Lawrence’s Free State Book Festival centers community, emerging authors, local culture

Lawrence’s downtown library and independent bookstore are teaming up for a festival built to feel like a neighborhood gathering instead of a publishing industry event. The Free State Book Festival will fill the Lawrence Public Library Lawn and The Raven Book Store area on Sunday afternoon with 50 local and regional authors, more than 20 poets, live music, an open mic, children’s activities, food from The Mad Greek and beer from Free State Brewing Company.

Festivities will begin at 12:45 p.m. with live music from Ian Cook on the library lawn, ahead of a 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. schedule that organizers have framed as free, family-friendly and easy to enter. The rain date is Sunday, May 31, underscoring that the festival is being treated as a recurring community event rather than a one-day novelty.

The selection rules make that point even clearer. Organizers limited participation to authors who have been published within the last five years, a decision meant to keep the spotlight on working writers and reduce the costs that can come with large, publisher-heavy festivals. That approach turns the event toward emerging voices, local reading culture and direct contact between authors and the public.

The festival also carries the weight of institutions that already shape Lawrence civic life. Lawrence Public Library traces its roots in the city to 1854, says its predecessors have been continuously active since 1865, and operates from the building at 707 Vermont St., which opened in 1972 and was expanded and renovated with work completed in 2014. The Raven Book Store, founded Sept. 1, 1987, by Pat Kehde and Mary Lou Wright, has long been a downtown anchor for readers and writers.

The event is being presented by Lawrence Public Library in partnership with Anamcara Press, Kansas Authors Club and The Raven Book Store. Kansas Authors Club says it was organized in Topeka in 1903 and has been active since 1904, giving the festival a statewide literary connection as well as a local one.

Among the featured voices is Huascar Medina, who served as Kansas poet laureate from 2019 to 2022 and was the state’s first Latino poet laureate. With Chris McKitterick, Will Averill, M. Palowski Moore, Stephen Johnson and other writers also taking part, the festival is set up to showcase Lawrence’s creative network in a visible downtown space that residents can enter without a ticket or a gatekeeping barrier.