by Jaime Cone Hughes, Tompkins Weekly

The Ithaca Is Books festival returns Sept. 11–14 with author talks, a book fair, children’s events, and community programming across Ithaca.

Lovers of all things literary, mark your calendars: The Ithaca is Books festival will return Sept. 11 to 14.

This is technically the fifth year for the festival, but it is the third year that it has been highly organized, “because I’m an insane person and have too many ideas,” said Lisa Swayze, founder of Ithaca is Books and general manager of Buffalo Street Books, located in Ithaca’s Dewitt Mall.

“For the first two years, we were looking for partners and talking to people, but I don’t think they really believed me,” she said with a laugh.

By its third year, the festival had a robust, completely volunteer group of bookstores involved. Swayze said that every year they’re getting better at putting on the community-wide event.

“We’re all active partners in organizing it together, and nobody is getting paid; it’s all volunteer; Swayze said. “It’s really awesome. I think it’s a benefit to each of us and our businesses, but it’s really about the benefit it creates for the broader community.”

Swayze said that one of the many positive aspects of the festival is its ability to highlight the importance of independent bookstores.

“Buffalo Street Books is an extreme example, where we’ve been community owned since 2011,” Swayze said. Almost every indie bookstore that has been able to survive serves its community in creative ways, she added.

“Indie bookstores are here and offering this wide range of selection, curating specifically for the communities they’re in,” she said, adding that these indie bookstores make sure that their customers see themselves represented on the shelves in ways that chain bookstores or online sellers would never be able to do.

“We offer free programming [at Buffalo Street Books] — 100 programs a year — free events, almost all of them,” she said.

The book fair
For the second year, the book fair portion of the festival, which takes place Saturday, Sept. 13, and Sunday, Sept. 14, will be held on the Commons pedestrian plaza. Vendors, some of which are independent bookstores from out of town, will have an opportunity to showcase their unique selections. Independent presses will have the chance to interact with the public.

“It’s pretty exciting and fun,” Swayze said.

Among the book fair tables will be left-wing radical presses that publish books that are more difficult to find in a traditional retail setting. Swayze said that, for example, the owner of one key festival organizer, Autumn Leaves, also owns anarchist publisher PM Press.

“These are books you would definitely not find promoted on Amazon — things that you wouldn’t see, necessarily, that are amazing,” Swayze said.

The book fair will also include a local authors tent, where people can meet their favorite writers and have them sign their books.

Headlining authors
Eve Ewing
Ewing is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author, scholar, sociologist and cultural organizer. In her book “Original Sins: The (Mis)education of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism,” published earlier this year, Ewing “demonstrates that our schools were designed to propagate the idea of white intellectual superiority, to ‘civilize’ Native students and to prepare Black students for menial labor,” according to the book’s publisher, Penguin Random House. “By demonstrating that it’s in the DNA of American schools to serve as an effective and underacknowledged mechanism maintaining inequality in this country today, Ewing makes the case that we need a profound reevaluation of what schools are supposed to do, and for whom.”

Swayze said she expects Ewing’s public talk about the book to be “deeply impactful.” The event will involve the Ithaca City School District, TST BOCES, the Ithaca Public Education Initiative and Ithaca College. A discussion with Dr. Nia Nunn will follow Ewing’s talk.

Ewing’s young adult book, “Maya and the Robot,” places a Black girl at the center of an adventurous story about a young person and her robot, creating a character that young Black people can positively identify with, Swayze said.

“There are amazing things being written that kids should have access to and see themselves in, in books that are fun and not all just trauma and trouble,” she said, adding that she is looking for funding to purchase copies of the books and a volunteer to hand them out to Ithaca’s middle-schoolers.

Cory Doctorow
Doctorow is a New York Times bestselling science fiction novelist, journalist and technology activist. His works include “Picks and Shovels,” “The Bezzle,” “The Lost Cause” and “Little Brother.” Doctorow also cofounded the open-source peer-to-peer software company OpenCola and is part of Cornell University’s Andrew D. White Professors-at-Large program.

His book “Picks and Shovels,” released earlier this year, is the latest in his Martin Hench series of novels. In this latest installment, Doctorow returns to the world of his novel “Red Team Blues” to bring readers the origin story of Martin Hench and the most powerful new tool for crime ever invented: the personal computer.

In 1986 San Francisco, Hench will invent the forensic accountant — what a bounty hunter is to people, he is to money — but for now he’s an MIT dropout odd-jobbing his way around a city still reeling from the invention of a revolutionary new technology that will change everything about crime forever, one we now take completely for granted, according to publisher Macmillan.

When Marty finds himself hired by Silicon Valley PC startup Fidelity Computing to investigate a group of disgruntled ex-employees who’ve founded a competitor startup, he quickly realizes he’s on the wrong side.

“Told with wit and verve, this is the portrait of the old raconteur and rabble-rouser as a young man and will charm readers. … Highly recommended,” reads Library Journal’s starred review of the novel.

Other Ithaca is Books events
In addition to the book fair and headlining authors, there will be several children’s events.

The Kitchen Theatre will be staging a production of “Bad Books,” a play about sponsorship and banned books.

A panel of women will speak from their different perspectives on the topic of war. One panel member is coming from Ukraine to be part of the event.

There will be two poetry events at the Downstairs, one on Friday and one on Saturday.

The Ithaca Is Books Festival is made possible in part with funds from the Statewide Community Regrant program from the New York State Council on the Arts, with the support of the office of the Governor and NYS Legislature, administered by the Community Arts Partnership of Tompkins County. Additional sponsors include Cinemapolis, the city of Ithaca, Downtown Ithaca Alliance, Park  Center for Independent Media, Project Censored, The Censored Press, WRFI Community Radio and WSKG.

To learn more and view a list of events, visit https://www.ithacaisbooks.org/.

Original story published in Tompkins Weekly (August 21, 2025).