Sunday, February 16, 2025

Williamsburg Book Festival Returns for the 10th Year this February

2024 Williamsburg Book Festival. (Jillian Appel/WYDaily)

WILLIAMSBURG — The Williamsburg Book Festival will return on Feb. 22 and celebrate its 10-year anniversary.

This year, the book festival is scheduled to feature 49 authors who were juried in out of 130 applicants. In addition, five publishers will also be exhibiting and there will also be three guest speakers at the event — Tj O’Connor, Marni Graff, and Juanita Graham.

O’Connor writes suspense based on his career as an international security consultant specializing in anti-terrorism, as well as his time at the CIA. He will be speaking at 10:30 a.m. on “Life Adventures that Wrote My Novel.”

Graff is the keynote speaker for the event and will be speaking at 11:30 a.m. on “Attracting Readers Through Covers.” She is a mystery writer from North Carolina and an author of screenplays, stories, essays and poetry, in addition to two mystery series. 

Graham will be presenting “Find Your Voice/Find Your Healing” at 2 p.m. She is the associate pastor at the First Baptist Church in Williamsburg as well as a poet whose book is about finding comfort and healing in times of stress through reading and writing.

Additional events will include the local student writing contest awards for middle school, high school, and college sponsored by Pale Horse Publishing at 1 p.m. and the Poet Laureate Panel at 3 p.m.

“It’s the place to be among readers and authors at this point. We want to give everybody a positive experience and last year it seemed to work and this year we’re going to be jam-packed,” said Peter Stipe, President of the Williamsburg Book Festival Board.

The book festival will begin at 10 a.m. and continue until 4 p.m. at the Stryker Center and Williamsburg Community Building. Two Salty River Chic’s Food Truck will also be there at that time.

The event is free and open to the public. For more information, visit the official website.

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