I Attended a Book Festival! ♥ Decatur Book Festival Recap

Last Friday, I was listening to a podcast where the cohosts were recapping their time at a fall book fair. This inspired me to search for any book fairs coming around me anytime soon. Call it divine timing, because I found out there was a 2-day book festival going on that same weekend, which was only an hour away! So that weekend, we attended the Decatur Book Festival. Besides books, I didn’t know what to expect but the event ended up being exactly what I needed, and I had a wonderful time! I wanted to share my experience and my tiny book haul. Enjoy the recap!

Attending this book festival also means that I can cross off another one of my book goals! There were several used book sale stalls at the festival, so I can cross “Attend a used book sale” off my 2025 book goals!

The Decatur Book Festival is a 2-day independent book festival held every fall in downtown Decatur, located just outside of Atlanta, GA! Their mission is to encourage the love of reading and creative expression in children and adults. The festival offers author panels, book signings, cooking demos, and family-friendly activities. There’s also live music, local food vendors, small businesses, and more! This every was extremely special as the Decatur Book Festival was celebrating its 20th anniversary!

A majority of the stalls were authors sitting at a table and their books. Some of them would offer free bookmarks (I got so many bookmarks!) and start describing their book. They also offer signed copies. At first, I enjoyed listening to different books but a majority of these books were fantasy or romance and I’m not a fan of either one of these genres so I avoided these stalls.

This one group of ladies was so sweet and complimented my outfit. I was wearing a cute outfit! And we got to talking about crochet because they noticed my moon baby keychain on my bag! The book was super cute, too, so I thought I would give it a shout-out. Check out Little Black Fairy by Donna Kokumo Buie (aka “Mama Koku”).

To my surprise, there were also a lot of small businesses! Some had bookish items, but some were just small shops that were tending this event. Some businesses went all out and created such cute displays! My favorite was this shop called Bravely Bookish. It was very witchy! They had these crystal potions, witchy merch, and book journals! They seem to be a new small business so go check them out if you are looking for some whimsical witchy bookish items.

Another small shop that caught my eye was Sew Spooky Crafts Co. They had these cute blind date with a book packets that came with a mystery book (not the genre) and several items. I bought two pairs of earrings from them. They had a variety of earrings to choose from. I ended up choosing a pair of melted ice cream and cow earrings. Obviously, I needed the cow earrings! lol

My favorite stall at the festival was Haymarket Books. Haymarket Books is a radical, independent, nonprofit book publisher based in Chicago. They offer books on several topics. I ended up only getting one book from them but I kind of wished I had bought more from them because they had such inspiring books on important topics. I was hoping for more indie book publishers, and maybe there was more, but no other caught my attention like Haymarket Books did. Make sure to follow them on Instagram!

On to the haul! I only ended up buying three books. From Haymarket Books, I picked up The Breakbeat Poets Vol. 4 LatiNext, edited by Felicia Chavez, José Olivarez, and Willie Perdomo. This is an anthology that celebrates the embodied narratives of Latinidad. Poets speak from an array of nationalities, genders, sexualities, races, and writing styles, staking a claim to our cultural and civic space. The bright pink color and illustration on this book cover captured my attention right away! But after reading a few pages, I was immediately captivated and knew I needed this book in my life. There are also some pictures of Loteria cards throughout the book, I can’t wait to see how those are tied in.

Throughout the festival, there were also some book sales from book collectors or independent book stores. These stalls were really crowded so I didn’t end up going to all of them because I didn’t feel like waiting in lines. However, at one of the stalls, I was able to score a short story collection by Agatha Christie that features a creepy doll story! You know, I love creepy dolls! They also had an occult section where I found this book on Witchcraft at Salem by Chadwick Hansen. I thought this would be the perfect book to read during spooky season and the perfect book to add to my Scorpio TBR!

The area where the event was held (Decatur downtown) was so cute, too! There was a bookshop, Little Shop of Stories, in the middle of the festival, so if you didn’t find anything in the stalls, you could go to the bookstore for more bookish finds. They even had a Goodnight Moon-themed playroom! So cute!

Overall, I had a wonderful time! As I mentioned, I didn’t know about this event until the day of, so it was very last-minute but I’m glad I attended and surprised how social I was! Book people are so sweet and easy to talk to. It was such a lovely atmosphere. The weather wasn’t too hot, and even though it looked like it was going to rain, it never did! There were also plenty of well-behaved kids and doggies!

As we were driving away, I noticed that across the street, there were more stalls! I didn’t know the festival continued across the street, so I only ended up looking at half of the festival. Oh well, I will remember to cross the street next year! Since this festival is every year, I’m going to try to attend every year going forward!

Have you ever attended a book fair or festival?