The city’s literary community gathers Saturday for the seventh annual San Diego Writers Festival, a free one-day event headlined by bestselling novelist Jodi Picoult.
Expected to draw 2,500 to 3,000 attendees, the event at the Coronado Public Library features more than 30 panels and readings spanning memoir, horror, historical fiction, screenwriting, poetry, romance and more.
The festival grew out of the International Memoir Writers Association, co-founded by writer and writing coach Marni Freedman, who noticed while teaching across San Diego County that the city’s many literary groups were largely unaware of one another.
“Marni wanted to bring all of those organizations to one event where people could start collaborations and find those synchronicities,” said co-founder and programming director Anastasia Zadeik.
Hank Phillipi Ryan (right) in conversation with Anastasia Zadeik. (Photo courtesy of SDWF)The first year, Freedman recruited Zadeik — then her writing student at University of California San Diego — to help manage volunteers. Zadeik, who describes the event as “an absolute labor of love,” has been with the festival ever since.
The two have forged a partnership rooted in what Freedman calls the festival’s guiding philosophy: “Before we tell our stories we’re separate and after we’re family.”
“That is what drives everything I do,” Freedman said.
At its core, the festival is an antidote to division. Freedman recalled one pivotal moment at a memoir showcase when an audience member who arrived with hardened views toward a speaker walked away transformed after hearing that person’s personal story.
“I was surprised how a five-minute story from the heart could really make that shift,” she said.
The festival also serves as a rare sanctuary where writers and readers are given space to be creative and acknowledge their own creativity.
“There’s this little bubble of hope and dreaming,” Freedman said of the literary celebration.
Attendees break for lunch at the San Diego Writers Festival. (Photo courtesy of SDWF)This year’s keynote is Picoult, the prolific author known for nuanced explorations of family, empathy and identity, whom Zadeik had been courting to speak at the festival for years.
“She tends to tackle societal issues that are on the rise,” Zadeik said of Picoult. “I don’t know how she manages to get the pulse of where things are going, but she does.”
Tickets to the Picoult keynote, which are free but require registration through Eventbrite, have already sold out, though standby seats remain available, organizers said.
Beyond the keynote, festival highlights include David Ambroz, author of the memoir “A Place Called Home,” who went from a childhood of homelessness and foster care to becoming one of President Obama’s Champions of Change and a leading child welfare advocate. Zadeik praised Ambroz’s ability, even as a child, to extend empathy to those who failed him.
“The book isn’t just to be read, it’s to be responded to,” she said.
(L to R) Anastasia Zadeik and Marni Freedman. (Photo courtesy of SDWF)Pianist and author Lucas Cantor Santiago will discuss “Unfinished,” his account of completing one of Schubert’s unfinished symphonies using artificial intelligence — a hot topic as writers grapple with AI’s place in the creative arts. A panel featuring horror writers Jonathan Maberry and Luke Dumas will examine the genre’s darkest impulses, alongside a conversation about transitioning with death doula and author of “Never Can Say Goodbye” Darnell Lamont Walker. Relationship expert Katherine Woodward Thomas will present her latest book, “What’s True About You.”
The festival also features a full poetry program anchored by San Diego Poetry Annual, including an open mic, alongside panels on screenwriting, playwriting and a “page to screen” conversation with Matthew Quirk, the local author whose novel “The Night Agent” was adapted into a series now in its third season on Netflix.
Both festival founders are writers themselves. Freedman, a former social worker who teaches the memoir certificate program at San Diego Writers, Ink., has a new book, “Artistic Badassery: How to Unblock and Become a Creative Force of Nature,” due out in October. Zadeik’s award-winning novel, “The Other Side of Nothing,” received the IPPY Gold and IBPA Silver awards and a Foreword “Book of the Year” honor.
The San Diego Writers Festival runs from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday at the Coronado Public Library. For more information, go to sandiegowritersfestival.com.
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