Bainbridge Island Book Festival

Keynote Author - To Be Announced

2026 Authors

New authors added daily. Check back often!

A longtime Seattleite with roots in Vancouver, B.C., Moira has been an arts critic for The Seattle Times since 2001, writing about movies, books, dance, television, fashion, and the occasional cat-related event. Her journalism work has brought her in contact with countless interesting people over the years; among her favorite interviews are George Clooney, Kazuo Ishiguro, Colin Farrell, and her childhood idol, Julie Andrews. Moira is a two-time graduate of the University of Washington, with an M.A. in English literature and a B.A. in literature and theater. She is a proud founding member of the Common Readers, a small Seattle book club that’s been meeting since 1989. Storybook Ending, which has sold in 19 international territories, is her first novel — and a reminder that it’s never too late to stop procrastinating and do the thing you’ve always wanted to do.

In conversation with Moira MacDonald

A woman with curly brown hair and glasses sitting at a wooden table in a cozy, dimly-lit indoor space.
Bookstore interior with bookshelves, customers browsing, a checkout counter, potted plants, and cozy seating area with two red chairs and a small table.

Sarah Crouch

SARAH CROUCH is the USA TODAY Bestselling author of Middletide, a literary thriller set in the Pacific Northwest, where she was raised. She is also known for her accolades in the world of athletics as a professional marathon runner. 

Lyanda Lynn Haupt

LYANDA LYNN HAUPT is an award-winning author, naturalist, ecophilosopher, and speaker whose work explores the beautiful, complicated connections between humans and the wild, natural world.

Lyanda’s writing is acclaimed for combining scientific knowledge with literary, poetic prose. Her previous books include: Mozart’s Starling The Urban Bestiary: Encountering the Everyday Wild, Crow Planet: Essential Wisdom from the Urban Wilderness,  Pilgrim on the Great Bird Continent: The Importance of Everything and Other Lessons from Darwin’s Lost Notebooks, and Rare Encounters with Ordinary Birds. She is a winner of the Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award, the Nautilus Book Award, a finalist for the Orion Book Award, and a two-time winner of the Washington State Book Award.

Lyanda has created and directed educational programs for Seattle Audubon, worked in raptor rehabilitation in Vermont, and as a seabird researcher for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the remote tropical Pacific. She lives in the mossy green woodlands of the Pacific Northwest. Follow Lyanda on Instagram,  and subscribe to her newsletter, Wander.
Woman with curly hair smiling, sitting at a wooden table, wearing a dark turtleneck sweater against a yellow background.

Anna Holmes

ANNA HOLMES is an award-winning writer and editor whose work has appeared numerous publications, including the New York Times, The Washington Post, and The New Yorker. A one-time columnist for the New York Times Sunday Book Review, Anna has published two books, including 2013’s The Book of Jezebel, based on the website she founded in 2007. In June 2024, she succeeded Roxane Gay as the writer of the “Work Friend” column for The New York Times’ Sunday Business section. Her next book, The Power of No, will be published by Crown later this year and she is currently working as a contributing writer to The Atlantic and writing her fourth book, a memoir. She lives in Los Angeles.

Book cover titled "The Power of NO: A Celebration" by Anna Holmes, with a purple background and large black, white, and purple text.
Book cover titled "The Power of NO: A Celebration" by Anna Holmes, with a purple background and large black, white, and purple text.
A smiling woman with shoulder-length dark hair and large circular earrings, wearing a black jacket and a blue top, standing outdoors with trees and water in the background.

Anne Liu Kellor

ANNE LIU KELLOR is a mixed-race Chinese American writer, editor, and teacher based in Seattle. She is the author of Heart Radical: A Search for Language, Love, and Belonging, and the editor of Mixed Roots: Writers on Multiracial Identity & Both/And Belonging (Beacon Press, October 2026). Her essays have appeared in YES! Magazine,Memoir Land, Longreads, Fourth Genre, Witness, New England Review, and many more. She earned her MFA from Antioch University Los Angeles, and is the recipient of fellowships from Hedgebrook, The Whiteley Center, The Seventh Wave, Jack Straw Writers Program, 4Culture, and Hypatia-in-the-Woods. Anne teaches writing workshops online and across the Pacific Northwest, including her annual workshop, Both/And: Reading and Writing the Mixed-Race Experience. She also facilitates a Yearlong Creative Nonfiction Manuscript Program for women and nonbinary writers seeking mentorship, accountability, developmental editing and community. 

Book cover titled 'Mixed Roots: Writers on Multiracial Identity and Bothered Belonging', edited by Anne Liu Kellor, with a colorful abstract background and large black text.
Book cover titled 'Mixed Roots: Writers on Multiracial Identity and Bothered Belonging', edited by Anne Liu Kellor, with a colorful abstract background and large black text.
A woman with shoulder-length black hair, wearing glasses, a green blouse, and white pants, standing against a plain light gray background.

Roberta Kwok

ROBERTA KWOK is an award-winning freelance science journalist in the Seattle area who has contributed to NewYorker.com, NYTimes.com, Nature, Hakai, Audubon, U.S. News & World Report, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and many other news outlets. She also writes regularly about finance and economics for publications at the Yale School of Management and Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. Roberta earned a B.Sc. in biology from Stanford University, an M.F.A. in creative writing from Indiana University Bloomington, and a graduate certificate in science communication from the University of California, Santa Cruz. From 2020-21, she was a Project Fellow at MIT’s Knight Science Journalism Program.

Cover of the book titled 'Lost in Curiosity' by Roberta Kwok, featuring a space scene with stars and planets, surrounded by jungle plants, flowers, a wolf, binoculars, a bird, a butterfly, and a magnifying glass.
Cover of the book titled 'Lost in Curiosity' by Roberta Kwok, featuring a space scene with stars and planets, surrounded by jungle plants, flowers, a wolf, binoculars, a bird, a butterfly, and a magnifying glass.

Kevin C. Morris

KEVIN C. MORRIS is the author of Untamed Coast, a debut novel coming from Ballantine / Penguin Random House in September 2026.

An engineer, writer, boater, pilot, entrepreneur, and occasional deckhand, he brings a lifelong curiosity about technology and the natural world to his storytelling.

Born and raised in Texas, Morris has made Portland, Oregon, his home for more than forty years, but spends his summers navigating the Inside Passage to Southeast Alaska—a rugged landscape that fuels both his adventures and his fiction.
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Emily Rath

EMILY RATH is a New York Times, USA Today, and #1 Amazon bestselling author of romance and fantasy. Her books include the Second Sons Regency romance series, the Finnish mythology-inspired Tuonela fantasy duet, and the Jacksonville Rays hockey romance series. Emily started her career as an indie author, self-publishing her stories with little more than a hope and a prayer. Now, on Amazon alone, she’s had over 800 million pages read of her books. Her works have been translated into fifteen languages and counting.

She currently lives in the Pacific Northwest with her husband, son, and three unruly cats. She can be found online at EmilyRathBooks.com, on Instagram @emilyrathauthor and on TikTok @emilyrathbooks.

Illustration of a man and a woman with a dark, smoky background, surrounded by green leaves. The man has brown curly hair, a beard, and is shown in profile with his eyes closed. The woman has red hair styled in a braid, with her eyes closed and her head bowed. The text on the image reads: 'The haunt is over. This is the hunt. DEVOIR ME' and 'Family Ratch. New York Times bestselling author.'
Illustration of a man and a woman with a dark, smoky background, surrounded by green leaves. The man has brown curly hair, a beard, and is shown in profile with his eyes closed. The woman has red hair styled in a braid, with her eyes closed and her head bowed. The text on the image reads: 'The haunt is over. This is the hunt. DEVOIR ME' and 'Family Ratch. New York Times bestselling author.'

Peter Rock

PETER ROCK is the author of eleven previous works of fiction, including My Abandonment, which won the Alex Award and was adapted into the film Leave No Trace. The recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and John Dos Passos Prize, he lives in Portland, Oregon with his wife and two daughters.

Craig Romano

CRAIG ROMANO is a prolific and award-winning author, an ardent conservationist, and a Northwest trails and hiking expert. He hikes, runs ultra-marathons, paddles, and bikes and has written for more than two dozen publications including Northwest Travel and Life and Washington Trails; and for numerous tourism publications and websites. He provides weekly content for Hikeoftheweek.com and is co-host of the Washington State Hiking podcast. He lives in Skagit County, Washington, but he is most frequently out hiking or trail running somewhere, often accompanied by his wife, Heather, and son, Giovanni. Visit Craig online at craigromano.com, on Facebook at Craig Romano guidebook author, and on Instagram @craig.romano.

Garth Stein

GARTH STEIN, the #1 NYT bestselling author of the The Art of Racing the Rain, presents his 3-part graphic novel series, THE CLOVEN. It’s a collaboration with Matthew Southworth, illustrator of STUMPTOWN (comics and the hit TV show on ABC). The Art of Racing the Rain became a blockbuster movie in 2019, starring Milo Ventimiglia and Kevin Costner. It has sold more than 7 million copies world-wide, been translated into 38 languages, and spent more than three years on the New York Times bestseller list. The novel inspired a Young Reader edition as well as four children’s picture books. Stein is the author of three other novels—A Sudden Light, How Evan Broke His Head and Other Secrets, and Raven Stole the Moon. He’s the chair of the Author Leadership Circle of Book Industry Charitable Foundation and holds a Masters of Fine Arts in film from Columbia. He’s produced and directed several award-winning documentaries and music videos, and is the winner of multiple literary awards, including two PNBA awards. Garth’s ancestry is diverse: his mother is of Tlingit Indian and Irish descent; his father is Jewish. Garth lives in Seattle with his wife and three sons. He was an amateur race car driver until he left racing after a serious crash—while racing in the rain.
A woman with shoulder-length brown hair and blue eyes wearing a royal blue blouse, looking directly at the camera in front of a bookshelf.

Helene Wecker

HELENE WECKER’s first novel, The Golem and the Jinni, was awarded the Mythopoeic Award for Adult Literature, the VCU Cabell Award for First Novel, and the Harold U. Ribalow Prize, and was nominated for a Nebula Award and a World Fantasy Award. A Midwest native, she holds a B.A. in English from Carleton College and an M.F.A. in Fiction Writing from Columbia University. Her work has appeared in literary journals such as Joyland and Catamaran, as well as the fantasy anthology The Djinn Falls in Love and Other Stories. She currently lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her husband and children.

Book cover for "The Gates of Midnight" by Helene Wicker, featuring a silhouette of a tall skyscraper against a blue sky with gold decorative borders.
Book cover for "The Gates of Midnight" by Helene Wicker, featuring a silhouette of a tall skyscraper against a blue sky with gold decorative borders.
An elderly man with glasses and gray hair sitting in a cozy room with framed photos on the wall behind him.

Curtis White

CURTIS WHITE is a novelist and social critic whose works include Memories of My Father Watching TV, The Middle Mind, and, more recently, The Science Delusion, We Robots, and Lacking Character. His essays have appeared in Harpers and Tricycle.He taught English at  Illinois State University. He is the founder (with Ronald Sukenick) of FC2, a publisher of innovative fiction run collectively by its authors. He lives in Port Townsend, WA.

Cover of the book titled 'On Resistance: A Manifesto' by Curtis White, featuring bold black and red text.
Cover of the book titled 'On Resistance: A Manifesto' by Curtis White, featuring bold black and red text.

David B. Williams

DAVID B. WILLIAMS is an author, naturalist, and tour guide. He is the author 12 books, including the award-winning Homewaters: A Human and Natural History of Puget Sound plus Wild in Seattle: Stories at the Crossroads of People and Nature, Cairns: Messengers in Stone; Stories in Stone: Travels Through Urban Geology; and Waterway: The Story of Seattle’s Ship Canal and Locks, the latter two of which were finalists for the Washington State Book Award. Williams is a Curatorial Associate at the Burke Museum and writes a free weekly Substack newsletter, the Street Smart Naturalist. He lives in Seattle.

Daphne Woolsoncroft

DAPHNE WOOLSONCROFT, a Los Angeles native, is the host and producer of the hit true crime podcast Going West. She previously lived in Oregon with her husband, where she found inspiration in the lush, often gloomy landscapes of Portland and the wider Pacific Northwest for her thrillers, including her debut novel, Night Watcher. When she isn’t researching crime stories or writing, she can be found at the movie theater or reading on the couch with her English bulldog, Dewey.