Story + craft time for 5+ year-olds at TCPL.

Prolific author, activist, and journalist Cory Doctorow will launch the Festival this year, in conversation with TCPL Librarian Judd Karlman.

Cory Doctorow is a science fiction author, activist and journalist. He is the author of dozens of books, most recently ENSHITTIFICATION: WHY EVERYTHING SUDDENLY GOT WORSE AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT IT (nonfiction); and the novels PICKS AND SHOVELS and THE BEZZLE (followups to RED TEAM BLUES). Other notable books include the solarpunk novels WALKAWAY and THE LOST CAUSE; the tech policy books THE INTERNET CON and CHOKEPOINT CAPITALISM; and the internationally bestselling YA LITTLE BROTHER series; and the picture book POESY THE MONSTER SLAYER. In 2020, he was inducted into the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame. Doctorow is an A.D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University,

Judd Karlman is the Adult Services Department Head Librarian at Tompkins County Public Library. Karlman is a graduate of Syracuse University.

In this blistering dark dramedy, a mother declares war against her local library and sets off a chain reaction of unimaginable consequences.

Catch a special screening of PBS’ Accoustic Rooster and stay for a special arts & crafts time.

This event is sponsored by WSKG: striving to be your trusted partner, enriching the lives of the people and communities we serve.

Join the conversation on 500 years of protest and resistance in US history—and how its force can empower us to navigate our chaotic world. With author Gloria J. Browne-Marshall and Ambre Dromgoole.

Gloria J. Browne-Marshall is an EMMY award-winning writer, an educator, a legal advocate, and a playwright. She is a professor of Constitutional Law and African Studies at John Jay College (CUNY), was a Resident Fellow at the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School, as well as a Visiting Professor at the Harvard Kennedy School. She won the 2024 American Bar Association Silver Gavel Award. Her books include She Took Justice: The Black Woman, Law, and Power, The Voting Rights War, and Race, Law, and American Society.

Ambre Dromgoole is an experienced music scholar, artist, curator, and consultant who specializes in subjects relating to music, religion, race, gender, performance, and popular culture all of which she brings to her role as Assistant Professor of Africana Studies and Music at Cornell University. Dr. Dromgoole received her B.A. in Religion and Musical Studies from Oberlin College and Conservatory, her M.A. from Yale Divinity School and Institute of Sacred Music, and PhD from Yale University. She has presented work for the Association of Black Women Historians, Society for Ethnomusicology, American Studies Association, and the American Academy of Religion to name a few. She has previously held fellowships with the Ford Foundation, Louisville Institute, Center for Lived Religion in the Digital Age at St. Louis University, the Sacred Writes project, and the Center for Material and Visual Cultures of Religion at Yale University. Her current book project There’s a Heaven Somewhere: A Sonic History of Black Womanhood documents the twentieth century history of itinerant women gospel musicians as a collective, paying particular attention to their musical training as girls in Afro- Protestant contexts as well as their formation in the entertainment industry.

Learn how you can help save the Earth, right in your own backyard, from author Jordan Zwetchkenbaum, with her gorgeous picture book My Pollinator Garden.

Jordan Zwetchkenbaum (ZWECH-ken-boum) graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree from Washington University in St. Louis School of Engineering and is currently attending a certificate program in sustainable gardening with native plants at Go Native U at Westchester Community College. With a lifelong interest in wildlife conservation and many friends in the juvenile publishing community, Jordan was the inspiration for the pumpkin plant in Jean Marzollo’s I’m a Seed. She lives with her partner in Corning, NY, where she welcomes native bees, butterflies, and birds to her own pollinator garden.

Project Censored, The Censored Press, and The Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College (PCIM) present an author conversation with Mischa Geracoulis and Omar Zahzah. In conversation with Mickey Huff.

Mischa Geracoulis is the Managing Editor at Project Censored and its publishing imprint, The Censored Press, contributor to Project Censored’s State of the Free Press yearbook series, a Project Censored Judge, and author of Media Framing and the Destruction of Cultural Heritage: News Narratives about Artsakh and Gaza (Routledge, 2025).

Omar Zahzah is a writer, poet, and assistant professor in the Arab and Muslim Ethnicities and Diasporas Studies program in the Department of Race and Resistance Studies at San Francisco State University as well as a frequent contributor to independent media outlets The Electronic Intifada and Mondoweiss. He is the author of Terms of Servitude: Zionism, Silicon Valley, and Digital Settler Colonialism in the Palestinian Liberation

Struggle (The Censored Press and Seven Stories Press, 2025).

Join hosts Earth Too Tierra and DJ Dou for a fun night of competitive live poetry with a $50 cash prize.

In this blistering dark dramedy, a mother declares war against her local library and sets off a chain reaction of unimaginable consequences.

Cinemapolis thinks this movie is better than the book. Go see for yourself.

Two books in conversation across the decades with author Blair Fell (Disco Witches of Fire Island) and historian Jeff Iavannone.

Join authors Kalynn Bayron and Laila Sabreen as they dive into their approaches to writing craft, shed light on their writing processes, and share how writing for a YA audience shapes how they engage with storytelling, both practically and ideally.

Presentation on the importance of independent journalism, publishing, and critical media literacy education as public institutions are under attack. Presented by Project Censored, the Censored Press, and Park Center for Independent Media at Ithaca College.

Join two Ukrainian authors, Oksana Lutsyshyna and Yuliya Musakovska, in discussion with Valzhyna Mort about the way language affects and reflects the realities of war and extremity. The panel will pay tribute to Victoria Amelina, a Ukrainian author killed by a Russian missile, and her posthumous book Looking at Women, Looking at War.

Oksana Lutsyshyna is an award-winning Ukrainian writer, poet, and literary translator. She is the author of Persephone Blues (poetry, Arrowsmith, 2019), Ivan and Phoebe (a novel, in the English translation by Nina Murray, Deep Vellum Publishing, 2023; in the original, Old Lion Publishers, 2019), Felicity's Poems (poetry, in Ukrainian, Old Lion Publishers, 2018), Love Life (a novel, in the English translation by Nina Murray, HURI, 2024; in the original, Old Lion Publishers, 2015), I Am Listening to the Song of America (poems, in Ukrainian, Old Lion Publishers, 2010), The Sun Seldom Sets (novel, in Ukrainian, Fakt, 2007), Without Blushing (short stories, Fakt, 2007), and two more poetry collections.

Yuliya Musakovska (born 1982) is a Ukrainian poet, writer and translator. She has published six poetry collections in Ukrainian, most recently Stones and Nails (2024). Her collection The God of Freedom (2021) was among the finalists for the Lviv UNESCO City of Literature Prize and top eight nominees for the Taras Shevchenko National Prize. In 2024, The God of Freedom was released from Arrowsmith Press in English translation by Olena Jennings and the author. In 2023, Yuliya paused her 20-year career in international business to dedicate herself to cultural activism and global advocacy for Ukraine. She is a member of PEN Ukraine. She lives in Lviv, Ukraine, and has remained there throughout the war.

Valzhyna Mort is a poet and translator born in Minsk, Belarus. She is the author of three poetry collections, Factory of Tears (Copper Canyon Press, 2008), Collected Body (Copper Canyon Press, 2011) and, mostly recently, Music for the Dead and Resurrected (FSG, 2020), named one of the best poetry book of 2020 by The New York Times and The NPR, and the winner of the 2020 International Griffin Poetry Prize and the 2022 UNT Rilke Prize. Mort is an Associate Professor in Literatures in English at Cornell University.

Cory Doctorow in conversation with Ray Craib.

A Queer-d Poetry Reading & Panel with Tompkins County Poety Laureate nicole v. basta with Saida Agostina Bostic, Catherine Chen, & Esther Kondo Heller.

In this blistering dark dramedy, a mother declares war against her local library and sets off a chain reaction of unimaginable consequences.

The Parental Rights movement has been picking up steam across the US. Parental Rights advocates argue that parents should have the ultimate say in all the books, media, and educational materials that their children experience. Where is the line between censorship and a parent’s right to raise their child as they see fit?

Speakers: Lisa Swayze, Executive Director, Buffalo Street Books/Ithaca Literary; TCPL Library staff

This talkback will take place after a performance of Bad Books, but members of the public are welcome to attend, free of charge.

Learn how the comic Icons: Leslie Feinberg was created. Free copies of the comic until we run out.

Get happy with Buffalo Street Books’ in-house reading Queens Coraline Chardonnay and Tilia Cordata.

In this blistering dark dramedy, a mother declares war against her local library and sets off a chain reaction of unimaginable consequences.

Educator, author, poet, and icon Eve L. Ewing in conversation with Sean Eversley-Bradwell and Nia Nunn at the State Theatre.

Vanessa Lillie and Hillary Smith talk about reading and writing Native authors.

WSKG presents Literary Trivia with Bob Proehl. Bring your team and be ready to compete for bragging rights!

In this blistering dark dramedy, a mother declares war against her local library and sets off a chain reaction of unimaginable consequences.

Story House Ithaca presents open mic storytelling led by Amy Reading.