Collaboration, community and love for the written word were celebrated at the 2025 Southern Festival of Books, presented by Vanderbilt University in partnership with Humanities Tennessee Oct. 18–19 in downtown Nashville. The free event, the 37th in festival history, brought hundreds of prominent national authors together in dialogue with fellow writers, readers and thousands of Middle Tennesseans. It also marked the first year of an expanded partnership between the festival and Vanderbilt, evidence of the university’s deepening investment in the cultural fabric of the region.