A new festival celebrating readers, writers and the stories they share is on its way to Columbus.

Emily Liner, owner of Friendly City Books, said the first Possumtown Book Festival is set for Aug. 24 at the Rosenzweig Arts Center. She said the festival will be an all-day event, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and will include a book bazaar, more than a dozen visiting authors, panel discussions, and more.

“This is just about celebrating the love of reading and giving people the chance to share their stories,” Liner told The Dispatch Thursday. “Mississippi is a state of writers. We know that no matter where you go in Mississippi, you can find someone that has written a great book.”

Liner said she came up with the idea to host a book festival in the city, instead of planning a series of smaller events throughout the summer.

It just made sense, she said, to host one “big blowout” that includes something for everyone, spanning all genres and all ages.

“Having something for everyone is what we always try to do at Friendly City Books,” Liner said. “We want anybody to be able to walk in and find a book that resonates with them. So we’re trying to take that same approach with the book festival. We’re hoping to have a wide range of genres represented, so everyone can find something that they love.”

Liner said the new Columbus-based festival is a partner with the state-wide Mississippi Book Festival, which is being held at the Capitol in Jackson on Sept. 14. By hosting a smaller festival in the Golden Triangle, Liner said she hopes to give those who cannot make it to the larger festival the chance to meet authors in person, and to give others a “small preview” of the larger festival just a few weeks later.

While Liner said there will be at least 12 featured authors at the festival, she did not share who those authors will be yet. But she did say other local authors are also invited to register for a booth at the festival, as a way to share their stories with the area.

“There are lots of people who have put their own personal stories in a book, and we want to give them the chance to share that with others,” Liner said. “And inspire more people to write, because every story deserves to be told and deserves to be heard.”

While the event is primarily geared toward book lovers, Liner said there will also be hands-on activities for children and crafts throughout the day, since the event is being held in the Rosenzweig Arts Center.

Salem Gibson, executive director of the Columbus Arts Council, said he is “very excited” to get to use the Rosenzweig Arts Center as the festival’s venue, keeping it downtown for everyone in Columbus to enjoy. The festival also gives the council the opportunity to highlight another form of art, he said.

“What a great way to celebrate a different art form – like writing, poetry – and expand on all these things we already do. We do a lot of three-dimensional (art), acting, music, and to be able to have that avenue too, just makes us feel good about what we’re doing.”

The whole event is free to the public, Liner said, as the event is being produced by the Friendly City Books Community Connection, a special project of the CREATE Foundation and sponsored by the Columbus-Lowndes Public Library, the Friends of the Library and the Columbus-Lowndes Convention and Visitors Bureau. The author panels are being funded by a grant from the Mississippi Humanities Council.

Liner said the festival also ties in with this year’s Community Read of the book “First Gen” by Alejandra Campoverdi, as the first 100 festival attendees will receive a free copy of the book that is being read by Mississippi University for Women students and city residents alike.

For more information on the festival and updates about authors that will be attending the event, follow Friendly City Books on Facebook.