Raise a toast to the 25th anniversary of The Big Lebowski and raise some FUN with Greensboro Bound at this festival fundraising kick-off event! Award-winning beverage writer André Darlington will entertain you while mixing up a selection of movie-inspired cocktails and fun movie trivia. **This event is 21 and up. Valid ID required for entry.**

Stop by the on-site festival "book store" run by our independent book store partner, SCUPPERNONG BOOKS! They'll have current titles from ALL of Festival authors + an assortment of backlist for the die-hard fan.

National Book Award winner and North Carolina literary legend Charles Frazier has just released his fifth novel, The Trackers, and we're thrilled to bring him to Greensboro to celebrate his career and latest work. This event is made possible by the generosity of the University Libraries at UNCG.

Stop by the on-site festival "book store" run by our independent book store partner, SCUPPERNONG BOOKS! They'll have current titles from ALL of Festival authors + an assortment of backlist for the die-hard fan.

Immigration to the United States is fraught with misunderstanding, threats and acts of violence, and maybe even success and triumph. The authors of look at growing up and growing into places where regret and hope comingle

One reason we love short stories is their ability to capture heightened moments of human struggle. Marburg and Cupolo give us stories that offer glimpses into those moments that define our lives for better and worse.

These YA novels shine with characters whose stories may be shaped in part by their disabilities, but who refuse to be defined them. Join casts of unforgettable teens determined to claim their own stories and futures in the timeless pursuits of adventure, belonging, and love.

Join the Center for Visual Arts for to create your own paper collage tile! Fun for all ages!

Greensboro Bound presents the Guilford County High School Poet Laureate Program final reading. Students from county high schools competed to wear the title of "Poet Laureate" for their school. This culminating event features winning laureates and finalists in a performance of Guilford county's finest up-and-coming young poets.

There are environmental time-bombs littered across the landscape. These authors look at some literal and figurative environmental explosions while also looking for answers to our predicament.

Free yourself from writer’s block and inner critics with the creative power of improv! Improv instructor and writer Jorjeana Marie reveals a new way to generate idea after brilliant idea by applying the rules of improv to fiction writing. Marie presents fun games and exercises you can do from the comfort of your desk at home.

The richness of American culture depends upon the specific, often isolated, idiosyncracies of local culture. Matthew Raiford and Eric Crawford are invested in keeping the lowcountry Gullah culture alive and vibrant and giving us a glimpse into its values and culinary delights.

Indigenous American literature is not only the study of history. These works look at contemporary Native American life--while acknowledging the crimes of our history--and find all the typical joys and sorrows of life filtered through the particulars of indigenous experience.

The roots of addiction, mental illness, and homelessness are varied and these authors look unflinchingly at their own families, lives, and choices while acknowledging the ways our systems both fail and succeed.

A presentation of the book WILD CLAY by Matt Levy, Takuro Shibata and Hitomi Shibata presented by the GreenHill Center for NC Art.

Gene Nichol points out that North Carolina state politics have been used as a testing ground for national strategies and we suffer the consequences while Abraham Reisman gives us the rise of this national strategy through the history of professional wrestling. This one is no-holds barred!

High stakes and quick pacing make these YA novels impossible to put down. Whether in the underground swing clubs of Nazi-occupied Austria, in a struggling modern-day family ice rink, or in the ivory towers of the Ivy League, these stories grapple with what it means to discover who you really are in impossible circumstances you never saw coming. Joy, after all, often shows up in the places you least expect.

Swamp creatures? A three hundred year old woman? Stories and novels take us to new places and Tankersley and Taylor provide magical and mysterious turns even as they confront religious repression and the erasures of place.

The vast array of LGBTQ+ communities is often hidden under an umbrella of limiting, all-encompassing queerness. These authors explore difference within difference and look to expand our understanding of queer life.

This generative workshop will draw on Transitional Objects' practice of writing history and memory through attention to the world of things. In the workshop, we will create and discuss participants' new poetry, generated from object-based prompts.

Baseball and football are seen as twin pillars of an American sports obsession. These two authors examine the role of sports in small-town life--both for good and ill. McGee's look at the Asheville Tourists coincides with our Greensboro Grasshoppers playing them this weekend in Asheville.

Fake dating, enemies-to-lovers, and opposites attract, oh my! Once boxed out of the "serious" literary world, romance is on the forefront of pushing for wider representation in whose stories are told. Everyone deserves to see themselves in a smutty romcom, and these novels deliver! Join us for an hour of sizzling jump-off-the-page tension and chemistry with lots of laughs along the way.

Happiness is hard to define, but we know it when we feel it. These two North Carolina writers find some fun, often after a hard-won journey, and give us some ideas about how to live with happiness in mind.

Greensboro Bound, in partnership with UNCG Esports, presents a panel of esports journalists, authors, experts, and game writers will discuss the growing billion-dollar esports industry and the art of writing about video games and esports.

The American Dream means many different things to different people and these three novels examine the Dream and its consequences. (Pro tip: if you remember the Jeremy Lin moment then this panel is for you.)

The history of the banjo resonates with American history writ large, especially around race and the appropriation of black music. Historian Kristin Gaddy joins banjoist Demeanor (a nephew of Rhiannon Giddens, who wrote the forward to Gaddy's book) for a not-to-be missed event.

Three poets from across the contemporary poetry landscape discuss their influences and interests while sampling from their powerful latest work.

So-called genre fiction is no longer under the thumb of literary high culture. These authors make clear that the game has changed and "genre" writers are where the literary action is.

Greensboro Bound helps celebrate Algonquin Books on its 40th anniversary by bringing two of North Carolina's most celebrated writers. Lee Smith and Daniel Wallace remain at their peak with these two new works that address end of life issues with typical humor, energy, and emotional depth. We're all grateful for their continued contribution to the reading and writing life.

This panel focuses on the continued influence, even rebirth, of bell hooks even after her death in 2022. We'll specifically look at the call for change she makes to men as they examine masculinity and love in their lives.