Concord Festival of Authors Primed to Take the Town

The Concord Festival of Authors opens this Friday, Oct. 18, kicking off two weeks of events held at various locations around town.

Now in its 21stt year, the Concord Festival of Authors was founded in 1993 by Rob Mitchell and is presented and produced by the Angela Arkell Mitchell Foundation a nonprofit whose mission is to “promote books and authors, to present the work of contemporary authors to the public and to provide forums for authors to discuss their work.”

In recent years, the festival has attracted prominent writers and figures from Howard Dean to Doris Kearns Goodwin to E.L. Doctorow. Back in 1995, one of the opening night speakers was a then-relatively unknown author named Barack Obama, according to the festival’s website.

This year’s lineup features more than two-dozen events—most of which are free—ranging from making children’s books to the history of paper to the Ruth Ratner Miller Award for Excellence in American History, which this year is going to Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust. Get a full rundown of the events here. 

Barefoot Books will host few of the opening weekend's events, including How to Make a Children's Book on Friday and Barefoot Books Author Visit: Jewish Tales on Sunday. While on Saturday, Verrill Farm will host From Your Backyard to the Kitchen, featuring "three writers who extol the virtues, pleasures, and healthfulness of eating the food you produce in your own backyard."

For more on the Concord Festival of Authors, visit the website.