2025 Authors-Poets-Workshops

Bookstock 2025 features a stellar group of authors, poets, panelists, and workshop leaders. Here’s a quick overview of our guests. Follow the link to a fuller bio and information about their most recent work.

Authors

L. Annette Binder
L. Annette Binder is noted for her short stories and novels. Her new book, Child of Earth and Starry Heaven, is her story of coming to terms with her mother’s dementia.

Peter Canellos
Peter S. Canellos, the managing editor for enterprise at Politico and the author of The Great Dissenter, a biography of Supreme Court Justice John Marshall Harlan. He is currently writing a book about the conservative legal movement, based on the life of Samuel Alito.

Alison Espach Alison Espach is the New York Times best-selling author of The Wedding People and other award-winning novels.

Kevin Fedarko
Kevin Fedarko has spent the past twenty years writing about conservation, exploration, and the Grand Canyon. He is the author of the bestseller, A Walk in the Park, which won the 2025 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Nonfiction.

Sasha Hom Sasha Hom lives off-grid on a 600-acre land co-op where she lives among children, many goats, fowl, and a dog. Sidework is her newly released novella.

Marjan Kamali Marjan Kamali, born in Turkey to Iranian parents, is the author of three books, including The Lion Women of Tehran, and was the 2022 recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Award.

Steve Kemp Steve Kemp has spent most of his adult life working in national parks and has written about nature and some of America’s most cherished national parks. An Exaltation of Parks: John D Rockefeller Jr.’s Crusade to Save America’s Wonderlands will be coming out later this year.

Aaron Starmer Aaron Starmer is the author of more than a dozen middle grade and young adult novels. One of them, Spontaneous, was adapted into a critically acclaimed Paramount film. His latest novel, Night Swimming, is a combination of speculative and historic fiction.

Poets

Chard deNiord
Chard deNiord is the author of nine books of poetry and two books of interviews of eminent American poets. He served as poet laureate of Vermont from 2015 to 2019.

Didi Jackson
Didi Jackson’s poems have appeared in major poetry journals, including The New Yorker, and in two collections. She’s the recipient of the Poetry Society of America’s Robert H. Winner Memorial Award.

Major Jackson Major Jackson, the author of six volumes of poetry, has won many major awards for his work, including a Pushcart Prize. He is poetry editor of the Harvard Review.

Robert Pinsky Robert Pinsky, the author of several books of poetry, was the Poet Laureate of the United States from 1997 to 2000. His many honors include The Lifetime Achievement Award from the PEN American Center.

Alison Prine Alison Prine’s latest collection of poems won the 2023 Sappho’s Prize in Poetry. Her debut collection was named a finalist for the 2017 Vermont Book Award.

Workshop Leaders

Joni B. Cole Joni B. Cole is a writing instructor and author of seven books, including two books for writers.

Bimpé Fageyinbo Bimpé Fageyinbo is a Nigerian artist who weaves poetry, film, prose, and documentary photography into her work to explore humankind’s profound inner questions.

Erika Nichols-Frazer Erika Nichols-Frazer is the author of the memoir, Feed Me: A Story of Food, Love and Mental Illness and the poetry collection, Staring Too Closely. Her essays, short stories, and poems have appeared in magazine, literary journals and online.

Senator Rocket Senator Rocket is a storyteller and the driving force behind Eat Vermont and Stellar, a mobile application that empowers people to create custom recipes and navigate the kitchen.

Carolyn Shattuck Carolyn Shattuck’s work, which has been heavily influenced by Japanese prints, can be seen in numerous university Special Book Collections including The Smithsonian.

Panelists

Yahdon Israel Yahdon Israel is a senior editor at Simon & Schuster and founder of a popular book club and host of a literary podcast. His first acquisition, Aaliyah Bilal’s debut short story collection, Temple Folk, was a finalist for the National Book Award in Fiction.

Hana Park Hana Park, an editor at Simon & Schuster, acquires works that illuminate social issues, meet the cultural moment, or examine the use of political power in this country.

Hyeseung Song Hyeseung Song is the author of Docile: Memoirs of a Not-So-Perfect Asian Girl. She is a first-generation Korean American writer and painter. She lives in Brooklyn and upstate New York.