Bookstock Literary Festival to Return Next Year

Author talks, book and poetry readings, children’s activities, and a mammoth used-book sale are scheduled to return to Woodstock May 16 through 18 next year, when Bookstock makes a comeback.

The 15-year-old literary festival abruptly folded in April, about 10 weeks before its 2024 event was scheduled to start. Organizers had been attempting to execute “a very ambitious plan,” Bookstock cofounder and then-chair Peter Rousmaniere said this week.

A part-time staff and a board dominated by part-time residents had designed a multifaceted event intended to attract out-of-towners, he said. But relationships with some festival partners frayed, “things came to a head very late in the game, which was quite painful,” he said, and organizers realized they could not pull off the expanded festival.

Discussions on how to bring Bookstock back began almost immediately. “One of the realizations from having to cancel 2024 is that local people really loved this festival and were really disappointed when it was canceled,” cofounder Michael Stoner said on Tuesday.

The dozen poets scheduled to appear at this year’s Bookstock came to town on festival weekend anyway to participate in a hastily arranged replacement event dubbed the Woodstock Poetry Festival.

Officers of the nonprofit Bookstock board voted on August 12 to dissolve and to support the formation of a new board. “The transition was completely seamless,” said Stoner, the new board’s secretary. Former board members “welcomed the enthusiasm and visions” of their replacements, Stoner said.

The new board chair is Jon Spector, chairman of the Woodstock Economic Development Commission. Priscilla Painton, vice president and editor-in-chief at Simon & Schuster, is vice chair; Julie Moncton, a former Silicon Valley engineer-turned-bookseller, is treasurer. Secretary Stoner has retired from the higher-education web strategy and marketing firm he founded.

“It’s a very strong team,” Rousmaniere said.

Moncton will share the festival’s executive director duties with Jen Belton, former executive director of Woodstock’s Norman Williams Public Library. Chard deNiord, former poet laureate of Vermont, will remain the festival’s poetry director.

New board members want to retain the basic structure and nature of Bookstock, Stoner said. In addition to readings and talks, the festival has traditionally included a variety of events in a fair-like atmosphere on the village green, which featured vendors and exhibitors, live music, a food tent, and the sale of some 10,000 books.

“It’s always been a free festival, and we want to maintain that spirit and assume that most, if not all, events will be free,” Stoner said. With input from local merchants and restaurateurs, organizers are working to streamline the schedule after hearing from participants that staging multiple events at the same time made it hard to choose. In addition, out-of-towners wanted more free time to tour other Woodstock attractions.

“The scale of it just got too big,” Stoner said.

Bookstock chair Spector has already filed applications for permits to use the village green and the public space in front of the library and Windsor County Courthouse known as “the gore,” town administrator Kitty Koar said this week.

“He’s ready to go,” she said.

This article appears in Aug 14-20, 2024.