Meet authors and browse their works at the first New Hampshire Book Festival
Friday night, New Hampshire’s first statewide book festival will kick off in Concord. According to its founder, the New Hampshire Book Festival was born out of a passion readers have for the written word, authors, and meeting like-minded book enthusiasts.
Emilie Christie Burack and Sarah McCraw Crow are both authors and close friends. They used to meet frequently to sit together while they wrote, sometimes independently, sometimes in collaboration. A lot of the time they would meet at the café in Gibson’s Bookstore in downtown Concord.
“For years, we’ve been talking about what a perfect place South Main Street would be for a book festival,” Burack said. “We both attended them as authors and participants in different states and it always kind of drove us nuts that New Hampshire was the one New England state that didn’t have a statewide book festival. Finally, one day about a year ago in April, Sarah and I were talking about it again and I said, ‘Why don’t we just do it?’”
A statewide book festival was apparently an idea whose time had come.
“Authors really like to come to festivals,” Burack said, “and that’s why it’s very competitive for authors to get a spot at festivals. We were just inundated with authors reaching out to be on our rosters and publishers contacting us about their authors and, you know, we haven’t even had an event yet, so we were really thrilled by the interest that people had in coming out to this in New Hampshire.”
The festival will kick off on Friday, Oct. 4. The public face of the festival will begin with a keynote session by Jean Hanff Koretitz, the New York Times bestselling author of The Plot and its sequel, The Sequel. Writer and former longtime host of NHPR’s The Exchange Laura Knoy will be the moderator.
Knoy is eager to have a chance to discuss Koretitz’s work with her.
“I’ve got The Plot and The Sequel in front of me,” she said in a telephone interview. “They are thrillers, but the writing is, oh, just funny and sarcastic, but also rich and literary, I would say. They’re written in the third person, so from the point of view of an omniscient narrator. She does a fantastic job with it. It’s laugh-out-loud funny sometimes, but it’s obviously also a thriller. Like, things are happening and some of those things are a little bit terrifying.”
The keynote session is designed to give readers an insight into Koretitz’s work and her characters. Knoy will ask questions and take questions from the audience.
“I’ll introduce her and then we will do probably about a 20-minute interview,” Knoy said. ”Then I’ll turn to the audience for their questions. Then I’ll go back and do a little more interviewing, and then we’ll do a couple more audience questions. We’ll close it out in about an hour or an hour and 10 minutes.”
Knoy wants to examine some of the philosophical underpinnings of Koretitz’s writing.
“One key, key, key theme in both of these books,” she said, “is who owns ideas? Who owns a story? Who gets to tell that story? And that very interesting question is woven throughout both of these books.”
Eager as she is for the keynote session on Friday, festival co-founder Emilie Burack is even more excited for what will happen earlier in the day.
“We really wanted to reach out to children in schools all over the state,” Burack said, “and we wanted to give an opportunity to under-served schools to make sure that they could get to this book festival — that the kids could get to this book festival and meet live authors. And that’s why we’re starting on Friday, because we are having a special keynote [from childrens’ author] Kate DiCamillo, just for school children. It will be at 10 in the morning so the buses can bring the kids. We have heavily underwritten tickets and we also have a fund that was donated by the Judge Family Foundation, which is supporting the bus transportation. We did a lot of research and we realized why a lot of kids don’t come to these kinds of things is because the school district and the kids can’t afford the bus fees. So we’re underwriting a lot of buses coming in. People are coming in from as far away as Groveton, which is up in Coos County.”
Each child attending will get a first-edition copy of Kate DiCamillo’s new book that will be released the day before the Festival, Burak said. “The school show sold out in a day.”
On Saturday, a three-block section of Main Street will be cordoned off for Book Festival activities. There will be panel discussions with different groups of authors in three different venues: the main stage at the Capitol Center for the Arts (44 S. Main St.) for adult books, an outdoor KidLit Stage about a block away, and two poetry sessions, also at the Capitol Center.
New Hampshire Poet Laureate Jennifer Militello will be part of both poetry sessions, beginning with a Spotlight Session in the morning with Irish poet Paul Muldoon.
“This is a really rare New Hampshire appearance for Muldoon,” Militello said. “He is a premier award-winning poet who has won basically every major prize both in America and internationally.”
In the afternoon Militello will be part of a panel where poets will read poems around the theme of “Hope in Difficult Times.”
“We will be reading poems that consider the role of poetry as both a source of hope and a way to articulate struggles in a time of challenge in the current climate,” Militello said. “These are poets whose work I am familiar with and who I admire deeply. We have a poet, Oliver de la Paz, who is currently the Poet Laureate of Worcester in Massachusetts. We have Kate Marvin, who is from Maine, an excellent poet, and Tim Liorde, who’s a British poet. I think it’s really important for poets and other artists to reflect on these times and have conversations with the broader kind of reader public about what these things mean and how we can cope with them, but also just that we’re encountering them and that it’s important to feel things about them and express those feelings. And I think often that leads to an understanding that also catalyzes change.”
Panel discussions through the day will include literary topics as different from each other as Suspense and Mystery, Debut Novels, and Fantasy. Emilie Burack said the discussions will be especially fresh because all the authors on the panels have published novels within the past year. “All of the works at our festival are new works,” she said. “They’re 2024 releases. Even though many of these authors are very well-known and have written books in years past and have other titles behind their names, everyone that we have coming here are going to be people with fresh work. Many of the books are not coming out until just days before the festival. It gives it kind of a fun, exciting feel for New Hampshire.”
One of those authors is Matt Tavares, the author of Hoops, a graphic novel about an Indiana girls’ basketball team in the 1970s. He will be part of a panel called Graphic Novel Spotlight, Saturday afternoon. He said interacting with authors and readers at festivals like this is one of the best parts of writing work for children and teens.
“You kind of just go into it not really knowing what the conversation is going to be,” Tavares said, “but just being able to chat with a couple other children’s book creators is always something that I get a lot out of. It’s always interesting to hear questions from the audience, especially if we have a bunch of kids in the audience.” He has written and illustrated picture books before, but Hoops is Tavares’ first graphic novel. “It’s interesting,” he said. “I’ve really noticed a difference in the audience. With picture books you get a lot of questions about, ‘How did you do this?, How did you do that?’ I found with Hoops a lot of the questions are specifically about the characters, things that happened in the book, that kids are really thinking about, ‘Why did Lisa do this in this scene?’ They get so excited to meet the people who made the book that they’ve read 10 times.”
Even though the festival hasn’t happened yet, Emilie Burack said plans are already underway for next year’s event.
“We already have lots of thoughts,” she said. “We’re so excited. We don’t know what our panels are going to be, but we’ve had a lot of suggestions from people. There are a lot of people who are fans of horror. … and there’s also a big appetite for nonfiction. We don’t have nonfiction this year, but there’s just so much of that that people really, really love. We’ve created this [the Book Festival] from the beginning to be an annual event. We hope it becomes a beloved annual event and a not-to-be-missed New Hampshire thing every fall.”
NEW HAMPSHIRE BOOK FESTIVAL
Venues
The NH Book Festival takes place in downtown Concord
CCA Authors Stage (Capitol Center for the Arts, 44 S. Main St.)
KidLit Stage (NHBF Village, South Main Street)
Poetry Salon (Capitol Center for the Arts)
Gibson’s Bookstore (45 S Main St., 224-0562, gibsonsbookstore.com) Immediately following each panel discussion, the authors will be at Gibson’s or at a Gibson’s tent for book signings.
Friday, Oct. 4
10 a.m. Children’s Keynote: Kate DiCamillo, author of Ferris and Hotel Balzaar (ticketed event), CCA Authors Stage
7 p.m. Inaugural Keynote: Jean Hanff Korelitz, author of The Sequel, with Laura Knoy, moderator (ticketed event), CCA Authors Stage
Saturday, Oct. 5
9 to 9:55 a.m.
Family Secrets: T. Greenwood, A.H. Kim, Sharon Wishnow and Shannon Bowring, with Julie Gerstenblatt, moderator. CCA Authors Stage.
Picture Books! Author/Illustrator Spotlight: Lita Judge, Jennifer Goldfinger, and Maryann Cocca-Leffler. KidLit Stage.
Poetry Spotlight: Paul Muldoon reads from his work. Intro by Jennifer Militello, NH Poet Laureate. Poetry Salon.
10:20 to 11:15 a.m.
Debuts: Kayla Min Andrews, Joseph Earl Thomas, Alina Grabowski and Vinson Cunningham, with David Moloney, moderator. CCA Authors Stage.
Earth Day Every Day — Kids Make a Better Tomorrow: Linda Sue Park, Evan Griffith and Melissa Stewart, with Amanda Gokee, moderator. KidLit Stage.
11:40 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
Spotlight Conversation: Claire Messud and Ann Hood, with Katie Crouch, moderator. CCA Authors Stage.
MG Fantasy Spotlight:Kekla Magoon, MT Anderson, Lisa Stringfellow, with Erin Bowman, moderator. KidLit Stage.
1 to 1:55 p.m.
Suspense & Mystery:Sarah Stewart Taylor, Margot Douaihy, Edwin Hill and CB Bernard, with Margaret Porter, moderator. CCA Authors Stage.
Families: It’s Complicated: Michael Leali and Michael Stewart, with Virginia MacGregor, moderator. KidLit Stage.
2:20 to 3:15 p.m.
20th Century Historical Fiction: Marjan Kamali and Dawn Tripp, with Brinda Charry, moderator. CCA Authors Stage.
Graphic Novel Spotlight: Matt Tavares and Jannie Ho, with David Elliott, moderator. KidLit Stage.
Poetry Spotlight: Jennifer Militello, Oliver de la Paz, Cate Marvin and Tim Liardet. Poetry Salon.
3:40 to 4:20 p.m.
Epics, Quests, and Magic: Ann Dávila Cardinal, Mark Cecil, MT Anderson and Lyra Selene, with Jocelyn Winn, moderator. CCA Authors Stage.
Co-Authors: Two Pens are Better than One Terry Farish & Lochan Sharma and Donna Gephart & Lori Haskins Houran, with Kari Allen, moderator. KidLit Stage.
5 to 8:15 p.m.
Family Keynote: From Novel to Netflix: Kate DiCamillo, with Veronica Chao, moderator. Program and movie (ticketed event). CCA Authors Stage.
See nhbookfestival.org for more.
Eats with your books
In addition to Sue’s Kimbap House in the Capitol Center for the Arts (sueskimbaphouse.com), the Festival’s website says, “The festival will host several fabulous local food vendors in the festival village: Analog Wood-Fired Pizza, Batulo’s Kitchen, and Hackleboro Orchard, so you can find a snack or a meal easily.”
Lita Judge Q&A
Lita Judge is the author of Don’t Worry, Wuddles. She will be part of the panel discussion “Picture Books! Author-Illustrator Spotlight” at the New Hampshire Book Festival, Saturday, Oct. 5, at 9 a.m. She lives in Peterborough.
Could you tell me a little bit about your work?
I write and illustrate books for children and I work anywhere from preliterate wordless picture books all the way through YA, young adult. I’ve written a book called Mary’s Monster, which is a young adult novel in verse, fully illustrated. But a lot of my work is nonfiction, and the other half is whimsical fiction.
What will your session at the Book Festival be like?
It will be children’s book illustrators. We’re going to be sharing our process. I know we’re going to be talking about what inspires our stories, how we develop our characters, where do our stories come from, a little bit of the process of how we create and how we get together as well.
Will you be taking questions from the audience?
Yes. We always wish and hope that it will be young people [at the session], but you’d be surprised how often it’s adults — both librarians, teachers, and people who want to break into publishing. We try to read the audience and we’ve all talked about various things that we’d like to discuss and we have a Plan A, hoping that there’s youngsters, and Plan B, if it’s mostly adults.
What kinds of questions do you get from kids?
The kids I write for are at that stage where they’re learning how to ask questions. And so a lot of times they want to know about your favorite character. And they are so wrapped up in the story that the questions are kind of like as if you’re talking about a mutual friend, which I really like. They’re talking about your character as if it’s your friend that you’ve created, but it’s also their friend. And so I really love that.
If it’s more of an adult audience, what would a librarian, for instance, ask you?
A librarian is probably thinking more about your process and how you created your book, and maybe about the many layers to a picture book. I do a lot of fiction and nonfiction, but I always try to incorporate layers so that children of different ages can read it and that teachers can use it in classrooms for a topic. Like I wrote a book about the history of dogs and there’s a lot of history and evolution and 40,000 years of how dogs developed around humans. Teachers are going to be asking questions like that, like move them in and use that in a classroom.
What are you particularly looking forward to at this festival?
It’s always just so fun to connect with readers, and as a picture book author and illustrator, I know a lot of times the focus at every event is around authors. I like to share how much a picture book is for all ages, and that we as creators, when we’re drawing pictures, that’s constructing a story narrative in the same way that words do.
At the Festival
Here are authors and moderators participating at the NH Book Festival. Bio information is according to bios at nhbookfestival.org unless otherwise stated.
Moderators
• Kari Allen — Bio: Allen lives in New Hampshire and is an author and a teacher, according to her website. She has worked with the National Writing Project in New Hampshire as a teacher consultant, her bio says. Books: Children’s books including the Maddie and Mabel Series of children’s books about two sisters, the fifth of which, Maddie and Mabel Ready For Snow, is slated for release Nov. 19, and Little Golden Books about the Bee Gees and Julia Child. More info: kariallenwrites.com
• Erin Bowman — Bio: A New Hampshire resident, Bowman is the author of books for children and teens. Books: The Taken Trilogy (the final book of which, Forged, was released this year), Vengeance Road, Retribution Rails, the Edgar Award-nominated Contagion duology, The Girl and the Witch’s Garden and Dustborn, a 2021 release described on Amazon: “Delta of Dead River sets out to rescue her family from a ruthless dictator rising to power in the Wastes and discovers a secret that will reshape her world in this postapocalyptic Western.” More info: embowman.com
• Veronica Chao — Bio: Chao is editor of The Boston Globe Magazine. She has worked at the Boston Globe since 2007. More info: bostonglobe.com/magazine
• Brinda Charry — Bio: Charry is a professor of English at Keene State College and lives in Keene. Books: Her website describes her novel The East Indian: “Inspired by a historical figure, The East Indian tells the story of Tony, a native of the Indian subcontinent who came to colonial America.” She has also published several books and articles on the works of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, a collection of short fiction, and two other novels, her bio said. More info: brindacharry.com
• Katie Crouch — Bio: Crouch lives in Vermont and teaches creative writing at Dartmouth College. She has written essays for The New York Times, Glamour and other outlets. Books: Her 2021 novel Embassy Wife, about a woman posing as the wife of an American diplomat in Nigeria, was a Joyce Carol Oates Prize nominee and a recommended read from Time, EW, Buzzfeed and other sources; Kirkus Reviews called it “a sharp, funny, page-turning romp.” She’s also the author of Men and Dogs: A Novel (2010). More info: us.macmillan.com/author/katiecrouch
• David Elliott — Bio: Now an emeritus at Lesley University’s Masters of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, where he taught for 20 years, Elliott spent time as “a cucumber washer in Greece, a popsicle stick maker in Israel, a teacher in Libya, and a singer in Mexico,” according to his bio. He lives in New Hampshire with his wife, the bio said. Books: Elliott is the award-winning author of more than 35 books for young people, including the picture books Finn Throws a Fit, Baabwaa and Wooliam and And Here’s to You!.He is also the author of three critically acclaimed YA verse novels: Bull, Voices: The Final Hours of Joan of Arc and The Seventh Raven. More info: davidelliottbooks.com
• Julie Gerstenblatt — Bio: Her website describes her a native New Yorker now living in Rhode Island, a novelist, essayist and educator, and says she is a producer and on-air host for A Mighty Blaze.Books: Daughters of Nantucket is her debut novel: “Set against Nantucket’s Great Fire of 1846, this sweeping, emotional novel brings together three courageous women battling to save everything they hold dear,” her website says. More info: juliegerstenblatt.com
• Amanda Gokee — Bio: Gokee covers New Hampshire news for the Boston Globe, according to her bio; she co-writes the Globe N.H. Morning Report. More info: See bostonglobe.com.
• Marty Kelley — Bio: Kelley “spent his formative years drawing action-packed pictures of his teachers being eaten by dinosaurs,” according to his online biography. “Marty spent many years as a second grade teacher and loved it when students gave him pictures of himself being eaten by dinosaurs.” Books: Among the 30+ books he’s written and/or illustrated are Almost Everybody Farts (2017) and Almost Everybody Farts: The Reek-quel (2022), as well as the Molly Mac series and many more. More info: martykelley.com, which features activity sheets related to his books.
• Laura Knoy — Bio: Longtime host of NHPR’s The Exchange, Knoy now hosts the podcast ReadLocalNH and in 2022 she joined the Rudman Center at UNH Franklin Pierce School of Law as its Director of Community Engagement. Books: Knoy wrote a novel called The Shopkeeper of Alsace, which she describes on her website as “a dramatic family saga spanning the World Wars, based on a true story that unfolds in a unique, little-known region with a complex past: Alsace, France.” More info: lauraknoy.com
• Virginia Macgregor — Bio: Now a New Hampshire resident, Macgregor was born in Germany, lived on the island of Corsica until age 5, moved to Oxford in England and spent her early career teaching at British boarding schools, her bio said. Books: She has written five novels for adults — What Milo Saw (2014), The Return of Norah Wells (2016), Before I Was Yours (2017), You Found Me (2018) and The Children’s Secret (2021) — and two young adult novels, Wishbones (2017) and As Far As the Stars (2019). About The Children’s Secret, her website says: “one hot Saturday afternoon, at a back-to-school party, nine children sneak into a barn — and only eight come out unharmed.” More info: virginiamacgregor.com
• David Moloney — Bio: A graduate of Middlesex Community College and the University of Massachusetts Lowell, he now teaches creative writing at Southern New Hampshire University. Books: Barker House (Bloomsbury 2020) revolves around a number of correctional officers at a fictional county jail in New Hampshire. More info: davidrmoloney.com
• Margaret Porter — Bio: “Margaret and her husband live in New England with their dog, dividing their time between an architecturally unique book-filled house in a small city and a waterfront cottage located on one of the region’s largest lakes,” according to her bio.
Books: Contemporary novels A Change of Location (2024) and Sequins and Starlight (2025), historical fiction The Myrtle Wand (2022), The Limits of Limelight (2021), Beautiful Invention: A Novel of Hedy Lamarr (2018), and others. More info: margaretporter.com
• Jocelyn Winn — Bio: Winn is a New Hampshire–based freelance writer and the associate nonfiction editor for The Maine Review, her online bio says. Books: “Her recent work can be found in WTWH Media publications, Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Eratio, The Waterwheel Review as a Pushcart Prize nominee, and Fourth Genre as a Steinberg Memorial Essay Prize finalist,” her bio said. More info: theeleventhletter.com
Authors
• M. T. Anderson — Bio: A lifelong New Englander who lives in Vermont, Anderson earned a B.A. from Cambridge University and an MFA from Syracuse University, his online bio says; and “He has curated concerts that bring together text and classical music all over New England.” Books: His 2024 release is Nicked, his adult fiction debut: “Based on a bizarre but true quest to steal the mystical corpse of a long-dead saint, Nicked is a fantastical, genre-defying, and delightfully queer historical romp,” according to his website. He’s written picture books for children, adventure novels for young readers, graphic novels, books for teens and adults. His books include Feed, a finalist for the National Book Award and winner of the LA Times Book Prize and which made both Time Magazine’s and NPR’s lists of the 100 best YA novels of all time, and Elf Dog & Owl Head, a Newbery Honor book for 2023. More info: mtanderson.com
• Kayla Min Andrews — Bio: She grew up in central New Hampshire and is now a New Orleans resident. Andrews was a finalist in the Tennessee Williams and New Orleans Literary Festival’s Very Short Fiction Contest in 2023 and assisted Putnam on the posthumous publication of her mother’s (Katherine Min) novel The Fetishist (January 2024). She is an MFA candidate in fiction at Randolph and is working on a novel, the bio said. More info: kaylaminandrews.com, where you can find links to her published works.
• C.B. Bernard Bio: After spending much of his adult life in Alaska and Oregon, he can now be found on the Rhode Island coast and is the author of the novels and a nonfiction travel narrative, the bio said. Books: His 2024 release is the Alaska-set novel Ordinary Bear, described on Amazon as “dark and humorous, literary but with the heart of a detective novel.” Previous books include his debut novel Small Animals Caught in Traps (2023) and the non-fiction Chasing Alaska: A Portrait of the Last Frontier Then and Now(2013). More info: cbbernard.com
• Shannon Bowring — Bio: She lives in Bath, Maine, and her work has been nominated for Pushcart and Best of the Net prizes, her bio said. Books: The Road to Dalton, her debut novel, which Amazon describes as “a novel of small town America,” was selected as an NPR Best Book in 2023 and won the Maine Literary Book Award for Fiction in 2024, according to her website. Its sequel, Where the Forest Meets the River, was published in September, and a third book in the series, In a Distant Valley, is forthcoming from Europa Editions, according to her website. More info: shannonlbowring.com
• Ann Dávila Cardinal — Bio: Ann Dávila Cardinal is a Nuyorican, Vermont-based author from a long line of Puerto Rican writers, her bio says, and lives in Vermont with her husband “in a lovely little house with a massively creepy basement.” Books: Her young adult Five Midnights won the 2020 International Latino Book Award for Best Young Adult Fantasy & Adventure and an AudioFile’s Earphones Award for the audiobook, and was a finalist for the Bram Stoker Award; the story continues in Category Five (2020), which was a 2021 finalist for International Latino Book Award category. She had a 2023 young adult horror novel Breakup From Hell; co-wrote a middle grade biography, Hispanic Star: Bad Bunny (2024), and has two recent adult novels — the Puerto Rican magical realist mystery The Storyteller’s Death (2022) and We Need No Wings, slated for release Oct. 10, according to her bio. More info: anndavilacardinal.com
• Mark Cecil — Bio: Host of The Thoughtful Bro podcast, Cecil was originally from Worcester, Mass., and is head of strategy for A Mighty Blaze as well as a journalist and author Books: His debut novel is Bunyan & Henry; Or, the Beautiful Destiny, a book described on the publisher page of a reimagining of the stories of Paul Bunyan and John Henry. More info: markcecilauthor.com
• Maryann Cocca-Leffler — Bio: Cocca-Leffler grew up in the Boston area and now lives in Portland, Maine. She writes kids’ books and is also a playwright and has a BFA in illustration from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Her daughter, Janine Leffler, inspired the book Janine (2015) as well as We Want To Go To School! The Fight for Disability Rights (2021), which the two co-authored, her bio said. Books: Cocca-Leffler is an award-winning author and illustrator of over 70 books for children including her most recent book Don’t Ask Cat, about which the Amazon description says: “A cat who struggles with social skills learns ways to be honest without being rude.” Her book Marabella’s Moments is slated for April 2025, her website says. More info: maryanncoccaleffler.com
• Vinson Cunningham — Bio: Cunningham is a critic for The New Yorker and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism in 2024. He teaches at Yale and is a co-host of the weekly podcast Critics at Large. Books: His debut novel, Great Expectations, came out earlier this year; Publishers Weekly called it a “remarkable first novel.” More info: vinson.nyc
• Kate DiCamillo — Bio: Born in Philadelphia and raised in Florida, DiCamillo now lives in Minneapolis, according to her website, which also says: “I am short. And loud. I hate to cook and love to eat. … I think of myself as an enormously lucky person: I get to tell stories for a living.” Books: Her books include picture books, and early chapter books such as the Mercy Watson series, the Tales from Deckawoo Drive series and the 2024 release Orris and Timble: The Beginning. Her many novels include Because of Winn-Dixie, Flora & Ulysses and 2024 release Ferris. More info: katedicamillo.com
• Margot Douaihy — Bio: Born in Scranton, Douaihy lives and works in Northampton, Mass., and is an assistant professor at Emerson College, according to her website. Books: Douaihy is the author of three books of poetry and the queer hardboiled mysteries Blessed Water (2024) and Scorched Grace (2023). The next mystery in her Sister Holiday series, Divine Ruin, will be published in 2025, her bio said. More info: margotdouaihy.com
• Terry Farish — Bio: Farish lives in Portsmouth. According to her website: “I really like doing writing workshops with kids, teens, and adults who are finding their own stories to tell. I love collaborating with illustrators, writers, and in a classroom with everyone while we all inspire each other to create.” Books: Farish is the author of young adult books including The Good Braider and Either the Beginning or the End of the World and picture books such as A Feast for Joseph, which was written with OD Bonny and illustrated by Ken Daley. More info: terryfarish.com
• Donna Gephart — Bio: Gephart grew up in Philadelphia, where “the books that I write are on the shelves of that library I used to love as a kid,” she says in her online bio. Books: Death by Toilet Paper (ages 9-12), How to Survive Middle School (ages 10-12), Olivia Bean, Trivia Queen (ages 8-12), Lily and Dunkin (ages 10-13), the Woofmore series, cowritten with Lori Haskins Houran, about a luxury hotel for dogs, (ages 5-8) and many more. More info: donnagephart.com
• Jennifer Goldfinger — Bio: Goldfinger lives in Portland, Maine. She writes and illustrates picture books and is a fine artist whose work has been shown throughout the country.Books: Her most recent is this year’s humorous picture book Daisy the Daydreamer. There’s also My Dog Lyle (2007), Hello, My Name is Tiger (2016) and A Fish Named Spot (2001). More info: jennifergoldfinger.com
• Alina Grabowski — Bio: Grabowski grew up in Massachusetts and now lives in Texas, according to her website. Books: Her debut novel, Women and Children First, published earlier this year by SJP Lit (Sarah Jessica Parker’s publishing imprint), earned starred reviews from Kirkus and Publishers Weekly. More info: alinagrabowski.com
• T. Greenwood — Bio: Greenwood grew up in rural Vermont and now splits her time between San Diego and Vermont. She has a background in dance, teaches creative writing and is also a photographer. Books: She’s written 15 novels, including Keeping Lucy (a 2020 Target Book Club pick), the true crime story Rust & Stardust and The Still Point (2024, an Indie Next pick, about the cutthroat world of dance moms). More info: tammygreenwood.com
• Evan Griffith — Bio: Griffith studied creative writing at UNC Chapel Hill, earned an MFA at the Vermont College of Fine Arts, worked as an editor at Workman Publishing and now lives in Austin Texas, teaching online writing classes. His hobbies include rocking climbing and playing guitar, according to his website’s FAQ. Books: Griffith’s middle-grade novel Manatee Summer (2022) was nominated for several awards and praised by critics. Its “sweet characters facing complicated problems will keep readers hooked,” wrote Kirkus Reviews. Griffith also wrote the middle-grade The Strange Wonders of Roots, released this year, and the picture books Secrets of the Sea and Wild at Heart. More info: evangriffithbooks.com
• Edwin Hill — Bio: A teacher at Emerson College, Hill lives in Roslindale, Mass. Books: Hill is a suspense writer and author of novels including Who to Believe (2024) The Secrets We Share, and the Hester Thursby mysteries. The description of Who to Believe on his website says: “In this twisting domestic suspense thriller … the aftermath of a murder in a quiet New England coastal town reveals a web of dark secrets.” More info: edwin-hill.com
• Jannie Ho — Bio: Ho studied at Parsons School of Design in hopes of being a fashion designer, her website bio says, but then became an illustrator and worked as a designer and art director at Nickelodeon and Scholastic. She lives near Boston and illustrates for books, magazines and games and also writes her own stories. Books: The Lost Mitten (a 2023 ALA Best Graphic Novels for Children selection), Bear and Chicken (“When Bear finds a chicken frozen in the winter snow, he brings it home to try to defrost it.”) and more. More info: chickengirldesign.com
• Ann Hood — Bio: Hood grew up in Rhode Island and worked for TWA as a flight attendant. She’s won two Pushcart Prizes and two Best American Food Writing Awards and written for several magazines. Books: The Knitting Circle: A Novel (2006), The Stolen Child: A Novel (2024), Fly Girl: A Memoir (2022) and several other novels and memoirs, plus a ten-book series for middle-grade readers and a short story collection. She is the editor of Life’s Short, Talk Fast: Fifteen Writers on Why We Can’t Stop Watching Gilmore Girls, set for release on Nov. 12. More info: annhood.us
• Lori Haskins Houran — Bio: She’s a former children’s book editor and author of more than 50 books for kids and lives on the North Shore of Massachusetts, her bio said. Books: Her books include nonfiction books such as Little Golden Book biographies of Jane Goodall, Tom Brady, Johnny Appleseed and George Washington, an I Can Read book about Thomas Edison, and books about animals. Her fiction books include books for learning to read, picture books and a series called The Woofmore co-authored with Donna Gephardt — “Welcome to the Woofmore, where the water bowls are always full, and there’s kibble on every pillow!” according to her website. More info: lorihaskinshouran.com
• Lita Judge — Bio: An author and illustrator who has written more than 35 nonfiction and fiction books, Judge lives in Peterborough, her bio said. Books: Among her many books are two Hoot and Peep books about owl siblings, Red Sled, Mary’s Monster: Love, Madness and How Mary Shelley Created Frankenstein (which combines verse and black-and-white watercolors) and the forthcoming Old Blue Is My Home (April 8, 2025), described as “poignant yet reassuring picture book [that] follows a family and the van that provides them with safety, warmth, and togetherness amidst economic and housing insecurity,” and Wake Up, Moon! (Oct. 29), in which “An energetic squirrel isn’t ready to give up on winter fun and go to bed”). More info: litajudge.me
• Marjan Kamali — Bio: Kamali received the National Endowment for the Arts 2022 Creative Writing Fellowship. Her novels have been published in more than 25 languages and her essays have run in The Wall Street Journal and the Los Angeles Review of Books. She holds an MFA from New York University and an MBA from Columbia University. Having spent her childhood in Turkey, Iran, Germany, Kenya and the U.S., she lives in the Boston area and is writer-in-residence at Brandeis University, according to her website. Books: Kamali is the author of the 2024 novel The Lion Women of Tehran (an Apple Must-Listen for July and an Indie Next pick) as well as 2019 national bestseller The Stationery Shop and 2013’s Together Tea. More info: marjankamali.com
• A.H. Kim — Bio: A.H. (Ann) Kim was born in South Korea, immigrated to the U.S. as a child, attended Harvard College and Berkeley Law School, and practiced corporate law for many years, her website bio says. Books: Kim’s debut novel was A Good Family, inspired by her family’s experience when her sister-in-law was held in a women’s prison camp. Her second novel, Relative Strangers, was published earlier this year and is a contemporary take on Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility. More info: ahkim.net
• Jean Hanff Korelitz — Bio: Born in New York City, where she lives today with her husband, Irish poet Paul Muldoon, Jean Hanff Korelitz graduated from Dartmouth College and Cambridge University and is the author of nine novels, according to her website. Her book You Should Have Known (2014) was adapted as a limited series for HBO as The Undoing; her book Admission (2009) was adapted as a movie starring Tina Fey. The Latecomer (2022) and The Plot (2021) are both in development as limited series, the website said. Books: The sequel to The Plot, called The Sequel, was released this week. “With her signature wit and sardonic humor, Jean Hanff Korelitz gives readers an antihero to root for while illuminating and satirizing the world of publishing in this deliciously fun and suspenseful read,” according to her website. She has also written a novel for children. More info: jeanhanffkorelitz.com
• Michael Leali — Bio: “Born and raised in the suburbs of Chicago, Illinois, Michael currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area,” according to his bio. Leali is “an award-winning writer and veteran educator. He earned his MFA in writing for children and young adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts,” the bio said. Books: “His widely-praised debut novel, The Civil War of Amos Abernathy (2022), won the prestigious Golden Kite Award in 2023 and was a finalist for the Lambda literary award among many other honors,” his bio said. His second novel, Matteo (2023), was a 2024 Lambda award finalist; author Cynthia Leitich Smith said, “This enchanting, modern homage to Pinocchio reminds us anything is possible if we’re true to ourselves.” His third novel, The Truth About Triangles, was released in May and is described on Amazon as “A heartfelt contemporary middle grade novel perfect for fans of Front Desk, following Luca Salvatore, a young gay Italian American trying to save his family’s pizza restaurant….” More info: michaelleali.com
• Tim Liardet — Bio: Born in London in 1959, Liardet is Professor of Poetry at Bath Spa University according to his website. Books: Eleven collections of poetry; The World Before Snow and The Blood Choir were shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot Prize. Recently he received an Authors’ Foundation work-in-progress award from the Society of Authors for his 12th collection, Atlas, Tick, Hog and Gold, his bio said. More info: timliardet.org
• Kekla Magoon — Bio: Magoon grew up in Indiana, graduated from Northwestern University, and earned an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She is a full-time author, speaker and writing teacher and received the 2021 Margaret A Edwards Award for her contribution to Young Adult literature. Books: The Season of Styx Malone, Chester Keene Cracks the Code and other middle-grade books, as well as non-fiction and YA novels including Fire in the Streets, which was an NAACP Image Award Nominee, and The Rock and the River, which won a Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe New Talent Award. More info: keklamagoon.com
• Cate Marvin — Bio: Marvin has two MFAs and a Ph.D.and teaches poetry writing at the University of Southern Maine, according to her website. Books: She’s written four books of poetry and co-edited an anthology. Her collection Fragment of the Head of a Queen received a Whiting Award, and her book Oracle was named one of the best poetry books of 2015 by The New York Times. More info: catemarvin.com
• Claire Messud — Bio: “A recipient of a Guggenheim and Radcliffe Fellowships and the Strauss Living Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, she lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with her family.” her bio said. Books: Her latest is This Strange and Eventful History (2024), which is longlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize and on several lists of most anticipated books of 2024, her website said; “from 1940 to 2010, the pieds-noirs Cassars live in an itinerant state — separated in the chaos of World War II, running from a complicated colonial homeland, and, after Algerian independence, without a homeland at all,” according to the book’s description on her website. Other books include The Emperor’s Children (2006) and an “autobiography through essays,” Kant’s Little Prussian Head and Other Reasons Why I Write (2020). More info: clairemessud.com
• Jennifer Militello — Bio: A poet and memoirist, Militello is the Poet Laureate of New Hampshire and “teaches in the MFA program at New England College,” according to her bio. Books: “She is the author of the forthcoming collection Identifying the Pathogen, named a finalist for the FC2 Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Prize; The Pact (Tupelo Press/Shearsman Books, 2021), and the memoir Knock Wood, winner of the Dzanc Nonfiction Prize (Dzanc Books, 2019), as well as four previous collections of poetry,” her bio said. More info: jennifermilitello.com
• Paul Muldoon — Bio: “Paul Muldoon was born in County Armagh in 1951. He now lives in New York. A former radio and television producer for the BBC in Belfast, he has taught at Princeton University for thirty-five years,” his bio said. Books: 15 collections of poetry, including Joy in Service on Rue Tagore this year, his bio said. “In his latest collection, Paul Muldoon continues his longtime trick of marshaling obscure references into fluent, fun and rollicking lyrics,” according to a quote from the New York Times review of the book on Muldoon’s website. More info: paulmuldoonpoetry.com
• Linda Sue Park — Bio: “Linda Sue is the founder and curator of Allida Books, an imprint of HarperCollins. She serves on the advisory boards of We Need Diverse Books and the Rabbit hOle museum project, and created the kiBooka website, kibooka.com, to highlight children’s books created by the Korean diaspora,” her bio said. Books: 2002 Newbery Medal winner A Single Shard and the NYTimes bestseller A Long Walk to Water (2010), and many other books. Her most recent title is The One Thing You’d Save (2021), a collection of linked poems. More info: lindasuepark.com
• Oliver de la Paz — Bio: The current Poet Laureate of Worcester, Mass., de la Paz teaches at the College of the Holy Cross and in the Low-Residency MFA Program at Pacific Lutheran University, his bio said. Books: He is the author and editor of seven books, including The Diaspora Sonnets (2023), which won the 2023 New England Book Award for Poetry,and was longlisted for the 2023 National Book Award, according to his bio. More info: oliverdelapaz.com
• Lyra Selene — Bio: According to her website, Selene “grew up on a steady diet of mythology, folklore, and fantasy,” and now lives in New England “in an antique farmhouse that probably isn’t haunted.”Books: Selene is the author of the YA duology Amber & Dusk and Diamond & Dawn, as well as the adult novel A Feather So Black. Its follow-up A Crown So Silver, about a trickster king and ancient magic, is due in January. More info: lyraselene.com
• Lochan Sharma — Bio: Sharma’s family is from Nepal and lived as refugees in Bhutan before moving to New Hampshire. He’s currently a student at Keene State working on a degree in biology, according to a writeup at Shelf Awareness, and said he loved the Percy Jackson books as a kid. Books: Sharma co-authored the 2024 YA novel Go Home with author Terry Farish.
• Melissa Stewart — Bio: “While gathering information for her books, she has explored tropical rainforests in Costa Rica, gone on safari in East Africa, and swum with sea lions in the Galapagos Islands,” her website said. “When Melissa isn’t writing or exploring the natural world, she spends time speaking at schools, libraries, and conferences for educators.” Books: “Melissa Stewart has written more than 200 science books for children,” according to her bio. Her website lists books on animals, earth and space science, environment and plants, health and the human body, physical science, technology and math and more. A recent release was Mega-Predators of the Past (2022), and Meet the Mini-Mammals: A Night at the Natural History Museum is slated for a March 4, 2025, release. More info: melissa-stewart.com
• Michael Stewart — Bio: Stewart has an MFA from the Vermont College of Fine Arts and lives in Ottawa, Canada, the bio said. Books: He is the author of more than “two dozen books for kids and young adults,” his bio said. His latest is Seeking Draven (2024), described in a blurb on his website as a novel-in-verse — “Using free verse, wordplay, concrete poetry, and more, Stewart’s story provides a lovely mycorrhizal mutualism for readers of all ages,” K.A. Holt, award-winning author of Ben Bee and the Teacher Griefer, is quoted as saying. More info: michaelfstewart.com
• Lisa Stringfellow — Bio: Stringfellow is a middle school teacher who lives in Boston; her work “often reflects her West Indian and Black southern heritage,” according to her bio. Books: Middle-grade fantasies Kingdom of Dust (2024) and A Comb of Wishes (2022). Her website describes Kingdom of Dust as “a West African-inspired fantasy about a girl who is determined to return both magic and justice to her people — and whose destiny holds more surprises than she could ever imagine.” More info: lisastringfellow.com
• Matt Tavares — Bio: An author and illustrator, Tavares was born in Boston and now lives in Maine, “and he’s even done a few book signings at Fenway Park,” according to his website. Books: Tavares has created more than 20 books since his first, Zachary’s Ball, about a boy who catches a foul ball at a Red Sox game, was published and “named one of Yankee Magazine’s 40 Classic New England Children’s Books,” according to his website. Hoops (2023), a graphic novel about a girls’ high school basketball team in 1975 inspired by a true story, received multiple awards. He also wrote and illustrated Dasher (2019) and Dasher Can’t Wait for Christmas (2023). More info: matttavares.com
• Sarah Stewart Taylor — Bio: Taylor is a former journalist and teacher who lives and writes mysteries in Vermont. Books: The acclaimed Maggie D’arcy mystery series, featuring an American detective in Ireland. Her latest mystery is Agony Hill, the first in a new series set in rural Vermont in the 1960s. More info: sarahstewarttaylor.com
• Joseph Earl Thomas — Bio: “Thomas teaches writing at Sarah Lawrence College, and courses in Black Studies, Poetics, Video Games, Queer Theory and more at The Brooklyn Institute for Social Research,” his bio said.Books: Thomas is the author of Sink, a memoir (one of the New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2023); the novel God Bless You, Otis Spunkmeyer (2024, named Best of June by the Washington Post and Book Riot), and the short story collection Leviathan Beach (Grand Central, 2025), according to his bio. More info: josephearlthomas.com
• Dawn Tripp — Bio: “She graduated from Harvard and lives in Massachusetts with her sons,” her bio said. Books: Tripp’s books include Georgia (2016), which was a national bestseller, finalist for the New England Book Award, and winner of the Mary Lynn Kotz Award for Art in Literature, and this year’s release Jackie (2024). “Her sixth novel will be published by Random House in 2026,” according to her website. More info: dawntripp.com
• Sharon Wishnow — Bio: Wishnow is “a transplanted New Englander who makes her home in Northern Virginia,” according to her website, and “has been a member of the Boston Malacological Club since she was ten years old.” (They study mollusks.) She’s also the founder of Women’s Fiction Day and has an MFA from George Mason University. Books: The Pelican Tide, released this year, is her first novel. It’s set in Louisiana. More info: sharonwishnow.com
Some books Festival participants love
A River Runs through It and Other Stories by Norman MacLean (1992)
“It’s all about how hard it is to understand the people you love the most, your family.” — Emilie Christie Burack, Festival co-founder and president
By Any Other Name: A Novel by Jodi Picoult (2024)
“I went to a really intriguing event by Jodi Picoult just a couple of weeks ago, and she has this new book that contemplates the history of Shakespeare and whether Shakespeare was a woman. She’s done a lot of research and it really positions the female perspective at a time when we are facing so many challenges surrounding womanhood and the female perspective…” — Jennifer Militello, Poet Laureate of New Hampshire
A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles (2016)
“The writing is so beautiful, and the story is simple, but so incredible…. Actually, strike the simple. The man at the center of the story is very philosophical and I love his sort of musings on life and change and how we must adapt and make the best of what we’re given.” — Laura Knoy, keynote moderator
Mexikid, by Pedro Martin (2023)
“It’s hilarious, poignant, and extremely well-done.” — Matt Tavares, author
This is Happiness, by Niall Williams (2021)
“It feels like a very contemporary novel but captures an old-fashioned literacy. It just slows the world down and makes you feel much more present in your own life. I love the sets of this book; I’m giving it away to all my friends.” — Lita Judge, author-illustrator
