Local authors and ECW members share their best poems, stories and artwork in our biennial publication. We will have readings and a tour of our newly remodeled Library. It is an inviting space where you can read our books and learn about the history of Emerald Coast Writers.

Get ready to immerse yourself in a literary extravaganza like no other! Our festival, nestled in historic downtown Pensacola, is a haven for book enthusiasts of all ages. Join us for a day brimming with activities that celebrate the magic of storytelling and the written word.

Meet acclaimed authors and discover new literary treasures at our author signings and book vendor booths. Delve into the world of literature with free presentations by bestselling, regional, and international authors, offering insights and inspiration. Our Kids Area is for young imaginations, featuring activities such as writing your own poetry, crafting personalized bookmarks, and gathering around to hear captivating children's stories and readings from our youth authors. Unleash your creativity with our writing activities, book browsing, and interacting with authors from near and far.

With so much to explore and enjoy, Books By the Bay Festival promises a day filled with enchantment and literary delights. 

Join us and let your imagination set sail!

Hannah Kozak is an award-winning photographer and a former Hollywood stuntwoman who tells stories through her pictures. She creates psychological and autobiographical photographs. Her work has been exhibited widely from Berlin, to Málaga and Barcelona, Spain. Her subjects are the people and places that touch her emotionally. She has been photographing people and places for four decades. Photography has the power to heal and help us through difficult periods, something Hannah Kozak knows firsthand from personal experience.

Her book, “He Threw the Last Punch Too Hard,” tells the story of her mother, whose physical abuse by her boyfriend left her with permanent brain damage. Since 2009, Hannah has followed her harrowing journey, and this book is their story. A story that could inspire other women to leave an abusive relationship before it’s too late. Her solo show “Survivor: My Father’s Ghosts” retraced her father’s footsteps to the eight Nazi forced labor camps he survived, premiered at the Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust in 2018.

For nearly twenty-five years, Hannah’s work as a stuntwoman provided the opportunity to work with notable directors such as Michael Cimino, David Lynch, Mike Nichols, Tim Burton and Michael Bay.  She worked as a stunt double for celebrated stars like Cher, Angelina Jolie, Lara Flynn Boyle, and Isabella Rossellini.  On every set, Hannah took her camera to work, capturing candid, behind-the-scene pictures that penetrated the illusion of Hollywood magic.

Hannah has turned the camera on herself, her life, and her world. She continues to look for those things that feel honest and real, using her camera as a means of exploring feelings and emotions. After decades of standing in for someone else, she is now in control of her destiny and vision.

Join your fellow ECW members for the induction ceremony for Asia Samson, our new Poet Laureate of Northwest Florida. The event will take place Friday, March 22, 6:30-8:30 pm, at the Pensacola Museum of Art,  407 S Jefferson St, Pensacola, FL 32502.

Members can also meet many of our featured Books By the Bay Festival speakers.

This event is sponsored by ECW and Raven Cliffs Publishing.

Toby Dorr will join us in March. 

Toby Dorrdared the unthinkable. She broke a convicted murderer out of Lansing Correctional Facility. Since completing her time in Federal Prison, she has achieved two master’s degrees and rebuilt a broken life. Featured in the Wall Street Journal, Anderson Cooper, Brooke Baldwin, Inside Edition, The Atlantic, and Dateline, she is a regular guest on podcasts, including the nationally-ranked podcast Criminal. A screenplay of her story is in the works, and the Lifetime movie based on her story, Jailbreak Lovers, was released in July of 2022.

Through her memoir, Living with Conviction, Dorr takes readers through all the heart-pounding, tear-jerking, heartbreaking, eye-opening experiences that touch the most primal human need: the need to be significant. A fascinating prison tale, through the lens of love, inspires change.

Her story is a lesson in perspective. Instead of focusing on everything she lost, Dorr made a conscious choice to use her twenty-seven months in prison as a period to reflect on her life, heal emotional wounds, plot a course for the future, and embrace the sisterhood of women she encountered behind bars. Filled with drama, action, adventure, heartache, and redemption, Dorr bears her soul and tells a story of heartbreak, courage, grace, and transformation. And today, Dorr advocates for prison reform and reintegration programs.