A crowd gathered under the stage lights of the Main Theater in the Mertes Center for Arts at Las Positas College on May 2. Readers, writers and students gathered to celebrate books and the art of storytelling, when bestselling author Leila Mottley stepped onto the stage.
“I think the most important thing reading gave me was access to hope,” Mottley said.
NEW YORK TIMES Bestseller Leila Mottley conducts a workshop at the 6th annual LPC Literary Arts Festival at the Main Theater in the Mertes Center for the Arts on May 2, 2026. Mottley imparted industry knowledge and market trends to discussion participants during the Craft Q&A workshop. (Photo by Eric Liang/The Express)
Mottley, a New York Times bestselling author, was featured at LPC’s sixth annual literary arts festival. The festival was promoted as a day of celebrating storytelling and the people who tell those stories.
“Any place where people can gather around books, and connect with real people in person is important for us. I think it keeps books alive,” Mottley said.
Julissa Arce, Tomas Moniz, Bita Behdazi, W. Kamau Bell and Kate Schatz were also featured authors at the festival.
Schatz is a New York Times bestselling author and activist, while Bell is a comedian and host of the five-time Emmy Award-winning CNN docuseries “United Shades of America.” As part of their keynote, Schatz and Bell discussed their book, “Do the Work: An Anti-Racist Activity Book.”
SPEAKERS (from left to right) Bita Behzadi, Julissa Arce, Tomas Moniz, Kate Schatz, Karin Spirn, Michelle Gonzales, and W. Kamau Bell pose for a group photograph for the 6th Annual LPC Literary Arts Festival at the Mertes Center for the Arts on May 2, 2026. (Photo by Eric Liang/The Express)
The book is exactly as the title says: full of activities encouraging people to take actions against white supremacy and reflect on their privilege. The duo cracked jokes about the woes of explaining racism to white people to their ironically very white audience.
“I perform for NPR white people all the time, probably right now,” Bell said.
Getting well-known authors such as Bell and Schatz to come to LPC was an impressive feat from the event organizers. English professor Michelle Gonzalez, one of the organizers, connected with Schatz through a writing group she shares with fellow LPC English professor Karin Spirn.
“We’re in a writing group with (Schatz) and we meet once a month. We just asked her, ‘Hey, do you think you would be interested in coming to LPC?’” Gonzalez said. “We got really lucky.”
LPC’S AWARD-WINNING Literary Arts publication, Havik, debuted its 2026 edition of the literary arts journal — Pen[umbra] — at the Literary Arts Festival. Advisor Melissa Korber, top, kicks off the Havik awards ceremony in in room 4127 at the Mertes Center for the Arts. Professor Marty Nash, bottom photo, also took the podium. (Photo by Eric Liang/The Express)
The final part of the literary festival was the Havik awards ceremony. Havik is a national award-winning literary journal created by LPC students with mentorship from LPC professors Martin Nash and Melissa Korber.
Students on staff spend the semester selecting submissions from local writers and artists and compiling them into the annual edition of Havik.
“(It’s) a semester-long process, which is actually pretty impressive because some other colleges that produce literary journals have a much larger staff,” Nash said.
The theme for the 2026 Havik edition is “Penumbra.”
“It’s like the edge of a solar eclipse. We decided on this theme because we thought that a pen can provide light in the darkness,” Havik editor-in-chief Nadianna Roy said.
The Havik awards ceremony recognized the hard work of the Havik staff and the contributors who made the journal possible. The ceremony featured live readings from several contributors.
Aspiring writer Samuel Goldsmith won first place in poetry for his poem, “Fall Swallow Fall.” Its form is unique — the words are in no particular order and appear to accumulate at the bottom of the page, like leaves on the ground.
LYDIA WOODS AWARD winner Samuel Goldsmith steps up to the mic at the Havik Publication and Awards Ceremony in room 4127 at the Mertes Center for the Arts on May 2, 2026. Goldsmith performs his rendition of “Fall Swallow Fall” during the Open Mic for contributors. (Photo by Eric Liang/The Express)
“I don’t like to talk too much about the content because I don’t like to impose my interpretation on it,” Goldsmith said. “But as far as form goes, I had been thinking about how to use space in a minimalist (way), up for interpretation.”
From nationally renowned authors to up-and-coming authors, LPC’s literary festival was a celebration of all writers with the courage to tell their story.
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TOP PHOTO: Kate Schatz, left, and W. Kamau Bell hold a keynote presentation at the 6th annual LPC Literary Arts Festival at the Main Theater in the Mertes Center for the Arts on May 2, 2026. Schatz and Bell speak about their book “Do the Work An Anti-Racist Activity Book.” (Photo by Eric Liang/The Express)
Nuha Maflahi is the Campus Life Editor for The Express. Follow her on X @NuhaMaflahiLPC.
