Bainbridge will host the 2008 Georgia Literary Festival Oct. 25 at the Charles H. Kirbo Regional Center at Bainbridge College. The state festival is expected to attract writers from throughout Georgia, Alabama and Florida.

"The College is delighted to have the Kirbo Center as the site of the festival this year," said Bainbridge College President Dr. Tom Wilkerson.

This year is the 10th anniversary of the statewide festival that began in 1999 as the Eatonton Literary Festival. This is also the first year it will be hosted in South Georgia, having previously been in Sparta, Madison, Columbus, Elberton, Macon and Blue Ridge.

The Georgia Literary Festival celebrates the work of writers from across the state, and this year's event will honor Blakely native Jay Barbree and Caroline Miller, whose award in 1934 made her the first Georgia writer to win a Pulitzer Prize. They join previous honorees who include such notables as Alice Walker, Terry Kay, Raymond Andrews, Flannery O'Connor and Joel Chandler Harris.

Other writers participating in the 2008 festival are Glynn Marsh Alam of Tallahassee, FL, Mary Kay Andrews of Avondale Estates, Philip Beidler of Tuscaloosa, AL, Doug Blackmon of Atlanta, who is 16th on the New York Times Bestseller List, Valerie Boyd of Stone Mountain, Jamie Brannon of Donalsonville, Janice Daugharty of Stockton, Bobby Dews of Edison, Frye Gaillard of Mobile, AL, Nadeen Green of Smyrna, Wynton Hall of Bainbridge, James Kimbrell of Tallahassee, FL, Claire Matturo of Cairo, Jack McDevitt of Brunswick, Sonny Sammons of Shellman, Michael P. White of Atlanta, and Dana Wildsmith of Bethlehem.

Co-sponsors of the festival are the Georgia Center for the Book, Georgia Humanities Council, Bainbridge College Foundation, and Decatur County-Gilbert H. Gragg Library Foundation.

Co-chairs Susan Ralph, director of the Bainbridge College Library, and Catherine Vanstone, assistant director for technology, training, and development of the Southwest Georgia Regional Library System, have planned something for everyone with lectures, panel discussions, a poetry workshop, readings, performances, autograph sessions, and children's activities.