Bay Area Book Festival: Michael Chabon, Jane Hirshfield, many more

7 JUNE 2015 — sunday

The first annual two-day Bay Area Book Festival presents 300 authors, 160 exhibitors, and 145 keynotes, interviews, panels, and performances at eleven venues in a ten-block radius of downtown Berkeley; some Sunday events and participating writers, see website for full schedule: Lebanese-American poet, memoirist, and playwright Elmaz Abinader, This House, My Bones moderates the discussion "Writing the New Neighborhood: Narratives of the Shifting Cities"; Rabih Alameddine, author of National Book Award and Northern California Book Awards finalist An Unnecessary Woman and Daniel Handler (Lemony Snicket) in the conversation "Talking About Writing & All the What-Not"; novelist Daniel Alarcón, Executive Producer of Radio Ambulante, a Spanish language journalism podcast, reads in "Radio Ambulante: A Showcase of Latin American Stories"; "How Poems Change the World," a panel with Jane Hirshfield, Ten Windows: How Great Poems Transform the World, Robert Hass, The Apple Trees at Olema, and giovanni singleton, Ascension; husband-and-wife novelists Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman converse in "Up Close with Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman"; also appearing on Sunday are Fritjof Capra, The Tao of Physics, who incorporates science into writing on change in worldview and society; poet Lorna Dee Cervantes, publisher of the Chicana/o literary journal MANGO; writer and filmmaker Phil Cousineau; translator and mindfulness advocate Gary Gach, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Buddhism; poet and scholar Sandra Gilbert, The Culinary Imagination: From Myth to Modernity; nonfiction author and poet Susan Griffin moderates "Sustainability and the Soul"; travel essayist Pico Iyer, Video Night in Kathmandu, in conversation; actor and memoirist Peter Coyote, The Rainman's Third Cure: An Irregular Education, in conversation with Northern California Book Award-winner for Creative Nonfiction Gary Kamiya, Cool Gray City of Love: 49 Views of San Francisco; Andrew Lam, Perfume Dreams: Reflections on the Vietnamese Diaspora; short story writer Kathryn Ma, All That Work and Still No Boys; Beat poet, essayist, and playwright Michael McClure; John McMurtrie, San Francisco Chronicle Book Review Editor and others in "Not Just Content: The Future of Writing and Reading"; Northern California Book Award-finalist Nayomi Munaweera, Island of a Thousand Mirrors; Vietnamese-American novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Sympathizer; novelist Elizabeth Rosner, The Speed of Light; Robert Scheer, political journalist and former Vietnam correspondent, They Know Everything About You: How Data Collecting Corporations and Snooping Government Agencies are Destroying Democracy; Jack Shoemaker, Editorial Director and co-founder of Counterpoint Press; poet, self-help author, comedian, and writer Bucky Sinister, Black Hole; political journalist Edward Wasserman; event locations all around downtown Berkeley include the Berkeley Community Theatre, Berkeley Public Library, Magnes Museum, The Marsh, Brown Center, Dharma College, San Francisco Chronicle Stage at Freight and Salvage, East Bay Media Center, City Hall, and Civic Center Park, San Francisco Chronicle editors and reporters will moderate panels, additional events and stages for children and teens, including a reading by WritingCoach Connection's contest winners and a performance by youth from Hip Hop for Change, Poetry Flash exhibits on Literary Lane, visit to see Poetry Flash's Watershed Poetry Festival broadsides; Downtown Berkeley Arts District, Berkeley, indoor sessions free, reserve tickets online, reservations recommended, 10:00 a.m.-6 p.m. (www.baybookfest.org)