Decatur Book Festival 2018: Times, Location, Authors, Parking

DECATUR, GA — Bibliophiles of metro Atlanta, rejoice! It's time, once again, for the Decatur Book Festival — one of the world's largest gatherings of authors and their devoted readers.

As usual, the festival is scheduled for Labor Day weekend, specifically Saturday and Sunday, in the square in downtown Decatur.

Co-sponsored this year by Emory University, the AJC Decatur Book Festival is the largest independent book festival in the country and one of the five largest in the world.

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Since the festival's first year in 2006, more than 1,000 authors and hundreds of thousands of festival-goers have crowded Decatur Square to enjoy book signings, author readings, panel discussions, an interactive children's area, live music, parades, cooking demonstrations, poetry slams, writing workshops and more.

This year, about 80,000 people are expected to attend over the course of the weekend.

When:
Saturday, Sept. 1 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 2, noon-6 p.m. For a schedule, click here.

Where:
Decatur Square, in downtown Decatur. For a festival map, click here.

Cost:
The festival and all of its events are free.

Travel and Parking:
Organizers encourage festival-goers to take MARTA to the Decatur station. If you're driving, some city streets will be closed starting at 3 p.m. Friday and lasting until Sunday evening. The DBF Festival Map indicates several parking locations. Parking deck and lot addresses, hours and rates can be found at decaturga.com.

Hotels:

The Courtyard by Marriott, at 130 Clairemont Ave., is the festival's host hotel and site of four of its stages. The Emory Conference Center Hotel is nearby at 1615 Clifton Rd. Attendees can find more options at DeKalb County's lodging search engine.

Featured Authors (Just a few of the dozens scheduled to attend)

• Armistead Maupin
• Rick Bragg
• Melissa Fay Greene
• Tayari Jones
• Kenny Leon
• Mike Luckovich
• Diane Seuss
• Jonathan Sun (jomny sun)
• Laurel Snyder
• For a full list of adult and teen authors, click here. For a list of children's authors, click here and to see emerging and local writers, click here.

Photo courtesy AJC Decatur Book Festival