2021
LitFest 2021 featured a virtual celebration of great writing, featuring winner of a 2020 National Book Award (NBA) for fiction Charles Yu; 2020 NBA fiction nominee Megha Majumdar; 2020 NBA poetry finalists Tommye Blount and Natalie Diaz; and Pulitzer Prize winner Anne Applebaum, among others. Learn more about LitFest 2021 here.
2020
At LitFest 2020, Amherst College welcomed 2019 National Book Award winner Susan Choi and finalist Laila Lalami; memoirist and former Obama speechwriter Ben Rhodes; 2017 NBA winner Jesmyn Ward; poet Karen Skolfield; and book editor Andy Ward ’94; among others. Learn more here.
2019
The Pulitzer Prize-winning Jennifer Egan was the keynote speaker for a delightful literary weeking featuring National Book Award finalists Jamel Brinkley, Brandon Hobson, and Rebecca Carroll, along with Amherst alumni Nuar Alsadir and Cullen Murphy. See more pictures or read more.
2018
Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Rafael Campo '87, Tess Taylor '99, Junot Díaz, and Masha and Keith Gessen were among the other acclaimed writers featured at LitFest 2018. See more photos here.
2017
LitFest 2017 featured award-winning novelist Zadie Smith, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, and 2016 National Book Award Fiction Finalists Chris Bachelder and Jacqueline Woodson, among others.
Click here to see more photos from LitFest 2017.
2016
Amherst College and The Common welcomed Mark Bowden, Michael Chabon, Angela Flournoy, Lauren Groff ’01, and Stacy Schiff to campus as part of the inaugural LitFest.
Amherst College LitFest is organized by the Center for Humanistic Inquiry, The Common, the Emily Dickinson Museum, the English Department and the Office of Communications at Amherst College.