2026 Featured Authors

Alison Bechdel

Cartoonist and author of the bestselling graphic memoir Fun Home and the comic, quasi-autobiographical novel Spent

Alison Bechdel’s comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For, which ran from 1983 to 2008, was a countercultural institution among lesbians and discerning non-lesbians all over the planet. Ms. magazine called it “one of the preeminent oeuvres in the comics genre, period.” Fascinated by the collision of politics and private life, she examines how people get along—or don’t—with the wider world. Bechdel’s graphic memoir Fun Home, about her fraught relationship with her closeted father, was included in the Best Books of the 21st Century by The New York Times. It was adapted for the stage in 2015 and won five Tony Awards, including Best Musical. Her latest book, Spent, is a comical work of autofiction about a cartoonist named Alison who runs a pygmy goat sanctuary in Vermont. “After spending so many years working very hard to write the precise truth about my life,” Bechdel said in an interview, “it was just a blast to make shit up.”

Judy Blume

Legendary author of Forever, Tiger Eyes, Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, and other books that got us through young adulthood

Judy Blume has been hailed as “the poet laureate of puberty” and “the patron saint of preteen girls,” but in truth, we never outgrow her. Her formative classics, including Forever, Tiger Eyes, and Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, so profoundly impress young readers that they pass the books to their own children decades later. Blume is a longtime champion of intellectual freedom, working to support teachers and librarians in their fight against book bans. Her activism, along with her many bestselling books for young readers and adults, have earned her many honors, including a National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters and the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Book Critics Circle. A Peabody Award–winning documentary, Judy Blume Forever, and a motion picture based on Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret are available to stream. In 2016 Blume and her husband, George Cooper, founded an independent, nonprofit bookstore in their hometown of Key West, Florida. Blume can be found working there several days a week.

Wade Davis

Anthropologist, ethnobotanist, filmmaker, and bestselling author of the cult classic The Serpent and the Rainbow

The Indiana Jones of ethnobotany, Wade Davis has traveled from Africa to Polynesia to South America to the Arctic and beyond, studying plants and living among Indigenous people. His examination of arcane Haitian rituals to create real-life zombies led to his bestselling book The Serpent and the Rainbow, which was adapted into a film by Wes Craven. He is a former explorer in residence at the National Geographic Society and has been named one of its Explorers for the Millennium. Davis has chronicled his work and adventures in numerous books, photo exhibitions, and films, including the National Geographic documentary Light at the Edge of the World and El Sendero de la Anaconda, shot in the Amazon and available on Netflix. He is a professor of anthropology at the University of British Columbia and one of the rare Canadians to be named an honorary citizen of Colombia.

Jason De León

National Book Award–winning author of Soldiers and Kings, about his time spent embedded with smugglers guiding migrants across the U.S.–Mexico border

Jason De León began his career as an archaeologist studying ancient tools in Mexico. During the course of his fieldwork, he met many people who shared their often harrowing stories of migration. Inspired by these conversations, he began to chronicle how poverty, violence, political instability, and climate change shape and fuel our current migrant crisis. In 2017, he was awarded a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant for his work shedding light on the complexity of migration and U.S. immigration policies. His book Soldiers and Kings, an up-close look at the daily lives of those charged with getting people past immigration security forces, won the National Book Award for Nonfiction and was named one of the best books of 2024 by The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and Time. De León is also the director of the Undocumented Migration Project, which raises awareness about border issues and helps reunite families with loved ones who have disappeared while migrating.

Kirk Ellis

Emmy Award–winning screenwriter of the limited television series John Adams, Franklin, and Anne Frank: The Whole Story

A master of bringing history to life onscreen, Kirk Ellis has received more than fifty Emmy nominations and awards. He won two Emmys, a Writers Guild Award (WGA), a Peabody, and the Humanitas Prize for his work as writer and co–executive producer of the acclaimed 2008 HBO miniseries John Adams. Previously, he received an Emmy nomination, the WGA Award, and the Humanitas Prize for the ABC miniseries Anne Frank: The Whole Story, which he wrote and co-produced. Most recently, Ellis wrote and executive-produced the Apple TV+ limited series Franklin, starring Michael Douglas, which chronicles Benjamin Franklin’s efforts to negotiate a treaty with France at the height of the American Revolution. He is also the author of They Kill People: Bonnie and Clyde, a Hollywood Revolution, and the American Obsession with Guns and Outlaws, which will be published in February 2026.

Lauren Groff

National Book Award finalist and New York Times bestselling author of Fates and Furies, Matrix, The Vaster Wilds, and the forthcoming story collection Brawler

Called “one of our finest living writers” by someone who would know—Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist Hernán Díaz—Lauren Groff moves adroitly from short stories to novels and from the historical to the contemporary. Her novel Fates and Furies, which examines a modern-day marriage from the perspectives of both the husband and the wife, was a finalist for the National Book Award and Barack Obama’s favorite book of 2015. Her short story collection Florida was also a National Book Award finalist, as was Matrix, her stunning novel about a twelfth-century woman who oversees a powerful English convent. Groff’s latest novel, The Vaster Wilds, a tale of wilderness survival set in the early days of colonial America, was an instant New York Times bestseller and named one of the best books of 2023 by NPR, Slate, the Los Angeles Times, and, again, Barack Obama. Groff’s next book, the story collection Brawler, will be published in February 2026.

Carl Hiaasen

Pulitzer Prize finalist and bestselling author of Fever Beach, Strip Tease, Bad Monkey, and other savagely funny novels about people behaving badly

Carl Hiaasen famously said, “There’s nothing you can invent in a Florida novel that won’t eventually come true here.” His irreverently comic bestsellers, including Strip Tease, Sick Puppy, Stormy Weather, and Squeeze Me, hold up a mirror to the corruption and environmental degradation taking place in his beloved home state, and his flamboyantly ignorant villains bear more than a striking resemblance to real-life bad actors who make the news each day. Hiaasen draws much of his material from his years spent as a columnist for the Miami Herald, work that earned him three Pulitzer nominations. The London Observer has called him “America’s finest satirical novelist,” and he has received numerous honors, including the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Society of Newspaper Columnists. Hiaasen is also the author of bestselling books for young readers, including Hoot, Flush, and Scat. His latest novel, released earlier this year, is Fever Beach.

Brandon Hobson

National Book Award finalist and author of the novels Where the Dead Sit Talking, The Removed, and The Devil Is a Southpaw

Brandon Hobson’s work is most remarkable for what it doesn’t say. Full of the silences, unanswered questions, and unresolved problems that make up real life, his stories are powerfully authentic, and his characters are relatably flawed. “I like ambiguity because much of the world is ambiguous,” he said in an interview with Tin House. “What’s not spoken is often more interesting than what is said.” His novel Where the Dead Sit Talking, a beautiful but raw coming-of-age story about a boy thrust into the Native American foster care system, was a 2018 National Book Award finalist and was long-listed for the International Dublin Literary Prize. His novel The Removed, about a murder that haunts a Cherokee family, was named one of the best books of 2021 by Time, Kirkus Reviews, and Publishers Weekly. Hobson’s latest novel, The Devil Is a Southpaw, was published in October 2025.

Mira Jacob

Writer, illustrator, cultural critic, and author of the graphic memoir Good Talk and the novelThe Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing

In 2015, Mira Jacob wrote a graphic article for BuzzFeed titled “37 Difficult Questions from My Mixed-Race Son,” which quickly went viral. Her 2019 graphic memoir Good Talk expands on these delicate and nuanced conversations about race and politics. It was short-listed for the National Book Critics Circle Award, long-listed for the PEN Open Book Award, and named one of the best books of the year by the Chicago Tribune, Esquire, Library Journal, and Kirkus Reviews. Good Talk is currently in development as a television series. Her 2014 debut novel, The Sleepwalker’s Guide to Dancing, was a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers pick and described by The Boston Globe as “beautifully wrought, frequently funny, [and] gently heartbreaking.” Jacob is also the co-founder of Pete’s Reading Series, in Brooklyn, which hosts readings and discussions with literary authors and poets.

Priyanka Kumar

Naturalist, filmmaker, and acclaimed author of Conversations with Birds and The Light Between Apple Trees

Priyanka Kumar profoundly reenvisions our place in nature and nature’s place in our hearts. Her essay collection Conversations with Birds was described by Psychology Today as a “landmark” book that “could help people around the world rewild their hearts and souls.” Her latest work, The Light Between Apple Trees, weaves together science, childhood memories, and the cultural history of one of the world’s most popular and mythic fruits. Kumar is also the author of the novel Take Wing and Fly Here, and her documentary film The Song of the Little Road, about the life and art of the legendary Indian director Satyajit Ray, is in the permanent collection of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. Her forthcoming book The Grassland Queen will be published in fall 2026.

James McBride

National Book Award–winning author of The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, The Good Lord Bird, and the acclaimed memoir The Color of Water

A virtuoso in two genres, James McBride has won both the National Book Award (for his novel The Good Lord Bird) and the Stephen Sondheim Award (for his musical Bobos). His latest novel, The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, the bighearted tale of a tight-knit and diverse Pennsylvania neighborhood in the 1920s and 1930s, won the 2024 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction and was named one of the 100 Best Books of the 21st Century by The New York Times. His novel Miracle at St. Anna was adapted into a 2008 film by Spike Lee, and his memoir The Color of Water is considered a modern-day classic. As a noted musician and composer, McBride has toured with jazz legend Jimmy Scott and written songs for Anita Baker, Grover Washington Jr., and even the purple dinosaur Barney (though he cannot claim the earworm theme song “I Love You”).

Liz Moore

Bestselling author of the hit thriller The God of the Woods and the searing crime mystery Long Bright River

When writing her books, Liz Moore relies on what she calls “3 P’s.” “Place comes first,” she told The New York Times, “then people, then problems.” In The God of the Woods, her 2024 bestseller, the Adirondacks are as moody and mysterious as the deeply messed-up family at the story’s center. (Place: check. People: check.) And problems abound (check). The formula also works for her 2020 breakout hit, Long Bright River, the moving and propulsive tale of a female cop in Philadelphia trying to solve a spate of murders that might have taken her drug-addicted sister. Both novels landed on multiple best-of-the-year lists, including Barack Obama’s, and Long Bright River was adapted into a critically acclaimed limited series on Peacock starring Amanda Seyfried. Moore is also the author of Heft, The Unseen World, and The Words of Every Song.

George Saunders

Booker Prize winner, National Book Award finalist, and author of Lincoln in the Bardo, Tenth of December, and the forthcoming novel Vigil

It’s impossible to describe George Saunders’s work in a way that does it justice, but The New York Times comes close: “You feel as if he understands humanity in a way that no one else quite does, and you’re comforted by it. Even if that comfort often comes in very strange packages.” His No. 1 New York Times bestselling novel Lincoln in the Bardo won the 2017 Booker Prize, and his collection Tenth of December won the 2014 Story Prize and Folio Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Award. Vigil, his forthcoming novel about an oil magnate’s surreal journey from life to the afterlife, will be published in January 2026. Saunders is also the recipient of a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant and a Guggenheim Fellowship, and was named one of the 100 most influential people in the world by Time in 2013. He teaches in the Creative Writing Program at Syracuse University.

Kiese Laymon

Bestselling novelist, essayist, and author of the poignantly honest and frequently comical memoir Heavy

In his observant, often hilarious work, Kiese Laymon does battle with the personal and the political: race and family, body and shame, poverty and place. His savage humor and clear-eyed perceptiveness define his memoir Heavy, which won a 2019 Andrew Carnegie Medal and was named one of the 50 Best Memoirs of the Past 50 Years and one of the 100 Best Books of the 21st Century by The New York Times. The audio edition, read by the author, was named Audible’s 2018 Audiobook of the Year. Kirkus Reviews called it “a dynamic memoir that is unsettling in all the best ways.” Laymon is also the author of the essay collection How to Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America and the acclaimed novel Long Division, which won the 2022 NAACP Image Award and is being adapted into a television series by Trevor Noah. His latest book, for young readers, is City Summer, Country Summer.

Rebecca Solnit

Writer, activist, and bestselling author of Orwell’s Roses, Men Explain Things to Me, and the memoir Recollections of My Nonexistence

In its review of No Straight Road Takes You There, her latest essay collection, The Guardian wrote that Rebecca Solnit “is like a seasoned boxing coach tending to the spiritually and politically exhausted citizen flopped in the corner. She mops our brows and offers us motivation.” In her many acclaimed books on feminism, politics, the environment, activism, and the arts, Solnit calls out humankind’s misdeeds while also offering reasons for hope. Above all, she shares her insatiable curiosity and interest in seemingly everything. Wanderlust is a cultural history of walking. Orwell’s Roses, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, is a fresh take on George Orwell as an avid gardener as well as an antifascist. Men Explain Things to Me inspired the scathingly funny term “mansplaining.” The list goes on, including River of Shadows, about California’s rise as a film and tech hub, which won the 2004 National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism.

Colm Tóibín

Booker Prize finalist and bestselling author of Brooklyn, Nora Webster, Long Island, and other quietly exquisite novels

Colm Tóibín grew up in a home where, he once said, there was “a great deal of silence.” He has since made a career of talking to the world through his beautiful prose. His novel Brooklyn tells the unforgettable story of a young Irish immigrant navigating life and romantic love in early 1950s New York. It was named one of The Guardian’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century and adapted into an Oscar-nominated film starring Saoirse Ronan. Tóibín’s latest book, Long Island, picks up where Brooklyn left off, reuniting us with his beloved and complicated heroine. It was named one of the best books of 2024 by The New Yorker, The Washington Post, NPR, and Time. Tóibín’s novel The Blackwater Lightship was short-listed for the Booker Prize, and The Master, a fictional account of the inner life of the American author Henry James, won the International Dublin Literary Award.

Ocean Vuong

National Book Award finalist and bestselling author of On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous and The Emperor of Gladness

Ocean Vuong exploded onto the literary scene in 2016 with his first book of poetry, Night Sky with Exit Wounds, only the second debut collection to win the T.S. Eliot Prize. His 2019 novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous is a shattering story of family, first love, and what it means to be an American. It won the American Book Award, the Mark Twain American Voice Award, and the New England Book Award and was a finalist for the National Book Award. His latest novel, The Emperor of Gladness, tells the story of the unlikely friendship between a troubled college dropout and the elderly widow who welcomes him into her home. It was an instant New York Times bestseller and an Oprah’s Book Club pick, and The Guardian called it “heartbreaking, heartwarming yet unsentimental, and savagely comic all at the same time.” In 2019, Vuong was awarded a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant, the youngest recipient that year.

Isabel Wilkerson

Pulitzer Prize–winner and author of The Warmth of Other Suns and Caste, considered modern classics of narrative nonfiction

Widely considered one of the most important nonfiction writers of our time, Isabel Wilkerson explores the universal human story of migration and reinvention and the unseen hierarchies that have divided us as a nation. In 1994, as Chicago bureau chief for The New York Times, she became the first Black American journalist to win the Pulitzer Prize for individual reporting. Then came The Warmth of Other Suns, her 2010 book about the Great Migration, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award and is now in the modern nonfiction canon. Wilkerson followed it with the bestseller Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, which examines the unspoken caste system that has shaped America. It was an Oprah’s Book Club pick and named the No. 1 nonfiction book of 2020 by Time. The New York Times called it “a book that changes the weather inside a reader.”

Festival Authors and Moderators