The Library of Congress will host its 25th annual National Book Festival tomorrow, September 6. In a year that’s seen the removal of Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden, uncertainty about copyright chief Shira Perlmutter’s future, and National Guard troops patrolling the District of Columbia, the LOC has maintained a professional demeanor and eschewed partisan drama.

Tonight, on the eve of the festival, acting Librarian of Congress Robert Newlen, festival co-chair David Rubenstein, and authors Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature Mac Barnett, John Green, Christina Henríquez, and Scott Turow will share the stage for an “Opening Celebration.” NBF programming officially kicks off on Saturday.

Geraldine Brooks (Memorial Days), the recently anointed winner of the 2025 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction, will be in conversation with Washington Post books editor John Williams and will receive her award at the show. Another panel features the three most recent U.S. poets laureate—Joy Harjo, Ada Limón, and Tracy K. Smith—in conversation with Robert Casper, who oversees the LOC’s laureate program, and moderator Ron Charles of the Washington Post.

The LOC has not named a new poet laureate since Limón completed her term in May, and an announcement is expected on September 15.

Planning the show

LOC literary director Clay Smith has organized the festival since 2022, when he came to D.C. after a decade of leading the San Antonio Book Festival. (Smith is a former PW intern and former editor-in-chief of Kirkus Reviews as well.) Smith spoke with PW about steering the packed day of literary events.

“At the Library of Congress, we have a mission to serve all Americans,” Smith said. Invitees to the NBF represent a variety of publishers and perspectives, he noted, and “an added filter for us is geographic diversity from across the nation. We do have a lot of writers from New York and from L.A.,” where authors tend to congregate, yet the LOC seeks out creators from all U.S. regions.

Smith looks forward to several sessions focused on the Constitution, including appearances by Supreme Court justice Amy Coney Barrett (Listening to the Law: Reflections on the Court and Constitution), Harvard law professor Jill Lepore (We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution), and the American Enterprise Institute’s Yuval Levin (American Covenant: How the Constitution Unified America—and Could Again). “This is something we do really well at the festival and year-round at the Library,” Smith said. “We are a nonpartisan federal agency. If we’re going to have Jill Lepore, who is probably no fan of originalism, it’s important for us to provide that other option” from Levin.

Planning has been ongoing for almost a year. “Because the contracting process in the federal government is so much more intense [than with a local festival], soon after the current year’s festival, we’re already thinking about the next one,” Smith said. “In January, we started meeting with publishers and getting an encyclopedic view about what’s happening for the coming year.”

In 2025, Smith noted, “we’re doing more genre work.” NBF programming will spotlight more romance, speculative fiction, and horror than audiences may have come to expect, such as a panel with two romance authors whose books garnered PW stars—Alexis Daria (Along Came Amor), Kennedy Ryan (Can’t Get Enough)—and moderator Jenn White, host of WAMU radio program 1A.

“I inherited a really prestigious festival, and we’ve worked to maintain that,” Smith said. Genre authors are crowd favorites, he added, and “do not diminish the prestige at all—they’re bringing new readers into the Library of Congress.”

Smith also points to a panel called “Something’s a Little Funny Here” with Kashana Cauley (The Payback) and Maggie Su (Blob: A Love Story). “These are novels about young protagonists who do not agree with the world they have inherited,” Smith said. “The authors are using conceits that veer into speculative fiction, and they’re saying something that I hope older readers will listen to.”

Locals and tourists can attend the free festival from 9 a.m.–8 p.m. at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Northeast D.C. Some programs will be livestreamed, and videos of all talks will be made available after the show.