Bestselling Author John Green to Open 2026 Bookmarks Festival at Wake Forest's Wait Chapel

John Green will take the stage at Wake Forest University's 2,250-seat Wait Chapel on Sept. 25, 2026, to open the Bookmarks Festival, bringing one of contemporary young-adult literature's biggest audiences to Winston-Salem. For Bookmarks, the keynote is a marquee test of how a downtown literary nonprofit can use a campus partnership to draw national attention while preserving the broad public access that has long defined the festival.

Wait Chapel, the first building constructed on Wake Forest's Reynolda campus in 1956, serves as the university's spiritual center and focal point. It has hosted presidential debates in 1988 and 2000, as well as appearances by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., President Jimmy Carter, Maya Angelou and Hillary Clinton. That historic profile gives Bookmarks institutional scale its downtown footprint cannot match.

Green brings a national readership to that stage. His books have 50 million copies in print worldwide, while The Fault in Our Stars alone has sold more than 23 million copies. The novel spent 43 weeks at No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list and more than two years in the top 10. His keynote represents the caliber of national literary figure that established North Carolina festival cities like Asheville and Chapel Hill typically attract.

Bookmarks, a literary arts nonprofit and independent bookstore at 634 W. Fourth St. in downtown Winston-Salem, was founded in 2000 by the Junior League of Winston-Salem and became an independent 501(c)(3) in 2006. The first Bookmarks Festival was held in 2004 at Old Salem, with notable authors including Maya Angelou and Michael Chabon. Today the organization offers year-round programming averaging 10 to 20 events monthly, supports more than 90 book clubs, and hosts author events in its Bookmarks Presents series that have drawn crowds of 500 or more.

The festival's growth trajectory has been deliberate. The 2024 Bookmarks Festival drew an estimated 16,000 attendees; the 2025 edition drew approximately 20,000 over four days. Described as the largest free book festival in the Carolinas, it draws approximately 50 to 60 authors annually. Landing John Green in 2026 caps more than two decades of infrastructure-building that began with Angelou at Old Salem and now leverages Wake Forest's institutional resources.

The festival structure pairs ticketed keynotes at Wait Chapel with free Saturday programming downtown on Sept. 26, 2026, creating both revenue-generating prestige events and barrier-free community access. Jodi Picoult will close the weekend as the keynote speaker on Sunday, Sept. 27, at Wait Chapel, in conversation with Virginia Evans.

Beyond the festival weekend, Bookmarks' Authors in Schools program visits approximately 70 schools annually, and its Book Build program has donated 25,000 books to schools and libraries. Wake Forest students, faculty and staff gain front-door access to nationally prominent authors through the campus partnership, while Bookmarks' year-round programming extends literary capital into the broader community.

The Green-Picoult bookend keynotes at Wait Chapel signal that Winston-Salem can now compete for the same tier of authors that established festival markets attract. The Bookmarks–Wake Forest partnership reframes the city's regional identity, leveraging homegrown nonprofit infrastructure and anchor-institution resources to stake Winston-Salem's claim as a literary destination alongside Asheville and Chapel Hill.