Dear Festival Friends,

It’s been a while! We hope you spent the summer like we did, having steamy flings with any books that came our way. We’re now back in the office, hair combed and skirts straightened, and we have some great news to share:

First and foremost, we’re busy finalizing our lineup for the 2026 Festival (May 15–17—save the date!). Authors include Isabel Wilkerson (Caste, The Warmth of Other Suns), Colm Tóibín  (Brooklyn, Long Island, Nora Webster), James McBride (The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store, The Good Lord Bird), Carl Hiaasen (Fever Beach, Strip Tease, Bad Monkey), Liz Moore (The God of the Woods, Long Bright River), and Jason De León (Soldiers and Kings). Watch this space and our website for the full roster, which we’ll announce next month.

Congratulations to Festival bards Arthur Sze and Tommy Archuleta! Sze, who won the 2019 National Book Award for Poetry for his collection Sight Lines, has just been named our next U.S. poet laureate. He follows in the footsteps of two other U.S. poet laureates who’ve joined us at the Festival, Joy Harjo and Tracy K. Smith. And Santa Fe’s very own poet laureate, Tommy Archuleta, has been named an Academy of American Poets Fellow. He’s one of twenty-three poet laureates across the country being recognized for their talent and commitment to engaging their communities through poetry.

We’re delighted to welcome a new member to our Festival family. Asya Ghafarshad Beardsley, our chief administrative officer, holds two degrees in literature from Pitzer College and meets our requirements for loving Santa Fe almost as much as she loves reading. She has spent the past three years working for the Museum of New Mexico Foundation, raising support for the New Mexico History Museum, New Mexico Historic Sites, and the New Mexico Museum of Art. When not fielding our requests for good book recommendations, Asya will be busy helping us plan and pull off the Festival.

In case it isn’t obvious: WE LOVE BOOKS—and we don’t like when anyone tells us what we can or cannot read. We enthusiastically support Banned Books Week and the efforts of the American Library Association and The Coalition, which increases awareness about censorship. “The annual event highlights the value of free and open access to information and brings together the entire book community—librarians, educators, authors, publishers, booksellers, and readers of all types—in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas.”

Here in Santa Fe, you can find us with fellow book lovers at the following community events:

Saturday, October 4, 7:00 p.m.
CCA presents a special opening screening of The Librarians, featuring an introduction from Darryl Lorenzo Wellington, the sixth poet laureate of Santa Fe.

Wednesday, October 8, 2:00 p.m.
SFAI and SFPL present artist-in-residence Vagner Mendonça Whitehead for Knitting Without Prejudice Workshop + Listening, a workshop that combines loom knitting while actively listening to a BBC Radio 4 performance of George Orwell’s 1984 at the Southside Library Café Room. 

You’re Invited

Wednesday, October 15, 5:30 p.m.
Join us for a champagne reception and early announcement of the complete 2026 lineup, co-hosted with Jill Heppenheimer at TOKo, 101 West Marcy Street, Santa Fe.

Saturday, November 1, 10:00 a.m.
See some of your favorite local authors and support a great cause at A Day with Santa Fe Authors, featuring SFILF alums Jamie Figueroa and Katie Arnold, among others.

February 11–15, 2026
We’re proud to be official partners of the San Miguel Writers’ Conference and Literary Festival, taking place in beautiful San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. We hope to see you there!

Of Note

Read “Why Literary Festivals Still Matter” on Literary Hub.

Watch Roshi Joan Halifax and Rebecca Solnit in conversation as part of Upaya Zen Center’s online series, Awareness in Action.

Listen to Priyanka Kumar talk about her new book The Light Between Apple Trees on NPR’s Living on Earth.

Board of Directors
Edward Gale, Chair

Janet Bailey | Jenny Kimball

James McGrath Morris | Carmella Padilla

Jenna Scanlan | Mary Sloane

Maria Gale, Ex Officio

Founders
Clare Hertel | Carmella Padilla | Mark Bryant