Sunshine State Book Festival 2022

The 2022 Sunshine State Book Festival will bringing readers and writers together in person again this April 9-10.To accommodate even more visitors, the event is being held at the spacious Oaks Mall in Gainesville, Florida.

To those of you already familiar with the festival the organizers promise they will continue the its popular aspects. Prominent guest speakers, intended to draw community attention to the festival, will give featured talks—all free and open to the public.

Authors of all genres are invited to participate in the 2022 festival. The goal of Writers Alliance of Gainesville (WAG) is to promote, encourage, and support writers. If you’re an author looking for new readers you should consider participating in the festival. The participation fee is only $50 for non-WAG members and includes one exhibit space of  one half of an eight-foot-long table (two authors per table). Chairs, tables, and tablecloths are provided. Oversize tablecloths allow authors to hide empty boxes and extra inventory. Registration closes on January 2nd, but the spots fill out quickly.

Florida has an amazing literary history dating back to William Bartram nearly 250 years ago. Today, Gainesville is a leading center of literary culture and home to hundreds of writers, novelists, playwrights, and poets, many of whom you can meet at the Sunshine State Book Festival at the Oaks Mall and the Matheson History Museum in downtown Gainesville, Florida.

To secure your author spot at the Sunshine State Book Festival, click here.

For more details about the event, click here.

The Writers Alliance of Gainesville (WAG) began as an attempt by two writers to bring variety to the writing scene in Gainesville, Florida. Wendy Thornton, the first president of the organization, credits author Kal Rosenberg with the vision that resulted in creation of the group. Our first public meeting was on January 25, 2009, at the Tower Road branch of the Alachua County Library. Within the first year, WAG expanded to about fifty members, and meetings moved to the Millhopper branch of the library.

In recent years WAG has developed a cadre of volunteers who lead critique pods, plan for invited speakers for monthly meetings, handle finances, manage membership functions, write press releases, keep records, judge contests, publish a literary journal, contribute to the website and newsletter, coordinate pod activities, organize book sales, provide overall vision for the group, and lead or participate in a variety of other functions.