Calling All Book Lovers: Check out the 3rd Annual Bainbridge Island Book Festival This Coming Weekend in Downtown Winslow

The Bainbridge Island Book Festival is set to host 24 authors at its third annual celebration of literature, ideas, and community September 25-26, including keynote Edwidge Danticat. Danticat is a New York Times bestseller, Oprah Book Club author, MacArthur Fellow and winner of multiple prestigious literary awards.

Her newest novel, Déy, was longlisted for the 2026 National Book Award on September 17. She is the author of several books, including Breath, Eyes, Memory, an Oprah Book Club selection, Krik? Krak!, a National Book Award finalist, The Farming of Bones, The Dew Breaker, Brother, I’m Dying, Create Dangerously, Claire of the Sea Light, The Art of Death, Everything Inside, a Reese’s Book Club selection and National Book Critics Circle Awards winner.

Danticat is also the editor of The Butterfly’s Way: Voices from the Haitian Dyaspora in the United States, Best American Essays 2011, Haiti Noir, and Haiti Noir 2. She has written eight books for children and young adults: Anacaona, Behind the Mountains, Eight Days, The Last Mapou, Mama’s Nightingale, Untwine, My Mommy Medicine, Watch Out For Falling Iguanas, and a travel narrative, After the Dance. Her memoir, Brother, I’m Dying, was a 2007 finalist for the National Book Award and a 2008 winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for autobiography.

Danticat is a 2009 MacArthur Fellow, a 2018 Ford Foundation  “Art of Change” fellow, the winner of the 2018 Neustadt International Prize, the 2019 St. Louis Literary Award, the 2020 Bocas Fiction Prize,  the 2020 Vilcek Prize for Literature, a 2020 United States Artists Fellow, a two-time winner of The Story Prize and  the 2023 PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story. Her 2024 essay collection, We’re Alone, was a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist and  in March 2026, she  received  the PEN/Nabokov Award for Achievement in International Literature.

At the Book Festival on Friday evening, September 25th – beginnng at 7 p.m. at the Stan Pocock Legacy Rowing Center – Danticat will be in conversation with The Seattle Times arts critic Moira Macdonald, about her newest release, Dèy, a novel. “What, in effect, separates the violence in Haiti from that in America?….The novelist’s duty is to present such questions and then leave the room—to grant the reader space to ponder them. Danticat does this masterfully, particularly regarding the subjects of love and home,” writes Imbolo Mbue of Dèy in The New York Times Review of Books.

“We couldn’t be more excited about our lineup of more than 20 regional and national writers” says Book Festival board member Jane Danielson. “This is a wonderful opportunity for book lovers to see some of their favorites or find new ones. It’s special to be able to hear someone’s words come alive at the festival, to be able to ask them questions, and to hear what’s they have coming next.”

Just the other day, Danielson learned that Danticat “is a finalist for the afortementioned National Book Award, as is Layli Long Soldier on our Poetry panel. So, the excitement is building for the festival.”

The Bainbridge Book Festival was inspired by renowned book festivals nationwide, including those in Portland, Chicago, and Savannah, GA. It will feature readings and panel discussions by well-known authors from the Pacific Northwest and across the United States. The festival aims to bring together readers, writers, and book lovers for the love of books and the scenic beauty of Bainbridge Island.

In addition to this distinguished keynote, the 2026 program features conversations, panels, readings, and audience Q&As running concurrently across three waterfront venues within a two-block radius of Downtown Winslow: The Stan Pocock Legacy Rowing Center, the Bainbridge Island Community Senior Center, and Eagle Harbor Congregational Church. All Saturday events are free.

The festival’s lineup includes fantasy favorite Helene Wecker, beloved novelist and graphic storyteller Garth Stein, author of “The Art of Racing in the Rain,” and other tomes, plus acclaimed poet Layli Long Soldier, romance sensation Emily Rath, and additional award-winning authors across every corner of the literary landscape. “This unique festival offers readers the rare chance to move between genres, discover new favorites, and meet the writers behind the books they love,” adds Danielson, owner of Eagle Harbor Book Co., one of the festival chief sponsors.

A citizen of the Oglala Lakota Nation, Long Soldier is best known for her poetry collection Whereas (2017), which references the 2009 United States Congressional Apology to Native peoples. Her work uses visual poetics and often addresses Indigenous history, the ethics of documentation, language and power, and motherhood. She lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Long Soldier will be joined by Rena Priest, a member of the Lhaq’temish (Lummi) Nation and the 2021–2023 Washington State Poet Laureate. In this role, she championed poetry that celebrates the ecological gifts of her ancestral homelands and the bioregion.

Founded in 2024, the Bainbridge Book Festival has quickly become a must for authors and readers. “For decades, I’ve volunteered and worked to build community on this island. The book festival carries this same spirit forward — the belief that everyone deserves a seat at the table, and a good book starts the best conversations,” said Darlene Kordonowy, former Bainbridge Island mayor and current board member of the festival.

The Bainbridge Island Book Festival is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization run entirely by volunteers. Tickets for the Friday’s keynote gala are available now at
bainbridgeislandbookfestival.org. Individual tickets are $60. Saturday’s full-day festival is free and open to all — no registration is required.

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