J.K. Fowler, the new executive director of the Bay Area Book Festival, brings years of experience in literary circles to the annual Berkeley event. (Courtesy J.K. Fowler)

At a time when daily news headlines read like science fiction novels, when books are banned , the arts are defunded and citizens are openly persecuted for their identity , the Bay Area Book Festival offers a balm.

Held in downtown Berkeley on Saturday, May 31 and Sunday, June 1, the event offers not just 120 exhibitors but mutual aid and healthcare resources. Political prisoner support group CurbFest will host a conversation about the country’s carceral system. Festival-goers can pen poetic postcards and exchange poems for plant seeds. Two new affinity groups, a Mixed-Race Lit collective and an LGBTQIA+ Lit c

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