The Bay Area Book Festival hosted their Family Event at the Berkeley Public Library on Saturday, May 4, 2024. Every year, the program takes place in Downtown Berkeley over the span of two days. It includes events such as an outdoor fair, author talks, and youth-oriented activities.
According to this year’s interim program director for the festival, Aya De Leon, the aim is to unite writers, readers, and books while also exploring relevant topics and ideas.
“The festival’s biggest goal is to bring writers and readers and books together,” De Leon said. “That’s sort of the biggest goal. And I think within that, it’s also a festival of ideas. What are big ideas in the culture, in the society, in the community that people are thinking about and talking about and wrestling with, and that authors are writing about? So that’s also a big part of it.”
For the first time this year, the Bay Area Book Festival set aside a separate day for their family program. The event celebrated “Star Wars: May the 4th be With You” and “National Free Comic Book Day.” Many activities were showcased at the venue, including a cosplay contest, author talks, and a young readers and writers showcase.
The Bay Area Book Festival is celebrating its 10th anniversary, hosting another two events during the weekend of June 1-2, 2024, in Downtown Berkeley. The first day will be a “writers’ day,” providing numerous writing workshops and sessions at the Community Room of the Berkeley Public Library. Along with this, there will be two evening headliners featuring singer-songwriter Joan Baez and professor Greg Sarris, as well as author Naomi Klein and publisher Brooke Warner. The second day will include author events, an outdoor fair, and an evening headliner. Both days will have an indigenous authors showcase, an author Q&A, author book signings, and countless other captivating activities.
One of the highlights of the festival is the writing workshops that are taking place on Saturday, June 1, 2024. The day is a newly introduced event this year, proposed by De Leon. There will be a series of free workshops that will be held for the whole day.
The different workshops will cover specific writing styles and topics, with workshops specifically for elementary children and teens. The teen workshops will be led by the two Youth Poets Laureates of Berkeley: Julia Segre a BHS junior and Serena Griffin another junior from Saint Mary’s College High School.
De Leon shared how she believes the festival provides something for people of all ages to enjoy. With a wide diversity of activities, visitors should gaze over the festival schedule.
“The book festival is for everybody,” De Leon said. “And that’s one of the things that’s really exciting. If you look at the schedule, there really is something for everybody. On Youth Day, we have a ton of picture books, we have early reader books, (and) we have middle grade books … On adult day, we have a wide range of stuff … It’s really for everybody and I encourage people to break out the schedule and look through, see if you have favorite authors,” De Leon said.
The events during the weekend of June 1 and 2, 2024, are free for all people to attend. However, those interested in participating in a writing workshop or attending a daytime author event must sign up to do so via the Bay Area Book Festival website. In addition, all evening headliners are ticketed and can be purchased on the website as well.