The Decatur Book Festival’s comeback is in no rush

The Decatur Book Festival took a pause in 2023, a victim of its own success. Now it’s back, smaller but perhaps better than ever.

The Decatur Book Festival, which by 2019 routinely drew 60,000 to 80,000 visitors to its annual events, paused its programming in 2023, not because it wasn’t successful enough but because it was too successful.

Even before the pandemic, the festival’s new executive director, Leslie Wingate, said in an interview, “I think we had gotten to a point where the problem was that the staff we did have were just burned out because the Festival had become so big and somewhat unwieldy.” It was this unwieldiness that ultimately led to the Festival’s 2023 cancellation.

Now it’s back and scheduled for October 4 and October 5 in its familiar location in downtown Decatur.

After the disruptions of the Covid-19 pandemic (and two years of much smaller events), Wingate said, “We felt like we were putting Band-Aids on our issues because we weren’t solving the problems, which is that we didn’t have the appropriate funding to put on a festival.”

The event, which relied on hundreds of volunteers to function, needed a dedicated staff to ease the burdens of its planning and execution. Nevertheless, the decision to pause the Festival was difficult and controversial, even among board members. “We heard complaints, believe me,” Wingate said. “But it really was a time where we could evaluate and develop a strategy for the future of the Festival.”

Though the Festival was never in danger of permanent cancellation, Wingate said bringing it back required “significant funding from real champions of the Festival.” This funding came in part from two major donations: $100,000 from the Joe Barry Carroll Family Foundation and $150,000 from DeKalb County, via outgoing CEO Michael Thurmond. These were exactly the kind of donors the Festival needed, Wingate said. “They love the Festival; they believe in it; they want it to live forever.”

The money allowed the Festival to hire Wingate as its full-time executive director, along with a dedicated staff, which receives effusive praise from Wingate. The new funding also allowed the Festival to continue hosting literary heavy hitters such as Stacey Abrams, who will deliver this year’s “Kidnote” speech on October 5. Previous Festivals boasted programs featuring Billy Collins, Jonathan Franzen, Roxane Gay, Joyce Carol Oates, Natasha Trethewey and U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor.

Abrams’ participation suggests that the event, though changed, will continue to be a cultural touchstone for metro Atlanta residents and beyond. Visitors can also get involved through the Festival’s logo design contest and volunteer opportunities. Applications are still being accepted for booth space.

Wingate is careful to note that more work remains to ensure the Festival’s longevity. There’s no guarantee that DeKalb County will repeat this year’s financial support in the future, and much of the event’s success is tied to its mutually beneficial partnerships with local independent bookstores. This year’s Festival will also be smaller and more intimate than those before Covid. Attendees can expect a less sprawling street festival and fewer venues over two days instead of three.

“We’re going to ease back in,” Wingate said. “And we’re going to be smart about it so that by the time next year rolls around, which is our 20-year anniversary, we’ll have a lot to celebrate, and we can actually right-size the Festival.” Still, Wingate promised tantalizingly that 2025’s 20th-anniversary Festival will be an “extravaganza.”

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Rachel Wright has a Ph.D. from Georgia State University and an MA from University College Dublin, both in creative writing. Her work has appeared in The Stinging Fly and elsewhere. She is currently at work on a novel.