PICKENS — This year’s annual Book and Author Fair sponsored by the Birchwood Center for Arts and Folklife in Pickens County will be held this Sunday, Oct. 23, from 2-5 p.m. in the Pinnacle Pavilion at Table Rock State Park.

Started by the Birchwood Center in 2004 to provide a free, no-fees venue for regional writers, the fair has become a major literary event in Upcountry Carolina’s border territory, where authors gather to meet each other and their readers and to sell and sign copies of their works. Admission is free and open to the public.

Authors producing many types of writing will be represented: novelists, poets, historians, journalists, memoirists, genealogists, cartoonists, writers of devotional and of children’s literature. Some authors who are also visual artists will have on hand samples of their small-format original works to sell. Writers from both Carolinas will be represented. Various authors will be featured in a program of brief readings from their works.

Among those who are scheduled to participate are Bill Aarnes, Piper Aheron, Claire Bateman, Beth Batson, Katherine Crawford, Kelly Durham, Elysabeth Eldering, John Fowler, Vera Gomez, Michael Helms, Frank Honeycutt, Jean Hunt, Sue Lile Inman, John Jeter, Tom Johnson, John Lane, Lee Lyons, Kate Salley Palmer, Anne Sheriff, John Snyder, Betsy Teter and Betty Young.

As not all of the authors will have access to charge-card equipment, shoppers are advised to bring checks or cash.

A spokesperson for Birchwood urged the public to come out “for a casual day in this beautiful park at the foot of Table Rock. Chat with authors, have them sign their books for you, listen to various ones read from their work or just enjoy relaxing and socializing in and around the park’s airy pavilion in this glorious corner of South Carolina.”

The park’s Cherokee Foothills Visitors Center is located off S.C. Highway 11 at 158 Ellison Lane in Pickens. The Pinnacle Pavilion is located across the highway and is accessed via the West Gate entrance.

For more information, call (828) 676-4331, (864) 414-2465 or (864) 224-9392.