The Texas Book Festival Unveils Its List of Participating Authors
By Adrienne Hunter, September 22, 2021, 9:00am, All Over Creation
The Texas Book Festival, one of the largest literary festivals in the country, announced its lineup of more than 200 authors. The fest returns to Austin with a mix of virtual and in-person events over nine days starting on October 23 and is, as always, free and open to the public.
The page-turning celebration includes a slate of authors including Chandler Baker, Oscar Cásares, Ann Cleeves, Tamron Hall, Nathan Harris, Louis Menand, and Sam Quinones.
The in-person component of the festival includes an event at Symphony Square on Saturday, Oct. 30, complete with the annual lit crawl and children’s picture book authors sharing their tales with the tikes. The following day’s events move to the still relatively shiny Central Library for a handful of adult programming.
Among the presenters will be Chandler Baker, an Austin-based attorney and New York Times bestselling author of feminist thriller Whisper Network. She’ll present The Husbands, her much-anticipated follow-up.
Austinite Oscar Cásares (author of Brownsville) sits on a panel discussion of Nepantla Familias: An Anthology of Mexican American Literature on Families in Between Worlds. The anthology is a collection of essays, poems, and short stories from Mexican American authors, including Cásares.
Award-winning author Ann Cleves, known for the Vera and Shetland series, presents The Heron’s Cry, the next installment in her Two Rivers series. Cleaves boasts a long list of accomplishments including being a bestselling author, writing multiple series for TV, and having her work translated into 20 languages.
Presenting her debut novel, As the Wicked Watch, is Texan-born Tamron Hall, an Emmy award-winning journalist and TV host. The thriller follows a reporter unravelling the work of a Chicago serial killer.
Nathan Harris brings his debut novel, The Sweetness of Water to the fest. Harris is a Michener Center for Writers graduate, Kidd Prize recipient, and a finalist for the Tennessee Williams Fiction Prize. The historical novel received the coveted “O” insignia from Oprah herself.
Pulitzer Prize-winning author Louis Menand follows up his Metaphysical Club, with The Free World: Art and Thought in the Cold War, which sheds light on how American culture changed between World War II and the Vietnam War.
Among the sea of 200 participating authors will be Sam Quinones with The Least of Us: True Tales of America and Hope in the Time of Fentanyl and Meth. The journalist and award-winning author’s nonfiction narrative is a response to his New York Times bestseller, Dreamland.
For the younger readers (or YA at heart) there’s the 2021 Texas Teen Book Festival, taking place online on October 23 and 24. Presenters include Angeline Boulley, Benjamin Alire Sáenz, and Neal Shusterman.
The Texas Book Festival, which again is completely free to the public, is a nonprofit promoting the joys of reading and writing. Visit the website to see whether your favorite authors will be presenting online or in person.
Alphabetical Author List:
Jeff Abbott
Emmanuel Acho
Steve Adler
Rumaan Alam
Benjamin Alire Sáenz
Kendra Allen
Hala Alyan
Gloria Amescua
Kathi Appelt
Cristina Arreola
Kerri Arsenault
Elaine Ayala
Chandler Baker
Chris Barton
Kalynn Bayron
Rosebud Ben-Oni
Kate Biberdorf
Warren Binford
Kathy Blackwell
Bavu Blakes
Marc Bookman
Angeline Boulley
David Bowles
Andrew Bowman
H. W. Brands
Meghan P. Browne
Anneliese M. Bruner
Candace Buford
Bryan Burrough
Edward Carey
Oscar Cásares
Maurice Chammah
Paul Chaplo
Claudia Chidester
Henry Cisneros
Sandra Cisneros
Ellen Riojas Clark
Ann Cleeves
May Cobb
Paul Coggins
Sarah Coleman
Chrsitina Conklin
Rodrigo Corral
Marisol Cortez
Adrianna Cuevas
Logen Cure
Gregory Curtis
Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney
Steven Davis
Justin Deabler
Mike Duncan
Becky Duval Reese
J. Elle
Sarah Enelow-Snyder
Luke Epplin
Lauren Etter
David Everett
Hafsah Faizal
Saraciea J. Fennell
Wes Ferguson
Ted Flato
Carrie Fountain
Glenn Frankel
Mary Gaitskill
Gabriela Garcia
Cassy Joy Garcia
Michael Genhart
Amy Gentry
Alan Gratz
Ayana Gray
Sonia Gutiérrez
Clemente Guzman
Tamron Hall
Simon Han
Nathan Harris
Tracy Hart
Maria Hinojosa
K.A. Holt
Linda Huang
Priya Huq
Haven Iverson
Lee Jamison
Oliver Jeffers
David Johnson
Varian Johnson
Lorena Junco Margain
Jason June
Chip Kidd
Wesley King
Carey King
Max Krochmal
Anna Lembke
Cynthia Levinson
Laura Lewis
Darcie Little Badger
Margarita Longoria
Jennifer Lynn Barnes
Rupa Marya
Jennifer Mathieu
Courtney Maum
Tracy Nelson Maurer
Elizabeth McCracken
Joshua McFadden
Cappy McGarr
Seamus McGraw
Kelsey McKinney
Meg Medina
David Meischen
Louis Menand
Jasminne Mendez
Anna Meriano
Maira Meza
Ruth Milkman
Reuben Miller
Adrian Miller
Bill Minutaglio
Juan Miró
Celeste Monforton
Leonard Moore
Tomás Morín
J. Todd Moye
Khosrou Daniel Nayeri
Maggie Nelson
Daniel Oppenheimer
R.J. Palacio
Raj Patel
Joe Nick Patoski
W. Chase Peeler
Sam Pfiester
Bob Phillips
Josh Prager
Jerome Pumphrey
Jarrett Pumphrey
Sam Quinones
Octavio Quintanilla
Jose Ralat
Lilliam Rivera
Miguel Rivera
Margaret Rogerson
Allie Rowbottom
Julian Rubinstein
Katie Russell Newland
Ethan Rutherford
Lynda Rutledge
Tatiana Ryckman
Albert Samaha
Jon Scieszka
Neal Shusterman
William Sibley
ire'ne lara silva
Cynthia Smith
Mark Haskell Smith
Nicholas Solis
Christina Soontornvat
Kathy Sosa
Neal Spelce
Divya Srinivasan
Jason Stanford
Jude Stewart
Maggie Stiefvater
Farah Stockman
Stacey Swann
Mimi Swartz
Carmen Tafolla
Lauren Tarshis
Don Tate
Chris Tomlinson
Amor Towles
Anton Treuer
Sergio Troncoso
Liliana Valenzuela
Benjamin Villegas
Terry Virts
Jane M. Von Bergen
S. Kirk Walsh
Steven Weinberg
Marit Weisenberg
Colson Whitehead
Kimberly Willis Holt
Tracy Wolff
Catherine Wolff
Cecily Wong
Lawrence Wright
Anne Wynter
Beatrice Zamora
Laekan Zea Kemp
David Zucchino
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