Santa Barbara Literary Festival

10/12/2026

Welcome … Tamika Thompson is author of The Curse of Hester Gardens. A former journalist and producer, she is also author of Unshod, Cackling, and Naked, which is the 2024 Next Generation Indie Book Awards Winner for Horror, as well as co-editor of Foreword INDIES Award-winning anthology, Graffiti. Her work has appeared in several speculative fiction anthologies as well as in Interzone, Andromeda Spaceways Magazine, Prairie Schooner, and The New York Times, among others. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she hosts her own blog and newsletter, Tamika Talks Terror. Visit her online at tamikathompson.com or on social media .

10/11/2026

Another rock star added to the team:

Summer is a second-year undergraduate student studying Writing & Literature in the College of Creative Studies at UC Santa Barbara. Minoring also in Feminist Studies and Professional Writing with an emphasis in Multimedia Communications, Summer’s work spans creative, research, and professional genres. Informed by her background in graphic design and photography—as well as her love of synthesizing the theoretical with the embodied—Summer works across written and visual modes.

Outside of SBLF, Summer is the Social Media and Web Editor for Spectrum Literary Journal, the Chair of the UCSB Associated Students Living History Project, and a Marketing Assistant for the independent record label Darla Records. Her creative work has been published in Bravura Literary Journal, WORD Isla Vista Arts & Culture Magazine, and The Catalyst Literary Arts Magazine, as well as on her Substack, .

10/10/2026

10/09/2026

Welcome to our board …

Sara DiVello is the author of Broadway Butterfly: A Thriller, and the creator/host of Mystery and Thriller Mavens, a popular author interview series streaming in collaboration with Murder by the Book, a woman-owned, independent bookstore. She serves as the co-chair of the Nantucket Book Festival, on the literary committee for Boston Book Festival, and curates and hosts the South End Library Author Series for the Boston Public Library.

She spent 14 years building and running PR and marketing programs for some of the world's largest companies before leaving the corporate world to become an author. Sara has appeared on CBS New York multiple times, as well as CBS Atlanta, and Good Day New York. Her books have been reviewed by the Associated Press, Vanity Fair, the Florida Sun Sentinel, The Montecito Journal, and more. Her articles have been published in numerous internationally known magazines including Marie Claire, Elle, Redbook, Cosmopolitan, and Woman’s Day.

Sara speaks internationally at events such as the San Miguel Writers Conference, Unbound Book Festival, LA Film Festival, Muse and the Marketplace Writers Conference, Chelsea Film Festival, Nantucket Book Festival, Boston Book Festival, MASS Women’s Conference, Women’s Global Leadership Summit, InBound, The GOOD Fest Philadelphia, Well Summit Brooklyn, and many more.

Sara graduated summa cm laude from Arcadia University, first in her department, was awarded the Communications Excellence Award, inducted into Phi Alpha Theta and Phi Kappa Phi, and was named an All American Scholar. Sara has lived in London and Australia. She is passionate about animal rescue, and loves to garden, cook, and read in her spare time. She's thrilled to join the board of the Santa Barbara Literary Festival and also serves on the boards of the Nantucket Book Foundation and the Friends of the South End Library.

10/08/2026

Welcome - Lynn Cullen’s nationally and internationally bestselling novels, including The Woman with the Cure, The Sisters of Summit Avenue, Twain’s End, Mrs. Poe, The Creation of Eve, Reign of Madness, and I am Rembrandt's Daughter, have been translated into seventeen languages and are the recipients of various honors, including NPR Great Read, an ALA Best Book of the Year, Oprah Book of the Week, People Magazine Book of the Week, Indie Next Selection, Georgia Author of the Year, and Atlanta Magazine Best of the Year. Her newest novel When We Were Brilliant, is about the collaboration of Marilyn Monroe with photographer Eve Arnold. She lives in Atlanta with her large family when not on the road researching her next book.

10/07/2026

The SBLF is a volunteer run nonprofit … join our team and make magic with us … register on the website …

10/07/2026

Win a pass and a virtual consult with a literary agent - so you can be anywhere in the world - apply on the website - ages 10-100+

10/06/2026

WELCOME
BACK - Megan Beatie is a veteran book publicist with almost 30 years of experience in publishing. As the president and CEO of Megan Beatie Communications (MBC), a book publicity and marketing agency based in Los Angeles, she has represented books by many bestselling authors, including Linda Ronstadt, Tess Gerritsen, Robert Dugoni, Lee Goldberg, Marcia Clark, Amina Akhtar, and Maureen Johnson. She’s a fifth generation native Californian from a Ventura County farming family.

10/03/2026

Welcome - Kathleen Carter is the founder and CEO of Kathleen Carter Communications (KCC), a literary publicity and marketing agency that creates and implements strategic and customized campaigns for authors and publishers. In her 20 years as a book publicist, Kathleen has executed campaigns for many high-profile and bestselling authors as well as for debut authors. Kathleen’s work spans many genres, with a specialization in historical fiction, book club fiction, mystery/thrillers, literary fiction, and a variety of non-fiction titles covering memoir, health, social issues, history, pop culture, parenting, relationships, food, and lifestyle. She also works on select Young Adult and children’s book campaigns. Kathleen graduated Phi Beta Kappa and summa cm laude from Fairfield University with a degree in English literature and art history. She lives in the New Jersey suburbs with her two kids.

10/02/2026

Welcome … Terrell J. A. Winder is Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, specializing in the study of race, gender, sexuality, and identity formation. He is the author of Shameless: The Making of Black Gay Identities in LA (New York University Press 2026). His scholarship sits at the intersection of Black studies, q***r studies, and urban sociology, with a particular emphasis on how marginalized communities navigate systems of stigma and inequality. He earned a BA in Comparative Ethnic Studies from Columbia University and his MA and PhD in Sociology from the University of California, Los Angeles.