Montclair Literary Festival - Succeed2gether's Montclair Literary Festival

Welcome to Succeed2gether's Montclair Literary Festival!

We are excited to announce our schedule for the ninth annual Montclair Literary Festival, which will take place from Saturday April 26 to Saturday May 3, 2025. We have TWO Festival Days with free events held at partner Montclair State University on Saturday April 26 and downtown Montclair on Saturday May 3. In addition to the many free event, we offer the following ticketed events:

**Scott Turow Presumed Guilty talk on April 17
Tickets available HERE**

**Colum McCann Twist talk on April 28
Tickets available HERE**

**Jean Hanff Korelitz The Sequel talk on April 29
Tickets available HERE**

Anne & Claire Berest Gabriële talk on April 29
Tickets available HERE

**Christian Allaire From the Rez to the Runway talk on April 29
Tickets available HERE**

Pitchapalooza with The Book Doctors on May 1
Tickets available HERE

**Connie Chung Connie: A Memoir talk on May 3
Tickets available HERE**

**Isabel Allende My Name is Emilia Del Valle talk on May 5
Tickets available HERE**

See the buttons below for the schedule of all the FREE events and a list of all authors attending in April/May.

We look forward to welcoming you!

Any questions, please get in contact with us at montclairliteraryfestival@gmail.com.

APRIL 26 SCHEDULE HERE

MAY 3 SCHEDULE HERE

MAY 3 LOCAL AUTHORS' TABLES

ALL AUTHORS 2025

Do you want to become a 2025 Literary Festival sponsor?

Sponsorships start at $500 and include books, preferential seating, meet and greets, VIP receptions, and more!

Find out here how you can keep our programming free for all.

The Montclair Literary Festival is a community-wide event that aims to exchange ideas, inspire future literary works and engage with different points of view. Working closely with the Montclair Public Library, Watchung Booksellers and a team of local volunteers, the festival will also generate lasting connections between arts institutions, the schools and the community, benefiting a broad cross-section of participants and attendees. We welcome Montclair residents to get involved by sponsoring, volunteering or joining a committee.

Our 2024 program included Frank Bruni, Ruth Reichl, David Baldacci, Joyce Carol Oates, Vinson Cunningham, Carlos Lozada, Barbara McQuade, Professor Angus Deaton, Téa Obreht, Nell Freudenberger, Angie Cruz, Rachel Khong, Abraham Chang, Annabel Monaghan, Claire Messud, Amitava Kumar, Vanessa Chan, Clare Beams, Jaiming Tang, Emily Raboteau, Leslie Jamison, Zibby Owens, Ann Napolitano, and so many more. Planned events in the Fall include Nick Kristof and Rachel Kushner.

Succeed2gether launched the Montclair Literary Festival in 2017 to engage the entire community in a celebration of reading, books, and Montclair’s vibrant and diverse literary scene.

Past festivals have featured celebrated authors such as David Baldacci, Ann Napolitano, Frank Bruni, Téa Obreht, Jennifer Egan, Elizabeth Alexander, Don Winslow, Katie Kitamura, Salman Rushdie, Imbolo Mbue, Colm Tóibín, Isabel Allende, Malcolm Gladwell, Erik Larson, Nicholas Kristof, Bill Buford, Paul Krugman, Emily St. John Mandel, Douglas Stuart, Joyce Carol Oates, Sigrid Nunez, Patti Smith, Trevor Noah, Paul Auster, Anna Quindlen, Thomas Friedman, Tom Perrotta, Nathan Englander, Meg Wolitzer, Wesley Lowery, Jonathan Alter, Min Jin Lee, and many more. There is a full program of FREE book talks, panel discussions, author signings, workshops and children’s activities.

For more information on what Succeed2gether does, see here.

Laurie Lico Albanese, author, Hester, Stolen Beauty, Blue Suburbia, Lynelle by the Sea
Reagan Arthur, Senior Vice President and Publisher, Hachette Book Group US
Christina Baker Kline, author, A Piece of the World, Orphan Train, The Way Life Should Be, Sweet Water, Bird in Hand
Elizabeth Méndez Berry, Vice President/Executive Editor, One World/Random House
Lee Boudreaux, Vice President and executive editor at Doubleday
Alice Elliott Dark, Associate Professor of English, Rutgers University, Newark; author Fellowship Point, In the Gloaming, Naked to the Waist, Think of England
Deborah Davis, author The Trip, Andy Warhol’s Plastic Fantastic Cross-Country Adventure; Guest of Honor: Booker T Washington, Theodore Roosevelt and the Whitehouse Dinner that Shocked a Nation; The Oprah Winfrey Show: Reflections on an American Legacy; Gilded: How Newport Became America’s Richest Resort etc.
Marcy Dermansky, author Hurricane Girl, Very Nice, The Red Car, Bad Marie, Twins
Elizabeth Egan, NYT Books Editor, Glamour Magazine; author A Window Opens
Dionne Ford, author; editor Slavery’s Descendants: Shared Legacies of Race and Reconciliation
Jonathan Greenberg, Professor of English, Chair of English Department, Montclair State University
Garth Risk Hallberg, author, City on Fire, Field Guide to the North American Family
Benilde Little, author, Welcome to My Breakdown: a Memoir, Good Hair, The Itch, Acting Out, Who Does She Think She Is?
Patricia Matthew, Assistant Professor, English, Montclair State University
DT Max, staff writer The New Yorker and author The Family That Couldn't Sleep: A Medical Mystery and Every Love Story is a Ghost Story: A Life of David Foster Wallace
Sarah McGrath, Vice President, Editor in Chief at Riverhead Books
Juan Milà, Executive Editor, HarperVia, HarperOne Group
Jacqueline Mroz, Associate editor, NJ Monthly and author Girl Talk: What Science Can Tell Us About Female Friendship, and Scattered Seeds
Leslie-Ann Murray, Writer/Book Reviewer, Brown Girl Book Lover
James Nicosia, Books for Boys; Adjunct Faculty, English, Montclair State University
Laura Nicosia, NJ State Representative for ALAN (Association on Literature of Adolescents); Associate Professor, English, Montclair State University
Kristin O'Neil, National Accounts Manager, Penguin Random House
Denise Lewis Patrick, author, Waiting for Someplace, A Matter of Souls, Never Stop Singing, Meet Cecile etc.
Cristóbal Pera, Vice President & Publisher, Grupo Planeta USA
Mark Rotella, Director, Coccia Institute for the Italian Experience in America and author Stolen Figs: And Other Adventures in Calabria and Amore: The Story of Italian American Song
Maria Russo, editorial director, mineditionsUS
Margot Sage-El, owner, Watchung Booksellers
Matt Thomas, author, We Are Not Ourselves
Kate Tuttle, Books editor, The Boston Globe
Susan Weinberg, Executive Vice President and Publisher for Workman Publishing
Jason Williams, Assistant Professor, Justice Studies, Montclair State University
Warren Zanes, author, Petty: The Biography, Waiting for a Train: Jimmie Rodgers’s America, Dusty Springfield’s Dusty in Memphis
Kate Zernike, author and journalist, New York Times, The Exceptions
Thad Ziolkowski, Associate Director, Leon Levy Center for Biography

Marcia Marley, Chair MLF

Welcome to Succeed2gether's Montclair Literary Festival!

Scott Turow Presumed Guilty talk on April 17 Tickets available HERE

Colum McCann Twist talk on April 28 Tickets available HERE

Jean Hanff Korelitz The Sequel talk on April 29 Tickets available HERE

Anne & Claire Berest Gabriële talk on April 29 Tickets available HERE

Christian Allaire From the Rez to the Runway talk on April 29 Tickets available HERE

Pitchapalooza with The Book Doctors on May 1 Tickets available HERE

Connie Chung Connie: A Memoir talk on May 3 Tickets available HERE

Isabel Allende My Name is Emilia Del Valle talk on May 5 Tickets available HERE