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The Festival's invitation window for 2026 is closed. Be aware that any invitation extended recently is fraudulent. View our submission guidelines here.

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The Festival's invitation window for 2026 is closed. Be aware that any invitation extended recently is fraudulent. View our submission guidelines here. 〰️

CELEBRATING BOOKS, READING, AND THE LITERARY ARTS

CONNECTING READERS OF ALL AGES WITH INSPIRING AUTHORS & ILLUSTRATORS

Festival Details

OUR BEAUTIFUL COMMUNITY

Erin Stead is the illustrator of nine highly acclaimed picture books: the Caldecott Medal-winning A Sick Day for Amos McGee; The Purloining of Prince Oleomargarine; Music for Mister Moon; Tony; And Then It’s Spring; Bear Has a Story to Tell; Le

Philip Stead is the author of the Caldecott Medal-winning book A Sick Day for Amos McGee. He and his wife, illustrator Erin Stead, collaborated on Bear Has a Story to Tell, Lenny & Lucy, and The Purloining of Prince Oleomargarine, based on a prev

Kalyn Josephson is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, sometimes-baker, and full-time consumer of too much tea. She lives on the California coast with two tiny black cats in a house in constant need of repair. She is the author of seve

Omar Hussain is a writer from the San Francisco Bay Area. His debut novel, A Thousand Natural Shocks (Blackstone Publishing, 2025), was recently shortlisted for the Cabell First Novelist Award and named one of The Washington Post's 10 Best Thrillers

Kendra Langford Shaw holds an MFA from the University of Michigan and has had fellowships at the MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, and the Vermont Studio Center. Her stories have appeared in the Antioch Review, StoryQuarterly, and The Mid-American Review. Bor

Kazim Ali was born in the United Kingdom and has lived transnationally in the United States, Canada, India, France, and the Middle East. His books encompass multiple genres, including several volumes of poetry, novels, and translations. He is current

Ryan Effgen has had his works of fiction appear in Best New American Voices, Fiction Magazine, Painted Bride Quarterly, and elsewhere. He has earned creative writing fellowships from the Virginia Commission for the Arts and George Mason University. R

Peter Brown is the author of the #1 New York Times bestselling novel for children, The Wild Robot, which served as inspiration for the recent animated film from Dreamworks. His children’s books have earned numerous honors, such as a Horn Book A

Isaac Fitzgerald is The New York Times bestselling author of Dirtbag, Massachusetts (winner of the New England Book Award). He is also the author of the bestselling children’s book How to Be a Pirate, as well as the co-author of Pen & Ink:

Earl Swift is the author of nine critically acclaimed books and hundreds of major features for newspapers and magazines. His tenth book—Up on Cove Mountain: Adventure, Tragedy, and a Quest for Meaning on the Appalachian Trail—is the produ

Scott Simon hosts NPR’s Weekend Edition Saturday and Up First, and is also a special contributor to CBS News Sunday Morning. A winner of Emmy and Peabody awards, he is in the Radio Hall of Fame and the Illinois Lincoln Academy. He lives in Wash

David Guterson is the author of thirteen books, including the PEN/Faulkner Award winner, Snow Falling on Cedars, which was made into a major motion picture, translated into twenty-five languages, and has sold more than 4 million copies worldwide. His

Craig Fehrman is a journalist and historian who spent five years writing and researching This Vast Enterprise. His first book, Author in Chief, was described by Thomas Mallon in The Wall Street Journal as “one of the best books on the American

Emily Lloyd-Jones grew up on a vineyard in rural Oregon, where she played in evergreen forests and learned to fear sheep. She currently resides in Northern California, where she enjoys wandering in redwood forests. Her other novels include Illusive,

Julian Randall is a Living Queer Black poet from Chicago. His poetry and essays are published in The New York Times Magazine, POETRY, and Vibe. He is the recipient of a Pushcart Prize. Julian holds an MFA in Poetry from Ole Miss. His first book, Refu

@laurie.frankel is the New York Times bestselling, award-winning author of the novels Family Family, One Two Three, Goodbye for Now, The Atlas of Love, and the Reese’s Book Club Pick This Is How It Always Is. Laurie lives in Seattle with her hu

Sara Maurer lives with her family in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. She earned her bachelor's degree from Albion College and her master's from Eastern Michigan University. She honed her creative writing craft while completing Stanford's Continuing Studi

@juliebuntin is the author of Marlena (Holt, 2017) - a finalist for the NBCC John Leonard Prize - and the co-editor of the collaborative nonfiction project Notes to New Mothers, a collection of dispatches from postpartum life by sixty-five writers a

Harriet Clark is a winner of The Paris Review’s Plimpton Prize for her short story, Descent, and has received fellowships from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and the Wallace Stegner Program. The Hill is her debut novel.

Shara McCallum is the author of seven books, published in the US & UK, including Behold (2026); No Ruined Stone, winner of the 2022 Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for Poetry; and Madwoman, winner of the 2018 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Poetry. Fro