2025 Authors Gala
Featured Guest Authors
Get to know our Literary Stars, local authors who will attend our Authors Gala. Guests will have the opportunity to dine with these authors at this one-of-a-kind event!
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John Harris studied art and literature at UC Berkeley in the 1960s. Seduced by Berkeley’s food revolution in the 1970s, he went to work at several iconic shops and restaurants and wrote The Book of Garlic in 1974. He launched his cookbook company, Aris Books, in 1980, and his “Foodoodles” cartoons in Bay Area magazines led to a series of illustrated memoirs: Café French (2019), Foodoodles (2010), and My Little Plague Journal (2022). He serves as the curator of the Harris Guitar Collection at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and presides over musical events at his home, Villa Maybeck, a 1921 Italianate mansion in the Berkeley hills designed by renowned Bay Area architect Bernard Maybeck. |
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Elizabeth Rosner is an author and teacher whose work focuses on the redemptive power of storytelling and deep listening. Her six books have been translated into twelve languages and have received literary prizes in the US and abroad. Her most recent book, Third Ear: Reflections on the Art and Science of Listening, blends personal stories of growing up in a multilingual household with multidisciplinary research about sound and silence in the natural world. Her previous book, Survivor Cafe: The Legacy of Trauma and the Labyrinth of Memory, explores the intergenerational aftermath of atrocities while offering hope for individual as well as collective resilience. Rosner leads writing workshops internationally; her teaching carries forward a message of perseverance and tenacious optimism. |
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K.X. Song is a diaspora writer with roots in Hong Kong and Shanghai. Raised between cultures and languages, she enjoys telling stories that explore collective memory, translation, and the shifting nature of history. Her debut young adult novel, An Echo in the City, won the Freeman Book Award and was named a Best Book of 2023 by the Financial Times, Kirkus Reviews, and the Chinese American Librarians Association. Her fantasy novel The Night Ends With Fire was an Indie Next Pick and an instant New York Times, USA Today, and Sunday Times bestseller. When she’s not writing, she can be found baking decadent chocolate cakes, hosting Studio Ghibli-themed parties, or going on long runs to dream up new plot twists. |
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