The Possumtown Book Fest is adding more than 10 new award-winning authors and educators to the lineup for its inaugural event Aug. 24.

With this latest announcement, the Possumtown Book Fest is doubling the total number of featured speakers at panel sessions throughout the day.

The festival will run from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at Rosenzweig Arts Center, 501 Main St.

In addition to seven book discussions every hour and the morning children’s program, the festival will feature a master class for aspiring writers at noon delivered by Oxford-based author Tyriek White. His debut novel “We Are a Haunting” won The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize, and he was recently named a National Book Foundation “5 Under 35” honoree. Free lunch will be provided to attendees, and registration is encouraged at possumtownbookfest.com.

Newly announced speakers will contribute to panels covering a variety of topics and genres. Sarah Adlakha will be featured at the session on historical fiction. John G. Anderson will be part of a panel on his father Walter Anderson’s life and legacy moderated by Columbus native Berkley Hudson. Dean James, known as Miranda James by mystery readers, and Tracee Watkins, director of Mississippi University for Women’s Culinary Arts Institute, will serve as moderators for the panels on mystery books and Southern foodways, respectively.

Rooted Magazine Founder and Editor in Chief Lauren Rhoades will moderate a conversation about what it means to be a Mississippi writer between two Mississippi natives, Exodus Brownlow and C.T. Salazar, and two Mississippi transplants, Dr. Saddiq Dzukogi and Dr. Phillip “Pip” Gordon.

Three of the writers on the Rooted panel hold advanced degrees from Mississippi University for Women located in Columbus. Brownlow, Rhoades and Salazar all graduated from MUW’s Master of Fine Arts program in creative writing. Dzukogi and Gordon have come to Mississippi by virtue of their academic careers; Dzukogi is a faculty member at Mississippi State University while Gordon teaches at the University of Mississippi.

The Possumtown Book Fest is being organized by Friendly City Books and the Friendly City Books Community Connection, a special project of the CREATE Foundation. Sales of festival author books will be conducted on site by Friendly City Books.

The Mississippi Humanities Council provided a $7,500 grant to the Friendly City Books Community Connection to support the educational programming at the event. Generous support has also been furnished by the Columbus-Lowndes Public Library System, the Friends of the Library, the Columbus-Lowndes Convention and Visitors Bureau, and the Mississippi University for Women Foundation.

For more information about the Possumtown Book Fest, visit possumtownbookfest.com. The full schedule of panels and activities will be released on the festival website this week.