About Us
Our Mission
Celebrating the power of words to change the world and literacy to change lives, the Provincetown Book Festival is an annual weekend of programs that support the culture of books, writing and reading in Provincetown. Most of the programs are presented by invited authors who have recently published a book of fiction, non-fiction, poetry or plays. The Festival strives for inclusiveness and diversity in terms of race, ethnicity, sexuality, and gender. Festival programs emphasize conversations between authors, discussion with the audience, and other collaborative forms.
Our Beginnings
The Provincetown Book Festival is sponsored by the Provincetown Public Library. In 2015, the Provincetown Board of Library Trustees inaugurated the Rose Dorothea Award, honoring a person with a strong connection to the Outer Cape who has made a significant contribution through the written word. In 2016, the first Provincetown Book Festival was created, as a companion and extension of the Rose Dorothea Award.
Partly inspired by the Nantucket Book Festival, the Provincetown Book Festival started out on a shoe string. On a September weekend in 2016, about one hundred people came to Provincetown Library to see Jamaican-born author Nicole Dennis-Benn paired with Portuguese-American author Katherine Vaz discussing writing about their home cultures; queer writers Paul Lisicky and Tim Murphy sharing about AIDS in Provincetown and New York; and Alexander Chee and Sally Cabot Gunning on writing historical fiction, among others. It was a small but memorable beginning.
We Have Always Depended On the Generosity of Writers
Now in our eighth year, the Provincetown Book Festival has grown and matured, but it remains strongly anchored in the history of art, literature, diversity and openness that characterizes the Provincetown community. Over the years the Festival has hosted many generous authors, including Amy Bloom, Elizabeth Bradfield, Jamie Brenner, Olga Broumas, Chris Castellani, Julia Glass, Robert Jones, Jr., William Mann, Stephen McCauley, Eileen Myles, Ruth Ozeki, Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Richard Russo, Curtis Sittenfeld, J. Courtney Sullivan, Brandon Taylor, and Linda Villarosa.
Advisory Committees Past and Present
We are very much indebted to the Festival Advisory Committee, who work hard to create stellar programs. The Advisory Committee members have changed over the years, but one constant has been the wonderful Julia Glass, the Festival’s godmother. Alums include A. C. Burch, Jamie Brenner, Stephen Borkowski, Adam Chromy, Stephen DesRoche, William Mann, Jerome Murphy, and Tim Murphy.
The 2023 Advisory Committee members are: Scott Bane, Chris Castellani, Nausheen Eusuf, Julia Glass, Edgar Gomez, Akil Kumarasamy, Maya Shanbhag Lang, Russell Lopez, Joe Okonkwo, Patrick Nolan, Amy Raff, and Marian Roth.
Questions? Please contact Festival Director, Nan Cinnater: ncinnater@clamsnet.org.
Thanks to all our wonderful sponsors!
Bay State Cruise Company
Boston Harbor City Cruises
Cape Air
The Gay & Lesbian Review
Provincetown Tourism Fund
The Friends of the Provincetown Public Library
Mass Cultural Council
Want to become a sponsor? Please contact Festival Director, Nan Cinnater: ncinnater@clamsnet.org