BBF News: 2020 Event Will Be Virtual

Bringing people together to celebrate books is our main purpose. This year, we are putting the health and safety of our attendees, presenters, volunteers, and exhibitors first by moving the 2020 Boston Book Festival online. Although we realize that it would be impossible to truly replicate the immersive atmosphere of the BBF online, we are committed to preserving that spirit of celebration and connection.

We plan to host virtual conversations, presentations, and interactive sessions for readers of all ages, starting October 5 and culminating with BBF festival weekend on October 24–25. These events will be a combination of livestreamed and prerecorded content. All events will be free to attend and will be archived online for later viewing/listening.

We plan to continue some of our most popular programs, including One City One Story (in print and online), the Reading Like a Writer craft talks with fiction writers, and the BBF Book Hunt scavenger hunt. We are also developing some new real-world experiences for children and adults that can be enjoyed while social distancing.

We are excited about the prospect of opening up our festival through technology, including authors who might not otherwise be able to travel to Boston, engaging audiences from across the country and around the world, and collaborating with other organizations and festivals to jointly produce programs.

We want to thank our sponsors for their support in this unique year: WBUR, the National Endowment for the Arts, Plymouth Rock Foundation, the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Foundation, the Wagner Foundation, Greenough Brand Storytellers, the Fuller Foundation, Massachusetts Cultural Council, Boston Cultural Council, and Cambridge Trust.

We will be sharing more details about BBF 2020 soon. In the meantime, thank you for your continued support and please check out personal stories about COVID-19, At Home Boston.

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