KPBS relaunches the San Diego book festival, featuring all-star lineup and local talent

by Olivia Petty

Next Saturday, KPBS will hold its inaugural San Diego Book Festival on the University of San Diego campus featuring more than 100 local and national authors.

The headliners include reggae star Ziggy Marley, writer/director Larry Charles and former Georgia state representative Stacey Abrams, all of whom have published books this year. The free, all-day festival will include panel discussions, book signings, live music and entertainment.

Although this is the first book festival officially hosted by KPBS, it is not their first time around the block. Back in 2017, The San Diego Union-Tribune teamed up with KPBS to launch the San Diego Festival of Books. During the pandemic the festival went dark, then returned before officially concluding with a last hurrah in 2023. Since then, KPBS officials have worked for more than a year with many community sponsors to bring the festival back to life with renewed vigor.

“Lots of thought has been put into it,” said Jenelle Dean, the community events manager at KPBS who has been the primary organizer the event.

Her team first sat down to plan it with the University of San Diego back in the spring of 2024.

“When folks in the community started realizing in 2024 that they hadn’t heard anything about the Festival of Books, they started reaching out,” said Dean. “Call it hopeful, or call it silly, but we really thought we could put something together for 2024 so that there would be no gap year. But this is more than a notion. It’s a big project, and we all have a lot on our plate already, so we decided that we would put more time and effort into it and host something in 2025.”

For the past 19 years, KPBS has run their “One Book, One San Diego” literary program in partnership with dozens of public libraries, education institutions and other service organizations throughout the county. The program aims to encourage reading, camaraderie and dialogue about their selected titles: one for adults, one for teens/young adults, one for kids and one for Spanish-language readers.

The new festival offers an extension of that program, bringing authors face to face with their readers, and bringing readers together with each other to celebrate San Diego’s rich literary community.

“Books enable us to really see a world beyond our own,” said Dean. “What we often hear from folks is that they would have never gathered at their library or in a book club to dive so deep into a certain topic, even when folks have differing opinions.”

When the new festival was first announced, Dean said the response was amazing.

“We had 150 volunteers sign up,” she said. “It was proof that we were doing something that the community wanted to partake in.”

The festival will include 46 featured authors and more than 70 author exhibitors. KPBS was able to find and select these authors by partnering with local bookstores throughout San Diego, such as Warwick’s, Mysterious Galaxy, Joyride Bookshop, Meet Cute and many others.

“They just have so much insight as to what people in town are interested in, and engaged in, and excited about,” said Dean. “They often bring authors to town as well, so they provided a lot of that assistance in identifying who they thought would be good picks.”

Though it will take place in the same location as the Festival of Books and follow a similar structure, this new iteration of the festival will feature much more PBS and National Public Radio-related programming than in previous years.

“Reading and literacy really ties into our mission at KPBS,” she said. “We are of and for and by the people here in San Diego.”

Pulling out all the stops, the festival will feature a live show of KPBS’s “A Way with Words” radio segment, an NPR-style Tiny Desk-esque performance with San Diego musician Juliana Zachariou and some PBS Kids youth programming events.

Beloved book characters like Clifford the Big Red Dog, Curious George and The Cat in the Hat will be present and giving away books throughout the day.

Paola Capó-García, this year’s San Diego poet laureate, will attend, along with former Poet Laureate Jason Magabo Perez and poet Karla Cordero.

To celebrate the release of two cookbooks based on PBS’s “The Great American Recipe,” local “Great American” contestant and home cook Waigal Safi will appear, as well.

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As for the big-ticket events, attendees have several options.

Marley will appear midday on the main festival stage to highlight his new children’s book, “Pajammin’!” That event will be free with special seating consideration given to children and families.

Larry Charles, who directed films like “Borat,” “Brüno” and “The Dictator” and wrote for “Seinfeld,” will appear on a ticketed panel to discuss his new memoir “Comedy Samurai: Forty Years of Blood, Guts, and Laughter.” Guests can reserve their spot online for a nominal fee, and there will be a day-of wait list

Stacey Abrams, the Georgia politician and prolific fiction author, will also appear on a ticketed panel. To attend, festival-goers must purchase a sign copy of her book online in advance.

Despite KPBS’ recent announcement that it will lose $4.3 million in funding, or 12 percent of its budget, due to federal cutbacks to public broadcasting, Dean said she is not worried about the festival going away again anytime soon.

“We have kept the momentum going for this program, because both One Book and the festival are priorities for us,” said Dean.

Given that the festival is made possible by their support network of sponsors, she maintains high hopes for the future.

“They’re trusting us. You know, they’re basing that off of the the positive work that we do on a regular basis, but they are supporting this and helping us make this happen. And we wouldn’t be able to do it without them.”