A collection of rising voices

By The Books started as Mailchimp’s summer reading program, a long-standing partnership with the Decatur Book Festival. Each year, we’ve asked one of our favorite writers—Roxane Gay, Alexander Chee, Shea Serrano—to invite a diverse group of authors to the festival. Then, we’ve encouraged our employees—as well as everyone else in the world—to read, listen, and watch.

This year, the emerging authors who depend on book festivals and tours that were canceled due to the COVID-19 pandemic lost their chance to present their inspiring work to the world. We wanted to help, but helping would require evolving our reading program.

So that’s what we did.

This year, we’re hosting a virtual literary festival. It features books curated by Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman (Call Your Girlfriend, Big Friendship), essays edited by Ashley C. Ford, a series of documentaries, and a new Mailchimp original podcast in partnership with our friends at the Longform Podcast. We’re excited to support the independent literature community and engage with a stunning collection of stories that deserve to be told. And we’re glad you’ve joined us.