Crystal Wilkinson is the author of the 2024 book, Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts. While she was in Columbia for the Unbound Book Festival, she visited KBIA’s Jessica Vaughn Martin and Nina Mukerjee Furstenau to do some cooking.

The Lit Crawl took Columbians and visitors alike on a literature-focused tour through Columbia on Thursday night, kicking off the Unbound Book Festival.

Laura Sims is the author of the 2019 novel Looker and the 2023 novel How Can I Help You, which is set in a library. She calls libraries an essential part of society.

In her new book Windfall, Erika Bolstad explores the unknown legacy of her great-grandmother Anna, her family’s forgotten oil property, and the implications of the oil industry on our culture and climate in the past century.

Alexandra Teague is an author, poet, and professor at the University of Idaho. In her new book, Spinning Tea Cups: A Mythical American Memoir , she addresses topics including mental illness, personal growth, and the complexity of families.

Taylor Byas, a poet with roots in the Southside of Chicago, recently debuted her first full-length poetry collection I Done Clicked My Heels Three Times, an award-winning tale about a Black woman’s journey into adulthood that pulls her away from her childhood home.

Jessica Pryde is a black reader, writer, and librarian in Tucson, Arizona, Her book Black Love Matters: Real Talk on Romance, Being Seen, and Happily Ever Afters is an intersectional essay anthology that celebrates and examines romance and romantic media through the lens of Black readers, writers, and cultural commentators.

Brian Turner is a poet, essayist and musician. Last year, he published three poetry books that explored love and loss. He will be on a panel of veteran writers at Unbound because of his previous work about his experience in the U.S. military.

Hetty Lui McKinnon is best known for her multi-layered cookbooks, the most recent one being Tenderheart: A Cookbook about Vegetables and Unbreakable Family Bonds. In this book, she explores the significance of vegetables in her upbringing and different ways to make the most out of vegetables in your kitchen.

The 2024 Unbound Book Festival is happening in Columbia, Missouri and will feature author Idra Novey on the "Found in Translation" panel. Novey’s latest novel, Take What You Need, explores the way art can address divides between family members... and between the nation.