Book lovers rejoice! There is a festival just for you happening March 23 in downtown Pensacola.

Books By the Bay is an outdoor book festival that will highlight more than 50 authors, live performances, children's activities, readings, panel discussions and author signings. Exhibitors and author booths will be located at Museum Plaza, while panelists and speakers will be in the Voices Multicultural Center and the Bowden Building (120 Church St.). Additional authors will be selling and signing books under a massive tent on Museum Plaza.

This festival is for book lovers of all ages. The featured speaker, John Patrick Green is a graphic novelist and illustrator of the popular middle-grade series "InvestiGATOR." Green's talk, titled "The Life of a Graphic Novelist" may even inspire young aspiring graphic novelists. Catch his talk at 11 a.m. in the Voices Theater and will be singing and selling books all day.

The festival kicks off at 10 a.m. with a haiku slam organized by Asia Samson, a nationally recognized spoken word poet. Participants will face off with their best three-liners on the main stage. Samson and The Asia Project, the award-winning college poetry act, will take the stage at noon. Also appearing on the main stage will be The African American Heritage Society of Pensacola Readers' Ensemble reading from "When Black Folks Was Colored."

Bring the family or your book-loving pals to Pensacola for a day of free activities. The fun kicks off at 10 a.m., March 23, and ends at 4 p.m. For more information, and a list of authors and speakers, visit www.emeralcoastwritersinc.org or visit the Books By the Bay Facebook page.