To hear Timothy Don talk about Oakland, you might suspect he’s running for mayor.

“I’ve lived in many different places,” he said recently, by phone: “Algiers, Athens, Istanbul, Budapest, Boston, Nashville, Washington, Salt Lake, New York City — and I have to say: I have never once set foot inside the gates of a city such as Oakland, which is so bursting with energy and promise it’s remarkable.”

Don is the co-director of the inaugural Oakland Book Festival, a free, one-day event that will take place in and around City Hall on May 31.

Read the rest of a brief interview with Timothy Don and Kira Brunner Don, co-founders and -directors of the Oakland Book Festival, in the San Francisco Chronicle.