When I stumbled upon the History Book Festival last fall, I marveled that I had never heard of it.
Many book festivals cover a range of genres and tend to emphasize fiction, with its big, enthusiastic fan bases. History can feel like an afterthought. The History Book Festival, though, bills itself as the first and only book festival dedicated to “history through story,” featuring both narrative nonfiction and historical fiction. It was like someone had built a book festival precisely to appeal to the host of a podcast about writing history.
I put the 2026 festival dates on my calendar.
And so a little over a week ago, I found myself in Lewes, Delaware, a coastal town that draws beach vacationers in the summer. Despite being a bit out of the way, Lewes is relatively close to the DC metro area—it was about a two-and-a-half-hour drive from Baltimore, where my flight landed from Kansas City—which means it can draw readers from a wider region.
That was part of the thinking ten years ago when co-founders Jen Mason and Ron Collins dreamed up the festival (Collins has since moved on to other projects and is now “co-founder emeritus”). Mason, who opened a used bookstore in Lewes, had kept the idea on the backburner until Collins walked into her store and asked about local author events, and she shared her vision. By focusing on history, she thought they could set themselves apart from other festivals and attract top authors and dedicated readers. Ten years later, Mason’s instincts seem to have been correct. This year’s festival drew more than 5,000 attendees to a town that has a population of roughly 3,000 permanent residents.
Friday night opened with a keynote featuring bestselling writers Ben Macintyre and Scott Anderson in conversation with Paul Sparrow, discussing their newest books about the Iranian revolution and the Cold War. It was a lively conversation—I was surprised to learn that the two authors had just met, since they had an easy rapport and shared touchstones in their work. They were both practiced storytellers onstage, and the audience, which filled a large high school auditorium, responded warmly. Sponsoring bookseller Browseabout Books offered a tableful of both writers’ books for sale, and audience members quickly formed lines to get their copies signed.
The bulk of the conference took place on Saturday, when five time slots featured four sessions each. The festival’s opening and closing keynotes are ticketed events, but Saturday’s sessions are free. The most challenging part of the weekend for me was deciding what to attend! Given our nonfiction focus at Drafting the Past—and to whittle down my choices—I nixed the fiction sessions, but that still left me torn for most of the day. I often wished I could be in two places at once.
We live in a time when we can hear from authors and connect with other readers on social media and podcasts wherever we are. But there’s something special about sitting in a room full of people in their raincoats and boots to revel in great history writing.
Despite the rain brought on by an unseasonable nor’easter, attendees seemed to be in good spirits as they filled halls in churches, libraries, and schools, all within walking distance from one another (or accessible by a festival-provided shuttle). I hit up sessions on Victoria Johnson’s biography of Frederic Church, David Conrad-Pérez’s new book about the Triangle Shirtwaist fire, and a two-author session with Denise Kiernan and Shannon McKenna Schmidt about writing US women’s history. An afternoon session for Chris Sweeney’s The Feather Detective at the Lewes Public Library was standing room only, despite the continued rain outside.
My favorite may have been a conversation with Ada Ferrer, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Cuba: An American History, about her new memoir, Keeper of My Kin. Her interlocutor had also interviewed her when she presented at the festival in 2022, and theirs was a moving conversation about writing history versus memoir and using archives to supplement family memories. Elsewhere, speakers included Wil Haygood, Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz, Russell Shorto, and Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor (if you’re curious, you can find the whole lineup here).
No one who has listened to the Drafting the Past podcast will be surprised that I kept wishing more of the sessions I attended had talked about the research and writing process. Most emphasized stories from the books—which makes sense, given that most listeners had probably not read the books and might be induced to purchase them. But it seems like a missed opportunity to let readers in on the process of writing history, to show that great history narratives are not unearthed whole and polished but built out of challenging and often uncertain research, authorial decisions, and careful consideration of context, evidence, and story structure.
I was surprised that only 1 in 5 of the featured authors was trained as a historian (fewer if you don’t count the sociologists). The majority came from backgrounds in journalism or creative writing. This is not to suggest, of course, that authors from those and other backgrounds don’t write great history. But at a festival devoted to history, I wondered what that ratio said about the state of the field, the publishing marketplace, or this festival’s priorities.
Saturday’s sessions closed with an event dubbed the “spirited discussion,” fueled by drink coupons that came with each book purchased at the festival. It was a cozy reception at the library, meant to celebrate the authors, thank festival volunteers, and allow attendees to chat about what they had heard. By chance, I found myself standing at a table with co-founder Mason and her daughter, Clare Hancock. I passed along “friends don’t let friends write boring history” and we toasted to a shared commitment to the power of great history writing.
We live in a time when we can hear from authors and connect with other readers on social media and podcasts wherever we are. But there’s something special about sitting in a room full of people in their raincoats and boots to revel in great history writing. Delaware is a long haul from Kansas City, but an October history book festival in an East Coast beach town is a good reason to get on a plane. I hope to make it back again—minus the nor’easter next time.
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