Registration is now closed.
Welcome to the Sunshine State Book Festival. Last year’s festival brought 75 authors and 3,000 readers together in the Santa Fe College Fine Arts Hall in Gainesville, Florida. Mindful of everyone’s safety, the 2021 Sunshine State Book Festival is 100% digital, yet retains popular aspects of our previous festival.
Prominent guest speakers will give featured talks—all free and open to the public.
Author booths allow you to virtually “stroll” aisles of our festival from the comfort and safety of your home. Meet authors via brief videos they have provided. Enjoy the experience of book browsing? Click on a book cover, then on Amazon’s “Look inside” feature to view the back cover copy, table of contents, and even read a few pages of the book.
Authors of children’s books will have a separate area of the festival site featuring picture books, chapter books, and middle-grade readers. Several authors are providing fun or educational activity worksheets that visitors will be able to print or download to their computer
Want a sneak peek at example booths? Click the Preview option.
The festival will open January 30, 2021, and remain accessible to visitors through June 30, 2021. But we need your help to get the word out. Please mention us to friends in your book club, on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social media. Send them the link SunshineStateBookFestival.com and be sure to join us January 30, 2021.
A book festival is a celebration of learning and literacy that should be fun as well as educational, bringing together people of all ages who share a love of reading and who will leave the event inspired by their experiences.
Florida has an amazing literary history dating back to William Bartram nearly 250 years ago. Today, Gainesville is a leading center of literary culture and home to hundreds of writers, novelists, playwrights, and poets. And holding the 2021 festival online allowed participation from authors from as far away as Singapore and Qatar.
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Pulitzer Prize for History: Jack Davis
Charles S. Sydnor Prize for the best book in southern history: Jack Davis
The Iowa Poetry Prize: Lola Haskins
Florida Book Award: Jack Davis, John Dunn, Veronica Helen Hart, Lola Haskins, Laura Lee Smith
Florida Historical Society’s Stetson Kennedy Award: John Dunn
Florida Authors and Publishers Association President’s Award: Nancy Blanton, John Hope, Harriet Hunter, Mallory M. O’Connor, N. L. Quatrano, Elizabeth Randall
Florida Outdoor Writers Association Award for Excellence-in-Craft: Bob H. Lee
Florida Writers Association Royal Palm Literary Award: Susie H. Baxter, Nancy Blanton, Bria Burton, Loren Colden, L. L. Eadie, Richard Gartee, Veronica Helen Hart, Arielle Haughee, Chris Holmes, John Hope, Elle Andrews Patt, N. L. Quatrano, Elizabeth Randall, LM Reynolds, JW Robitaille, Marie Q Rogers
African-American Literary Show Award: Lisa Washington
Author Elite Award: Lisa Washington
Best Medical Fiction: Joel Shulkin, MD
Book Excellence Award: Cheryl Denise Bannerman
Feathered Quill Book Award: Nancy Blanton
Gourmand World Cookbooks Award: Cynthia D. Bertelsen
L. Ronald Hubbard Writers of the Future: John Hope, Elle Andrews Patt
Literary Titan Silver Medal: Mallory M. O’Connor
MM Bennetts Award: Nancy Blanton
Moonbeam Children’s Book Award: John Hope
National Indie Excellence Award: John Hope, Elle Andrews Patt
Romantic Times Career Achievement Award for Series Romantic Adventure: Lacy Dancer (aka Sydney Clary)
Romantic Times Career Achievement Award for Series Romance Love and Laughter: Lacy Dancer (aka Sydney Clary)
SheWrites New Novelist competition: Mohanalakshmi Rajakumar
The Oshima International Hand-Made Picture Book Competition: Melinda Falgoust
Writers Unlimited Annual Literary Competition: Melinda Falgoust
Pulitzer Prize winner
NAACP Image Award Nominees
Alachua County Poet Laureate
Award-winning Novelist
Novelist
and The Opinionated Ladies Book Club.
Please consider becoming one of our corporate sponsors. Download an information packet.