Event Details
Preserving Ancestral Knowledge as BIPOC Writers brings together four Bay Area authors for a conversation about what it means to carry family history, language, and memory into the work of writing.
Joining us are Eirinie Carson, Sabina Khan-Ibarra, Rowena Leong Singer, and Grace Loh Prasad—writers whose books span memoir, fiction, and personal essay, and whose work is united by a deep engagement with diaspora, lineage, and belonging. Several are part of Rooted & Written, a program of San Francisco's Writers Grotto dedicated to writers integrating their histories into their craft.
Together they'll talk about how to listen to, record, and honor ancestral knowledge on the page—without flattening it for mainstream expectations. Expect a conversation that moves between the personal and the craft-focused: how to write the stories that were handed down to you, the ones that were withheld, and the ones you're only now learning to ask about.
This is a conversation Book Society has been looking forward to since seeing it at the Bay Area Book Festival, and we're honored to host these four writers for an evening of literary community in Berkeley.
Your ticket includes:
- A moderated conversation with four acclaimed BIPOC authors
- Book signing and Q&A
- A glass of wine and good company, Book Society–style
About the Authors
Eirinie Carson is a member of the Writers Grotto in San Francisco and a frequent contributor to Mother magazine. Her work has also appeared in LitHub, Notre Dame Review, Mortal Mag, Electric Literature, The Sonora Review, and others. Bloodfire, Baby is her debut novel.
Sabina Khan-Ibarra is a Pashtun American writer and educator whose work has been recognized by major literary prizes and fellowships. She teaches creative writing throughout the Bay Area and California, and directs Rooted & Written at the Writers Grotto.
Rowena Leong Singer is an award-winning Chinese-Filipino writer and editor whose work appears in The New York Times, North American Review, Black Warrior Review, Narrative, and elsewhere. She's the grand prize winner in literary fiction for the Book Pipeline Unpublished Contest, holds an MFA from Bennington, and serves as an associate editor at CRAFT and a director of Rooted & Written.
Grace Loh Prasad is the author of the memoir The Translator's Daughter (Mad Creek Books/The Ohio State University Press)—a finalist for the Northern California Book Award and the Feminist Press Louise Meriwether First Book Prize, and one of the San Francisco Chronicle's Best Books of 2024. Her writing on belonging and diaspora has appeared in The New York Times, Literary Hub, Longreads, Guernica, and more.