Book festival will be virtual

Pandemic prompts fest to shift from Decatur to online events.

This year the AJC Decatur Book Festival will move online.

The event, which usually brings tens of thousands of visitors to downtown Decatur on Labor Day weekend, has been deemed impractical in the midst of a pandemic.

Instead, the festival organizers will host a series of 15 “virtual events” in honor of the book fest’s 15th anniversary.

In May the festival organizers signaled that such a move might be imminent. On Monday that decision was confirmed.

“In the interest of public health we have determined that holding a large-scale physical festival this Labor Day weekend is not feasible,” said interim executive director Joy Pope, in a statement.

Beginning this Labor Day weekend, and continuing into September, the nonprofit plans to host presentations by notable authors who have been instrumental in making the festival one of the country’s largest.

Among the writers Pope has invited to participate are Pulitzer Prize-winning poets Jericho Brown and Natasha Trethewey.

Pope has also reached out to festival founder Daren Wang, novelist Tayari Jones, and former Emory professor (and current Schomburg Center director) Kevin Young.

“We want to bring content, candor and civic engagement into our lives in meaningful ways,” wrote Pope, adding that “the events of the past week” have made it clear that such engagement is more important than ever.

The festival has already begun offering online content with the series “Joshilyn Jackson Reads,” in which local author Jackson interviews 18 writers of her choosing, all from different genres.

Fans can listen in on those conversations on the book fest web site www.crowdcast.io/decaturbookfestival.

Pope said that details about the upcoming events will be announced in July.