Thank you to all who attended the Angers Literary Festival on May 24, 2025!
Whether you’re a book lover, a curious thinker, or someone passionate about the future of climate change, identity, politics, and culture, this festival invited you explore the possibilities ahead—because now, more than ever, we need uplifting stories to tell ourselves and our children.
The de Groot Foundation believes free speech and civil discourse are essential tools for exploring the defining issues of our times. To that end, it was a delight to sponsor the 2025 Angers Literary Festival.
Learn more about the event speakers:
Daniel Levin Becker is the author of Many Subtle Channels: In Praise of Potential Literature (Harvard UP, 2012) and What’s Good: Notes on Rap and Language (City Lights, 2022). He is also the translator of, among others, books by Laurent Mauvignier, Éric Chevillard, and Jakuta Alikavazovic. He is a founding editor of Fern Books and has been a member of the Oulipo since 2009. At the festival, he told us about Indivisible Cities, a project from the French literary collective Oulipo, and the role narratives play in advancing climate action.
Amanda Bankert, an Irish/American pastry chef trained at Cordon Bleu Paris, is the founder of France’s first artisanal donut shop, Boneshaker Donuts & Coffee. She’s a two-time cookbook author: Voilà Vegan (Penguin Random House, 2023) and Donuts, Café, and Good Vibes (Hachette, France, 2023). Amanda champions veganism not as a restrictive diet, but as an inclusive, indulgent lifestyle that simply excludes animal products. At the festival, she talked about how plant-led diets and food politics are changing and evolving in France and globally.
Amy Plum is an international bestselling author of young adult fiction. Her books are translated into thirteen languages. She has written supernatural romance (her Die For Me series), action-adventure faux-post-apocalyptic road trip (After the End duology), and psychological thriller (Dreamfall duology). Amy grew up in Birmingham, Alabama before venturing further afield to Chicago, Paris, London and New York. An art historian by training, she lives in Paris with her two children and black Labrador Oberon. At the festival, she delved into the evolution of diversity, inclusivity, and identity in young adult fiction.
Kristina Kearns Kristina Kearns is an award-winning publisher and literary arts nonprofit consultant. She is co-founder and publisher of Fern Books, a small press that publishes contemporary French literature in translation. She is also the former operations director of Fitzcarraldo Editions, executive and editorial director of McSweeney’s, founding director of the McSweeney’s Literary Arts Fund, executive director of the arts festival and artist residency Twenty Summers, and founder and director of Ourshelves Lending Library, the last of which raised dues and donations to establish cost-free libraries and literary programming in San Francisco shelters. At the festival, she explored the reality that even though only a narrow group of people can get published, the opportunity to experiment is more accessible than ever before.
Barbara Diggs is a Washington, DC native and long-time resident of France. A former corporate attorney, Barbara has written several nonfiction books for adolescents on a range of topics, from history to social justice to racial bias. Her fiction has appeared in numerous literary journals, including SmokeLong Quarterly, Fractured Lit, Emerge Literary Journal, Funicular Magazine, and Your Impossible Voice. Her stories have also won The Bridport Prize and the Bath Flash Fiction Award and placed as finalists in competitions such as the Craft Literary Flash Prose Prize, the SmokeLong Quarterly Grand Micro, and the Best of the Net. At the festival, she shared how the history of Civil Rights era marches, boycotts, and strikes could continue to shape our politics in the present and future.
Erin Ogunkeye grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia but has spent more time living in Paris than in any other city. She studied French law before realizing she wanted to feel a closer connection to the rest of the world by following, relaying, and breaking down current events. She is an anchor at France 24 and presents Live From Paris in the mornings. At the festival, she helped lead the day.
Learn more at ellia.org