LBF News & Happenings - Halloween at the Book Festival: horror, costume contests, more

Horror, hauntings, and more: Halloween at the Louisiana Book Festival

This year’s Louisiana Book Festival turns the State Library into a haven for readers who like their fiction haunted. The Horror, Fantasy, and the Supernatural track runs a full slate of panels on Halloween day, including the following:

Demons of Our Own Making: Southern Gothic Hauntings and Family Secrets, bringing together David Armand (Walk the Night: A Novel) and Emily Carpenter (A Spell for Saints and Sinners: A Novel), with Karen E.B. Elliott moderating. The pairing leans into the gothic tradition of secrets that refuse to stay buried. 9:30 a.m. in the Capitol View Room.

Ghosts and Other Hauntings: Grief, Rage, and Reckoning, featuring Kim Fu (The Valley of Vengeful Ghosts) and Jennifer Murphy (The Ghost Women), moderated by Serena Puang. As the title promises, these are hauntings powered by emotion as much as by the supernatural. 10:30 a.m. in the Capitol View Room.

The afternoon moves to the fifth-floor Serials area for two horror-forward panels. Unholy Hell: Horror Novels of Cult Indoctrination, Fanatical Devotion, and Twisted Faith begins at 12:15 p.m., with Kevin Johnson (’Twas the Night) and Bethany C. Morrow (The Body), moderated by Megan Holt. At 1:15 p.m., Into the Woods: Horror Novels of Monsters, Secrets, and Survival brings Luke Larkin (The Unheld) and Carrie Lee South (In the Woods They Wait) together with moderator June Pulliam.

The track closes on an iconic note. At 2:30 p.m. on the State Library’s third floor, the Festival’s One Book, One Festival selection takes the spotlight with a discussion of Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire, led by Gary Richards - a fitting Louisiana anchor for a day spent in the shadows.

Every session is free and open to the public. See the full Horror, Fantasy, and the Supernatural lineup at LouisianaBookFestival.org.

Youth Halloween costume contests!

The Louisiana Book Festival falls on Halloween this year, and in addition to a focus on the scary and supernatural, we'll be recognizing children, tweens, and teens attending in costume with a couple of contests with great prizes and special guest judges!

Children's Costume Contest
1:00 pm, Young Readers Pavilion in front of State Library

Tweens/Teens Costume Contest
3:00 p.m., Front Lobby, Iberville Building

Prizes will include gift certificates to Cavalier House Books, LBF totes with goodies, and more!

Beyond the Stars: A Sci-Fi finale to a day of dark fiction

The “Horror, Fantasy, and the Supernatural” track reaches for the cosmos in its late-afternoon session. Beyond the Stars: Sci-Fi Novels of Cosmic Horror, Ancient Magic, Evil Empires, and Survival pairs two Louisiana-connected writers whose novels push science fiction toward dread, myth, and empire. A.E. Rooks moderates.

Brian Fontenot's Seraphim Descent is a blend of deep-space adventure and cosmic horror. When an impossible green star appears a single light-year from Earth, a war veteran is pulled from a quiet life and forced aboard a warship bound for the anomaly. Its crew of mystics, machines, and monsters must cross a lightless dimension where the laws of physics give way, and what waits at the star turns out to be something ancient, awakening, and far larger than humanity’s understanding of the universe.

Yoon Ha Lee's Code and Codex is a space opera set in a star-spanning empire called the Censorate, where only the ruling power’s reality-bending language is permitted and all others are hunted down and erased. At its center are a ruler who can see through anyone’s eyes and command anyone who understands her speech, a reluctant linguist tasked with destroying forbidden texts, and a thousand-year prisoner whose gaze alone once wrecked a fleet. The novel turns questions of language, memory, and control into the engine of its conflict.

Beyond the Stars: Sci-Fi Novels of Cosmic Horror, Ancient Magic, Evil Empires, and Survival: 2:15-3:00 pm, State Library, 5th floor Serials area.

More featured authors and titles at LBF 2026

Over 230 featured authors and presenters have been confirmed for the 2026 Louisiana Book Festival, and we’ve highlighted some of them here. Check out the full list of featured authors and books at LouisianaBookFestival.org.