KINGSTON, N.Y. — Author, “New Yorker” staff writer and activist Masha Gessen headlines this year’s Woodstock Bookfest, which will run from Thursday, March 21, through Sunday, March 24, at the Bearsville Theater.
Gessen will appear in a special talk, “A World on Fire,” hosted by former Newsweek and CNN editor and local resident Mark Whitaker on Friday, March 22, at 7:30 p.m.
Gessen has written 11 books, They include “Surviving Autocracy,” the National Book Award-winning “The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia” and “The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin.”
“From Europe to the Middle East, the bloodiest wars in a generation have inflamed world opinion — and threaten to spiral into regional conflicts,” a description on the festival’s website said. “On the home front, democracies around the globe are under siege by would-be dictators who thrive on misinformation, target hard-won individual rights and seek to rewrite history.”
Like years past, the festival kicks off with the “Story Slam,” with the theme “That’s Not What I Said” on Thursday, March 21, at 7:30 p.m.
The festival’s website said the event will showcase 20 storytellers who each have four minutes to tell their stories before three judges with the requirement that their stories must include the line “That’s Not What I Meant.”
Martha Frankel, Woodstock Bookfest’s executive director, said she’s hard at work on a story of her own for the event.
“I read a story while the judges are judging,” she said.
A panel focused on fiction returns to the festival for the first time since 2019 with “Who Am I” kicking off the events on Saturday, March 23, at 11 a.m. The panel, hosted by Kevin Holohan, features Jennifer Belle, James Hannaham, Javier Fuentes and Lynn Schmeidler.
Festival fixture Gail Straub returns that afternoon at 1:30 p.m. with the panel for “Embracing the Dark and the Light: What the Arts Teach Us About Living in Turbulent Times.”
“It’s about how we can live in turbulent times and have art heal us,” Frankel said. “I’m very excited. Kate McGloughlin is on that panel, she’s a painter, and Steve Gorn, who’s a musician, and Stephen Cope, who’s a great spiritual writer.”
Frankel added that, for the first time, the festival will spotlight music. The folk/punk band Shaker, featuring Simi Stone & Philip Marshall, will play music behind readings by poet Nick Flynn on March 23 at 4 p.m.
“They’ve been doing it for a long time, and they approached me and said they wanted to do it at the festival,” Frankel said.
Frankel also recommended “The Cult and Cost of Confession: Sophie Strand and Holly Whitaker in Conversation” later that day at 7:30 p.m. Frankel said Strand, who lives locally and was one of her former students while she was in high school, has written two incredible books, “The Flowering Wand” and “The Madonna Secret.”
“I’m wild about her,” Frankel said.
Whitaker is the author of “Quit Like a Woman: The Radical Choice to Not Drink in a Culture Obsessed with Alcohol.”
“I feel like this is something on everyone’s mind,” Frankel said. “That’s why memoirs are so popular. Even though Sophie is a novelist, she’s very forthcoming about her life.”
The festival wraps up on March 24 with two panels. First up at 11 a.m. is “The New Old,” hosted by Sari Botton and featuring Melissa Giberson, Lyn Slater and Abigail Thomas.
Botton is the editor of the online magazine “Oldster.” “It’s a magazine about aging,” Frankel said.
Frankel said she was glad to find out Thomas, author of “Still Life at Eighty: The Next Interesting Thing,” is feeling well enough to be part of the festival. “Abby hadn’t been feeling well,” Frankel added.
Frankel herself moderates the festival’s signature panel, “Memoir-A-Go-Go!” It will feature authors Elissa Altman, Emily Bernard and Lucy Sante. It will close out the festival at 1:30 p.m.
Frankel said Sante will discuss her journey to transitioning to being a woman, a journey chronicled in her memoir, “I Heard Her Call My Name.” Also on the panel are Emily Benard, the author of “Black is the Body: Stories from my Grandmother’s Time, My Mother’s Time and Mine”; and Elissa Altman, author of the memoirs “Motherland,” “Trey” and “Poor Man’s Feast.”
Residents and visitors walking on Tinker Street will have a tough time missing this year’s festival’s large poster hanging on an exterior wall at The Golden Notebook. It resembles the celebrity magazines found at supermarket checkout counters.
Frankel said the poster was designed by the independent bookstore’s owner, James Conrad, who once designed covers for the celebrity magazine “OK!” Frankel recalled that Conrad submitted the idea for this theme for the poster to her, telling her it was “OK” if she didn’t like the idea.
But Frankel loved the idea right off the bat. “I opened up the cover and started laughing,” she said. “I like the idea of not taking ourselves too seriously.”
Frankel said she’s feeling optimistic about this year’s festival after Neil Gaiman, showrunner and executive producer of the recent DC Comics and Netflix series “The Sandman,” adapted from his popular comic book, helped propel the festival to a strong return last year after a three-year COVID 19-related hiatus from 2020-2022.
“I didn’t think we were coming back from that,” she said.
Frankel said one of her ongoing efforts is to ensure the festival is inclusive.
“We want to make sure this represents the whole community,” she said. “That’s on me to do.”
Tickets range from $23.18 with fees to $268.61 for a full festival pass, which includes a Woodstock Bookfest goody bag.
For more information, a full event schedule and tickets, visit https://woodstockbookfest.com/.
