Angers Literary Festival 2025: Possible Futures

🎤 Learn About Our 2025 Featured Speakers

✨ Discover the Possible Futures program

✍️ Sign up for our newly added Writing Workshop on May 14th

Our future is full of more questions than answers right now. How can we protect our democracies?  How can we fight for human rights in a social media landscape filled with misinformation? How can we cope with climate change and ever-worsening wildfires, hurricanes, and droughts? Who should we listen to when deciding how to live ethically in response to today’s challenges? 

We have little precedent for how to answer questions like these. And all too often, when we turn to television or film, we find grim, stark, and dystopian portrayals of the future. 

That is why we need stories about other possible futures to tell ourselves and our children. At this year’s Angers Literary Festival, we will hear from six thinkers on this topic. Erin Ogunkeye will lead the day. Amanda Bankert will talk about how veganism and food politics are changing in France and globally. Amy Plum will delve into how inclusivity and identity in young adult fiction is continuing to grow and evolve. Daniel Levin Becker will tell us about Indivisible Cities, a project from the French literary collective Oulipo that created fictional representations of cities under climate pressure and the role narratives play in advancing climate action. Kristina Kearns will explore the reality that even though only a narrow group of people is able to get published, the opportunity to experiment is more accessible than ever before. And Barbara Diggs will share how the history of Civil Rights era marches, boycotts, and strikes could continue to shape our politics in the present and future. 

We hope you will join us for a day that will be filled with fascinating, illuminating, and hopeful discussions about our possible futures.

Local bookseller Le Mot de la Faim and Kristina Kearn's small press Fern will be on-site with a curated selection of titles from our featured authors—come meet the speakers, get your books signed, and take a piece of the festival home with you!

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

At a time when we are facing unprecedented attacks on our access to knowledge, libraries remain a safe habor for the free exchange of diverse voices and ideas.  We believe in the power of books and conversations to inspire and shape the future we'll share tomorrow.

We are honored that this year's festival is supported by The de Groot Foundation, which believes free speech and civil discourse are essential tools for exploring the defining issues of our times.