Tommy Orange Photo: Elena Seibert

The Bay Area Book Festival inaugurates a multi-faceted partnership with the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria to bring you Native authors and issues and to help build a new generation of Native writers.

Over the course of the Festival weekend, you’ll hear from Greg Sarris, Tommy Orange, and Katherena Vermette with powerful Native stories, and historians Benjamin Madley and Peter Cozzens on the legacy of wars and violence perpetrated against Native tribes.

Former U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera, of Latino and indigenous background, inspires the dormant poet within each of us.

Perhaps most importantly of all, you’ll hear from rising voices in the local Native community: talented students who have participated in the Graton Writing Project.

For the past few months we’ve carried out a writing program with Native youth, culminating in a published anthology to be released at the festival with its own session on the outdoor ShowTime Stage. Come see these young writers read their work at 3 p.m. Saturday, April 28.

Because literary conversations shouldn’t start and end at the festival, we’ve also launched a “One Tribe One Book” program to spark reading in the Native community, starting with Sarris’ new book, “How a Mountain Was Made.”

Greg Sarris Photo: Antonia Feldman	Peter Cozzens Photo: Antonia Feldman
Benjamin Madley	Katharena Vermette Photo: Lisa Delorme Meiler

Former U.S. Poet Laureate Juan Felipe Herrera

Bay Area Book Festival
The Bay Area is teeming with readers, writers, creators, and thinkers. We have harnessed the power of this community to create one of the premier literary festivals in the world. The Festival is a two-day event complete with literary sessions presenting top authors from this region, the nation, and the world, along with an outdoor fair with hundreds of literary exhibitors. We also offer events for kids and writing contests. We even have a mini film festival — a series of ten films on literature — with BAMPFA. We transform vibrant Downtown Berkeley into a literary utopia where readers of all ages and interests can find kindred spirits.
https://www.baybookfest.org