Welcome to Bookstock 2026
Bookstock, Woodstock’s annual celebration of books and storytelling, will host a remarkable group of award-winning authors and poets at Bookstock 2026, on May 15-16-17. Visit The Green on Friday for activities for children and our famous used book sale; Master Classes take place at Norman Williams Public Library. Opening night events take place at Artistree. On Saturday, you’ll find talks and readings by award-winning authors, our great used book sale, more Master Classes, exhibitors, music, activities for children, and food on The Green in the heart of our town. Be sure to visit Norman Williams Public Library for their own used and rare book sale. Plus there’s plenty to experience around our town, including restaurants, bakeries, and many interesting local shops.
Visiting Woodstock for our festival? Here are suggestions for where to stay, eat, and shop while you’re in town.
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Activities On The Green
Activities on the Green
are FREE!
Friday's Events and Master Classes
1:30 – 3:00 | Norman Williams Public Library Mezzanine
Master Class – The Art of Narrative Storytelling. Teacher Robin Gaby Fisher will help you learn the principles of compelling storytelling and find your voice in creating your own story.
3:30 – 5:00 | Norman Williams Public Library Mezzanine
Master Class – Flash Fiction: Tiny Stories with a Punch. Teacher Beth Greenberg will guide the class through prompted exercises in creating various forms of micro fiction — such as six-word short stories.
4:30 – 6:00 | Artistree
UNBOUND Book Art Exhibit – This unique exhibition showcases artworks inspired by, made from, or exploring the concept of books. The Gallery curators will be on hand to to answer questions.
6:00 – 8:00 | Artistree
Opening Night – Bookstock 2026 opens with a conversation with the winners and finalists of the Vermont Book Awards, moderated by Vermont Book Awards director Miciah Bay Gault. We’re thrilled to welcome writers of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and children’s literature from all across Vermont to sit down together to talk inspiration, writing process, research, the state of literature today, and how to write an award-winning book. Appetizers, drinks, and mingling to follow.
Saturday's Events and Master Classes
8:30 – 10:00 | Norman Williams Public Library Mezzanine
Master Class – Teacher Beth Malow will lead participants in determining whether Self Publishing is the right option for publishing their book and, if it is, how to go about it.
10:00 – 11:30 | Town Hall Theatre
Author Talk – Garrett M. Graff has spent two decades covering politics, technology, and national security and is the author of ten books. Watergate: A New History was a Pulitzer Prize finalist.
12:00 – 1:30 | Norman Williams Public Library Mezzanine
Master Class – In Creative Writing for Teens, Kitta MacPherson will help teen writers learn how to turn moments in their lives into compelling stories.
12:00 – 1:30 | Town Hall Theatre
Author Talk – Amity Gaige is the bestselling author of five novels. Heartwood was called “the best thriller of the year” by the Boston Globe.
2:00 – 3:30 | Town Hall Theatre
Author Talk – Katherine Arden is the New York Times bestselling author of the Winternight trilogy and the Small Spaces quartet.
4:00 – 5:30 | Town Hall Theatre
Author Talk – Patrick Bringley is the New York Times bestselling author of All the Beauty in the World, a memoir about his decade working as a guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
5:45 – 8:00 | The Red Barns at Kelly Way Gardens
Cookstock: A Celebration of Vermont Farm-to-Table Dining
Produced in Collaboration with The Woodstock Inn
Award-winning chef Matthew McClure, executive chef at the Woodstock Inn, teams up renowned cookbook author and cooking teacher Gesine Bullock-Prado for cocktails and dinner inspired by her recipes. [Note: Unlike other events at Bookstock, there is a charge for this event.]
Activities On The Green
Activities on the Green
are FREE!
Sunday's Events and Workshops
10:00 – 11:30 | Norman Williams Public Library Mezzanine
Poetry Readings – Three noted poets will read their works.
Produced in Collaboration with Sundog Poetry
Meg Reynolds is a poet, artist, and teacher from New England whose work has been published in numerous literary journals and in three collections. Wyn Cooper has published five books of poetry; his sixth book, The Unraveling, will appear in May 2026. A poem from his first book was turned into Sheryl Crow’s Grammy-winning “All I Wanna Do.” Sydney Lea is a Pulitzer finalist in poetry, founder of New England Review, Vermont Poet Laureate (2011-15), and recipient of Vermont’s highest artistic distinction, the Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts.
11:00 – 12:30 | Billings Farm
Author Talk – Caleb Kenna, author of Art from Above Vermont, is a freelance photographer and certified drone pilot from Middlebury whose work has been widely published. Followed his talk, he will demonstrate drone photography in the Marsh-Billings-Rockefeller National Historic Park.
12:30 – 2:00 | Norman Williams Public Library Mezzanine
Poetry Readings – Readings by the 2025-2026 Vermont Youth Poet Laureate and two noted poets.
Produced in Collaboration with Sundog Poetry
Emma Paris is the 2025-26 Vermont Youth Poet Laureate and a sophomore at Bennington College, where she studies Poetry and Environmental Science. Jennifer Militello, the Poet Laureate of New Hampshire, is the author of a memoir, five collections of poetry, and a hybrid collection, Identifying the Pathogen. The Chinese poet Xue Di came to the US immediately after the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989 in Beijing, becoming writer-in-residence at Brown University.
Bookstock Venues
Artistree = Artistree Community Arts Center, 2095 Pomfret Rd, South Pomfret
NWPL = Norman Williams Public Library, 10 The Green, Woodstock
Focus = the Focus Vermont Gallery, 23 Elm St, Woodstock
Billings = Billings Farm & Museum, 69 Old River Road, Woodstock
Town Hall Theatre = The Woodstock Town Hall Theatre, 31 The Green, Woodstock
The Red Barns at Kelly Way Gardens = 106 Kelly Way, Woodstock