Nina LaCour's characters look a lot like her readers. This awardwinning author has devoted her life to young adults: first as a teacher, then as a writer. Her new novel "We Are Okay" deals with trauma, isolation, coping and change.

Writers shoulder a responsibility as voices for their time. Faculty members from CCA's MFA in Writing program, spanning travel, memoir, fiction and poetry, interrogate the role of creative practice in the 21st century. Sponsored by the California College of Arts MFA in Writing Program.

Greg Sarris's book, "How a Mountain Was Made," mythologizes the Northern California landscape with Native stories — fables with universal resonance and beauty. Sponsored by the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria.

A new generation of female authors holds in their hands the future of speculative fiction. With the support of Zoetic Press, the Barbro Osher Pro Suecia Foundation and the Consulate General of Sweden in San Francisco.

What is the role of creative political resistance in a time of ascendant fascism? From the elegy to the love poem, from the individual to the collective, these poets will explore how words give us strength.

These authors — an eminent historian, an attorney and critical race scholar and a mixed-race lawyer — explore race and the deep origins and expressions of racism in this country.

The best travel writing is about exploration of "the other" and an embrace of this new terrain into self and one's understanding of the greater world. These writers explore the concept of "place" from very different perspectives.

This festival favorite and former U.S. Poet Laureate will teach you everything he knows about being a poet on the move. While his new book is technically for kids, anyone can learn to jabberwalk! With support from the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria.

Disparity in wages and opportunity between the rich and the rest of us has grown rapidly in the U.S.; what are the causes and consequences? With support from the Stephen M. Silberstein Foundation.

Post punk rocker (formerly of the feminist cult band The Slits) comes to us from the UK to confront questions of feminism, family and inevitable death with her trademark raw, intimate, vulnerable style. Legendary rock critic Greil Marcus interviews.