Berkeley, USA

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Books, magazines, and pirate stores: writing and activism in California and beyond

Presented by Bay Area Book Festival (BABF)

From the Beat poets of the 1950s to Summer of Love musicians and Silicon Valley innovators, California's San Francisco Bay Area is renowned for bold and often irreverent pioneers. The region’s contemporary literary scene is no exception. Once largely ignored by the East Coast establishment, California authors are now in the vanguard of the nation’s literature – radically shaping aesthetics and redefining who can be an author and what stories can be told. The two featured authors, Dave Eggers and Vendela Vida, are a married couple at the epicentre of this transformation. Their own award-winning literary work ranges from novels to memoirs, children’s books and screenplays, set all over the world. They have also built a thriving literary ecosystem which includes book imprints (such as the San Francisco-based McSweeney’s and its human-rights-focused Voices of Witness series), multiple magazines and journals (such as The Believer, which has also spawned a festival), and the hugely successful 826 National network (the largest youth writing network in the country). Join us to hear their inspiring story, to celebrate Vendela’s just-published sixth novel (We Run the Tides, set in San Francisco), and to discover just how a pirate store fits in.

In conversation with their friend, colleague, and fellow author Daniel Gumbiner, and introduced by host Cherilyn Parsons, founder and executive director of the Bay Area Book Festival.

LOCAL HOST: Cherilyn Parsons