Connecticut Book Festival Collection

The first Connecticut Book Festival was held May 21 and 22, 2011 on the University of Connecticut Greater Hartford campus hosted by Honorary Chair Wally Lamb. Novelist Alice Mattison, gardening expert Tovah Martin, and science fiction writer Ronald L. Mallett were among more than 30 Connecticut authors who participated.

The free Festival was held to promote and celebrate books, reading, and the state of Connecticut's bountiful and diverse literary community. Authors of fiction and nonfiction for adults and teens offered presentations, panel discussions, readings, and book signings.

There were performances by the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, the dance troupe dancEnlight, and State Troubadour Chuck E. Costa, as well as roving characters from the Mystic Paper Beasts Theatre Company. The Children’s Activities Tent was sponsored by Connecticut Humanities Council and the Northeast Children’s Literature Collection and offered a chalk drawing competition—led by Hartford Art School Professor Bill Thomson, author of Chalk—among its attractions.