Food writing, erotica on tap at Atlanta’s 2026 Letters Festival

Elevating reading and writing in Atlanta’s arts and culture landscape is the goal of Lost in the Letters, a nonprofit literary organization that opened a writing studio and bookstore in Candler Park last year.

To that end, organizers bring six days of author readings, film screenings, panel discussions and writing workshops to Atlanta Monday through Saturday for the 13th annual Letters Festival.

This year marks a significant expansion in programming. Previous festivals typically took place on a single day and night.

“We thought this year would be a good opportunity to experiment with the model and expand the outreach,” said Lost in the Letters founder Scott Daughtridge DeMer. “It allows us to bring in more authors to create a different variety of experiences and opportunities for connection.”

More than a dozen writers, both national and local, will participate in events at multiple venues. New this year is themed programming on food writing, erotica and the art of translation.

Also new is an event called “[Video Nights],” featuring screenings of short experimental films followed by an audience Q&A with the filmmakers.

Not just for writers or readers, the festival is “for a wide variety of folks who are excited by what’s possible,” DeMer said. “Whether they activate through their own creative practices or share that inspiration with friends to keep connecting with really great art and great cultural experiences, we see this as an exciting opportunity for them.”

Guest curator Lara Glenum agrees.

“We think literature thrives when it’s in contact with all of the other arts,” she said. “Part of the festival’s goal is to open those portals of connection between artistic media.”

Participating authors include:

Jessamine Chan. The Atlanta author made her literary debut with the 2023 New York Times bestselling novel “The School for Good Mothers,” a speculative tale about negligent parents forced to undergo a draconian educational program using AI robots to regain custody of their children.

Justin Haynes. The Oglethorpe University creative writing professor’s 2025 debut novel “Ibis,” set in Trinidad, won Stanford University’s William Saroyan International Prize for Writing, the Center for Fiction first novel prize, the L.A. Times first fiction award and the Georgia Author of the Year Award for first novel.

Ra’Niqua Lee. The inaugural winner of the Georgia Writers Association’s John Lewis Writing Grant for fiction was a finalist for the 2025 Townsend Prize for her flash fiction collection “For What Ails You.”

Maurice Carlos Ruffin. A Guggenheim Fellow and associate professor of creative writing at Louisiana State University, the author debuted with the dystopian satire about race, “We Cast a Shadow,” a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award. His 2024 novel “The American Daughters” is a historical novel about a group of enslaved women who instigate a clandestine act of resistance against the Confederacy.

Adrienne Su. The Atlanta poet’s collection “Peach State” was named a 2022 Book All Georgians Should Read by the Georgia Center for the Book. Her 2024 essay collection “Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet” explores the confluence of her Asian American heritage with her Southern roots through the lens of food and the craft of writing.

Most of the festival’s events take place at the Marianna at Wrecking Bar Brewpub in Little Five Points and Lost in the Letters in Candler Park, with additional events at Lucille’s boutique and Gigi’s Italian Kitchen and Restaurant, both in Candler Park.

Admission to the Writing Across Languages panel is free, but the remaining events are $16.34 each, or $81.88 for an all-access pass. For details go to lostintheletters.org.

Grit lit reissues

Barry Hannah and Harry Crews, masters of the grit lit subgenre of Southern literature, died in the early 2010s, but their acerbic tales of the rough South remain fresh in readers’ minds thanks to publishers that continue reissuing their work.

Hailing from Mississippi, Hannah told stories of flawed alpha males engaging in reckless behavior and ill-conceived escapades. Case in point, the middle-aged fisherman who goes broke in his pursuit to land the big one in the short story “Getting Ready.” It’s included in Hannah’s 1985 collection “Captain Maximus” (Penguin Classics, $17), which will be reissued Tuesday.

His collection of 20 short stories, “Airships” (Grove Paperback, $18), originally published in 1978, was reissued in September.