Nantucket Book Festival Kicks Off 12th Year On Thursday

The Nantucket Book Festival will return for its 12th year on Thursday. The festival will run for four days from June 15 to Sunday, June 18, offering author readings, panel discussions and social events that encourages conversations between writers and readers. Most of the festival’s events are free and will be held within walking distance of the ferries.

Some of the featured authors attending this year’s festival include Hernan Diaz, who was a co-winner of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize for fiction; acclaimed contemporary fiction authors Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Finney Boylan; 2022 National Book Award in nonfiction winner, Imani Perry; and Luke Russert, a lifelong summer visitor to the island.

Some of the festival’s favorites including Wyn Cooper, Sebastian Junger, Tiya Miles, Kirk Wallace Johnson, Samantha Hunt, and Betsy Tyler will return. They will be joined by newcomers Tracy Kidder, Ilyon Woo, Jessie Greengrass, Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Stacy Schiff, Sally Bedell Smith, Julie Gerstenblatt, Emma Straub, Sarah Stodola, and Danielle Trussoni this year.

A full roster of authors, who will be representing a vast array of subjects and genres from historical fiction, to poetry, to memoir, to ghost stories, can be found by clicking here.

Special ticketed events include an Author’s Dinner at the White Elephant on Friday, June 16 and Poetry and Music at the Chicken Box on Saturday, June 17 featuring Asheville, North Carolina’s “Humans and Poetry” Group and Nantucket’s “The Shep Cats”, led by local author and musician Steve Sheppard.

The Festival will also host an outdoor tent in the Nantucket Atheneum Garden to highlight the active literary community on the island. There will be local authors selling and signing their books during the weekend. There will be a performance by Lizza Obremski of Nanpuppets Friday morning and a children’s poetry workshop in the afternoon.

For more information on this year’s book festival, you can visit their website by clicking here. A full brochure created by the Festival outlining all of its options throughout the four days can be accessed here.