New leadership at Decatur Book Festival strives for sustainability

Establishing a foundation of financial stability is top priority for the new leadership team at Decatur Book Festival.

“The word of the year is sustainability,” said Bailee Yarbrough, the festival’s new executive director. “My biggest responsibility is making sure the festival is sustainable not just this year but for many more years to come. High level, it’s helping stabilize the festival so it can continue to grow.”

Newly appointed literary director Anna Dobben echoed that sentiment when asked to name her primary goal.

“We need to come in under budget,” she said.

Founded in 2005 by Daren Wang and Thomas Bell, the Decatur Book Festival started out as a sprawling multiday, multi-stage event, which was said to have attracted up to 80,000 attendees. Marquee authors like Joyce Carol Oates, Roxane Gay, Sherman Alexie and Isabel Wilkerson headlined.

But funding was always a challenge, and leadership became a revolving door. In 2023 the festival went on hiatus to regroup, returning the following year with a one-day festival still boasting multiple stages but with a focus on local and regional writers.

Although financial security is a top priority this year, it’s not the only goal at the top of Dobben’s mind.

“As this rebuild is happening, that goes hand in hand with my goal for developing programming that reflects Decatur Book Festival’s commitment to diverse voices and to engage readers,” said Dobben, 34, of Brooklyn.

“We are not looking to set records this year. We are looking to have a lot of quality conversations between authors … That’s my No. 1 goal, to have those high-quality conversations and to make sure we come in under budget.”

"The demand for the Decatur Book Festival among publishers is really high," says Anna Dobben, literary director of the festival. (Courtesy of Decatur Book Festival)

Founded in 2005 by Daren Wang and Thomas Bell, the Decatur Book Festival started out as a sprawling multiday, multi-stage event, which was said to have attracted up to 80,000 attendees. Marquee authors like Joyce Carol Oates, Roxane Gay, Sherman Alexie and Isabel Wilkerson headlined.

But funding was always a challenge, and leadership became a revolving door. In 2023 the festival went on hiatus to regroup, returning the following year with a one-day festival still boasting multiple stages but with a focus on local and regional writers.

Although financial security is a top priority this year, it’s not the only goal at the top of Dobben’s mind.

“As this rebuild is happening, that goes hand in hand with my goal for developing programming that reflects Decatur Book Festival’s commitment to diverse voices and to engage readers,” said Dobben, 34, of Brooklyn.

“We are not looking to set records this year. We are looking to have a lot of quality conversations between authors … That’s my No. 1 goal, to have those high-quality conversations and to make sure we come in under budget.”

A native of greater Chicago and a graduate of Emory University, Dobben brings a lot of experience to the role of literary director. She began her career as a publicist for Alfred A. Knopf, representing authors including Dave Eggers, Joan Didion and David Lagercrantz, who took over the “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” series.

Dobben also served as associate director of the National Book Awards and is currently literary director for the San Antonio Book Festival, taking place in April.

As literary director for DBF, Dobben will work with the organization’s programming committee, board of directors and booksellers to select authors and curate the schedule of events for the festival taking place Oct. 3 in downtown Decatur, as well as the keynote and kidnote events on Oct. 2.

“That’s kind of like the top level down,” explained Dobben. “But just generally it’s about developing programming that reflects and reacts to what Decatur and the greater Atlanta area wants to see. What books is Atlanta reading? What books is Decatur reading? And how do we fulfill DBF’s mission to diverse voices and to community engagement by programming authors people want to hear from and subject matter people want to know more about.”

Dobben’s first order of business is to meet with local publishers and the programming committee, which is composed of local academics, writers, librarians and booksellers. Next month she’ll meet with publishers in New York to see who among the authors in their fall catalogs are available to participate in the festival.

What she’s learned on the job so far has been enlightening.

Decatur has “such an interest in nonfiction, especially current events,” she said. “I’ve been seeing that in book sales numbers for the area. I’ve been seeing that in library checkouts. And the demand for the Decatur Book Festival among publishers is really high. … It’s such a great reflection of the culture and community in Decatur.”

Signing on as literary director at DBF feels like kismet, says Dobben. She has vivid memories of spending her 21st birthday at the festival seeing Meg Cabot, author of “The Princess Diaries,” in 2012.

“My biggest responsibility is making sure the festival is sustainable not just this year but for many more years to come," says Bailee Yarbrough, executive director of Decatur Book Festival. (David Parham Photography)

Dobben’s first order of business is to meet with local publishers and the programming committee, which is composed of local academics, writers, librarians and booksellers. Next month she’ll meet with publishers in New York to see who among the authors in their fall catalogs are available to participate in the festival.

What she’s learned on the job so far has been enlightening.

Decatur has “such an interest in nonfiction, especially current events,” she said. “I’ve been seeing that in book sales numbers for the area. I’ve been seeing that in library checkouts. And the demand for the Decatur Book Festival among publishers is really high. … It’s such a great reflection of the culture and community in Decatur.”

Signing on as literary director at DBF feels like kismet, says Dobben. She has vivid memories of spending her 21st birthday at the festival seeing Meg Cabot, author of “The Princess Diaries,” in 2012.

“I was huge fan of ‘The Princess Diaries’ when I was younger and it’s so cool to see authors that you loved as a kid continue to write,” she said. “And I also discovered one of my favorite books at the festival, ‘The Night Circus’ by Erin Morgenstern. I still have the signed copy that I got at that festival. I’m really delighted to make it full circle because going to the book festival, what a treat.”

Yarbrough, 37, also has fond memories of attending the festival. She recalled volunteering at the Rebecca Ross signing last year and capturing video of an attendee who traveled from Florida to meet the bestselling fantasy novelist.

“Rebecca paused, and she really took her time,” said Yarbrough. “She stood up and gave the attendee a big hug. Her husband, you could see how excited he was that his wife was getting to meet Rebecca Ross, and I was just so happy to be able to capture it for them.”

A chemical engineer who moved to Decatur from Houston in 2023, Yarbrough admits that her background is not the traditional path one would expect for a position in nonprofit leadership.

And yet, “my experience has been with project management and large projects, and right now a lot of these skills are actually relevant to making certain our festival is sustainable,” she said.

Yarbrough is also an aspiring novelist and a member of the Atlanta Writers Club. So who knows? Maybe one day she’ll come full circle, and find herself on an author’s panel in the future.