It’s time to face it and embrace it. Arts and culture in the East Bay pack the award-winners’ list with everything from music to dance to theater, cinema, museums, art galleries, festivals, performing arts venues and more.
One gaping hole in the 2025 selections is wordsmiths. People who, on the page or stage or broadcast and internet platforms, sculpt, define, praise, criticize, analyze and re-imagine the world in which we live or the history and voices held in memory, forgotten and in need of revival, or erased and long-buried in overlooked communities.
Sticking mostly to Bay Area-based writers and poets with recent, new or forthcoming books and collections that stock local bookshelves to overflowing, the 2025 “Best Ofs” include science writer Mary Roach (Replaceable You: Adventures in Human Anatomy, September); YA graphic artist/novelist Briana Loewinsohn (Raised by Ghosts, February); and novelist/poet Leila Mottley (The Girls Who Grew Big, June).
Also included are author Jon Hickey (Big Chief, April); poet devorah major (word time, November); essayist Rebecca Solnit (No Straight Road Takes You There, May); novelist/children’s picture book author/cookbook writer Ying Chang Compestine (multiple releases, 2025); memoirist Samina Ali (Pieces You’ll Never Get Back, March); author Isabel Allende (My Name Is Emilia del Valle, May); and more.
Allowing the literature to expand, there are cookbooks from chef Tu David Phus (The Memory of Taste, co-written with Soleil Ho and released in late 2024) and Chez Panisse founder/owner and writer Alice Waters (A School Lunch Revolution, October).
Branching out to museums, one may scoop up BAMPFA’s marvelous Routed West: Twentieth-Century African American Quilts in California (edited with text by Elaine Y. Yau and including essays by Daphne A. Brooks, Bridget R. Cooks, Basil Kincaid, Eli Leon, Adia Millett, Matthew Villar Miranda, Wendy M. Thompson, Julie Rodrigues Widholm and more).
Comedian/host/producer/writer W. Kamau Bell hits all the right writerly notes with multiple projects in print, on tour with his standup show (“Who’s With Me?”) and through philanthropic collaborations benefiting East Bay schools and students.
These writers and speakers of words are only the top of the barrel. For more, visit one of the East Bay’s many independent bookstores (see Goods & Services winners) and browse the stacks with the help of knowledgeable, book-addicted owners and employees.
View this year’s readers’ picks for the Best of Arts & Culture here.
