The Decatur Book Festival will return this year.
In a brief statement last March, festival organizers said “the Decatur Book Festival will be taking a pause for 2023, with a plan to relaunch in 2024.” And they’ve kept to their word. The popular event will return to downtown Decatur in October.
In a press release sent out on Tuesday, Leslie Wingate, former vice president of the Decatur Book Festival Board, announced her retirement as director of campus and community relations for Emory Libraries and her new role as executive director of the festival. The festival has been without an executive director since Joy Pope stepped down after the 2021 festival.
Once upon a time, the festival drew as many as 80,000 people to downtown Decatur and nearby venues on Labor Day weekend. In 2020, the festival went virtual in the wake of COVID-19, and in 2021 and 2022, it had shrunk to just a few events.
In Tuesday’s announcement, Wingate notes that this year’s scale will be smaller than in the fest’s heyday, but plans are in the works for bigger and better things. “While this year’s festival will be intimate in scale, it serves as a prelude to the grand celebration awaiting in 2025 — the festival’s 20th anniversary extravaganza!”
As for this year, the keynote event will take place on Friday, Oct. 4, and there will be a full day of author panels and other activities on Saturday, Oct. 5. No news yet on which authors will be featured at the festival.
