IC
Imani Cole
Saturday Keynote
Booker-shortlisted novelist behind Salt Orchard, a three-generation saga of a Vermont quarry town. Her keynote: why small places hold big stories.
Fiction · KeynoteTwo days of author talks, hands-on workshops, small-press treasures, and a late-night poetry hour, all packed into one stubborn little bookshop and the garden behind it. Bring a tote. You will need it.
Day passes from $18 · Kids under 12 free · 100% of bar proceeds fund the Maple Hollow school library
Eleven years ago, The Crooked Spine opened in a former hardware store with 900 used paperbacks and a space heater. Margins & Mornings began as a single rainy-Saturday reading in 2019; forty people showed up and nobody wanted to leave.
Now it is our favorite weekend of the year: every talk happens within fifty feet of the poetry shelf, every author signs at the same wobbly oak table, and every ticket keeps an independent bookstore independent. No convention center. No lanyards (unless you really want one). Just readers, writers, and the good kind of crowded.
"It felt less like a festival and more like being invited into the best conversation in town, the one that happens to come with snacks and a cat asleep on the new releases."Marguerite Ellis, attendee since the first rainy Saturday
Novelists, poets, a food historian, and a translator who will absolutely make you cry about commas. Here are this year's headliners.
Everything happens in three spots: the Shop Floor, the Garden Tent out back, and the Annex (the old key-cutting room, now full of beanbags).
Grab a mug, claim a reading chair, and raid the pay-what-you-can shelf. Tote bags for the first 100 through the door.
June Okafor's famously forgiving poetry workshop. Pencils provided, talent optional, 24 seats.
Why quarry towns, corner shops, and dead-end roads keep producing the novels we cannot put down. Q&A and signing to follow.
31 tables of risograph weirdness, hand-bound chapbooks, and letterpress demos. Free entry all afternoon.
Harlan Voss and three fellow crime writers on alibis, casseroles, and why the librarian always knows.
Translation as performance, betrayal, and devotion, with readings in two languages.
June Okafor and the Dog-Ear Collective host. Wine bar open; all proceeds to the school library. Weekend pass holders get priority seats.
Family story hour with our visiting illustrators. Real pancakes, griddled in the garden. Kids draw on the butcher-paper tablecloths.
Ten thousand years of carbs and civilization, with tasting samples from Hollow Hearth Bakery.
The story behind Monsoon Static, from slush pile to sold-out front table, with her editor answering the questions writers actually want to ask.
Two memoirists on writing the people you love and still getting invited to Thanksgiving. 24 seats, sign up at the till.
We cannot tell you who. We can tell you the line will start early and Ruth has already cried twice in planning meetings.
Bring a beloved book, leave with a stranger's. Cider for everyone, one last lap of the shelves, and goodbyes until next June.
Every pass includes the zine fair, the book swap, and unlimited coffee. Capacity is genuinely limited; the building is older than the typewriter.
Kids under 12 always free · Student and educator passes $10 with ID · Nobody turned away for lack of funds, just email us.
Corner of Quill and Main, the brick building with the crooked gold spine painted on the side. If you hit the creek, you have gone one block too far (but the creek is nice, so no harm done).
No. Your pass covers everything. That said, every author signs after their event, the festival discount is real, and the donation shelf is pay-what-you-can. Historically, nobody leaves empty-handed.
Please do. Under-12s are free, Sunday opens with Pancakes & Picture Books, and the Annex has a quiet corner with beanbags and a basket of comics all weekend. The Late Stanza on Saturday night skews adult, mostly because of the hour.
Day pass holders join the line after each event, first come first served. Weekend and Patron passes include one guaranteed slot per keynote: just show your pass at the oak table. Bring books from home or buy on site, both are welcome.
Yes: Hollow Hearth Bakery runs a stand in the garden both days, Sunday features Theo Marchetti's bread tasting, and the wine and cider bar opens at 5 PM Saturday. Coffee and tea are free and effectively infinite.
Workshops cap at 24 and do fill, so sign up at the till when you arrive. Keynotes have garden overflow with a live audio feed. If the whole weekend sells out, we open a waitlist and release returned passes every Friday until the festival.
Dewey has attended every festival since 2019 and sees no reason to stop. He is most reliably found asleep on the new releases between 2 and 4 PM. Please do not feed him; the bakery already does.