Closing performance by SambaFunk!
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Sunday, November 15, 2026
12-2 pm
FREE
Join us for a conversation with Umi Vaughan, Tiffany Yap, and Robert Liu-Trujillo, three writers and artists whose work sits at the intersection of culture, nature, and resistance. Their work positions human creativity as an expansive response to attacks on land, memory, and cultural ecosystems. Together they will discuss how authors can craft inclusive work that holds history, ecology, and lived experience simultaneously. After the conversation, the audience is invited to boogie down to a closing performance by SambaFunk!
This event is free to attend, but registration is requested at the link below. Books will be available for sale and signing.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Robert Liu-Trujillo is an author, illustrator, and lifelong artist from Oakland California. He started his professional career in the early 2000s, working with murals, arts education, public art, merchandise, illustration and kids books. He is a co-founder of the Social Justice Children’s Book Fair and the illustrator of over 10 children’s books including I Am Sausal Creek, which discusses the ecology, history, and conservation of a historic creek in Oakland. Learn more at work.robdontstop.com.
Umi Vaughan is an artist-scholar who reimagines life and celebrates culture through a Black diasporic lens with photo-based visual art, music and dance, ethnographic research, and writing that harness empathy and funk as creative tools. He is the co-author of Silencing the Drum: Religious Racism and Afro-Brazilian Sacred Music and author of Carlos Aldama’s Life in Batá: Cuba, Diaspora, and the Drum and Rebel Dance, Renegade Stance: Timba Music and Black Identity in Cuba. Learn more at www.umiart.art. Author photo by Eesuu Orundide.
Tiffany Yap is a conservation scientist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. She is the urban wildlands science director at the Center for Biological Diversity and author of the graphic novel Tales of the Urban Wild: A Puma’s Journey, illustrated by Meital Smith. She holds a doctorate in environmental science and works to protect sensitive and endangered species and landscapes through land use planning and policy. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, LA Times, San Francisco Chronicle, NPR and more. Learn more at tiffanyyap.com.
SambaFunk! is a collective of dancers, musicians, artists and community members, bringing to life the essence of Carnaval. Through African Diaspora infused artistic techniques, SambaFunk! provide opportunities for dancers to grow, connect with themselves and learn the core elements of Brazilian dance. Learn more at sambafunk.com.