This story will also appear in the September issue of KC Studio. 

Kansas City’s favorite book festival returns, grander than ever. This fall, the Kansas City Public Library and Missouri Humanities have again teamed up to offer the region a free day of literary events. 

And this time, another library system is joining the fun and lengthening the festival’s reach. 

“It’s inspiring to see Heartland Book Festival expand every year since its inception in 2023,” says Kaite Stover, the Kansas City Public Library’s director of readers’ services.

“In the third year, we’re especially excited that Mid-Continent Public Library is joining HBF,” Stover explains. “The goal is always to reach more readers, writers, and book lovers of all ages.”

The Heartland Book Festival kicks off with an evening of storytelling by a master. 

On October 10 at the Woodneath Library Center, 8900 NE Flintlock Road, the festival hosts Pulitzer Prize winner Percival Everett, author of James and Erasure, which was made into the movie American Fiction, starring Jeffrey Wright. 

Aaron Mason, Mid-Continent’s executive director, says that fostering a love of reading and storytelling is fundamental to  MCPL’s mission and values.

“That’s why it is such an honor for us to participate in the Heartland Book Festival, and why we hope to see many of our friends and neighbors join us at this exciting celebration,” Mason says.

Saturday, October 11, the festival continues at the Central Library, 14 W. 10th Street, with all-ages panel discussions, author talks, activities, workshops, and vendors.

Featured speakers include: 

• Nigerian American fantasy and science fiction writer, Nnedi Okorafor, is the winner of several awards, including a Hugo and the Wole Soyinka Prize for Literature. She’s best known for her Binti novella trilogy and, at the festival, will talk about her latest novel, Death of the Author.
• Taylor Jenkins Reid is the author of the “famous women” quartet of books: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Daisy Jones & the Six, Malibu Rising, and Carrie Soto Is Back. She’ll speak about her ninth novel, Atmosphere.
• Adib Khorram, a Kansas City native, won Missouri's Great Reads from Great Places 2025 award for Bijan Always Wins. The award is part of a national reading initiative organized by the Library 
  of Congress Center for the Book and invites all 50 states and U.S. territories to select books that reflect their literary heritage each year.
• Kansas City native Derrick Barnes reads his book, The Incredibly Human Henson Blayze. Barnes is a National Book Award finalist and winner of a Coretta Scott King Award Author Honor, a Newbery Honor, the Ezra Jack Keats New Writer Award, and the Kirkus Prize for Young Readers. 

Find out more about featured authors, panelists, workshops, and more on the Heartland Book Festival website. Reservations open on Wednesday, August 27.