The 7th Annual Kerrytown® BookFest will again be held in the Farmers’ Market in the historic Kerrytown district of Ann Arbor, Michigan this fall.

Each year our festival has grown, adding more exhibitors, more events, and of course, more visitors. In addition to our wonderful speakers, demonstrators, exhibitors and visitors, this year we are celebrating Ernest Heming way in Michigan in our Hemingway Homecoming programs, as well as fine binding with internationally known binders and conservators Don Ethrington and Monique Lallier.

The Kerrytown BookFest is an event celebrating those who create books and those who read them. The primary goal is to highlight our area’s rich heritage in the book and printing arts while showcasing our local and regional individuals, businesses, and organizations. Since 2003 we have been growing, sharing, and discovering more and more about the rich book culture in our region.

2007 was a great success with over 100 exhibitors including the lbraries form our region, dozens of presenters and demonstrators, and over 3500 visitors. The weather was perfect, and the media coverage superb.You can see photos taken last year here. 2008 will be our 6th annual festival, and our 4th as an independent 501(c)3 non-profit organization. Our bylaws can be seen here. Whether a business or an individual, if you’d like to support us and help us contine to grow, please visit our Sponsoring page or our Volunteers page to join us.

We feature authors, storytellers, publishers bookbinders, book artists, book illustrators, poets, letterpress printers, wood engravers, calligraphers, papermakers, librarians, teachers, publishers, new, used, and antiquarian booksellers and many others associated with books and their diverse forms, structure, and content. Our children’s area, with storytelling and creative activities, is always popular as well.

We always strive to create a colorful mix of book related activities and showcase them all in one location. Visitors can watch bookbinders demonstrate how to bind books and do simple repairs, see papermakers make wonderful kinds of paper, and see book artists create marbled colors on paper, or make an entirely new piece of art from a book. There are even opportunitites to print with your own hands commemorative bookmarks or poems from local poets with antique letterpress printing machines.

Please join us each fall for a wonderful day of speakers, education, and activities and join our rich and varied community of people who love the book and book arts.

If you’d like to be an exhibitor, please check our Registration page. If you’d like to volunteer to help us, please check our Volunteer page.

Many thanks to our sponsors from last year as well. If you would like to join us in supporting this unique event, please see our Sponsoring page. Feel free to contact us at bookfest [at] kerrytownbookfest [dot] org or 734.669.0451.