Boston's Literary Year in Review 2025
2025 was another exciting and expansive year for the Boston literary community, with more events, initiatives, and publications than ever. Here’s a glimpse into what happened in 2025.
Local Literary Events
The Boston literary community hosted 3,089 literary events last year (as far as I could find from all the websites I check), from author readings to book clubs to major festivals. October was the busiest month with 356 events, followed by April with 330 events. Here’s a breakdown by month:
January: 175
February: 222
March: 286
April: 330
May: 298
June: 291
July: 212
August: 179
September: 296
October: 356
November: 280
December: 164
There were 45 “big” literary events throughout the year as well:
February: Boskone
March: The Hundred-Year Book Debate, Teen Spoken Word Festival, Annual Bow Market Book Fair, The Power of Narrative Conference
April: Maynard Book Festival, 90-Second Newbery Film Festival, The Half Half Half Half Half Marathon, Boston Comics in Color Festival, Newburyport Literary Festival, Independent Bookstore Day, Literary Lights
May: Kids Graphic Novel Festival, Books for Breakfast, Dinner with an Author 2025, The Greater Roxbury Book Fair, CAC 11th Annual Festival & Bookfair, Massachusetts Poetry Festival
June: Pink Pages, Lit Crawl, Bookish Ball
July: Marblehead Festival of Arts Literary Festival, Ashland Library Young Artists Comics Fest, Readercon
August: Bookstore Romance Day, Boston Poetry Marathon, 5th Annual Ifeanyi Menkiti Memorial Reading, Sinners & Stardust
September: Salem Lit Fest, Spooktastic Book Fair
October: Mass Book Awards Ceremony, Writer-in-Residence Welcome Reception, MAAH Stone Book Awards, Night of 1,000 Stories, Prison Book Program Inaugural Fundraiser, Concord Festival of Authors, Boston Book Festival, Nightmare in the Stacks
November: Boston Anarchist Bookfair, Lit Up, Boston International Antiquarian Book Fair, JustKids!, Young Adult Author Symposium, Newton Children’s Book Festival
December: MICE
Local Author New Releases
75 local authors published books in 2025 — and you can learn more about these new releases on our Local Author New Releases page:
The Wireless Operator: The Untold Story of the British Sailor Who Invented the Modern Drug Trade by David Tuch
Canticle by Janet Rich Edwards
The Happiness Collector by Crystal King
Swallowtail by Emily Ross
Bad Cheerleader by Alex Thayer
A Time Traveler's History of Tomorrow by Kendall Kulper
Bad Bad Girl by Gish Jen
What Was Forbidden by Jonathan Bockian
Water Finds a Way by Meghan Perry
Last Night at the Disco by Lisa Borders
Love, Loss, and Lost Causes by Sahil Mehta
Matisse at War: Art and Resistance in Nazi Occupied France by Christopher C. Gorham
Ways of Virtue by Liz O’Neill
Coming Up for Air by Jessica Natalie Reino
All This Could Be Yours by Hank Phillippi Ryan
How I Hacked the Moon by R. A. Dines
Henry Winkler: A Little Golden Book Biography by Betsy Groban (Author) and Kayla Harren (Illustrator)
Christina the Astonishing by Marianne Leone
Lake Song: A Novel in Stories by Lesley Pratt Bannatyne
Paint Dries as a Train Goes Off The Rails by Nicholas Marchuk
Launching Liberty: The Epic Race to Build the Ships That Took America to War by Doug Most
Gone in the Night by Joanna Schaffhausen
This Happened to Me: A Reckoning by Kate Price
Waves Take Your Bones by Athena Giles
The Women of Arlington Hall by Jane Healey
Another by Paul Tremblay
The Hard Work of Hope: A Memoir by Michael Ansara
Local Honey by Shawn P McCarthy
The Lost Masterpiece by B. A. Shapiro
The Afterlife Project by Tim Weed
The Phoenix Pencil Company by Allison King
The Rise and Fall of Boston Pride: The Rise of a Movement, The Fall of an Organization by Daniel Joseph Gonzalez
Generation Queer: Stories of Youth Organizers, Artists, and Educators by Kimm Topping (Author) and Anshika Khullar (Illustrator)
Some of Us: A Story of Citizenship and the United States by Rajani Larocca (Author) and Huy Voun Lee (Illustrator)
Clamor: How Noise Took Over the World and How We Can Take It Back by Chris Berdik
Fathoms: A Seaside Monster Murder Mystery Novel by KJ McQuade
Empty Vessel: The Story of the Global Economy in One Barge by Ian Kumekawa
The Battle for Boston: How Mayor Ray Flynn and Community Organizers Fought Racism and Downtown Power Brokers by Don Gillis
Romantic Friction by Lori Gold
What Comes After by Katie Bayerl
The Lilac People by Milo Todd
Hidden in Plain Sight: A Family Memoir and the Untold Story of the Holocaust in Serbia by Julie Brill
The Barking Puppy by Lori Lobenstine
Listening and Speaking: New and Selected Stories by Ellen Wilbur
A Perfect Turmoil: Walter E. Fernald and the Struggle to Care for America's Disabled by Alex Green
Meaningful Work: How to Ignite Passion and Performance in Every Employee by Wes Adams and Tamara Myles
Rabbit Moon by Jennifer Haigh
When Mommy Grows Up: Finding Career Clarity While Covered in Kids by Becca Carnahan
The Confines: Stories by Anu Kandikuppa
13 Ways to Say Goodbye by Kate Fussner
Beansprout by Sarah Lynne Reul
Optional Practical Training by Shubha Sunder
The Butterfly Trap by Clea Simon
Trespassers and Other Stories by Áine Greaney
Mothers and Other Fictional Characters: A Memoir in Essays by Nicole Graev Lipson
The Cost of Fear: Why Most Safety Advice Is Sexist and How We Can Stop Gender-Based Violence by Meg Stone
We Would Never by Tova Mirvis
After Lives: On Biography and the Mysteries of the Human Heart by Megan Marshall
Considering Us by Jenn Bouchard
Who I Always Was: A Memoir by Theresa Okokon
A Slant of Light by Kathryn Lasky
Louie on the Rocks by Meredith O'Brien
Bookstore Romance: Love Speaks Volumes by Judith Rosen
Triggered To Change: A Life Full of Turbulence by John Carter
The Snips: A Bad Buzz Day by Raúl The Third
At Dark, I Become Loathsome by Eric Larocca
The Oligarch's Daughter by Joseph Finder
Talk: The Science of Conversation and the Art of Being Ourselves by Alison Wood Brooks
I Say the Sky: Poems by Nadia Colburn
The Christmas Tree Shops: Don't You Just Love a Bargain? by Anthony M. Sammarco
All the Love Under the Vast Sky Edited by Kip Wilson
Three Leaves, Three Roots: Poems on the Haiti-Congo Story by Danielle Legros Georges
Single Player by Tara Tai
Galumptious Daisy And the Seven Spirits to Save the World by Ryan C Curtis
Damaged Goods by Paul Scheufele
Bookstores
Boston is full of great independent bookstores, and we added a few more to our ranks: Molly’s Bookstore opened a new location in Allston; Moon and Back Bookstore opened in Medford; and Turtle Books opened in Brookline.
Bookstores that celebrated their one year anniversaries in 2025 were justBook-ish, Lovestruck Books, Next Chapter Books and More, Narrative Bookstore, Parkside Bookshop, and Side Quest Books & Games.
Big News Stories
Some of the big news stories of the year included:
Boston's New Poet Laureate Announced
Local Authors Launch Galiot Press
First Massachusetts Poet Laureate Announced
Ploughshares Announces New Editor-in-Chief
New Illustrated Children's Book Fellowship Created
GrubStreet Announces New Executive Director
The Associates of the BPL Announces New Executive Director
New TBR Conference Coming Jan. 2026
Inaugural Ashland Library Young Artists Comics Fest Launched
City Announces New Boston Reads Initiative
Cheers to a very literary 2025, and here’s to an even more literary 2026! If you’d like to stay up-to-date on what’s going on in the local literary community in 2026, subscribe to our newsletter or follow along on Instagram or Threads.
