BANGOR – A poetry stroll, readings and book signings, panel discussions and award presentations are among the highlights of the Bangor Book Festival, set for Columbus Day weekend, Oct. 5-7.

The festival, based downtown, will take place on a busy holiday weekend that also will feature downtown’s annual Octoberfest beer-tasting event, which takes place on Saturday, and a series of events marking the 70th anniversary of the deadly shootout between federal agents and 1930s gangster James Brady on Sunday.

“Downtown on that weekend will be fun,” said William “Bud” Knickerbocker, a planning officer for the city of Bangor.

Knickerbocker, who moved here in January 2006, took the lead in organizing the festival in January of this year because of the positive experiences he had working on a similar festival in Brattleboro, Vt.

The idea is to bring writers and readers together in a variety of public and commercial venues, including the several independent booksellers that make up downtown’s “Book Row,” Knickerbocker said.

“We want to challenge people to read something different,” he said in a recent interview. “Go out and read something out of your comfort zone. It just introduces you to a different thought process, different views. As a person, you broaden yourself.”

The festival also is a way to support authors and illustrators by providing them a new avenue for exposure.

There’s no cost to participate, but festival-goers may want to bring along some spending money so they can buy the works of featured writers and artists.

The festival kicks off Friday with book signings by Time of Wonder book award winners Kevin Hawkes and Michelle

Knudson at the Maine Discovery Museum and continues with a poetry stroll featuring readings and signings through downtown from 7 to 10 p.m.

Saturday and Sunday will feature panel discussions, readings and question-and-answer sessions.

Participants’ works will be available for purchase during book festival weekend, which is a first for the region – one and, Knickerbocker hopes will become an annual event.

The Bangor event has the help of more than a dozen volunteers and several financial supporters, including Stephen and Tabitha King, who aren’t appearing but who have given $10,000 toward the cost of the festival; the city of Bangor, which kicked in another $5,000 to help get the fledgling event off the ground; and donations from the Friends of Bangor Public Library and Down East Books.

The library has offered to serve as the book festival’s fiscal agent, said Barbara McDade, director of the Bangor Public Library and a festival organizer.

“We’ve always said we know that Bangor is a city of readers,” McDade said, adding that the library had been contemplating a book festival for years.

“We think it will be a wonderful time, and we’re obviously very supportive of downtown Bangor and independent book dealers. I just love authors,” she said.

The festival will feature authors from a mix of genres, ranging from fiction and nonfiction to children’s books to crime novels to poetry to fantasy and science fiction. Illustrators also will be part of the mix.

All the authors and artists, of national, regional and local renown, either live in Maine year-round or summer here.

They also have been previewed by organizing committee members.

“We don’t invite anybody we don’t read,” Knickerbocker quipped.

Participating authors and illustrators are: Christian Barter, Ted Bookey, Gerry Boyle, Kristen Britain, Ashley Bryan, Janet Chapman, Martha Tod Dudman, Kathleen Ellis, Christopher Fahy, Jay Franzel, Elizabeth Garber, Nancy Garden, Hank Garfield, Ardeana Hamlin, Kevin Hawkes, James Hetley, Hannah Holmes, Annaliese Jakimides, Michelle Knudsen, Sharon Lovejoy, Robin Merrill, L.A. Meyer, Eleanor Lincoln Morse, Gail Page, Sandy Phippen, Ed Rice, Rhea Cote Robbins, Anne Rivers Siddons, Allen Sockabasin, Melissa Sweet, Cynthia Thayer, Sarah L. Thomson and Cynthia Voigt. For more information, including a detailed schedule and biographical sketches of participating authors, visit the festival’s Web site at www.bangorbookfest.org.