Register for the 2024 Kickass Writers Festival

FIRST DRAFT (Free to public) – Register here

PAPERBACK – Register here

HARDCOVER – SOLD OUT

RARE BOOK – SOLD OUT

PAPERBACK – Register here

HARDCOVER – SOLD OUT

RARE BOOK – SOLD OUT

HARDCOVER – SOLD OUT

RARE BOOK – SOLD OUT

FIRST DRAFT (Free to public) – Register here

FIRST DRAFT (Free to public) – Register here

HARDCOVER – SOLD OUT

RARE BOOK – SOLD OUT

FIRST DRAFT (Free to public) – Register here

FIRST DRAFT (Free to public) – Register here

FIRST DRAFT (Free to public) – Register here

PAPERBACK – Register here

HARDCOVER – SOLD OUT

RARE BOOK – SOLD OUT

PAPERBACK – Register here

HARDCOVER – SOLD OUT

RARE BOOK – SOLD OUT

MICHAEL COFFEY was born in Greenwich Village in 1954, adopted at birth and raised in Saranac, NY. He graduated from Saranac Central in 1972, and went on to earn a B.A. in English at the University of Notre Dame and an M.A. in Anglo-Irish Literature at Leeds University (U.K.) Coffey’s career in publishing in New York City, most notably 26 years at Publishers Weekly, was punctuated with published writings of his own—three innovative books of poems, a popular book on Irish-American history, a baseball book, and a book of short stories, titled The Business of Naming Things (Bellevue Literary Press). His hybrid fiction Samuel Beckett Is Closed was published in 2018 by Foxrock Books, in association with Evergreen Review and OR Books. His new book, Beckett’s Children: A Literary Memoir, will be published this summer, also from Evergreen Review and OR Books. He lives in Manhattan.

TRACY DOLAN is a staple of Vermont’s standup comedy scene and regularly entertains audiences at Vermont Comedy Club and many other venues throughout New England. She has opened for national headliners such as Dana Gould, Hari Kondabolu, Cameron Esposito, and Saturday Night Live alum Tim Meadows.

Tracy also teaches standup comedy and has been featured in Boston’s Women in Comedy Festival, New York’s She Devil Comedy Festival, and the Green Mountain Comedy Festival.

DAVE DONOHUE is the founder of Ra Press. Never meant to be a money-making venture, Ra Press was an enterprise founded with a deep respect for the written word. Emulating the look of the small presses of the 60s and 70s, Ra Press began in 2000 with experimental books fashioned in the Donohue family home in the deep woods outside Ticonderoga. Creating books—the very act of measuring and cutting and binding—became an obsession for Dave Donohue. He was inspired by the poetry books he had read and collected since first reading Ferlinghetti’s Coney Island of the Mind during his high school years in 1960s Port Henry. Dave officially began Ra Press by publishing the works of Chuck Gibson and Mary L. Randall, two previously published writers and dear friends. The first seven years were filled with creating the books and finding homes for them in the Champlain Valley and beyond—a slow and challenging assignment. By 2008, Ra began printing books with REPRO (Winooski, VT). In 2012, poet Sean Tierney took over the outreach of the press by formatting books on the LULU online site. Over the last decade, RA Press books have found homes via bookstores in Long Lake and Bolton Landing and, ultimately, in Crow BookShop in Burlington. No less than fifty writers (both seasoned and new) have published their works through Ra. Sadly, like so many small presses, Ra Press is closing in 2024. Dave measured his success by literary quality only and he’s proud of the work produced, the statements made. Ra Press reminded people that poetry matters,the written word matters, and literature can be personal, intimate, and close to the bone.

GREG EDWARDS is a fearless comedian from Virginia. Greg moved to San Francisco in 2001 and became a fixture on the Bay Area comedy scene. Greg is known for his distinctive voice, awkward views and social commentary. He’s performed at Jamie Foxx’s Laffapollozza, SF SketchFest, SF Burrito & Comedy Fest, Riot LA, and clubs and colleges all over California. Greg was awarded the prestigious Dan Crawford Award from the San Francisco Punchline in 2009 and moved to Los Angeles in 2010.  Greg has performed at the Laugh Factory, The Comedy Store, The Hollywood Improv, The IceHouse, & all the popular independent shows in LA.

Greg has been in Entertainment Weekly, Forbes, The International New York Times and has been on BET, Comedy Central, interviewed on the Tavis Smiley show on PBS & has released 3 independent comedy albums Gregarious, Fuck you Greg & Dopamine.

Greg has worked with Dave Chappelle, Paul Mooney, Patrice O’Neal, Damon Wayans, Bill Burr, Charlie Murphy, Maria Bamford, Jim Jeffries, Harland Williams, Bill Bellamy, Deon Cole, W. Kamau Bell and many more outstanding comedians. Greg stars as “Sparky Sweets PhD” of the critically-acclaimed web series THUG NOTES, Greg was also in season 1 of Comedy Central’s Corporate. Currently Greg is a writer on the hit MTV show Ridiculousness.

DENICE FROHMAN is a poet and performer from New York City. A Pew Fellow and Baldwin-Emerson Fellow, she’s received support from CantoMundo, Headlands Center for the Arts, the National Association of Latino Arts & Cultures, and Millay Colony.

Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The BreakBeat Poets: LatiNext, Nepantla: An Anthology for Queer Poets of Color, ESPNW and elsewhere. A former Women of the World Poetry Slam Champion, she’s featured on hundreds of national and International stages from The Apollo to The White House. She lives in Philadelphia.

HELENE GIBBENS grew up in Montreal, but her heart yearned for open spaces. She settled in Saranac Lake in 2008, where she feels truly at home with the land and the people. After teaching yoga and wellness for over 25 years, she felt called to share with others the inherent wisdom and the healing power of nature. She cherishes wading in rivers and meandering in forests, rekindling her sense of wonder at the beauty of nature. She also likes to ski, hike and garden. Helene is a Certified Nature Therapy Guide, Licensed NYS Hiking Guide, Certified Yoga Teacher and wellness educator.

JOHN A. GLUSMAN is Vice President and Executive Editor of W.W. Norton & Company. A publishing veteran of more than four decades, he has edited fiction, non-fiction, and worked with Annie Proulx, Erik Larson, Neil de Grasse Tyson, Richard Powers, Frans de Waal, Ronan Farrow, John Lahr, Ben Macintyre, David Rohde, David Sanger, Saidiya Hartman, Margaret Burnham, and Dan Levitin. He is the founding editor of the Best American Poetry anthology, and the author of Conduct Under Fire: Four American Doctors and their Fight for Life as Prisoners of the Japanese, 1941-1945, which won the Colby Award for best work of military non-fiction by a first-time author. He lives in Bedford, NY, and practices sustainable forestry on his  property in the Loon Lake mountains.

DIANE GOETTEL has been the Executive Editor of Black Lawrence Press since 2009. In that time she has acquired, edited, and published over 300 titles including chapbooks, full-length collections, anthologies, and hybrid work. Diane’s recent work has appeared in Great Weather for the Media, Full Bleed, Border Crossing, Grimoire, and elsewhere. She lives in Mount Vernon, New York with her family.

NATHAN HARTSWICK is a performer, educator, producer, and the co-founder and co-owner of Vermont Comedy Club, a world class standup, improv and sketch comedy theater in Burlington, VT. Opened in 2015, VCC quickly became one of the most well-regarded comedy venues in the country, attracting the likes of such legendary comedians as Marc Maron, Tig Notaro and Maria Bamford.

Nathan performed as a standup for many years, earning the Seven Days readers’ choice award for “Best VT Standup Comedian.” He has taught beginning standup classes for the past 12 years, focusing on creating a supportive, accessible, fun environment for curious adults to try their hand at comedy.

Nathan has also performed and taught improv for many years at theaters and festivals in Burlington, Montreal, New York, San Diego, Miami and more.He has studied extensively with instructors from  Upright Citizens Brigade, The Second City and iO.

CARRIE HOWLAND has nearly two decades of experience as a literary agent, working in two New York City based literary agencies. She founded her own agency, Howland Literary, LLC in 2018. Carrie holds a B.A. in English and Creative Writing from Albion College, where she was the Poetry Editor of The Albion Review. She has been featured in several publications discussing her work as an agent including Poets & Writers, SCWBI insight, Akashic Books, and Slice Magazine.

SARAH KHALIL is an agent at Calligraph. Prior to its founding, she was at the Kneerim & Williams Agency for four years, where she developed projects by several of the agency’s best-selling and award-winning authors. She is seeking serious narrative nonfiction with a lens toward social, economic and environmental justice; anti-imperialist thought; pop/cultural criticism and histories; cross-cultural narratives; and writing from Caribbean, MENA, Muslim and LGBTQIA+ creators; all deeply explored by experts—academics, journalists, and those with lived experience. Big ideas, radical thought, and propulsive writing are the cornerstones of her taste. She is also seeking select fiction in the same space.

MEAGAN LEVINSON is editorial director of Three Hills, the regional trade imprint at Cornell University Press. She is on the lookout for engaging stories, both fiction and non-fiction, that deepen our understanding of and appreciation for New York state and the greater Northeast. Before joining Cornell UP, Meagan held editorial positions at Princeton University Press, Penguin Random House, and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Originally from St. Louis, Missouri, she now lives in Princeton, NJ with her husband and son.

MEGAN MAYHEW BERGMAN is the author of three books with Scribner – Birds of a Lesser Paradise, Almost Famous Women, How Strange a Season, and a forthcoming biography on the International Sweethearts of Rhythm. She is a climate journalist and essayist who has published with the New Yorker, New York Times, The Atlantic, The Guardian, The Paris Review, and elsewhere. She’s a professor of Creative Writing at MIddlebury College, where she directs the Bread Loaf Environmental Writers’ Conference. She’s a short filmmaker and also the co-founder of GreenStory, an environmental narrative agency for clean tech organizations and non-profits. 

GENNAROSE NETHERCOTT is the author of a novel, Thistlefoot, and a book-length poem, The Lumberjack’s Dove, which was selected by Louise Glück as a winner of the National Poetry Series. A writer and folklorist alike, she helps create the podcast Lore, and she tours nationally and internationally performing strange tales (sometimes with puppets in tow). Fifty Beasts to Break Your Heart—her newest book—marks her debut into short fiction. She lives in the woodlands of Vermont, beside an old cemetery.

PATRICIA SPEARS JONES has lived and worked in New York City since 1974.  She is a poet, playwright, educator, cultural activist, and anthologist and has been appointed New York State Poet (2023-25). She is the recipient of 2017 Jackson Poetry Prize from Poets & Writers. She is author of  The Beloved Community and A Lucent Fire: New and Selected Poems and 3 full-length collections and five chapbooks.  At the Rauschenberg Residency, she published Collapsing Forrest City, Photo Giclée.  Her poems are widely anthologized among them: 250 Years of African American Poetry: Why African American Poetry Matters Today, Plume Poetry 8; 2017 Pushcart Prize XLI: Best of Small Presses; WORD: An Anthology A Gathering of the Tribes; Of Poetry and Protest: From Emmett Till to Trayvon Martin, and Angles of Ascent: A Norton Anthology of Contemporary African-American Poets,  and in journals such as About Place Journal;  Paterson Literary Review; Cutthroat Journal; alinejournal.com/convergence; The New Yorker and The Brooklyn Rail.