6 years after Columbia’s last literary festival, library hopes to connect readers, authors
It’s been a few years since Columbia had a literary festival.
South Carolina Humanities held a book festival in Columbia for almost 20 years, starting in 1997, but the organization announced in 2015 it was canceling the festival to pursue other literary initiatives.
Before landing at the Richland Library, Lee Snelgrove, then the leader of the city-backed arts booster One Columbia, helped mount the Deckle Edge Literary Festival, which went for four years before shutting down after its 2019 outing.
The festival couldn’t continue after it ran into funding issues, Snelgrove said. The other problem was that there wasn’t a centralized organization that was fully responsible for putting it on.
“It worked well as an event overall, but it just could not find its footing enough to sustain it,” he said.
This weekend, Snelgrove is once again working to mount a literary festival, as the Richland Library’s inaugural Read Freely Fest kicks off Friday, bringing three days of author talks, book signings, live performances and other programming to the library’s main branch at 1431 Assembly St. in downtown Columbia.
Despite previous fits and starts, Snelgrove, now the library’s arts and culture manager, is confident this latest fully free festival can find a foothold.
Renewed energy
Snelgrove said Columbia has started to see more people become invested in the literary community, adding that one key indication has been the opening of new independent bookstores, such as All Good Books.
The bookstore, located on 734 Harden St. in Five Points, opened in 2023. Prior to its arrival, there wasn’t an independent bookstore that helped foster relationships between authors and readers, Snelgrove said.
It’s places like All Good Books, and an increased interest in Columbia residents to engage more with books, that drove the library to put on its new festival.
“[We thought] there’s a market here that would be very interested in having a book festival,” Snelgrove said. “And then I think we also started to see success at other book festivals across the country.”
He added that the festival is part of the library’s role in bringing people together to “participate in the development of culture.”
“It’s an opportunity for people that love books in all their different formats — be it the physical book, the e-book, the audio book, the book club — those kinds of experiences that you might have around the book and come together, meet some authors, meet other book people,” Snelgrove said.
Spotlighting local talent
One the festival’s goals is to expose attendees to local authors, the arts and culture manager added. There’s a lot of literary talent across South Carolina, but Columbia is not often identified as having it.
“Columbia has always had a very deep pool of talent that it often goes unrecognized by people in Columbia,” Snelgrove said. “We have a lot of talented poets. We have a lot of talented authors publishing work, and they’re just not always well known.”
Cindi Boiter is the executive director of the Jasper Project, which rallies the annual local literary compendium Fall Lines. She said one problem the city encounters is that there is not a lot of financial commitment for fostering community among literary arts members.
Boiter has spent more time working with older writers, but she wishes she saw more opportunities for younger ones, she said.
“We have a tremendous number of writers in South Carolina who have impressive collections of impressive portfolios of publications,” Boiter said. “We just need more support. We need more financial support, and we need to recognize that writers, young writers, need to be nurtured and given opportunities.”
She hopes bringing back a literary festival to Columbia will increase awareness of what local authors have to offer.
Striking a balance
For this year’s festival, Snelgrove wanted to focus on supporting local authors while also making sure attendees would be able to talk to and hear from national authors. It’s important to find a balance between the two, he said.
A few of the national authors attending Read Freely Fest include book illustrator Mike Curato, historical fiction author Patti Callahan Henry and Columbia native DéLana R. A. Dameron, whose 2024 book “Redwood Court” was a Reese’s Book Club pick.
“When you have that personal interaction with an author, you might realize, ‘Oh, I actually do like this work that I would not have found otherwise,’ and that can be the case for an author at any level, even if you’re a nationally touring author,” Snelgrove said.
Richland Library already has plans for Read Freely Festival to be an annual event, he added.
Snelgrove hopes the festival will help grow the library’s other programs and events in addition to exposing more Columbia residents to local authors.
“I think it will continue to grow, and that more and more authors and writers that are in our area will get celebrated as part of the event that will continue to be able to build on it and get some regional and maybe even national recognition for us as being a real magnet for authors and writers,” Snelgrove said.
Read Freely Festival kicks off at the Richland Library on Friday with the after-hours event Overdue from 7-11 p.m. More information about Read Freely Festival’s authors, schedule and events can be found on the festival’s website.
This story was originally published March 28, 2025 at 5:00 AM.
