2026
Bookmarks Festival of Books and Authors Bookmarks Festival of Books and Authors
Some book events are about looking for your next book, while others are about meeting the people who make those books possible. Bookmarks Festival of Books & Authors brings both together, creating a place where readers can meet writers, listen to their stories, and enjoy books with other people who love them. The festival has become the largest annual book festival in the Carolinas, welcoming more than 30,000 attendees each year and bringing together authors from different parts of the country.
The value of the festival comes from the simple connection between readers and authors. With talks, discussions, signings, and events for different ages, Bookmarks gives people a chance to experience books in a more personal way. The 2026 festival is also bringing well-known voices such as John Green for its opening keynote and Jodi Picoult for its closing keynote, giving readers even more reasons to come together around stories.
For Kravitz and Sons, being part of a celebration like this means more than simply putting books on display. It means giving our authors and their stories another chance to meet readers who may be looking for something new.
And speaking of stories worth discovering, The Church Planter by Dr. Clement Iyoha brings its own special idea to the festival. The book explores Iyoha’s journey from encountering Christ as a young boy to becoming an evangelist, worship leader, pastor, and church planter. It takes readers through real ministry experiences, lessons from the mission field, leadership, discipleship, worship, and the challenges of building churches that can continue helping people for years. As we take a closer look at the story, it is also the perfect time to learn about the man who spent more than two decades living the kind of ministry he now writes about.
A Life Built Around Faith and Service
There are moments in life when a person finds a purpose and decides to follow it, even when the road is not easy. Dr. Clement Iyoha began that journey at a young age and has since built a career around ministry, leadership, music, mentoring, and church planting. His official profile says he has spent more than 20 years in ministry and has served more than 100 conferences and churches, while his work has taken him across different nations and communities.
Iyoha’s work also reaches outside the church building. He is the Founder and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Grace For All Nations, a faith-based humanitarian organization established in 2019. The organization works on projects involving food, shelter, clean water, disaster relief, vulnerable children, human trafficking, prisoners, veterans, and people facing difficult situations. This part of his work shows another side of his idea of ministry, where helping people is not only about speaking to them but also about meeting real needs.
His career also includes music and public speaking. Before focusing more heavily on pastoral ministry, Iyoha was involved with the gospel group Victorious Voices and released a double album. He has also written other books, including Life, Faith and Purpose and The Dealmaker, giving him a growing body of work focused on faith, leadership, purpose, and personal growth. His newest book, The Church Planter, has also received attention through The Spotlight Network, where he discussed the story and the lessons behind his ministry journey.
Building More Than a Church
At the center of The Church Planter is the story of Dr. Clement Iyoha himself. This is a memoir, so readers are not simply being given a list of church planting steps. They are following a person who began with a childhood encounter with Christ and slowly moved toward a life of evangelism, worship, leadership, and church planting. His experiences become the main path through which the lessons in the book are shared.
The settings change as Iyoha’s ministry grows, moving across Nigeria and other parts of the world as he serves communities, trains leaders, and works to establish churches. The people around him also matter because church planting is never presented as something one person does alone. Pastors, leaders, believers, communities, and people searching for faith all have a role in the work. The book shows that building a church is not only about putting up a building. It is about building people, teaching them, helping them grow, and creating a community that can continue serving others.
One of the strongest lessons in the book is the idea of compassion before construction. Before thinking about buildings, programs, or numbers, ministry has to begin with people. Iyoha also talks about evangelism, discipleship, worship, leadership development, and creating ministries that can last beyond one generation. The book reminds readers that extraordinary work does not always begin with extraordinary people. Sometimes it starts with an ordinary person who is simply willing to answer the call and keep moving forward. The book’s message has also been described publicly as a call to faith, sacrifice, perseverance, and obedience.
A Story for Those Who Want to Serve
The Church Planter is more than a story about starting churches. It is about finding a purpose, helping people, developing leaders, and having enough faith to keep going when the work becomes difficult. For pastors, missionaries, ministry leaders, Bible students, and believers who want to understand what it takes to serve others, Dr. Clement Iyoha’s journey offers a personal look at the work behind the mission. If you have ever wondered what happens before a church becomes a community, this book gives you a chance to see that journey through the eyes of someone who has lived it.
