•  Please note that only books purchased at the festival will be signed following each individual panel
• Lunch will be available to purchase as a pre-order when purchasing tickets

A morning with Newbery winner (and our advisory board member) KWAME ALEXANDER! 

1. Isaac Fitzgerald in conversation with Kwame Alexander  
10am – 11am

Subject:  American Rambler: Walking the Trail of Johnny Appleseed 

Multi award winner, Emmy award winner for THE CROSSOVER (Disney +), recipient of the 2025 NAACP award, and #1 New York Times best-seller of 47 book, Kwame Alexander will talk with ISAAC FITZGERALD, the New York Times bestselling author of Dirtbag, Massachusetts about his latest memoir. Both Alexander and Fitzgerald appear frequently on the TODAY SHOW as book contributors. 

2. Victoria Christopher Murray in conversation with Kwame Alexander
11:15am – 12:15pm 

Subject: A Pair of Aces: A Reese’s Book Club selection

A discussion of her gripping novel about two trailblazing women on opposite sides of the law—a prosecutor and a madam—who team up to bring down notorious Mob boss Lucky Luciano in 1930s New York. Victoria Christopher Murray is a New York Times and USA Today best-selling author of more than 30 titles and 3 million books in print. 

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LUNCH BREAK
Lunches can be ordered IN ADVANCE on our website, courtesy of The Chew in Sandwich. Boxed lunches will be delivered the day of the show.

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3. John Searles in conversation with Lois Cahall 
1pm – 2pm

Subject: Some Like It Hot, Pussycat! (Helen Gurley Brown & Marilyn Monroe)

Marilyn Monroe was a bombshell.  Helen Gurley Brown was a “mouseburger.” Yet both women utilized their sexuality, their inner goddess, to create brands during the 1950-60s fight for feminism.  Helen created the woman’s magazine: Cosmopolitan. Marilyn lived and breathed all that Helen aspired women to be.  Two best-selling authors, Searles and Cahall, discuss the reimagining of both women from their recent novels Single Girls and Maybe Marilyn.

4. Nathaniel Philbrick (Book of the Year) in conversation with Bruce Nichols
2:15pm – 3:15pm 

Subject: THE RUSH, California Gold, the Civil War, and the Making off the Modern World 

Esteemed publisher, and author, Bruce Nichols The Emerson Circle: The Concord Radicals Who Reinvented the World, will talk with Nat Philbrick, winner of the National Book Award and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize about his recently released The Rush.