KQED (SAN FRANCISCO) -- Carolina De Robertis, a local writer and SFSU professor, is also focused on finding common ground — but among progressives who come from vastly different backgrounds. She hosts a Saturday evening panel titled “Radical Hope: Staying Sane, Awake and Engaged in Dangerous Times,” featuring contributors to the similarly titled, recently published “Radical Hope: Letters of Love and Dissent in Dangerous Times” (De Robertis served as editor). An epistolary collection modeled after James Baldwin’s letter to his nephew, the book includes authors’ letters to their ancestors, friends, partners, siblings and future children about the current state of the country.
“It’s unapologetically progressive, but at the same time I don’t see it as one-sided at all,” says De Robertis of the collection. “I really wanted to have voices in this book who thought intersectionally — for that to be expressed by juxtaposing these different voices with each other. This is what we look like. This is the United States of America. They’re all coming from different backgrounds, but their voices come together to form a dialogue.”