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It's two days from now, September 26. Do you know where John Irving is?
The answer, naturally, is the National Book Festival, the literary-themed event that spreads across the National Mall each fall. Though Laura Bush founded the event back in 2001, the festival continues, with appearances scheduled this year with everyone from John Grisham to Jodi Picoult.
The author selection tends to be a mix of well-known writers, nostalgia-inducing teen and childrens' authors, and celebrities who have happened to write a book recently. This year is no exception. Among the slated attendees: teen writers Lois Lowry and Judy Blume; frequent young fantasy collaborators Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi (The Spiderwick Chronicles); popular paperback authors Nicholas Sparks, David Baldacci and James Patterson; documentary filmmaker Ken Burns; locally-grown George Pelecanos; butter apologist Paula Deen; poet laureate Kay Ryan; Junot Diaz of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao fame; and tons more. Here's the full list.
Authors usually give a brief talk and also do book signings (not necessarily at the same time). Popular authors can command quite a line for the latter, though the lack of Neil Gaiman's presence this year might thin out the goth-tastic crowd a bit. There's also some fun activities for kids, and you can always get your picture taken with the PBS sloth Snook (yeah, I didn't know he existed either) or the Magic School Bus. Books by the featured authors are on sale at the event as well.
The festival's getting a bit more high-tech this year – they're encouraging people to Tweet about their favorite authors, doing text-message alerts, boasting a mobile-friendly web site, and more, according to their blog. And Heather Goss would never forgive me if I didn't mention their Flickr page – they're doing a little Flickr meet-up, too, encouraging members to check in at the Library of Congress pavilion.
Most of the talks are scheduled between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m.
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Wait, a REAL sloth?
This has been on my calendar for awhile - very excited to see Judy Blume and Lois Lowry.
A tribute to Blume: I must, I must, I must increase my bust!
at least there's some positive legacy from the bush era.
You say that like B.O.'s Socialism is working out great.
no, randy, i didn't say a thing about obama. don't try reading between the lines when there's only one line there.
You have yours, and I have mine.
Like those who didn't get invited to the National Book Festival, I am a new author who has written a very good book called Billion Dollar Winner. My book tells the story of a community activist who was the biggest protestor against the lottery games. A new lottery Lotto-50 comes into being and the prize gets to be worth one billion dollars and she comes to possess the winning ticket. All of Chicago gets upset when they find out it was she who won. You can read the prologue to the book at www.billiondollarwinner.blogspot.com. The book is available at amazon.com.