The South Dakota Festival of Books annually features more than 60 regional, national and international authors and publishing professionals. Over its 17-year history, the event has featured fiction authors Jane Smiley, Louise Erdrich, William Kent Krueger, and Tim O’Brien; children’s authors Gene Luen Yang and Kate DiCamillo; non-fiction authors Timothy Egan and Megan Phelps-Roper, and many more. The event is run by the South Dakota Humanities Council, a statewide non-profit whose sole purpose is to provide humanities programs for South Dakotans. As well as writing in various genres such as non-fiction, fiction, and poetry, Festival of Books authors explore various humanities disciplines including history, language, literature and much more.