Bookworms rejoice! It is almost time for the annual Texas Book Festival and the organizers have pulled out all of the stops for the 20th anniversary.
This year the festival will host more authors than ever before. In fact, 300 authors including headliners Margaret Atwood, Taye Diggs, Steve Inskeep, Daniel Handler, Chuck Palahniuk and Sandra Cisneros will all be in town for the October 17th and 18th book festival.
Cisneros is the only 2015 author that was present at the inaugural festival and the festival’s literary director, Steph Opitz told KUT she hopes that some of the unknown authors become household names like Cisneros.
“We’re reading these books and seeing these books before anyone in the public gets the chance to and our track record says that we make good decisions about picking emerging authors. Some of the authors that have debuted here have gone on to win National Book Awards and Pulitzers and we think the gambles we’re making will pay off again.”
The Texas Book Festival is one of the nation’s premier literary events and one of the longest-running book festivals in the country. The festival is free and open to the public and organizers predict that there will be approximately 40,000 attendees.
When asked how to make the most of the two days Opitz said, “I would think of the Texas Book Festival as you would any music festival. Pick your must sees and pop into as many other book signings, panels and readings as possible.”
This year’s standout themes include books about music, poetry and books for the youth, but Opitz says she thinks the number and quality of graphic novelist coming to town will blow many people away.
“I think this is an interesting year for graphic novelist. We have more books on creativity and authors that are using different forms to play around with print and design. We’re going to have some really cool people that are working in different mediums.”
The entire list of authors and their featured books is available online at www.texasbookfestival.org.
