About the Festival
Each year in May hundreds of book lovers, readers, writers, publishers, academics, and scholars converge on downtown Greensboro for the annual Greensboro Bound Book Festival. We create a space for readers and writers to come together and share stories and experiences. We hope that by providing a platform for dialogue and discussion we can nurture and grow empathy and understanding of each other. The authors and topics presented at Greensboro Bound span a broad swath of interests and subject matter, including the LGBTQ experience, speculative fiction, immigrant narratives, social justice, memoir, and romance… just to name a few. Author panels and discussions are complemented by workshops with visiting and local authors, documentary showings, and musical performances.
What Makes Our Events Different
We view our author events as curated conversations. We facilitate conversations between and among authors with a host who guides the flow of conversation, as opposed to a more common panel discussion, author reading, or book talk/presentation. Think of it as a kind of book festival version of Inside the Actor’s Studio. We pair books/authors based on any number of things such as genre, story content, or author background, and fashion-themed discussions that will resonate with our audiences.
By the Numbers
Since 2018 Greensboro Bound has hosted nearly 459 authors, 222 conversations/events, and 17 workshops… and these numbers continue to grow with every new festival! Greensboro Bound is committed to presenting diverse voices worldwide, honoring North Carolina’s long and varied literary traditions, and welcoming an inclusive community of readers from Greensboro and beyond.
Previous Greensboro Bound authors include:
- Amor Towles
- Jason Mott, 2021 National Book Award winner
- Nikole Hannah-Jones, 2020 Pulitzer Prize winner
- Roxane Gay
- Billy Collins, former US Poet Laureate
- Sharon Salzberg
- David Zucchino, Pulitzer Prize winner
- Nikki Giovanni
- Zadie Smith
- Daniel Pink
- Ani DiFranco
- Rhiannon Gidden, multi-Grammy Award winner and MacArthur Fellow
- Carmen Maria Machado, National Book Award Finalist
- Kevin C. Powers, National Book Award Finalist
- Rebecca Makkai, National Book Award Finalist
- Katherine Schulz, Pulitzer Prize winner
- Lee Smith
- Fred Chappell, Poet Laureate of North Carolina, 1997-2002
- Jaki Shelton Green, Poet Laureate of North Carolina
- Charles Frazier, 1997 National Book Award winner
Children’s and YA authors:
- Alicia D. Williams, Newbery Award Winner
- Kelly Starling Lyons, Caldecott Award Winner for Illustrator Daniel Minter
- Lamar Giles, Edgard Award Winner
- Bill Konigsberg, Stonewall Award Winner
- Stacy McAnulty
- Alan Gratz