Bookmarks wants to keep all Downtown neighbors informed of plans for the free annual Festival of Books and Authors to be held on Saturday, September 9, 2017 from 9:30 a.m. – 5 p.m.

We are thrilled to again celebrate our Festival in the area in and around the Milton Rhodes Center for the Arts and Spruce Street – and expanding our outreach to our new home off Fourth/Holly Streets and to include Calvary Moravian Church as a venue.

Beginning at 5:30 p.m. on Friday, September 9 through 7 p.m. on Saturday, September 10, Spruce Street will be closed from the intersection at Second Street to near Fourth Street. Please note that the barricade will not block admittance to the residential / commercial parking lot across from 315 N. Spruce Street. Later in the night on Friday, Holly Street will also be closed from Spruce Street to the Calvary Moravian Church parking entrance and Poplar will be closed from Second Street to the parking lot at the Garner Building (near Fourth Street).

Free parking for Saturday’s attendees has been confirmed with First Presbyterian Church/Lanier Parking, the Century Plaza Building, and various city parking decks. We will also use the HAWS / Forsyth County Ventures parking lot across from Foundations for food trucks and other seating space. Click here for a map. (Note: it’s not drawn exactly to scale.) We have a note in our program to visit downtown Winston-Salem restaurants, businesses, and galleries while here — so we hope you have some additional visitors during the four day Festival. Off-duty police officers will be hired to stay on site during the street closings and throughout our Festival on Saturday.

Our free Saturday festival drew 15,000 participants in 2016 with 50% travelling from outside of Forsyth County with 16 states and 43 counties represented. By the end of the weekend, we reached 20,000 people through our reading and writing events and welcomed many new attendees. This is a day of shared literary experiences that engages community members of all ages through readings, storytelling, workshops, booksignings, and more. Venues will be inside of the Rhodes Center, Hanesbrands Theatre, Winston Square Park, Calvary Moravian, and in enclosed tents. We will also have a variety of exhibitors, food trucks, a bookstore, and our booksigning tent.

A full schedule of events is now available: www.bookmarksnc.org/festival-2017

If you wish to be put on an e-mail list for more regular updates or have any questions, please contact me by phone: (336) 747-1471 or by e-mail: gh@bookmarksnc.org.

Thank you for your support of North and South Carolina’s Largest Annual Book Festival!