Joan Steinau Lester

Dr. Lester is the award-winning author of six critically acclaimed books. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, USA Today, CNN, Ebony, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Black Issues Book…

Tavia Stewart

Tavia Stewart is a Bay Area writer, immersive storyteller, creative placemaker, and two-time literary nonprofit founder. She is the co-author of Ready, Set, Novel (Chronicle Books) and author of multiple novel-writing workbooks for kids and…
Andria Lo

Yalitza Ferreras

Yalitza Ferreras was a recent Fiction Fellow at the University of Wisconsin’s Institute for Creative Writing. She has received a Rona Jaffe Foundation Writers’ Award and a Steinbeck Fellowship at San Jose State University. Her writing has…

Zeina Hashem Beck

Zeina Hashem Beck is a Lebanese poet. Her collection of 40 palindromic sonnets, titled This Was Supposed to Be About Beauty, is forthcoming from Penguin Poets in Spring 2027. She’s the winner of the 2023 Arab American Book Award for Poetry…

Adéniké Amin

Coming Soon!

Laura Atkins

Laura Atkins is a children's book author, editor and coach, and a member of the Social Justice Children's Book Fair organizing team. With Stan Yogi, she co-wrote Fred Korematsu Speaks Up, winner of several awards including the Carter G. Woodson Award and the Jane Addams Honor Award. And with Arisa White, she co-wrote Biddy Mason Speaks Up, which won a Nautilus and Independent Publisher Book Award. Laura worked at Children's Book Press and as an editor at Lee & Low Books and offers freelance editorial services to individuals and several publishers. With an MA in Children's Literature from Roehampton University in London, and an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts, Laura lives in Berkeley, CA. She is passionate about equity and true access to all voices in children’s publishing. www.lauraatkins.com www.fightingforjusticeseries.com https://manzanitaartisanry.weebly.com

Tina Aguirre

Tina Valentin Aguirre (they/them) is the Castro LGBTQ Cultural District Director. Tina holds a BA in Communication from Stanford University, has worked in grantwriting for decades, served as Chair of the Board of Directors for the GLBT Historical Society for four years, and has made documentaries, produced arts festivals, and is a published poet. Tina curated the "Chosen Familias" exhibition on LGBTQ Latinx family photo albums (June 7–October 20, 2019) at the GLBT Historical Society Museum. Tina has lived in San Francisco since 1987.

Jaz Brisack

Jaz Brisack is a union organizer and cofounder of the Inside Organizer School, which trains workers to unionize. After spending one year at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, they got a job as a barista at the Elmwood Starbucks in Buffalo, New York, becoming a founding member of Starbucks Workers United and helping organize the first unionized Starbucks in the United States. As the organizing director for Workers United Upstate New York & Vermont, they also worked with organizing committees at companies ranging from Ben & Jerry’s to Tesla.

Cara Black

Cara Black is the author of twenty-one books in the New York Times bestselling Aimée Leduc series, the national bestseller Three Hours in Paris, and its follow-up, Night Flight to Paris. She has been awarded La Médaille d'Or du Rayonnement Culturel—the medal for distinguished service in sharing historic and cultural insights of Paris by the French Republic, received multiple nominations for the Anthony and Macavity Awards, and her books have been translated into German, Norwegian, Japanese, French, Spanish, Italian, and Hebrew. She lives in San Francisco with her husband and visits Paris frequently.

Eddie Ahn

Eddie Ahn is an environmental justice attorney and nonprofit worker based in San Francisco. He is a self-taught artist who has been recognized as a Cartoonist-in-Residence by the Charles M. Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa. 'Advocate' is his debut graphic novel.