2021 Twin Cities Book Festival goes hybrid
Over the course of the pandemic, Rain Taxi’s aesthetically adventurous perspective helped us reflect on new ways we can champion writers, readers, and good books. Using all we learned during this time, we brought our biggest annual event to new heights with the 2021 hybrid festival!
Rain Taxi’s 2021 Twin Cities Book Festivaltook place not only in-person at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds, which thousands of readers visited, but also through virtual events in the weeks leading up to the live portion, bringing our signature events to readers from our backyard to places around the world!
- Our revamped live experience, which took place on Saturday, October 16th, offered bibliophiles all the joys of in-person browsing, meeting writers and publishers, and activities for readers age 1 to 101. With requirements of vaccination and masking, this was the safest and most joyous possible reunion of our community in a difficult year.
- Our enhanced virtual experience brought even more author conversations and happenings into the mix. Starting in September, audiences everywhere were able to tune in to Crowdcast for exciting virtual events leading up to the big day, engaging with amazing writers in every genre imaginable. for exciting virtual events leading up to the big day, engaging with amazing writers in every genre imaginable.
Check back here to find out what’ll be new in 2022!
Here’s what some of our authors said about our all-virtual #TCBF in 2020:
20 Years of Celebrating
Books & Book People
Rain Taxi’s Twin Cities Book Festival is the annual Minnesota gathering for readers, writers, publishers, and purveyors of all things literary. The TCBF features dozens of presenting authors, special children’s programs, and a wide variety of exhibitors featuring new and rare books, quirky literary curiosities, and more.
IT’S FREE! The TCBF is committed to being accessible to all, so we have never charged admission. Rain Taxi pays for the festival through individual donations, grant funding, and sponsors. Click here to help drive the TCBF →
The TCBF showcases an eclectic blend of world-renowned authors and prominent regional writers presenting side by side.
The TCBF features family-friendly programming for toddler, middle grade, and teen readers, with author panels, storytelling, and interactive activities.
Exhibitors make up the heart of our book fair, including publishers, authors, booksellers, literary organizations, and used book and vinyl dealers.
2020 will be the twentieth consecutive year that Rain Taxi has presented the Twin Cities Book Festival. Come celebrate with us!
History of the Festival
Rain Taxi launched the Twin Cities Book Festival in 2001 as a way to support readers, writers, publishers, and booksellers, as well as to engage the Twin Cities literary community in an exchange of ideas.
While writing and reading are usually solitary activities, the TCBF is a way to celebrate writing in community and acknowledge the social value of writing as an art form. Part of Rain Taxi’s mission is to call attention to the abundance and diversity of contemporary literature, and the Festival surely does that, while bringing pride to the Minneapolis-St. Paul area as a reading capital of the US.