Writers’ Workshops - Bay Area Book Festival

2025 Festival All Speakers Schedule Directions and Lodging Exhibitors Bookstores FAQ Press Room Sponsor Us

Aspiring and practicing writers—join us at any (or all) of the free eight wonderful writing workshops to write and learn about writing (in) community. This is booked quickly so RSVP as soon as you can RSVP through the schedule.

Free and open to the public. Come—and bring a friend or two!

Saturday, May 31, 2025

11:00 am — 4:00 pm

The Marsh Berkeley Cabaret and Theater

We are holding two workshops every hour in two rooms at the Marsh for a total of eight workshops throughout the day.

These events are free but require RSVP.

Address:
2120 Allston Way,
Berkeley, CA 94704

Visit the Marsh’s website

All workshops are FREE but RSVP required.

Click on each event below to learn more and RSVP.

Community
RSVP required
Writers' Workshops
Writing & Publishing

How to Find (& Create) Your Writing Community

Janis Cooke Newman, Rhea Joseph, Peggy Lee, David Roderick, Jesus Sierra, Kurt Wallace

Saturday, May 31 - 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

The Marsh Berkeley - Theater

Being a writer can be very isolating. You spend hours alone in a room with a bunch of imaginary people, and it's next to impossible to explain to anybody who isn’t a writer, exactly what you're doing there. That's why having a writing community is so important. We’ve invited representatives from six Bay Area writing communities - the Writers Grotto, the Ruby, Left Margin Lit, Decentered Arts, SF Writers Workshop, and Page Street—to come and talk about their organizations, and explain how you can become a member. We'll also talk about how to create your own writing community, whether online or in-person. And of course, leave time for questions.

In association with Page St

Community
Queer Voices
RSVP required
Trans Voices
Writers' Workshops
Writing & Publishing

Panel: We Will Not Disappear: Queer/Trans Voices in a Time of Backlash

Nefertiti Asanti, Natasha Dennerstein, Edward Gunawan, Miah Jeffra, Baruch Porras-Hernandez, Grayson Thompson

Saturday, May 31 - 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

The Marsh Berkeley - Cabaret

Community members of the Bay Area's beloved LGBTQ+ collaborative, Foglifter Journal and Press, discuss the role of queer and trans publishing in a time when the nation has further precluded being a place of support and comfort, and shape a vision for queer/trans writing both as celebration and resistance. Panelists will share tips and exercises to cultivate writing in this time of duress.

In association with Foglifter Journal and Press

ASL Interpreted program
RSVP required
Workshop
Writers' Workshops
Writing & Publishing

Paths to Publishing: From the Big Five to DIY

Janis Cooke Newman, Saeeda Hafiz, Janine Kovac, Tania Malik, Joan Steinau Lester, Bridget Quinn

Saturday, May 31 - 12:15 PM - 1:15 PM

The Marsh Berkeley - Cabaret

These days, there are so many ways to get your book out into the world, choosing the best option can be daunting. Join us as a published author from each pathway — the Big 5 (Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan, and Hachette Book Group), other traditional publishers, small presses, university presses, hybrid presses, and self publishing - shares their own experience, both good and bad. And we'll definitely make sure there's time for questions. ASL Interpreted program!

In association with Page St

RSVP required
Writers' Workshops
Writing & Publishing

The Lab: Experiments in Writing Across Genre—Turning Obsession into Art with Aesthetic Force

Matthew Clark Davison

Saturday, May 31 - 12:15 PM - 1:15 PM

The Marsh Berkeley - Theater

Great writing doesn’t start with form—it starts with obsession. But how do we transform raw obsession into something that stuns, unsettles, and compels? How do we move beyond reason to aesthetic force—the power that makes art unforgettable?

Join Matthew Clark Davison, co-author of The Lab: Experiments in Writing Across Genre (W.W. Norton), for a generative session exploring how writers can balance beauty and darkness, disrupt reader expectations, and render images that bypass logic and strike at the level of feeling. Drawing from the insights of Sarah Lewis—professor, cultural critic, and author—on "aesthetic force," as well as generative exercises from The Lab , we’ll investigate how great writing—whether fiction, memoir, or hybrid—thrives on contrast, specificity, and the interplay between what some think is beautiful and what truly is. Through interactive prompts, you’ll experiment with techniques that push your work.

Identity
RSVP required
Writers' Workshops
Writing & Publishing

The Power of Voice: Writing for Social Change & Personal Truth

MK Chavez

Saturday, May 31 - 1:30 PM - 2:30 PM

The Marsh Berkeley - Theater

This workshop is for those who write toward justice, toward liberation, toward the excavation of personal and collective truth. There are as many ways to write politically as there are stories in the body, as many ways to resist as there are ways to breathe. Together, we’ll look at powerful poems that stir change—poems that incant, intervene, incite. Words here are both balm and blade, capable of unsettling, of bearing witness to the world as it is—and the world as it could be. Structure & Engagement: Writing Experiments: Exercises that guide us into the marrow of voice, purpose, and declaration. We’ll write through guided questions, through fragments, through the places where the personal meets the political. These experiments are meant to move us closer to the heart of our own truths while pushing against the world as it is. Small Group Discussions: A space to dig into how your work intersects with activism, how it leans into social change, how it sings and bites. Reading Work Aloud: An open space to share to experience how your words lift and land.

In association with Ouroboros Writing Lab

Art & Culture
RSVP required
Writers' Workshops
Writing & Publishing

Becoming an Authorpreneur

Grant Faulkner and Brooke Warner

Saturday, May 31 - 1:30 PM - 2:30 PM

The Marsh Berkeley - Cabaret

Do you have an idea for a reading series, literary podcast, website, or game? Maybe you've imagined starting your own literary nonprofit, magazine, bookstore, or (gasp) book festival. Chances are, if you've dreamed it up, Brooke Warner and Grant Faulkner have insights to help make it happen—and can inspire you to turn your literary visions into reality. Brooke, publisher of She Writes Press, memoir coach, author of several books on writing and memoir, and a dedicated member of many literary boards, brings her expertise in publishing and storytelling to the table. Grant, co-host of the podcast Write-minded, former executive director of NaNoWriMo, co-founder of 100-Word Story and the Flash Fiction Collective, and Executive Producer on the upcoming TV series America's Next Great Author, combines practical advice with encouragement. Together, they’ll guide you through the steps to bring your literary dreams to life.

RSVP required
Writers' Workshops
Writing & Publishing

Revisions and the Muse

Kate Folk, Preeti Vangani, and Laleh Khadivi

Saturday, May 31 - 2:45 PM - 3:45 PM

The Marsh Berkeley - Theater

How can revision be part of a creative process? What do you do when your revision births a whole new turn of events in your poem or novel or essay? Join Kate Folk, Preeti Vangani and Laleh Khadivi, all USF MFA faculty, in thinking our way through the best ways to stay open and focused while writing a new draft.

In association with University of San Francisco MFA in Writing

Climate
Poetry
RSVP required
Writers' Workshops

A Compass in the Wilderness: Poetry in the Age of Environmental Crisis

Dan Alter, Cintia Santana

Saturday, May 31 - 2:45 PM - 3:45 PM

The Marsh Berkeley - Cabaret

Poetry has long offered a mode for humans to engage with the more-than-human world. How does poetry grapple with the accelerating environmental crisis and point the way toward a sustainable future? After discussing a couple of poems, we’ll offers prompts, and you’ll have some time to write in response.

A Friends membership allows you to join a priority access line at all the indoor venues, making it easier for you to see your favorite authors. Plus, if there are tickets left, you’ll get one for an evening keynote.

You can join the Friends on our website at baybookfest.org/donate,or by visiting the Friends of the Festival table at the Berkeley Public Library, 2020 Kittredge on Saturday and BART Plaza on Sunday.

With your donor card, you can get into the Friends priority line, which will enter the venue first when doors open (20 minutes before the program’s start time).

Why “Friend” Us? All daytime programs are now FREE! – that is, free to the public, and free for you reading this page. But this giant event isn’t free to produce, to say the least.

The Friends of the Festival do what all friends do, which is lend a hand, in this case financially, with a donation starting at $250*. That very real generosity benefits everyone: it allows the organizers to bring this nonprofit festival to you for FREE.

Can you say, “With my help, everyone can attend”? Yes you CAN! Go to baybookfest.org/donate right now (easiest).

*It’s tax-deductible, of course. We’ll send you a receipt.

Saturday, May 31, 2025

11:00 am — 4:00 pm

The Marsh Berkeley Cabaret and Theater

All workshops are FREE but RSVP required.

Search

Search by speaker

Audiences

Event room

Event date

Event venue

Category

How to Find (& Create) Your Writing Community

Panel: We Will Not Disappear: Queer/Trans Voices in a Time of Backlash

Paths to Publishing: From the Big Five to DIY

The Lab: Experiments in Writing Across Genre—Turning Obsession into Art with Aesthetic Force

The Power of Voice: Writing for Social Change & Personal Truth

Becoming an Authorpreneur

Revisions and the Muse

A Compass in the Wilderness: Poetry in the Age of Environmental Crisis