2nd Black Cat Book Fair
August 22 & 23, 2026
First Church of Belfast (8 Court St.)
Belfast, Maine
https://blackcatbookfair.noblogs.org/
The second ever Black Cat Book Fair will be taking place August 22–23, 2026 on Penobscot Land/Belfast, ME.
This year will involve two days of tabling at the First Church of Belfast, ME. Saturday will feature scheduled talks at nearby locations in Downtown Belfast. Sunday will include loosely structured gathering time on site (e.g., a picnic? TBA shortly).
2026 schedule coming soon! Two days of books, radical community and “fun”
The space is ADA accessible and has wifi but is not air conditioned and can get warm. There will be open windows and box fans.
We have a list of local housing offers and spots for camping. Please let us know if are interested.
Participants
Want to volunteer?
The Black Cat Book Fair is organized by an all-volunteer core collective. During the event we rely on a broader team of community members to make it all possible.Possible roles for volunteers include: childcare*, audio and tech support, kitchen coven, vendor support, panel/workshop support, accessibility, first aid*, community care space, set up and clean up, BCBF merch sales, welcome zone, and more.
INTERESTED? Fill out this secure Cryptpad form (clickable link in bio) and we’ll be in touch: https://tinyurl.com/BCBFvolunteer
* Some roles may require independent certifications.
Vendors
ArtesCamp Creations
Black Eyed Elma
Blackberry Books
Common Notions
Coyotesnout
Foghorn Magazine
hello hello books
HHoward Art
Isabella Rotman
Lamb’s Quarterly
Lank Press
Maggie Fiori
Maya Skylark
moonbats postershop
Orchid & Crow
Patchwork Art and Writing Mag
PM Press
Portland Dirt, The
Prison Authors Archive
radical emprints
Revoluciana
Sam Pao
SICK Magazine
Stone Broke Bread & Books
Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness
xxVenisonKissesxx
Community Projects & Organizations
Midcoast Maine Green Burial
Out in the Open
Pine Tree Legal
Wild Blueberry Collective
2025 Participants: https://blackcatbookfair.noblogs.org/participants/2025-participants/
WHO WE ARE
We are an anti-racist, anti-imperialist, anti-fascist, and anti-capitalist autonomous group of individuals. The space that we have created here centers a lot of “anti’s.” We present these anti’s as a signal of our divestment from the oppressive existing systems, which shape so many of our lives. We gather without coercion and as a team who cares deeply for each other and for our broader community. We are coming to you from the bottom and from the left, seeking to leave “top-down” democracy in the past. We reject domination and hierarchy, valuing mutual aid and direct action that subverts a violent colonial empire. We embrace political pluralism and give a lot of fucks about you, no matter your ‘-isms’. We love love. When we collaborate to ensure our survival, joy, and wellbeing, the world is rosier and the fascists less powerful.
We’d like to welcome people interested in joining the organizing collective to be in touch with us, including and especially our BIPOC neighbors. The formation of the collective this year emerged from the Belfast Anarchist Book Club, and we failed to seek out collective members who weren’t white—this is something we wish to change. We are committed to investigating our whiteness and the implications of this on our behavior as community members.
Reach out to us via blackcatbookfair@proton.me for more. Our organizing model will feature a period of open meetings, when we welcome anyone considering participating in book fair planning, as well as a closed period, for collective member accountability and effective coordination.
Press for the 2025 book fair: “Across the world in cities big and small, groups of likeminded organizers join forces to throw radical book fairs. But to our knowledge, the new Black Cat Book Fair, taking place in Belfast on Aug. 23, is the smallest, most rural in North America — and the first in Maine.
For decades, this model of book fair has gathered writers and activists, artists, zine makers (and their corollary, zine ‘distros’), book publishers and newspapers, all with a leftist bent, to create a community space where radical values can be explored and ideas exchanged. We handful of organizers include writers, poets, farmers, booksellers, two kinds of mill workers (woolen and saw), artists, arborists, editors, boatbuilders, activists, musicians and one arts administrator — all avid readers — living in Waldo County. The idea of a book fair came to us in the dark of a February as a place we might gather with others who share both our anti-authoritarian ideals and love of books. We wanted this book fair to highlight what is unique to life in Midcoast Maine; what the struggles for equality look like here, a rural region with stark wealth disparities, food and housing insecurity; and the racial marginalization of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) folks in what journalist Samuel James calls ‘the deliberate creation of the whitest state in the nation,’ where there has been a sharp 50% increase in ICE arrests.
Also, we wanted to beat Portland to it.”
Read us in the Midcoast Villager, August 14, 2025
Get in Touch
Questions? Feedback? Concerns? Email us! blackcatbookfair@proton.me
@blackcatbookfair on Instagram
@blackcatbookfair.bsky.social on BlueskySubscribe for updates on future fairs and related events at lists.riseup.net. (Requires a riseup account, but it’s easy to make! Support movement technology.)