrive
Indigenous Poetry: Words that Map the Natural World
Art as Radical Practice: Black Women's Creative Expression as Social Change
Mutual Aid and Community Care in California
Romantasy — Not for the Faint of Heart
Stories of Tomorrow: Speculative Fiction
Unyielding Resistance: Perspectives on Political Prisoners and the Lifelong Pursuit of Freedom
Voices Against the Tide: Independent Media and the Struggle for American Democracy
Fiction Debuts Navigating Historical Memory
Short Cuts: Carolina Ixta
Short Cuts - Social justice Children's Book Fair
Short Cuts: Wahab Algarmi
Short Cuts - Kinsale Drake
Short Cuts: Susan Lieu
Short Cuts: micha cárdenas
Short Cuts: Jon Hickey
Short Cuts: Seema Yasmin
Let Me Count the Ways: Love Stories for Real Readers
Dark teen storytelling
Immigration Narratives: Expansive Genres, Expansive Identities
The Forgetters: Greg Sarris in conversation with Jane Ciabattari
Navigating the Mirror World: Misinformation, Conspiracies, and Why It's Time to Wake Up
Memoir and Imagination: Where Truth and Creativity Collide
First Person Plural: Poets Speaking for Self and Community in Poetry and Memoir
National Book Critics Circle Superstars of Fiction
Architectural Insights: Revealing Layers of Meaning in Bay Area Landmarks
Special Episode: The Next Chapter: Arts and Advocacy and the role of festivals
Lurking in Plain Sight: Crime Fiction Beyond Genre Borders
Authors against Book Bans
Creative Nonfiction as Reclamation and Confrontation
Climate Fiction as a Tool for Climate Justice
The Body is Not an Apology: Radical Answers with Sonya Renee Taylor and Cinnamongirl
Are You Ready to be Un-settled? Celebrating Indigenous Horror
Page to Screen: A Dance Between Words and Images
My Body, My Desire: Sexuality, Desire, and Queerness in Literature
Let's Eat! Decolonizing Diets
Legendary Artists on Identity and Remembering: Vulnerability in Creating Across Genres
Changing Landscapes of Mother Earth and Motherhood: Uncertainty and the Climate Crisis
We the People: Building a Resilient Multiracial Democracy in 2024 and Beyond
Fiction: Mothers & Daughters
Poetry and the Archives of History
The Art of Suspense
One Long Listening: A Habit of Love, a Memoir of Offering Care
Dazzling Debuts
Pursuing the Impossible: Poetry and the Art of Translation
Cory Doctorow: Red Team Blues
Fiction: Across Cultures
Fiction: Encounters with Myths and Spirits
Echoes of Exclusion
Indigenous Perspectives in Genre Fiction
Historical Fiction: The American West
Craft Chats: Writing Literary Humor
Reforming Cop Culture: In Oakland and Nationwide
Memoir: In Search of Our Fathers
Crossing the Finish Line: New Books from SJSU MFA Faculty, Steinbeck Fellows, and Students
Flash Fiction America
What Makes a Critic?
Places Worth Fighting For: Preserving Public Lands
Hidden Histories
The Art of Life: Writing Autobiography Across the Genres
Romantic Roadblocks
How to Create Real Change: David Fenton with The Activist's Media Handbook
True Stories: Northern California
Chokepoint Capitalism
The Beauty and Urgency of Nature Writing
Mysteries and Thrillers: Dangerous Destinations
An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom: Master Slave Husband Wife
You're a Fraud
A(lexandra) P(etri's) US History
Love on the Run
Adam Hochschild on American Midnight and Democracy's Crises
We Were Once a Family: Journalists Investigating Child Welfare
We Measure the Earth with Our Bodies: In Exile from Tibet
Bridging the Distance: Nicole Chung and A Living Remedy
Even If Everything Ends: A Searing, Beautiful Novel on Life, Loss, and Today's Climate Moment
Horror: History That Goes Bump in the Night
Bay Curious
A Life in Books
Tasting History: A Delicious Journey Through the Past
Science Fiction: Space Exploration
Parable of the Sower Turns 30
At Play on the Page
Memoir: The Meaning of Home
Reckoning: Falling, Femicide, and Dreaming the New World: A Conversation with Award-Winning Playwright and Activist V (formerly Eve Ensler)
Awe: The Science of Everyday Wonder
Craft Chats: A Child's Perspective
Fiction and Technology: What Hath AI Wrought?
Tricia Hersey: Rest Is Resistance
Finding Nature, Saving Time
Writer to Writer: Written on the Body
The Ruptures of Leaving: Women Writers on Migration
YA: Growing Up Queer Then and Now
Collective Book Studio Presents: Mother's Day
How to Write a Mystery
Cataclysm or Cure-All?: Fiction Writers Engage with the Promises and Perils of Our Tech Future
Writer to Writer: Karen Joy Fowler and Lee Kravetz on Art and Life
Fear and Loathing in San Francisco: Hunter S. Thompson's Savage Journey to Gonzo
Black Panthers: Inherit the Revolution
The Art of Translation
Relationships, Reckonings & Remembrances: A Reading by Three California Poets
What Has Oakland Taught Us?: A History of Disruptive Development and New Visions for Urban Planning
Revolution and Resilience: Global Politics in Fiction
Total SF Book Club Live: Urban Hiking in San Francisco with Alexandra Kenin
Werewolves and Monster Slayers: Transforming Horror in YA
J Dilla: The Beatmaker Who Changed The Way Musicians Play
Crime: True and Imagined
Science Fiction: In Search of Hope
Historical Fiction: China and California
Shine Bright: Black Women in Pop Music
Keep Calm and Go Quietly Mad
Writing a Path Out of Darkness: Writers on Mourning
Splitting the World Open: An International Roundtable of Dangerous Women Writers
What Happens When a Woman Tells Her Whole Truth w/Gina Frangello, Brooke Warner
Book Launch Event: The Confession of Copeland Cane, with author Keenan Norris in conversation with Dr. Michael Datcher
Love, Loss, and Meaning in Life: World-Renowned Therapist Irvin Yalom & Joyce Carol Oates
How to Dream the World You Want: Nnedi Okorafor & Jeff VanderMeer with Isabel Yap
Lager and Love Can't Pay the Bills: 2020 Booker Prize Winner Douglas Stuart on his Masterpiece, Shuggie Bain
Green Rabbits Glowing at the End of the World
When Everything Falls Apart, How Does the Heart Survive? Orville Schell and Yiyun Li on China, Tolstoy, and the Power of Art, with Adam Hochschild
There's a Revolution Outside, My Love
Create, Connect, and Inspire: Julia Cameron on The Listening Path
The Ties that Bind: Ann Patchett on Family, Fortune, and the Search for Self
Racing Towards Wonder with bestselling novelist Jane Smiley
Power of Protest: Lessons from Hong Kong
Meaning in the Music: A Conversational Duet with Fantastic Negrito and Timbuktu
Women Lit #UNBOUND: Poised to Soar: Nature-Writing Sensation Helen Macdonald with Vesper Flights
How the Constitution Can Save Us
Food Is Fundamental
Embracing the Other
Writing a New World Into Existence: Lessons from Literary Futurism
The Radical Necessity of Nonviolence
Politics, Race, and the State of Play in our Nation
Merlin Sheldrake and Michael Pollan on Entangled Life
Rewrite Your Story: Embracing the Divine Feminine with Alexandra Roxo and Carol Queen
Real Change with Mindfulness Teacher Sharon Salzberg
America's Most Unusual Marriage: Adam Hochschild on Rebel Cinderella
What Comes Naturally: The Science and Soul of Nature Writing
Braving Deep Waters: Female Fearlessness and Friendship with Sue Monk Kidd and Lisa See
International Thrills: #1 Scandinavian Bestseller Lars Kepler
A Cursed Blessing: The Hidden Gifts in Times of Trial: A Conversation with David Talbot and Sir Michael Moritz
Ready, Set, Publish with Courtney Maum
Unplugging in a Virtual World: Tiffany Shlain on 24/6
Shedding Light, Vanquishing Fear: End-of-Life Planning with the Experts
One Person, No Vote: Carol Anderson in Conversation with Congresswoman Barbara Lee
Coming Together When Things Fall Apart: Giving Voice to Emotional Truth in our Times
Unrigging the Rules for the Rising American Electorate: David Daley and Steve Phillips
Queens of Mystery: Writer to Writer with Meg Gardiner and Rachel Howzell Hall
Courts, COVID-19 & Voter Suppression
Strange Hotel: Irish Literary Sensation Eimear McBride
Vote At Home with Amber McReynolds and Jesse Wegman
Sacred and Profane: Debut Novelist Chelsea Bieker on "Godshot"
No Place to Shelter: What COVID-19 Reveals About Inequality: A Conversation with Leading Journalists and Activists
The Witness We Bear: Writer to Writer with Jericho Brown and Nikky Finney
Parenting in a Time of Crisis
University of San Francisco MFA in Writing Presents: Impossible Choices and Unspeakable Acts
Unlikely Alliances and Other Surprises in Historical Fiction
A Unique Feminine Mystique: The Female Detective
The Uninhabitable Earth
The Unbreakable Human Spirit: Albert Woodfox on Survival in Solitary
A Conversation with Tayari Jones
A Stranger's Journey: Race, Identity, and Craft
Let The World Move: Speculative Fiction From the Periphery
San Francisco State University MFA Program Presents: Who's Got The Power?
What Does It Mean to Be Human? Rethinking Belonging at the Frontier of Genetic Engineering
Queer Poetics
Prophet of Freedom: Frederick Douglass
A Celebration of The Paris Review
On Not Mothering
Not So Polite After All: Canadian Writers Challenge the Status Quo
Nordic Noir
No Happy Endings, No Easy Answers: Seeking Truth Through Trauma
Mystery and Tragedy in Tibet: Interview with Bestselling Author Eliot Pattison
When Reality Meets Science Fiction
The Lies That Bind: Kwame Anthony Appiah on Identity
Enough Is Enough: Fighting Economic Injustice
Facing the World Through Fantasy: An Interview with Justina Ireland
Horizon: Interview with Barry Lopez
Critic's Choice: Three Young 21st Century Writers Rocking the Literary World
Candace Bushnell at the The Commonwealth Club
The Business of Brutality: Slavery and the Foundations of Capitalism
An evening with Terry Tempest Williams
Bloodlines and Bestsellers: The Kellerman Family of Crime Writers
A Bird's Eye View: Attention, Observation, Birdwatching, and the Fine Art of Doing Nothing
A Conversation with Literary Legend Ann Beattie
Courage in Publishing in an Age of Political Polarization
Human Face: Literature That Brings Human Rights To Life
Seeking Connection: Literature from Germany and Switzerland
Writing Irish
Writing Climate: Literature of the Anthropocene
Writer to Writer: Lacy Johnson and Carmen Maria Machado
What Women Want
Writer to Writer: Joyce Carol Oates and André Alexis
Writer to Writer: Ishmael Reed and Morgan Parker
Writer to Writer: John Freeman and Geir Gulliksen
Writer to Writer: Esi Edugyan and Tayari Jones
Which Side Are You On? Loyalty in Fiction
Women Lit Presents: Eve Ensler at the First Congregational Church Berkely, June 13
Women Lit Presents: Jennifer Weiner at the David Brower Center, June 22
American Prison: Interview with Shane Bauer
The Legacy of Adrienne Rich and the Shape of our Feminist Future
Women Lit Presents: Rachel Cusk in conversation with Brooke Warner
Gloria Steinem - Favianna Rodriguez Interviewed by Lauren Schiller Castro Theatre 2-21-19
What Makes a Life Worth Living? Powerful Memoirs of Love and Loss
Pep Talk for Writers!
The Imperative for Truth: Academy Award-Winning Documentarian Errol Morris in Conversation with Edward Frenkel
Barbara Ehrenreich on Wellness, the Certainty of Dying, and Killing Ourselves to Live Longer
What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully
How Stories Make the World
The Book Review: Top Reviewers Share How It's Done
The Art of Memoir: A Story That Must Be Heard
Utter Fascination: The Art of the Exceptionally Complex Character
Smart Activism: History and Hope, with L.A. Kauffman and Rebecca Solnit
Power Up: How Smart Women Win in the New Economy
Men and Boys 2018: Cultural and Personal Masculinities
Nina LaCour Up Close and Personal
The Modern Writer's Practice, Presented by California College of the Arts
Timeless Wisdom: Greg Sarris on Telling Tales and Native American Literary Tradition
Women & Speculative Fiction: In the Footsteps of Atwood, Butler, and Le Guin
Brenda Hillman and Geoffrey G. O'Brien: A Conversation
Race and Racism in America
Off the Map: Traveling, Self, and Other
Jabberwalking with Juan Felipe Herrera
Income Inequality: A World Gone Mad, Mean and Immoral
Viv Albertine, Formerly of The Slits, Sits Down with Greil Marcus
Translating Trauma
Native Voices Changing the Story
Murder and Survival: The Remarkable Story of Indian Rebirth in the Wake of Genocide
The Future of Publishing
Resist: Unlocking the Political Power of a Novel
Timeless: Historical Fiction
Melissa de la Cruz Writes It All: History, Fantasy, Modern Life
The Empire and the Resistance of Sabaa Tahir
Murder She Writes: Catherine Coulter Talks with Laurie R. King
YES to Girls & Science!
Writing and Risk: A Conversation with Laleh Khadivi and Michael David Lukas, University of San Francisco MFA in Writing
Breaking Literary Ground: Ambitious Young Writers from Ireland
Loaded: Guns in America
Fierce Originality: Eimear McBride interviewed by Sylvia Brownrigg
Women Changing the World: How Phoebe Hearst, Jane Stanford, and Other Women Funded Feminism, Founded Universities, and Inspire Philanthropy Today
The Power of History: Turning Groundbreaking Scholarship into Page-Turning Prose
Beyond Borders: Powerful Writers on Immigration
Alice Waters and Jonathan Kauffman: A Revolution in Food
Wrestling with the Devil: Ngugi wa Thiong'o in Conversation
Standing at the Edge: Finding Freedom Where Fear and Courage Meet
JCC East Bay Presents: Thriving Past Trauma — Holocaust Survivor Dr. Edith Eger with "The Choice"
The Common Good with Robert Reich (Saturday Night Keynote)
Resisting Hate with Free Speech
The Power of Literature to Create a Better World: Closing Keynote with Pico Iyer
#MeToo & Beyond: Continuing to Tell the Truth
Lidia Yuknavitch in Person: On Fearlessness, Truth, and Misfits
Gary Snyder & Kim Stanley Robinson: Mt. Thoreau, Civil Disobedience, and Naming What Can't Be Named
Viet Thanh Nguyen on Art and Politics
Living in Two Worlds: Crossing Borders and Identities to Create Home
Forces of Nature
When the Back Breaks: An Investigative Reporter Reveals All on the Back Pain Industry
How to Speak Up: A Story of Courage
The State of Cannabis
Leila Slimani: Live at the Berkeley Rep
Fiction at the Edges
Absurd & Hilarious
First Books
Imagining the Other
The Long Sixties
Hidden Stories: Vanessa Hua, Shanthi Sekaran, and Esme Weijun Wang, & Sandhya Dirks
Collecting the Pieces: Oddny Eir, Jonas Hassen Khemiri, Katie Kitamura, & Stephen Sparks
Cleve Jones: Rising Up
Journey into the Life of Rumi
All About Cornelia Funke
Picture Book Extravaganza
On Power: Dacher Keltner and Deirdre English
Lindy West Takes the Stage
Writing From Africa
One Story Magazine Talks Short Stories
Feminist Activism through Popular Fiction
Gentrification, Evictions, and...
Mastery of Mystery
Thrillers: Secrets of the Craft
Cuba
The Ferocity of Love
New Irish Fiction
Wanderlust
Let There Be Laughter
Our Trump, Our Television
Drawdown - Paul Hawken
Witness & Testimony
Walter Mosley - Walkin' on the Wild Side
Tor Books presents Science Fiction and the Resistance!
My Literary Friend
Jack Kornfield
Activism at a Crossroads
Roxane Gay Takes the Stage
Reality Bites
Race and Resistance