The Berkeley Storytelling Festival culminates with a special edition of Third Culture Tales, the live storytelling series created by Diaspora Arts Connection that centers stories shaped by migration, identity, belonging, and life between cultures. This special evening will be hosted by Third Culture Tales Alum Vivek Venugopal.
Featuring a curated lineup of storytellers, artists, performers, and community voices, the evening explores the deeply human experiences that connect us across backgrounds, histories, and cultural boundaries. Through personal narratives that range from humorous and intimate to reflective and emotional, storytellers will share experiences of family, displacement, memory, language, love, community, and finding home in an increasingly interconnected world.
Storytellers
Shirin Towfiq
Shirin Towfiq is an interdisciplinary artist working across installation, sculptural photography, video, textiles, and performance. Drawing from her experience as a second-generation Iranian refugee, her work explores migration, cultural memory, family histories, belonging, and the spaces between cultures.
Nasrin Murad
Nasrin Murad is a UC Berkeley alumna and Bay Area staffing professional whose background includes work connected to immigration. She joins Third Culture Tales to share a personal story grounded in her own experiences and relationship to culture, community, and belonging.
Eva Schlesinger
Eva Schlesinger is an artist, writer, musician, and four-time Moth StorySLAM winner known for transforming everyday experiences into stories filled with humor and humanity. Her published work includes Remembering the Walker & Wheelchair: Poems of Grief and Healing and contributions to the San Francisco Chronicle and Chicken Soup for the Soul.
Mohammad Khodadadi
Mohammad Khodadadi is a master musician, composer, and ney player born in Bushehr in southern Iran, with formal training in Western classical composition from Anton Bruckner University in Austria. His work draws together Persian classical music, regional folk traditions, storytelling, and the distinctive musical heritage of southern Iran.
Harriett “Dr. J” Jernigan
Harriett “Dr. J” Jernigan is a Stanford lecturer in writing and rhetoric, an award-winning educator, a multiple Moth StorySLAM winner, and a Moth GrandSLAM finalist. She is the founder and executive producer of First Person Story, a Berkeley-based workshop and performance series that moves intersectional voices from the margins to the center.
Vivek VenugopaL
Vivek Venugopal is a Bay Area facilitator, storyteller, improviser, and performer whose life has unfolded across Zambia, India, and the United States. Drawing on experience in technology, nonprofit fundraising, sales, and improvisation, he uses storytelling and play to create trust, authenticity, and meaningful connection.
Tickets and festival information:
diasporaartsconnection.org/bsf2026
🎤 More storytellers to be announced soon!
Whether you’re someone who has lived between cultures or simply someone who loves a compelling story well told, you are warmly invited to join us.
🎟️ Purchase tickets below to reserve your seat.
Additional donations are welcome and deeply appreciated.
