Meet the 2025 Festival of Books Presenters!
July 12, 2025
When the South Dakota Festival of Books kicks off this fall in the first-time host community of Spearfish, readers will once again connect with writers from within the state and around the world to talk about their favorite topic: books!
The lineup for this year’s event, Sept. 26-28, includes more than 60 presenters who bring history to life, share ideas through fiction, explore challenging issues, read inspiring poetry, and educate young readers on countless topics. Read on for a preview!
Tommy Orange, whose debut novel There There won the American Book Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, will take the stage to talk with South Dakota Public Broadcasting’s Lori Walsh about his new novel, Wandering Stars, as well as issues of identity, power, and Native American history and culture.
Alice McDermott, winner of both the National Book Award and the American Book Award for Charming Billy, will discuss her ninth novel, Absolution, and share insights about writing and life based on her craft book, What About the Baby: Some Thoughts on the Art of Fiction.
Rebecca Clarren, author of the 2025 One Book South Dakota, The Cost of Free Land: Jews, Lakota, and an American Inheritance, will share her experiences melding investigative reporting with personal family history to reveal the ongoing cycle of loss of Indigenous land, culture, and resources.
Olympian Billy Mills, along with co-author Donna Janell Bowman and illustrator S.D. Nelson, will make a return appearance at the Festival, this time as creators of the 2025 Young Readers One Book. Copies of Wings of an Eagle: The Gold Medal Dreams of Billy Mills will be shared with nearly 15,000 third graders statewide.
Film producer Sean Covel, perhaps best known for his work on Napoleon Dynamite, will describe his journey into the world of writing, publishing, and distributing children’s books, including the Porter the Hoarder series and Who is the Super Ultra Mega Special Super Special Guest?
Michael Grunwald, award-winning journalist and New York Times contributing opinion writer, will join the Festival fresh from Climate Week NYC to talk about his new book, We Are Eating the Earth: The Race to Fix Our Food System and Save Our Climate.
Patty Wetterling and Joy Baker, co-authors of the book Dear Jacob: A Mother’s Journey of Hope, will discuss their nationwide advocacy for child safety since the abduction of Wetterling’s son, Jacob, in 1989.
Other featured presenters include the following:
- Elliot Ackerman, a decorated U.S. Marine Corps veteran and former White House Fellow who writes both fiction and nonfiction to chronicle America’s struggles abroad
- George Bilgere, author of nine collections and advocate for the work of his fellow poets nationwide through the Poetry Town newsletter and the Wordplay podcast
- Acclaimed historian Peter Cozzens, author of 19 books on the Civil War and the American West, most recently Deadwood: Gold, Guns, and Greed in the American West
- Pamela Smith Hill, New York Times bestselling editor and author, whose latest book is Too Good to Be Altogether Lost: Rediscovering Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House Books
- Eloisa James, who leads a double life as a Shakespeare professor and a RITA Award-winning romance novelist
- Chris LaTray, current Montana Poet Laureate and author of the memoir Becoming Little Shell: A Landless Indian’s Journey Home
- Lars Mytting, one of Norway’s most beloved authors, whose work includes the nonfiction Norwegian Wood and the Sister Bells trilogy of novels based on Norwegian lore
- Mary Annette Pember, whose Medicine River: A Story of Survival and the Legacy of Indian Boarding Schools draws on family history and intensive reporting to paint a stark but hopeful portrait of individuals and communities reckoning with trauma
- Brittany Richman, Rapid City author of Dreams Take Flight: The Story of Deaf Pilot Nellie Zabel Willhite, South Dakota’s youth selection for the “Great Reads from Great Places” list at the National Book Festival
- Former One Book South Dakota authors – and fan favorites – William Kent Krueger and Kent Nerburn
- AND 44 MORE!
We can’t list all the Festival authors, illustrators, and scholars here, so please visit our website to see the full presenter lineup, exhibitor list, and sponsor roster!
The 2025 South Dakota Festival of Books will open with an Author Reception at the Matthews Opera House on Thursday, Sept. 25, and continue throughout the weekend. Festival headquarters will be the Spearfish Convention Center – site of Exhibitors’ Hall, mass book signings, and numerous panels and presentations – while sessions will also take place at venues on the campus of Black Hills State University and in downtown Spearfish.
A complete schedule of events will be released in mid-August, and the printed Festival guide will be available shortly afterward.
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