10/27/2025
An excited buzz of voices in coffee houses, bookstores, restaurants, hotels, and meeting spots. Eyes shining with anticipation at finding others as enthusiastic about reading as you are. Discussions about favorite authors. Books currently being read. Stories, poems, and essays that are being written. The smell of roasting coffee, the sound of pages flipping, of utensils clinking against plates. The heartfelt, “Welcome to the Atlanta Bookfest!”, the hugs, the happiness that this event, months in the making, was finally happening. The jumping around to spots around Atlanta, visiting establishes that would become sacred places of literary worship.
All of this and more was the inaugural run of the Atlanta Book Fest 2025. Dreamed up and produced by a group of young black women who love books and reading, ABF was a series of events which began on September 26th, and culminated on October 2nd, with authors signing their books and sharing their publishing experiences to an audience of over 200 people. There were workshops, there were performances by local spoken word poets spitting socially conscious lyrics to a lively crowd, and there were writers at different stages of their career making connections and new friends.
All of it kicked off with a book swap.
The first ABF event happened at Portrait Coffee House on 1065 Ralph David Abernathy Blvd SW. A popular coffee shop with plenty of space, Portrait Coffee House that night had an old-fashioned record player set up in the front by the windows overlooking the street. Guests to the event had been invited to bring vinyl records, the donut shaped black discs that were the staple for listening to the music before the 1990s. Surprisingly, a number of people actually had some, from home or borrowed from older relatives who have held on to these relics for sentimental reasons.
The music gave the ABF book swap an old-school feeling. The host of the night gave everyone bingo cards as they entered. In each square was a get-to-know-you question, which had people walking around asking, “Are you currently reading more than one book?”, “Have you tried a new hobby this year?”, “Do you own a library card?” There were twenty-five questions in all, and by the end of the event, people had made new contacts and had increased their literary social circle.
Everyone also brought a book to swap, which were laid out on several tables. The range of titles was diverse, from a first-person account of the war in Ukraine by a Ukrainian novelist turned journalist who was killed by a Russian missile strike, to historical, horror, and fantasy novels, to self-help books.
On September 27th, there was a silent read and lunch at the Original ChopShop, located on 2774 Peachtree Rd NW. For this event, participants had a lunch of salad and protein smoothies, and discussed the books they were currently reading. They also brought along novels to read, and after everyone finished eating, a quiet descended upon the group as physical books were opened or ebooks were pulled up on phones.
September 29th saw the ABF meet at Brave & Kind, a children’s bookstore located at 722 W College Ave., Decatur, GA. That day, two dozen readers were given an exciting task. They were to pair up in groups, and the host gave them several questions to ask their partner. These ranged from, “What genre do you most enjoy and least enjoy to read?”, “What was your most memorable book or author from childhood?”, “What was the last book you read?” From the answers to these questions, the duo split up and searched the bookstore for a title that they thought their partner might most enjoy. Since the store was mostly dedicated to children and YA literature, it was an especially intriguing task to choose a book from the wide selection that was available. The event was served coffee by The Coffee Plant, who doled out delicious caffeine bursts to keep everyone energized.
On September 30th, the ABF met at the Auburn Avenue Research Library on 101 Auburn Avenue NW. There, the host led a group of participants in collaborative writing of the beginning of a short story. A genre was voted upon, and romantic fantasy got the most votes. Characters were chosen, and ages were tossed around. At first, the characters were older, since the audience was older, being mostly university students, graduates, and working professionals. However, as the idea was further fleshed out, it was decided that the characters should be children on the verge of finding out their powers in this land of magic. A boy and a girl were chosen, and the seeds to adventure and romance as they aged across the pages were planted in the opening sequence fleshed out by the group.
Finally, October 2nd arrived, and the Atlanta Book Fest’s main event happened at The Gathering Spot on 384 Northyards Boulevard NW. This wonderfully spacious location with ample parking is in the vibrant Midtown, Atlanta. In the auditorium, there were more than a dozen tables stylishly cloaked in black tablecloths. The stage at the front had a large screen behind it blasting the logos of the ABF. With 200 plus tickets sold, there was a lot of space and a lot of chairs to seat everyone expected to attend. Twelve authors began arriving to set up their tables with books to sell. Even before the official start of the event, books were being purchased. The ABF hosts walked the floor instructing the staff where they wanted everything set up. The Coffee Plant set up a pop-up to once again energize people with tasty brews. At 4 p.m., the front doors were opened and people started to arrive.
What made the ABF different from other book festivals was that the number of authors was limited to about a dozen, and the people who came to the event arrived with the intention to buy books. Bags given out at the entrance with ABF logo were quickly filled with signed books. The environment was encouraging for authors and productive for the readers looking for new adventures to take, either fiction or non-fiction.
At 5:50 p.m., the host announced that the panel would soon begin. Four authors had been chosen, and they took their seats on the brightly decorated stage. One of the hosts joined them to moderate the conversation. They were a diverse range of writers. One had been published by an imprint of a top tier publisher, Penguin Random House. Another had self-published one book of a series through KDP. Another had gone the route of hybrid with Mynd Matters Publishing, while the last was self-published with dozens of titles to her name.
The crowd responded positively to the four female writers, and after a sustained applause, the ABF moved to the final phases of the evening. There were several workshops, followed by two spoken word poets and a hip hop artist. Their poetry touched upon social issues and the need to be empathetic to the struggles of those right there in your community who are going through challenging life circumstances.
The Atlanta Book Festival was an exhilarating experience that made reading exciting and put an exclamation mark on the literary community. It was a great idea which, hopefully, the ABF will expand upon in 2026, for even as the number of books published grows exponentially do the number of readers shrink exponentially. Three decades ago, before the rise of the internet, bookstores were populous in cities. There would be two or three in malls, from Walden Books to Barnes & Nobles to Borders to B. Dalton Booksellers. There was a time when commuters on busses and trains would have their books open, absorbed in narrative worlds as they travelled back and forth to their destinations. Children and young adults would go to libraries with their mothers and come out with a handful of books that they were excited to read before the due back date.
Today, there are a plethora of other options to reading, and people are wholeheartedly taking them. Only 1 and 5 teens read for pleasure, while only 25% of adults finish more than one book a year. The Atlanta Book Festival created an event that celebrated reading of books more than the selling of books, as five of the six days were simply dedicated to literature and the places where one can read and buy books.
Lovers of books, lovers of reading, and lovers of writing eagerly look forward to ABF 2026, which promises to be even better than its inaugural run. This will be a high bar to cross, as what the ABF achieved this year was already a grand success.
Today, there are a plethora of other options to reading, and people are wholeheartedly taking them. Only 1 and 5 teens read for pleasure, while only 25% of adults finish more than one book a year. The Atlanta Book Festival created an event that celebrated reading of books more than the selling of bo
