Read and Resist Fest Returns to Northampton for Third Year
The outdoor festival will feature over thirty social justice organizations, vendors, workshops, and scheduled speakers at the Northampton publisher.
The Third Annual Read & Resist Fest will take place on Saturday, October 3, 2026, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Interlink Publishing, located at 46 Crosby Street in Northampton. Masking is required, with a rain date of October 4.
Interlink Publishing, the only Palestinian-owned book publisher in the United States, hosts the outdoor social justice and literary festival dedicated to what organizers call collective liberation. The festival features a book sale, more than twenty queer, trans, and/or BIPOC vendors, children's activities, workshops, teach-ins, music, and food. Attendees can screen print, tie-dye, write letters, and make zines.
The festival began in 2024 as a collaboration between local organizers and Interlink Publishing to create community space for education and organizing. The first year drew over five hundred attendees, and the second year grew larger with grant funding from the Northampton Arts Council and Interlink Foundation. This year will feature over thirty social justice organizations, including Western Mass Jewish Voice for Peace, Traprock Center for Peace and Justice, Demilitarize Western Mass, LUCE Immigrant Justice Network, Gaza Soup Kitchen, and others.
Organizers said they wanted to create a physical space where people who believe in social justice and collective liberation could come together, learn, and organize. "After the 2024 election, more people have realized that injustice and oppression have been happening right here in our communities," they stated. "It is more urgent than ever to come together and connect to work towards change."
The festival includes a scheduled lineup of authors, educators, and musicians. At 10 a.m., Songs of Liberation, a Boston-based protest folk band, will perform. At 11 a.m., Jacob Kramer will discuss his new book Wandermelon. At 1 p.m., journalist and author Rhonda Roumani will lead an Arabic music storytime with drummer Michel Moushabeck. Diana Sierra Becerra, a historian and professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, will speak at 2 p.m. about her book The Making of Revolutionary Feminism in El Salvador. At 3 p.m., author Harriet Malinowitz will discuss her book Selling Israel: Zionism, Propaganda, and the Uses of Hasbara.