Who We Are

We are readers, writers, students, academics, authors, and volunteers who are passionate about books, writing, and reading!

The Greensboro Bound Literary Festival was created in 2017 as a project of the 501(c)(3) nonprofit Greensboro Literary Organization. GB began as the creative brainchild of Steve Colyer and Scuppernong Books owners Brian Lampkin, Steve Mitchell, and Deb and Dave White.

The idea was to create a festival that would bring together readers, writers, students, academics, authors, and volunteers who are passionate about books and literature. Over the past five years, that’s exactly what we’ve done! Greensboro Bound is the result of more than 500 volunteers, writers, sponsors, and funders coming together to bring the joy of meeting authors, learning, and reading to our community. In May of 2018, Greensboro Bound closed its first festival with a sold-out keynote event featuring Nikki Giovanni at NC A&T State University. In May of 2019, we did it again with headliners Zadie Smith and Ani DiFranco, along with North Carolina’s own Rhiannon Giddens. The 2020 Festival was canceled due to COVID-19, but we returned in 2021 with the debut of our first-ever virtual festival featuring, among many others, Roxane Gay, Nnedi Okorafor, and former U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins. In 2022, we returned to a live, in-person festival featuring Amor Towles, Nikole Hannah-Jones, and National Book Award winner Jason Mott, among others. In 2023, we continued to build our legacy with the likes of Charles Frazier, Lee Smith, Daniel Wallace, Bushra Rehman, Matthew Raiford, Matthew Salesses, Ryan McGee, Brian Noyes, and so many more!

As we look forward to this year’s festival, we are excited to announce that we have some incredible surprises in store. Stay tuned for more information—this will be an event you won’t want to miss!