Blog

The #2 Reason Good Books Don't Make It Into the Louisville Book Festival: Category Balance One of the hardest emails we send each year is a letter telling an author that their book was not selected for the Louisville Book...

The Most Common Reason Good Books Don't Get Accepted Every year, hundreds of authors trust the Louisville Book Festival with something incredibly personal—their dream. We know how much courage it takes to write a book. We know the early mornings,...

Sometimes people ask, "What is the Louisville Book Festival"? They have never heard of a book festival or if they have heard the words "book festival," they often assume it's an event just for authors. Nothing could be further from...

BY Julia Narvaez Munguia Kentucky  PUBLISHED 8:45 AM ET Oct. 12, 2025   LOUISVILLE, Ky. — The Louisville Book Festival was back for its sixth year, bringing readers of all ages together to celebrate the power of stories.   What You Need...

For the first time in its history, the Louisville Book Festival will take place during Banned Books Week—and the timing couldn’t be more perfect. Each year, Banned Books Week shines a national spotlight on the rising tide of censorship in...

How the Louisville Book Festival Is Changing Lives Through Literacy and Community When you think of a book festival, you might picture authors signing books and readers browsing vendor tables. But the Louisville Book Festival is different. It's not just...

The Louisville Book Festival is a free, public literary event held annually in Louisville, Kentucky, that celebrates reading, writing, and the power of storytelling. It was founded by Deedee Cummings, a Louisville-based author, therapist, attorney, and literacy advocate, with a...

Bringing a book festival to life is a lot of work and a special balancing act. You have to offer something "traditional" (books and authors, of course) while also trying to provide enough novelty so that attendees who visited in...

There's a trend on social media to compare how something started with how it's going now. With the 5-year celebration of the Louisville Book Festival coming up, this trend has got me thinking about where we, the Louisville Book Festival,...

We are so glad you asked. We made a list to share with you to help make your two days at the festival as smooth and as worry-free as possible. Book festivals are a lot of fun whether you are...

While it may seem like a long time until November, the Louisville Book Festival will be here before we know it. If you’ve never participated in a book festival as an author, you will probably have lots of questions, and...

We all want our children to be critical thinkers, right? That is, people who do not just accept information that is fed to them. Don't we want our children to think deeply and ask questions? Critical thinking is objectively analyzing...

It can be scary to think of sending your book to a book festival, but it is important to follow a dream where it may lead. There are some things to consider before you put that book into an envelope...

Deedee Cummings and Melissa Gaddie on WLKY News speaking about the Louisville Book Festival. When a person thinks about the book festival, it is easy to only focus on the books. What books am I going to find? What authors...

It took a little bit of time for the Louisville Book Festival crew to recover after the event due to some family emergencies, but the event was a great success, and we wanted to take a moment to share those...

In honor of June being Pride Month, here are some of my favorite books with LGBTQ+ representation:       The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue- Mackenzi Lee Adventure, humor, and romance? What more could you want out of a...

Free time has slowly shifted from a thing we all craved to something that we now seem to have way too much of. This can either make us more productive as we have ample time to complete our never-ending to-do...

Maybe you’ve visited our website or seen posts from Louisville Book Festival on your social media timelines. Or maybe you’ve never heard of us, yet you love anything to do with the word “book!" Either way, we'd like to take...

Personality tests have been all the rage for the past several years. For me, personality tests offer a sense of validation as to why I feel specific emotions and make certain decisions.  The Enneagram Test has increased in popularity over...

This is a scary time for everyone. Being told to stay at home, instead of choosing to on your own terms, can seem isolating. With all that’s going on in the world, it’s easy to want to turn to absolutely...