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The Concord Festival of Authors Celebrates 30 Years!

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In celebration of its 30th anniversary, the Concord Festival of Authors (CFA) presents 39 engaging literary events for all ages both online and in-person on October 13-31, 2022.

CLICK HERE FOR FULL CALENDAR OF EVENTS

Stewarded by the Friends of the Concord Free Public Library (CFPL) and planned collaboratively with multiple local organizations, CFA programs showcase diverse experiences and voices that honor the evolving literary history of Concord, MA.
The 30tht annual CFA kicks off on Friday, October 13 at 7:00 pm with Gregory MacGuire, author of the bestselling novel and Broadway sensation, Wicked, at the Concord Museum. The CFA keynote address on October 21 features acclaimed author, physicist and MIT professor Alan Lightman discussing literary life in Concord and his thought-provoking book, Probable
Impossibilities.

In a unique collaboration on October 28 with The Robbins House, Concord’s African American History Museum, board members will share a conversation entitled, A School. Sugar. A Slave Bell, which explores the intentions and emotions elicited by a 500-pound sugar plantation ‘slave bell’ given to the historic site.

On October 22, register for the popular Breakfast with the Authors panel – this year held at the newly renovated Concord Free Public Library’s Richard and Doris Kearns Goodwin Forum. The CFA Breakfast will be moderated by physician, author and Concordian, Dr. Suzanne Koven in
conversation with Steve Almond, Rachel Barenbaum and Lan Samantha Chang.
CFA 2022 award ceremonies include: winner of the Friends of the CFPL’s Miller Award for Excellence in American History, Professor Sean Wilentz of Princeton; Rajani LaRocca, award winner and presenter of the CFPL’s Leslie Riedel Memorial Lecture for Young People; and the presentation of the Concord Young Writers Award, presented by celebrated author and Instagram
phenom Yung Pueblo.

The Umbrella Arts Center offers a reading by poet and essayist Aimee Nezhukumatathil from her best-selling book, World of Wonders. Be Well Be Here presents Mindful Storytelling with renowned activist and author, Shelly Tygielski, in conversation with global mindfulness educator,
Dr. Christopher Willard. Concord Academy offers an alumnae/i panel moderated by Susan Knopf and featuring acclaimed authors Julia Glass, Susan Minot and Ruth Ozeki. The CFA also presents writing workshops on family narratives, healing stories, nature writing, and time travel for teens.
“This enduring festival exemplifies Concord’s literary heritage and its evolving, vibrant writing community,” says CFA Curator Lara Wilson. “The CFA Team is committed to sharing diverse narrative voices with a broad audience, and our collaborators endeavor to present creative programs imbued with the warmth of the Concord community.”

Most events are free thanks to the generosity of the Friends of the CFPL, the CFPL Corporation, participating CFA organizations and CFA sponsors. Online registration is required for many events and can be accessed along with the full calendar through the CFA website, ConcordFestivalofAuthors.org.

Contact: Barbara Gugluizza, Head of Reference
Concord Free Public Library
978-318-3347
info@concordfestivalofauthors.org

CALENDAR of EVENTS

Events

Concord Festival of Authors: Carla Kaplan, Author of Troublemaker

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Join Carla Kaplan for a discussion of her newest book Troublemaker: the Fierce, Unruly Life of Jessica Mitford.

Troublemaker tells the wild and unlikely story of Jessica Mitford, fifth of the six famous Mitford Girls, a British aristocrat-turned-American Communist, famous for exposés like The American Way of Death; this biography brings her astonishing self-transformation to life with a riveting, often hilarious account of trading wealth and status for a life of radical activism.

Who could predict that a British aristocrat would so energize American antifascist and civil rights struggles that Time magazine would crown her “Queen of the Muckrakers”? Jessica Mitford, always known as Decca, was brought up by an eccentric English family to marry well and reproduce her wealth and privilege, not to advocate for the rights of others. Her beautiful sisters have been subjects of books and movies dedicated to their naughty, glamorous lives. Decca ran away to America to forge a rebel’s life.

As this richly researched book details, Decca broke the Mitford mold. Instead of settling for life as a professional Beauty, she fought fascism in the Spanish Civil War, became an American Communist and pioneered witty, hugely popular journalism, including her 1963 blockbuster The American Way of Death.

Decca dedicated her life to social justice and proved herself an immensely effective ally, but she also injected laughter into all her political work, annoying some activists with her relentless antics but encouraging many others to find joy in the struggle. From famed baby doctor Benjamin Spock to best friend Maya Angelou, her anti-authoritarian irreverence had a profound impact on American culture.

Mining extensive, untapped sources, and with nearly fifty new interviews, Kaplan’s passionate biography beautifully illuminates how Decca’s hard-won and self-taught social empathy offers a powerful example of female freedom, the dramatic, novelistic story of an extraordinary woman of her time who is remarkably relevant and resonant today.

Bio: Carla Kaplan is the Davis Distinguished Professor of American Literature at Northeastern University. She has published seven books, including Miss Anne in Harlem: The White Women of the Black Renaissance and Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters—both New York Times Notable Books—and has written for such publications as The Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Slate, andThe Nation.

Kaplan has held fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities , among others. She serves on the board of Biographers International Organization and isa Society of American Historians Fellow. Kaplan earned her PhD in English from Northwestern University. She divides her time between Boston and Cape Cod.

For more information, please visit https://carlakaplan.com/.

To learn more about the Concord Festival of Authors, please visit www.concordfestivalofauthors.org.

Concord Festival of Authors: Debut Authors Panel

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The Friends of the Concord Free Public Library present The Debut Authors Panel 2026, moderated by Danielle Bradley, Writer-In-Residence at CFPL. This event is part of the 2026 Concord Festival of Authors.

Debut Author Panelists:

Laura Garden studied conservation biology in Yungaburra, Queensland with the School for Field Studies, where she fell in love with Australia. Garden is passionate about sustainable agriculture, environmental justice, and conservation. She has won several writing competitions, including an award from Writer’s Digest, as well as fellowships from Wesleyan and Harvard University. She was longlisted for the Minds Shine Bright Prize in Melbourne. She runs the substack “Writing in Work Gloves.” Garden has a Masters from Harvard and lives and works on a farm in Massachusetts. She is a CCHS alum.

Meghana Mysore’s stories, essays, and poems have appeared in The Yale Review, The Massachusetts Review, The Audacity, and more. She is the winner of the Barry Hannah Prize in Fiction. Mysore has been a Steinbeck Fellow and a scholar at McCormack Writing Center and Bread Loaf. She holds an MFA from Hollins University and a BA in English from Yale. Mysore has taught as visiting faculty at Amherst College and Bucknell University, and is now an assistant professor of English at Randolph College. From Portland, Oregon, Meghana is a daughter of Indian immigrants and a lover of non-sequiturs and used bookstores.

Abigail Savitch-Lew is a writer of fiction and nonfiction and an American of Jewish and Chinese (Ashkenazi and Toisanese) descent. She has a BA in literary arts from Brown University and an MFA in fiction from Rutgers University-Newark. She is the author of the novel Livonia Chow Mein, and her short stories have been published in The Round, Post Road, The Best Teen Writing of 2010, and The Apprentice Writer. Previously, she was a staff reporter for City Limits, an Asian American Writers’ Workshop Margins Fellow, and an adjunct professor of creative writing at Rutgers.

Moderator:

Danielle Bradley’s debut novel, Crying in Baseball, is forthcoming from Simon & Schuster’s Avid Reader Press in 2027. Her work has been supported by a grant from the Mass Cultural Council for creative individuals, the McCormack Writing Center, where she served as a 2025/2026 Reading Fellow, and Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism, where she was selected as the winner of the 2025 Elizabeth Alexander Creative Writing Award. Danielle’s work appears in The Rumpus, Indiana Review, Colorado Review, Salt Hill Journal, the Brooklyn Rail, and elsewhere. She holds a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School and an MFA from the MFA for Poets and Writers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Bradley served as the 2026 Concord Free Public Library Writer in Residence and is very excited to return!

Concord Festival of Authors: Steve Edwards, author of Rare Good

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Join Steve Edwards, the 2025 Concord Free Public Library Writer-In-Residence, for a discussion of his new book Rare Good: Essays on Art Autism, and Astonishment.

Steve Edwards was diagnosed with autism in his mid-thirties, altering his relationship to writing and family. He discovered what he had always known but never said: His compulsion to create was more than just a pursuit of self-expression. Faced with a mix of belief and disbelief from those who knew him, and full of questions himself, he committed to a new sense of wonder and pursuit of revelation.

​Rare Good offers insights into Edwards’s experience of the awe that only art, disability, and loved ones can bring. Raising a disabled child and delving into acknowledging his own mindedness, he explores the struggles of communicating and finding care, the joy of gathering as community, and the astonishing gifts that art and education offer us, especially when we acknowledge the contributions of disabled artists past and present. Drawing on times of heartbreak transformed into determination, Edwards describes his ongoing desire to find a way together. A singular work of lyric nonfiction, Rare Good is a reminder and balm for all who might feel different.

Bio: Steve Edwards is the author of the memoir Breaking into the Backcountry, the story of his seven months as caretaker of a remote homestead along the federally designated “Wild and Scenic Rogue River” in Oregon during the Margery Davis Boyden Wilderness Writing Residency. His second book Rare Good: Essays on Art, Autism, and Astonishment is forthcoming in October 2026. Steve’s essays have most recently appeared in The Yale Review, The Sun, Orion Magazine, Literary Hub, and Longreads. His essay “Yellow Band” was one of the most-read prose works in The Yale Review in 2024. He is the recipient of a Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship in Fiction/Nonfiction. He was the 2025 writer-in-residence at the historic Concord Free Public Library. Steve lives in Metrowest Boston with his wife and son.

​Though the number astonishes him, Steve has been teaching college writing for twenty-five years, with stops along the way at Purdue University, Emerson College, Simmons College, and the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, and, for more than a decade, he has been a professor of English Studies at Fitchburg State University in Massachusetts. A highlight of his teaching career has been leading the original course Neurodiversity in Literature and Life at Tufts University’s Experimental College. Steve has led workshops with 27 Powers and Larksong Writers Place.

For more information, please visit https://www.steveedwardswriter.com/

For more information on the Concord Festival of Authors, please visit www.concordfestivalofauthors.org.

Concord Festival of Authors: Steve Edwards, author of Rare Good

/in , /by

Join Steve Edwards, the 2025 Concord Free Public Library Writer-In-Residence, for a discussion of his new book Rare Good: Essays on Art Autism, and Astonishment.

Steve Edwards was diagnosed with autism in his mid-thirties, altering his relationship to writing and family. He discovered what he had always known but never said: His compulsion to create was more than just a pursuit of self-expression. Faced with a mix of belief and disbelief from those who knew him, and full of questions himself, he committed to a new sense of wonder and pursuit of revelation.

​Rare Good offers insights into Edwards’s experience of the awe that only art, disability, and loved ones can bring. Raising a disabled child and delving into acknowledging his own mindedness, he explores the struggles of communicating and finding care, the joy of gathering as community, and the astonishing gifts that art and education offer us, especially when we acknowledge the contributions of disabled artists past and present. Drawing on times of heartbreak transformed into determination, Edwards describes his ongoing desire to find a way together. A singular work of lyric nonfiction, Rare Good is a reminder and balm for all who might feel different.

Bio: Steve Edwards is the author of the memoir Breaking into the Backcountry, the story of his seven months as caretaker of a remote homestead along the federally designated “Wild and Scenic Rogue River” in Oregon during the Margery Davis Boyden Wilderness Writing Residency. His second book Rare Good: Essays on Art, Autism, and Astonishment is forthcoming in October 2026. Steve’s essays have most recently appeared in The Yale Review, The Sun, Orion Magazine, Literary Hub, and Longreads. His essay “Yellow Band” was one of the most-read prose works in The Yale Review in 2024. He is the recipient of a Massachusetts Cultural Council Fellowship in Fiction/Nonfiction. He was the 2025 writer-in-residence at the historic Concord Free Public Library. Steve lives in Metrowest Boston with his wife and son.

​Though the number astonishes him, Steve has been teaching college writing for twenty-five years, with stops along the way at Purdue University, Emerson College, Simmons College, and the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, and, for more than a decade, he has been a professor of English Studies at Fitchburg State University in Massachusetts. A highlight of his teaching career has been leading the original course Neurodiversity in Literature and Life at Tufts University’s Experimental College. Steve has led workshops with 27 Powers and Larksong Writers Place.

For more information, please visit https://www.steveedwardswriter.com/

For more information on the Concord Festival of Authors, please visit www.concordfestivalofauthors.org.