Sunshine State Book Festival, hosted by Writers Alliance of Gainesville, continues to expand

Two hundred authors across 15 genres will descend on Gainesville later this month for the fifth annual Sunshine State Book Festival.

Hosted by the Writers Alliance of Gainesville, the festival will take place Jan. 26-27 at the Hilton UF Conference Center, 1714 SW 34th St., and is free and open to the public.

The festival has continued to grow since making its debut with 75 authors at Santa Fe College in January 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic forced the festival online in 2021, but it returned to an in-person event with 100 authors participating at the Oaks Mall in April 2022. Last year's event at Trinity Methodist Church featured 150 authors.

"We thought that Gainesville needed to be a literary as well as artistic center, and we've been really encouraged about how well it's going," said Writers Alliance of Gainesville member and festival chair Pat Caren. "It's a lot of work."

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This year's festival kicks off the evening of Jan. 26 with an authors' reception from 7 to 9 p.m., followed by a full day of celebration of Florida's literary culture.

The main event runs from Jan. 27 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and includes opportunities to meet the various authors, purchase books and have them signed.

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"It's a lot of fun," Caren said. "You meet a lot of people, get acquainted with a lot of different writers, different genres." 

Keynote speaker Jack E. Davis, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and University of Florida history professor, is scheduled to speak at 1 p.m. Davis won the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for History for his book "The Gulf: The Making of an American Sea," which put a spotlight on the environmental evolution of the Gulf of Mexico.

His latest work, "The Bald Eagle: The Improbable Journey of America's Bird," was published in March 2022 and has received rave reviews, including being named a New York Times Book Review Editor's Choice.

"We're excited to have him," Caren said.

That will be followed at 3 p.m. with a live production of “A Conversation with Frederick Douglass and Captain John Brown.” The 40-minute presentation examines the two American abolitionists and their contrasting approach to freeing those enslaved during the 1800s.

Taking part in the show are actor and Alachua County Poet Laureate E. Stanley Richardson, award-winning actor and playwright Timothy "Shamrock" McShane, and television host and author Pamela Marshall-Koons. An audience discussion will follow the performance.

Kids also are invited to join in the festivities, and can enjoy storytelling by various children’s book authors from noon to 4 p.m.

"It's good for young people to get exposed to this," Caren said. "We think that it will help with with their interest in reading."