Carroll Book Festival schedule

It Takes Two to Engage Young Readers!

Featured authors: Robbi Behr and Matthew Swanson, Jillian Hughes and Kenny Curtis, and Rachel Renee and Nikki Russell

We'll hear from 3 different co-writing duos about how they work together to write and illustrate books that engage young readers!

Picture Perfect! (Just Not the Whole Picture)

Featured authors: Caroline Bock, Eliza Knight/Michelle Brandon, and Lyn Liao Butler

Moderator: Jennifer Shoop, creator of Magpie, a beloved lifestyle and literary platform

Hear a discussion with authors, about the women they write and the secrets that sometimes need to be kept.

Giving Voice to the Past

Featured authors: Susan Higginbotham, Elizabeth Letts, Laura Kamoie, and Steven Holmes

Join us to discuss what it means to write real people, places and time periods back to life.

Nobody Here Is Innocent

Featured authors: Sarah Pekannen, Aggie Blum Thompson, and Emma C Wells

Moderator: Alex Finlay

Antiheroines, unreliable narrators, and characters doing wrong things for the right reasons. Why do readers root for people they probably shouldn't?

Hearts at Stake in YA

Featured authors: Michelle Jabes Corpora, MJ Hastings, Anna Bright, and Rebecca Danzenbaker

Four bestselling authors will explore the intersection of fantasy, dystopia and romance, where fierce heroines embark on high-stakes adventures in worlds where love and survival are equally dangerous.

Twisty, Dark and Deadly

Featured authors: Christina Ferko, Shannon J. Spann, and Jenni Howell

Listen in on a conversation about writing the darkest possible worlds, where monsters lurk, gods set the stage, and the love interest might just be the most dangerous thing in the room.

A Book That No Kid Can Put Down

Featured authors: Lindsay Currie, Craig Kofi Farmer, Roseanne Brown, and Wayne Thomas Batson

Join us as they talk about writing for the toughest audience of all. They'll discuss middle grade fiction that cracks open even the pickiest reader and explore why the eleven-to-thirteen-year-old reader might just be the most rewarding audience in all of publishing.

Falling for the First Time

Featured authors: Celeste Dador, Brianna Peppins, and Charlene Thomas

Moderator: Mona Shroff

Join for a conversation about writing sweet, swoony contemporary romance for young readers, and why stories that center joy, identity, and diverse young women matter now more than ever.

Historical Fiction with Heart

Featured authors: Mariah Fredericks, Sarah McCoy, Heather Webb, and J'nell Ciesielski

The past is never just dates and facts—it is people, love, loss, and the quiet courage of lives lived under impossible circumstances.

Where the Veil Grows Thin

Featured authors: Madeline Martin, Leslye Penelope, Kate McElderry and Chanel Cleeton

What happens when spirits cross centuries or Folk stories become real? Listen in on a conversation about writing at the edge between the real and the impossible, where the most extraordinary stories are the ones that speak truth to the human spirit.

The Planet Is the Story

Featured authors: Greg Melville, and Julie Carrick Dalton

Moderator: Joyce Muller

Join for a one-of-a-kind discussion between a nonfiction and fiction author about how their work centers nature and begs the question: What do we owe our earth?

Romance with a Side of...

Featured authors: Avery Flynn, Liz Lawson, Lee Adams, and M.C. Vaughan

Moderator: Christi Barth

Join us for a conversation about the irresistible extras like murder, music, magic, and espionage that they serve alongside the swoon!

One Maryland One Book

Maryland Humanities is pleased to present the 2026 One Maryland One Book (OMOB) No Sense in Wishing by Lawrence Burney. Released in 2025, the book is a personal and analytical essay collection taking cue from Burney’s career as a culture writer and critic through which he looks at his home city of Baltimore, music from throughout the global Black diaspora, and the traditions that raised him.

Author Talk: Jodi Picoult

Jodi Picoult, the #1 New York Times bestselling author of twenty-nine novels, will share about her latest release Hollow Bones. Jodi will be in conversation with Linda Holmes, interviewer and host of NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour. Tickets required.

Photo Op: Jodi Picoult

Ticketholders will receive a professional photo with Jodi Picoult. Photos will be taken at the Gazebo. Tickets required.

More Than a Happily Ever After

Featured authors: Ava Wilder, Ali Brady, Lindsay Hameroff, and Ali Rosen

Moderator: Bradley James

Romance readers know a happy ending is just the beginning. Join us for a conversation about what lives beneath the love story: friendship, identity, self-worth, and the messy, beautiful work of becoming who you are meant to be.

Horror: The Most Honest Genre

Featured authors: Richard Chizmar, Alma Katsu, Adam Cesare, and W.H. Chizmar

What if the scariest stories are also the truest ones? Join for a conversation about why horror may be the most honest genre in fiction, and what it allows writers to say about society, history, and the darkest corners of human nature that no other genre quite can.

Greeking Out: Myths, Monsters, and the Magic of Storytelling

Featured authors: Kenny Curtis and Jillian Hughes.

From the creators of National Geographic Kids' wildly successful Greeking Out podcast and New York Times bestselling book series, Kenny and his daughter Jillian bring ancient myths to life for a new generation of readers.

Writing for Young Adults: A Conversation with Acclaimed Author Jared Reck

Acclaimed YA author Jared Reck (A Short History of the Girl Next Door, Donuts and Other Proclamations of Love) will discuss his journey from being a student in McDaniel College's Graduate and Professional Studies Writing for Children and Young Adults program to seeing his books on readers’ shelves. Program coordinator Mona Kerby, award-winning children’s author (Owney, the Mail-Pouch Pooch, Mail on Wheels), will join Reck, who now teaches in McDaniel’s Writing for Children and Young Adults program, for this conversation. Presented by McDaniel College.

For the Love of the Game

Featured authors: Mel Brennan and Neil Beller

Moderator: Ted Zaleski from the Two Sides of the Story Podcast

Join us to learn about their sports-related books and discuss our universal love and the sentimentality we feel as players and as spectators.

The Unfinished Business of Democracy

Featured authors: Elaine Weiss

Moderator: Jeffrey Blount

The fight for the right to vote. The communities that demanded to be seen. The people that history almost forgot. Join Elaine Weiss and Jeffrey Blount for a conversation about an incredibly important story of American democracy. This panel was made possible by Park Books on Main and the Park Literacy Project. The first 50 people to join for the panel will receive a free signed copy of Elaine's book, Spell Freedom.

From Kittyopolis to the Cosmos

Featured authors: John Gallagher

Meet the creator behind two of the most laugh-out-loud graphic novel series for young readers around. John is an art teacher, art director, co-founder of Kids Love Comics, and the man responsible for a radioactive space meatball that changed everything!

Paths to Publishing

Featured authors: Jean Burgess, M.K. Shouland, and Morgan Lage

There is no single road from manuscript to bookshelf. Join a panel of local authors for an honest, behind-the-scenes conversation about how they got their books into the world.