Dear Readers,

When I was a little girl –circa 1960s, almost as far back as the Pilgrims’ landing– I took my very first steps on Pleasant Road Beach in Harwich not far from “Thompson’s Clam Bar, where the tastiest clams are!”  (Remember that jingle?)

Later as an adult, I lived in Barnstable. It’s the very town that if Cape Cod is an arm curled upward at the bicep—Provincetown the hook of the fist and Sandwich around the armpit—Barnstable falls between the shoulder and the inside elbow; that flabby bit that never seems to firm up after age forty.

 As a woman, a wife, and then a single mother who once juggled a writing career and raised her children here, crossing home over the Sagamore Bridge eases the hustle of city-living into the pure allure of ocean. If I had six months left to live, I’d type faster…on Cape Cod. (Notice the local lingo: “I’m in Los Angeles”; “I’m on Cape Cod.”)

A walk on Millway Beach is the grandest edge of heaven, where the sand, sea, and soul merge on one horizon. Every person has their center of the world. Barnstable is mine.

The idea for the Cape Cod Book Festival (CCBF) began with a conversation—or two. As founder and director of the Palm Beach Book Festival (PBBF)——now in its 10^th successful year, when I hear people talking about what they’re reading, I listen, deeply and carefully. At Scargo Café, I overheard a book club talking novels. That same week, at the Old Yarmouth Inn, I eavesdropped on a librarians’ Christmas party.

My husband said to me, “I know where this is going…don’t even think about it.” Who listens to husbands? But when Rory Kennedy asked the question, “Why isn’t there a Cape Cod Book Festival?” I was inspired to answer, especially when she encouraged me further, “I love the idea of a Book Festival and it’s a long time in coming. You seem to be the perfect person to get it off the ground and turn it into something meaningful and lasting.”

Here’s how I imagine the festival: a new cultural footprint in Massachusetts, for both locals and “washashores,” charitably minded readers who enjoy rubbing elbows with great thinkers. These are people with New England sensibilities, wise salty dogs whose favorite pastime is reading by firelight in inns and shingled houses that serve “steamers.” My kind of people. And yours.

Our festival plans to explore books that take us on a magical journey—history, mystery, thriller, fantasy, romance, fiction, and nonfiction—written by authors who tell their stories in dynamic, irresistible voices.

Meet our Advisory Board to get to know my brilliant friends who have ties to Cape Cod. They are my Plymouth Rock. They are my harnessed wisdom. You may recognize some famous names—and their literary pedigrees from their parents who are fixtures in history, our libraries, and our bookstores. But they have also carved their path and built their own legacy in the arts and in literature. But more importantly, two of the men have been People’s Magazines Sexiest Men Alive so I guess that’s a prerequisite if you join our board. (Kidding.)

We on the board have heart and ambition. We believe that closing ourselves off to history, knowledge, and information via book bans is suppressing the truth. I long to be a place in the off-season where us Pilgrims can savor literature. Cape Codders provides a rich buoyant tapestry for its neighbors.  Or in the words of our most famous Cape Codder, President John F. Kennedy, “A rising tide lifts all boats.”

Let’s set sail together on a sea of the written word!

Lois Cahall, founder

P.S. I’m humbled that the Cape Cod Book Festival logo was created by the incredible artist Edith Vonnegut, daughter of Kurt Vonnegut.