Autumn is our busiest time of year, here at the F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Festival! We have multiple events and opportunities to share with you in today’s newsletter.
2026 Short Story Readings
6:30 pm on Thursday, October 8
Rockville Memorial Library – first floor meeting room
21 Maryland Ave.
Rockville, MD 20850
Mary Hopkins will be hosting this event in celebration of the winners of our Short Story Contests! Here are our winners:
Adult Winners
First Place: Leslie Spitz-Edson (“Fireflies“)
Finalists: Fiona J. Mackintosh (“Absent Without Leave“) and Marina Koestler Ruben (“Licking“)
Student Winners
First Place: Shriya Sharma (“Chanda Hain Tu“)
Finalists: Austin Stump Manning (“It All Started with the Little Blond Girl with Pigtails“) and Sebastian Ko (“The Detox“)
Read their wonderful stories here on our website. At this event, the winners of the Adult and Student contests will read their stories aloud.
William Campbell will be a featured speaker. Our Adult contest winner in 2022, Bill is a retired U.S. Army colonel, neurologist, award‑winning author, watercolor artist, and philanthropist, who currently resides in Richmond, Virginia. His creative writing began with short stories inspired by memorable patients from nearly five decades of neurology practice. His work has appeared in The Sherwood Forest Art and Literary Review, As You Were: The Military Review, Ink In Thirds, Five Minutes, and The Glint Literary Journal. His recent novel, Soldier for the Union, is a historically rich Civil War fiction set during General Grant’s Overland Campaign in 1864. The story blends war narrative with themes of courage, self‑sacrifice, and the hidden history of women who fought in the Civil War.
There’s no need to RSVP. We look forward to seeing you at the Rockville Memorial Library on Thursday evening for a celebration of great writing!
2026 Readings in Honor of the Winner of the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award
Friday, October 23, 7-8pm
The Writer’s Center
4508 Walsh St
Bethesda MD 20815
Join us for an evening of tributes to Tobias Wolff. The author himself will be present at this event! This event is co-sponsored by us and The Writer’s Center.
This literary event will feature multiple award-winning author Richard Bausch, award-winning novelist Varun Gauri, PEN/Faulkner winner Mahreen Sohail, and concluding remarks by Tobias Wolff.
This event is FREE and open to the public. RSVP is required here. This event often fills up, so reserve your spot now!
2026 F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Festival
Saturday, October 24, 8:30 am – 5:00 pm
Montgomery College, Science Building
51 Manakee St.
Rockville, MD 20850
Click here to access the Google map.
The premier festival dedicated to F. Scott Fitzgerald and contemporary literary luminaries, the F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Festival, was inaugurated in 1996 to commemorate the centenary of the iconic author’s birth. The festival unfolds in the very city – Rockville, Maryland – where Fitzgerald, along with his wife and daughter, rests in eternal repose. This vibrant event not only pays homage to the literary legacy of F. Scott Fitzgerald, but also celebrates the outstanding contributions of prominent American writers.
Beyond accolades, the festival is committed to nurturing, inspiring, and supporting aspiring and emerging writers, as well as students passionate about the literary arts. Evolving from its roots as a one-day affair, the festival has expanded to encompass enriching programs spread across three or four days. Proudly co-sponsored by the City of Rockville located in Montgomery County Maryland, and the F. Scott Fitzgerald Literary Conference, Inc., this literary extravaganza stands as a testament to the enduring impact of Fitzgerald’s work and the ongoing vitality of contemporary American literature.
This year’s winner of the F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Achievement in American Literature is Tobias Wolff. He will be our Festival Honoree, and Richard Bausch will be our Special Guest. The theme this year is “Growing Up Is Hard To Do . . “, in honor of Wolff’s bestselling memoir about his childhood.
Tobias Wolff is the author of the memoirs This Boy’s Life (1989) and In Pharaoh’s Army (1994), and he has also written novels and short story collections, including Our Story Begins: New and Selected Stories (2008). His novel The Barracks Thief (1984) won the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. He received a National Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama in September 2015. Wolff is the Ward W. and Priscilla B. Woods Professor of English, Emeritus, at Stanford, where he lives with his wife Catherine. They have three children and four grandchildren.
Richard Bausch is the author of thirteen novels, among which are Hello to the Cannibals (2002), Thanksgiving Night (2006), Peace (2008), Before, During, After (2014), and Playhouse (2023). His ten collections of short fiction include The Fireman’s Wife (1990), The Selected Stories of Richard Bausch, in The Modern Library (1996), The Stories of Richard Bausch (2003),Wives & Lovers: 3 Short Novels (2004), Something is Out There (2010),Living in The Weather of the World (2017) and, most recently, The Fate of Others (2025). His multiple honors include a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Award in Literature Academy of Arts and Letters, the Lila Wallace Reader’s Digest Writer’s Award, the 2004 PEN/Malamud Prize; the 2009 Dayton Literary Peace Prize for his novel, Peace; and the Rea Award for Achievement in the Art of Short Fiction. In addition, his work has been adapted for three full length feature films. He has been with the Writing Program of Chapman University in Orange, CA since 2012.
This year’s Keynote Speaker, Deborah Tannen, will present “Can We Talk: How Ways of Talking Can Make or Break Relationships.”
Participants in the festival can optionally register for a Writing Workshop with one or two of this year’s Writing Workshop Leaders: Margaret Talbot, Fred Bowen, Nate Brown, Ron Charles, Hannah Grieco, and E. Ethelbert Miller.
Participants can also optionally view the film This Boy’s Life and/or go on a bus tour of Fitzgerald’s haunts in Rockville.
Click here to learn more about the festival on our website.
We hope to see you there!
Thank You to All Who Applied to Our Open Job Position
We appreciate your applications. The position has been filled. This opportunity is closed.
