Book lovers across southeast Wisconsin have a free, two-day literary gathering circled on the calendar for November 6 and 7: the 17th Annual Southeast Wisconsin Festival of Books, bringing more than 50 authors, 20 panel discussions and a keynote address from novelist Edward Underhill to the Waukesha area.
According to the Southeast Wisconsin Festival of Books, Underhill, author of The House of Now and Then, will deliver the Friday keynote, and the address is free and open to the public, per the festival's 2026 schedule of events. Underhill's novel is described on the author's own site as the story of a trans man in his thirties who rents a Cape Cod cottage for a lonely summer, only to find its magic bringing him visitors from the past, according to edward-underhill.com.
Saturday's programming is the heart of the festival, with four sessions comprising 20 panels and more than 50 authors, all free and open to the public, the festival's schedule notes. Beyond the panels, organizers are offering writing workshops, five writing contests spanning middle school through adult entrants, a writers' marketplace and book sales, according to the festival's own description of the event.
A Festival With Seventeen Years of History — and Some Fine Print to Sort Out
Festival materials describe the gathering as a free community event for readers and writers that has run for seventeen years, though one festival page separately describes the event as being in its 10th year while other official materials identify 2026 as the 17th annual festival — a discrepancy the dossier flags without resolving. Likewise, while the festival's 2026 schedule says more than 50 authors will take part, another festival page references more than 60 authors presenting; both figures come from the festival's own materials and the article does not pick one over the other.
Venue details carry a similar wrinkle. The 2026 schedule states plainly that all events take place at Carroll University, 100 North East Avenue in Waukesha, while a separate festival page describes the event as being held on the UWM at Waukesha campus. Readers planning to attend may want to confirm the location directly with festival organizers ahead of the November dates.
Writing Contests and Entry Deadlines Ahead of the Festival
Two of the festival's student writing contests carry deadlines in the weeks before the event. The Duane Stein Writing Contest, open to Wisconsin middle and high school students under 19, accepts original short stories of 2,500 words or fewer between September 1 and October 1, 2026, per the festival. Entries for the Century Fence Student Writing Contest are due by October 7, with an awards ceremony set for November 6 alongside the festival's opening events.
The festival describes itself as a free community-wide event organized by the UWM at Waukesha Foundation, according to its volunteer page. That framing underscores the event's roots as a grassroots literary gathering for the greater Waukesha community, even as its exact venue history remains part of the record that festival materials themselves present inconsistently.
For now, the headline draw remains Underhill's keynote appearance alongside the dozens of authors slated to take the stage across the festival's panel sessions, all under the banner of an event that, by its own account, has spent nearly two decades trying to bring readers and writers in southeast Wisconsin together for free.
