The Gaithersburg Book Festival is a free annual celebration of great books and great writing that has made its mark as one of the nation’s top literary events. Being held virtually in 2021, the Festival will feature programming throughout the month of May on its YouTube channel.

This year’s Festival will feature nearly 100 best-selling and award-winning authors who will participate in talks and panel discussions.  Authors include: 

Fiction

• Ishmael Beah
• Jeanine Cummins
• Te-Ping Chen
• Cory Doctorow
• Robert Jones, Jr.
• Elizabeth McCracken
• Lisa Scottoline

Non-Fiction

• Pam Fessler
• Michio Kaku
• Carlos Lozada
• Susan Page
• Karen Tumulty

Mystery

• Alyssa Cole
• S. A. Cosby

Poetry

• Sandra Beasley
• Kim Addonizio
• Tara Campbell
• Joseph Ross 
• Katherine E. Young

Children’s

• Tom Angleberger
• Atinuke
• Elisha Cooper
• Angela Dominguez
• Meena Harris
• Jon Klassen
• David LaRochelle 
• Matthew Swanson and Robbi Behr
• Mike Wohnoutka   

Graphic Novels

• Jerry Craft 
• Remy Lai 
• Dave Roman

Middle Grade

• Alan Gratz
• Jerry Craft
• Gordon Korman 
• Remy Lai
• Jordan Sonnenblick 

Young Adult

• Sharon Flake 
• Francisco X Stork 
• Deborah Wiles 

The virtual Festival also offers free interactive, hands-on writing workshops for children and adults/teens on a variety of topics via Zoom.

The Gaithersburg Book Festival is sponsored by The David and Mikel Family Foundation and presented in partnership with Politics & Prose, Montgomery County Public Libraries, Gaithersburg-Germantown Chamber of Commerce, rio, The Washington Independent Review of Books, and Montgomery County Public Schools.  

This event listing provided for the Gaithersburg community events calendar. Community events are not associated with or sponsored by AARP, but may be of interest to you. If you have an event to share, let us know!

Images provided by AmericanTowns.com, Ticketmaster