A festival bringing together authors and readers across the Mountain West with conversations, panels and 50+ vendors, designed for all ages.
The Salt Lake Book Festival takes over The Gateway on Saturday, October 17, from 10 AM to 6 PM. It's the inaugural edition of a festival that describes itself as the Mountain West's gathering of authors, readers, and the books that bring them together. The organizers say it's run by people who love books and want reading to feel accessible and exciting for everyone, not just the literary elite, and they've built it for kids, tweens, families, and first-timers as much as for seasoned readers, with no reading history required. The site spreads across three stages: a main stage that seats around 400, a Kiln co-working space stage that seats around 200, and a family-focused stage with story time. The festival runs on community support, with the option to become a 'Friend of the Festival' or to volunteer, and is backed by local partners including Utah Humanities, KRCL, KUAA, and the Library Foundation. Organizers are expecting around 4,500 attendees.
The Saturday lineup covers a lot of ground. At 10 AM, Brian Laidlaw and Nicholas Triolo talk The Language of Stone on the Kiln Stage, while Jennifer K. Lambert, Bel Banta, and Nghi Vo dive into Magic, Desire, and Destiny: Inside the World of Romantasy on the Main Stage. The Kids Corner Stage opens with Rachel Michelle Wilson's How to Escape a Playdate: Storytime. Mid-morning brings Don't Read This Alone: Middle Grade Horror with Alexis Powell, Kaela Rivera, and A.M. Luzzader at 11:30 AM, and Outwit, Outplay, Out-Plot with Samantha Allen, Lovell Holder, Erica Hendry, and Parvati Shallow at 11:45 AM. At noon, Lyuba Basin and Theadora Soter host Perspectives Over Pints: Is It a Book?.
The afternoon continues with Zyanya Bejarano's Cuentos en Español at 1 PM. At 1:30 PM, two sessions run at once: Into the Dark: A Conversation on Horror with Alexis Powell, Mathilda Zeller, Taylor Grothe, and Abe Moss, and What the Land Knows: Ecology and the Living Planet with Merritt R. Turetsky and Jason Mark. Aly McKnight follows with Fire in Your Belly: A Story Hour at 1:45 PM. Later, Moudi Sbeity presents Habibi Means Beloved at 3:10 PM, and Greg Jackson gives Been There, Done That: A History Lesson for Right Now at 3:15 PM. At 3:45 PM, Bree Despain, Lindsay Lovise, and John Stephens face off in Kill the Rules, Bury the Bones: A YA Horror Showdown. The day closes with A Conversation with Jodi Picoult at 5:30 PM.
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The market and general festival festivities are free and open to the public, though some programming and stage events are ticketed. The festival kicks off a day early with The Prologue on Friday, October 16, at 6:30 PM at the Salt Lake City Public Library Main Branch, featuring Parvati Shallow and Jodi Picoult for $10. The main event is Saturday, October 17, from 10 AM to 6 PM at The Gateway, 400 West 200 South, Salt Lake City, UT 84101.
