The late children’s author Virginia Hamilton will be celebrated beginning next October with a planned annual literary festival in her name. The event is being coordinated by her son and writer Jaime Adoff. (Photo: YS News archives)
Virginia Hamilton Literary Festival planned for 2027
- Published: October 23, 2026
One of Yellow Springs’ most acclaimed and celebrated writers will have a homecoming of sorts next year: The late children’s author Virginia Hamilton will be honored with a literary festival in her name.
Set to take place Saturday, Oct. 16, 2027, at WYSO’s Union Schoolhouse, the inaugural Virginia Hamilton Literary Festival will be a day of children’s literature-focused programming.
The festival, intended to be an annual event, will feature talks with several renowned writers and illustrators, including Hamilton’s son and festival organizer, Jaime Adoff; vendors and purveyors of literature near and far; and the presentation of the Virginia Hamilton Emerging Author Award to four local students.
The event’s fiscal sponsor is the Yellow Springs Community Foundation.
While it’s still in the planning phases — being a year out — the festival will be an event for all ages, Adoff told the News in a recent interview — not just older writers of children’s literature, but young readers themselves.
“We’re working to make something that will appeal to everyone: librarians, book lovers, educators and even tourists that happen to come to town that day,” Adoff said. “I want this to be appealing to everyone — something that honors my mom’s legacy, but also to honor the new and diverse voices and the local connections.”
Villager Jaime Adoff holds aloft his forthcoming publication, “Violet and the Frost King: A Modern Adaptation of Louisa May Alcott’s ‘The Frost King’” — a children’s book that his late mother and renowned author, Virginia Hamilton, wasn’t able to publish before her death in 2002. The book will be released early next year — just months ahead of the inaugural Virginia Hamilton Literary Festival in October. Adoff stands in front of the YS News building which features a mural inspired by Hamilton’s 1985 collection of folktales, “The People Could Fly.” (Photo by Reilly Dixon)
Hamilton, who grew up on a farm in Yellow Springs, was an award-winning writer who published 41 children’s books across multiple genres, including picture books, folktales, mysteries, science fiction, realistic novels and biography — though, she referred to her work as “liberation literature,” an exploration of memory, tradition and generational lines in the lives of Black people. Hamilton was the first Black woman to win the Newberry Medal and, later, the Hans Christian Andersen Medal, and then the MacArthur Fellowship “genius award.”
Next year’s festival will mark 25 years since her death in 2002.
Another purposeful synchronicity: The festival’s location in the Union Schoolhouse is where Hamilton attended elementary school beginning in the 1940s.
In addition to his appreciation of WYSO for hosting the event, Adoff said he’s been grateful for other collaborative forces in town helping to make the festival a reality. He named his longtime friend and local architect Max Crome, who designed the remodeled schoolhouse, Jeannamarie Cox and the Yellow Springs Community Foundation, as well as local resident and comedian Dave Chappelle, all as inspirations.
“I think there’s this big renaissance going on in Yellow Springs right now,” Adoff said. “I was taking a walk on the bike path one morning, thinking about everything that’s been going on in town, and suddenly it clicked. I thought, with all the incredible writers we have and had in town, ‘Why don’t we have a festival to celebrate them all?’ I think this really fills a void.”
One of those voids came from northeastern Ohio. From 1985 until 2024, Kent State University hosted the Virginia Hamilton Conference on Multicultural Literature for Youth — the longest-running event in the country dedicated to children’s literature, until its dissolution.
Adoff was involved in some facets of the conference over the years, but relished the opportunity to remake an event centered around his mother’s literary legacy — one beyond the academy and open to the public, and geared more toward answering the calls of the political moment.
“I get my middle name from my great-grandfather, Levi Perry, who was born enslaved and brought over here through Virginia — my mother’s name,” Adoff said. “I have this history, but in putting something like this together, I don’t have to look very far for my motivation — look at the current [presidential] administration. There’s this real sense of urgency right now.”
He continued: “We’ve always lived in a country that has barriers and racial inequality and prejudice and racism and all of those things — it ebbs and flows, but it always warrants a response. Is it the end of democracy? I don’t know, but if you’re going to do something, do it now. If you’re going to have a festival, do it while you can.”
The News will provide additional updates on next year’s inaugural Virginia Hamilton Literary Festival closer to the date: Saturday, Oct. 16, 2027.
The event’s fiscal sponsor is the Yellow Springs Community Foundation.
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