Thank you to everyone who attended the 2024 WIT: Words, Ideas, and Thinkers Literary Festival! We hope you enjoyed the eight thought-provoking sessions that explored this year’s theme, The Power of Words: Why Writers Matter. It was a joy to share such meaningful conversations with all of you.

If you were inspired by the Festival, please consider making a donation in support of the WIT Literary Festival and the Authors Guild Foundation’s work.

If you are interested in a partnership or sponsorship opportunity for the 2025 Festival, please contact Deborah Wilson, executive director of the Authors Guild Foundation, at dwilson@authorsguildfoundation.org or Bernard Schwartz, executive producer of literary programming, at bschwartz@authorsguildfoundation.org.

​​​​​​​The 2024 WIT Festival featured a special lineup of conversations with outstanding novelists, playwrights, journalists, translators, poets, critics, historians, and essayists including:

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Special thanks to our partners and sponsors

Epic Sponsor

Cromwell Harbor Foundation

Novel Sponsors

Randy Grimmett & Allison Smith’s Stonover Farm — Mary Mott & Gordon Simmering — Jeryl & Steve Oristaglio — Hunter K. Runnette & Mark P. VandenBosch

Anthology Sponsor

Hawthornden Foundation 

Biography Sponsors

Joanne Leonhardt Cassullo — Roaring Brook Family Foundation

Memoir Sponsors

Marie Arana & Jonathan Yardley — Patrick Atkinson — Pier Boutin, MD — Marcia Z. Feuer — Walter & Gerry Fiederowicz — Ann & Peter Herbst — Elizabeth R. Hilpman –Valerie Ann Hyman & Allen I. Hyman, MD — Taryn & Mark Leavitt — Ann & Peter Lombard — Hans & Kate Morris — October Mountain Financial Advisors — Laura Pedersen — Amy Davidson Sorkin & David Sorkin — Wendy Strothman & John Bishop — Rachel Vail & Mitch Elkind — Louise Hartwell White

Partners

The Berkshire Eagle — Berkshire Magazine — Berkshire Mountain Bakery — BerkshireStyle — The Bookstore — Canyon Ranch — Chocolate Springs — Harper’s Magazine — Julia Kaplan Photography — Loeb’s Foodtown — Lenox Chamber of Commerce — Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center — Terry Holland Photography — The Red Lion Inn — The Town of Lenox — WJ Blueprint​​​​​​​

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2024 WIT Literary Festival Committee

Hunter K. Runnette, Committee Chair

Marie Arana
André Bernard
Richard Thompson Ford
Taryn Leavitt
Ann Lombard
Laura Pedersen
Roxana Robinson
Allison Smith
Wendy Strothman