Library of Congress Festival Widens Its Scope Beyond Books

The Library of Congress’s National Book Festival is broadening its cultural reach this year, adding programming that highlights the institution’s film, music, and oral history holdings alongside its literary offerings. The 2026 festival, set for August 22 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C., is expected to draw at least as many visitors as last year’s 45,000, and organizers say more than 80 authors and speakers will take part.

Among the featured guests are filmmaker Martin Scorsese, who will speak about preserving film history, and actor Cynthia Erivo, who will discuss her memoir, Simply More. According to LOC literary director Clay Smith, the festival has been designed to reflect the fact that the Library of Congress does far more than acquire, collect, and preserve books. This year’s lineup connects literary discussion to the National Audio-Visual Conservation Center, the National Film Registry, the music division, and the American Folklife Center, which is marking its 50th anniversary.

Smith said the festival team deliberately gave those divisions a chance to take part. That shift shows up not only in the headline names, but also in the pairings and subject matter across the schedule. Max Brooks is set to discuss adapting his graphic novel The Harlem Hellfighters, illustrated by Caanan White, into an audio play, while NPR’s Kitchen Sisters, Davia Nelson and Nikki Silva, will appear with Andrew Sean Greer, author of Villa Coco, for a conversation centered on listening and asking questions.

History, revisited

America’s semiquincentennial also shaped the programming. Smith said organizers looked for writers who are revisiting major moments in U.S. history in ways that feel fresh rather than simply commemorative. Among those taking part are Isaac Fitzgerald, author of American Rambler, and Beverly Gage, author of This Land Is Your Land, who will appear in conversation. Elizabeth Adelman, author of Chasing Lewis’s Monkeyflower, and Craig Fehrman, author of This Vast Enterprise, will discuss their research on the Lewis and Clark expedition.

The festival’s media partners are again giving the event a national audience. C-SPAN Book TV will livestream nine hours of programming and interview selected headliners, including Michael Feinstein, coauthor of Liza Minnelli’s Kids, Wait Till You Hear This!, who is billed as “the ambassador of the great American songbook.” C-SPAN said the festival has been part of its coverage every season since the event debuted in 2001, and viewers who do not attend in person will be able to find the network’s content online.

Public broadcaster WETA will also record sessions and interviews, with videos to be made available in the weeks after the festival through the WETA+ and PBS streaming apps. Peter Slen, longtime C-SPAN host and executive producer of Book TV, said the network appreciates having a dedicated space for nonfiction books and plans to be live throughout the day. Beyond the live coverage, he pointed to Book TV’s weekly America’s Book Club series and the network’s extended conversations with authors as part of its broader commitment to books.

Slen said this year’s interviews will include acting Librarian of Congress Robert R. Newlen, PBS NewsHour coanchor Geoff Bennett, Episcopal Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, and historian Lindsay Chervinsky. He also noted a departure from the usual nonfiction focus: C-SPAN will speak with novelist Ann Patchett about Whistler, with the conversation expected to range from the book itself to writing and bookstore ownership. Both Slen and Smith framed the festival as a response to concerns about reading habits and a reminder that books and live literary exchange remain central to public culture. Smith said that despite talk of declining readership, the audience still wants substantive conversations, and that is what the festival aims to offer.