Kaya Oakes

Kaya Oakes is the author of six books. Her most recent works include Not So Sorry: Abusers, False Apologies and the Limits of Forgiveness (Broadleaf Books, 2024), The Defiant Middle: How Women Claim Life's In Betweens to Remake the World (Broadleaf Books, 2021), The Nones Are Alright (Orbis Books, 2015), and Radical Reinvention (Counterpoint Press, 2012).

Her essays and journalism have appeared in The Revealer, The New Republic, Slate, Foreign Policy, The Guardian, The Washington Post, Sojourners, National Catholic Reporter, Commonweal, Religion Dispatches, Tricycle, On Being, and America. She co-founded the arts and culture magazine Kitchen Sink and serves on the editorial board of Killing the Buddha.

She received the Religion News Association's award for best commentary in 2021 and has appeared on CBC, NPR, and various podcasts. She has lectured at universities including Fordham, Syracuse, Notre Dame, Villanova, USC, and UC Berkeley, and was selected to study religion writing at the Vatican in 2016.

Since 1999, she has taught creative nonfiction, cultural criticism, composition, and research writing at UC Berkeley's College Writing Programs. She was born and raised in Oakland, California, where she currently resides.