Festival offers conversations on activism, social change
Black Lives Matter, climate change, Standing Rock, the Trump presidency, conflict in the Middle East, the struggle for LGBT and women’s rights — all of these topics have inspired countless news articles and commentary, not to mention more than a few flame wars on social media.
But the literary world also has something to contribute to such discourses, perhaps now more than ever, and in far more genres than simply political broadsides, according to Bay Area Book Festival organizers and participants.
The third edition of the annual festival in Berkeley offers a wide variety of conversations on activism and current events involving not only essayists and journalists, but also novelists, poets and memoir writers, as well as prominent leaders for social change.
“We can sometimes think of the arts and artists and literature as being separate from the political sphere, but they have always been deeply and intrinsically connected,” said Carolina De Robertis, award-winning novelist (“Invisible Mountain”) and editor of the newly published anthology “Radical Hope: Letters of Love and Dissent in Dangerous Times” (Vintage). “We wouldn’t be where we are about race in this country, for example, without James Baldwin, Zora Neale Hurston, Ralph Ellison and Cherrie Moraga.”
De Robertis, an Oakland author who teaches fiction at San Francisco State University, conceived of the anthology of inspiring “love letters” to past, present and future readers immediately following Trump’s election. Along with Moraga, she and eight more of the 31 contributing novelists, poets, political thinkers and activists will converse at a festival session called “Radical Hope: Staying Sane, Awake, and Engaged in Dangerous Times.” The session takes place at 3 p.m. June 3 at Freight and Salvage.
Mark Hertsgaard, investigative editor for the Nation and author of “Braveheart: The Whistleblowers Who Risked Everything to Protect the American People” and “Hot: Living Through the Next Fifty Years on Earth,” will moderate a sure-to-be lively discussion on “Race and Resistance in the Trump Era: Fighting Words and Wisdom from the Nation and Black Lives Matter.” The session takes place at 1:30 p.m. June 4 on the San Francisco Chronicle Stage in the Park.
Panelists include Alicia Garza, co-founder of the Black Lives Matter network and essayist, including a letter in “Radical Hope”; Walter Mosley, author of the autobiographical “Twelve Steps Toward Political Revelation” and the Easy Rawlins mystery series, among many others; Steve Phillips, author of “Brown Is the New White,” focusing on national demographic changes; and Joan Walsh, the Nation’s national affairs correspondent, MSNBC analyst and author of “What’s the Matter With White People: Finding Our Way in the Next America.”
“Writing and activism are cousins, but they’re not identical,” noted Hertsgaard. “The role of writing, and journalism, is to hold a mirror up to society to show what’s going on — in as plainspoken a way as possible — and also to point toward potential solutions. Then it becomes the role of activism to carry that forward, propose the actual solutions and fight for those solutions.
“Writers can do that as well, but it’s not our primary role,” he added. “As writers, you have to take the long-term view. You plant the seed and it bears fruit years later, or if you’re very lucky, immediately, but that happens rarely.”
Some of the many other festival speakers whose work relates to current affairs include:
Progressive journalist and author Robert Scheer, part of the panel titled “Showdown: Trump vs. the Deep State,” 3:15 p.m. June 3 on the Chronicle Stage.
Occupy Wall Street co-creator Micah White and former Bernie Sanders adviser Becky Bond, speaking on “Activism at a Crossroads,” 11:45 a.m. June 3 on the Alta Stage (at the Freight and Salvage).
Feminist essayist and activist Roxane Gay, in conversation with Rafia Zakaria of the New Republic, 3:15 p.m. June 3 on the Alta Stage.
Native American poet Layli Long Solider and Pulitzer Prizewinning biographer T.J. Stiles, part of “Witness and Testimony: The Past and Present of Native America,” a panel moderated by Santa Rosa tribal leader and author Greg Sarris, 10 a.m. June 3 on the Alta Stage.
Cleve Jones, the LGBT activist whose memoir “When We Rise” inspired the recent TV miniseries, interviewed by Scott James at 3:15 p.m. June 3 in the Berkeley City College auditorium.
“Books have always been sources of inspiration, motivation and guidance for social change,” De Robertis said. “It’s incredibly exciting to see the Bay Area Book Festival place that one marvelous aspect of literature front and center, and to celebrate it.”