6th annual Book Festival to bring more than 90 authors to San Antonio
The San Antonio Book Festival (SABF) has released its lineup of more than 90 national, regional, and local authors who will appear at the 6th annual Festival, which will take place on Saturday, April 7, from 9 am to 5 pm at the Central Library and Southwest School of Art. A detailed schedule of the Festival’s author sessions will be available at saplf.org/festival in March.
Headlining the 2018 lineup is Emmy award-winning journalist Jorge Ramos with his latest book, Stranger: The Challenge of a Latino Immigrant in the Trump Era. Ramos has been the anchorman for Univision since 1986 and was hailed as “one of the 25 most influential Hispanics in the United States” by TIME magazine. His 2016 documentary, Hate Rising, investigates the state of hate in America. Other top attractions in the SABF lineup include popular comedian Paula Poundstone with her book exploring happiness, The Totally Unscientific Study of the Search for Human Happiness; Pulitzer Prize finalist Luis Alberto Urrea with his new novel, The House of Broken Angels; former San Antonio mayor Henry Cisneros with Building Equitable Cities: How to Drive Economic Mobility and Regional Growth; Attica Locke, author of Bluebird Bluebird and former writer for the TV show Empire; National Book Award finalist Carmen Maria Machado with her debut collection of short stories, Her Body and Other Parties; former LBJ Presidential Library Director Mark Updegrove with The Last Republicans: Inside the Extraordinary Relationship Between George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush; and MacArthur Fellow and best-selling author Sandra Cisneros with her memoir, A House of My Own: Stories from My Life.
“The past year in American publishing has been vibrant and abundant,” said Clay Smith, the Festival’s literary director. “But if there’s one trend that rises to the top, it’s readers’ desire for nonfiction, which we are featuring more of than we have in past years. It’s also a really wonderful year for Texas writing and we are thrilled to feature many statewide writers in this year’s lineup.”
As examples of homegrown talent, Nate Blakeslee tells the story of O-Six, Yellowstone’s celebrated alpha-female wolf, in American Wolf: A True Story of Survival and Obsession in the West; reporter Melissa del Bosque shares the riveting account of FBI agents’ pursuit of a drug cartel leader in Bloodlines: The Trues Story of a Drug Cartel, the FBI, and the Battle for a Horse-Racing Dynasty; Bryan Mealer explores family history in The Kings of Big Spring: God, Oil, and One Family’s Search for the American Dream; Juli Berwald deep dives into the jellyfish species in Spineless: The Science of Jellyfish and the Art of Growing a Backbone; and Michael Hurd recounts the story of championship teams in African American football during the age of Jim Crow in Thursday Night Lights: The Story of Black High School Football in Texas.
The lineup also draws on national talent for authors of children’s and young adult literature: New York Times bestselling author Holly Black (The Cruel Prince), National Book Award finalist Erika L. Sánchez (I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter), and San Antonio’s own Naomi Shihab Nye (Voices in the Air: Poems for Listeners) are among the authors featured in young adult literature. Kirkus Prize winner and National Book Award finalist Jason Reynolds (Sunny), Diana Lopez (Coco: A Story about Music, Shoes, and Family), and San Antonio’s David Liss (Renegades: Randoms Book 3) will present for middle graders; and San Antonio natives Xelena González and Adriana Garcia (All Around Us) will be among the authors presenting in the Holt Family Children’s Reading Tent.
“The amount of talent, know-how and inspiration that will be gathering at this year’s Festival, from the little kids tent to C-SPAN, is spectacular and so exciting,” explained Katy Flato, SABF’s executive director. “The only difficult part of the Festival is making those tough choices of which sessions to attend from a full array of impressive options. Our advice: plan your schedule ahead, get there early and stay all day. There really is something for every kind of reader on a huge range of topics.”
For its 6th annual event, SABF is bringing back its trio of special events: the renowned storytelling show, The Moth Mainstage, at the Majestic Theatre on April 6; its annual fundraiser, the Book Appétit Literary Feast, at the Witte Museum’s Mays Family Center on April 6, featuring comedian Paula Poundstone; and four Book It! luncheons that provide an intimate opportunity to lunch with a Festival author and eight companions at Club Giraud, midday of the Festival. Ticket sales for The Moth will launch later in February via Ticketmaster and the Majestic box office.
Other Festival highlights include:
- A performance by Magik Theatre for kids, free books from the Literacy Caravan, and a range of activities provided by Spareparts Studio, San Antonio Youth Literacy, Mitchell Lake Audubon Center, The Doseum, and more.
- Panel topics include the environment, the state of American politics, San Antonio’s intriguing literary history, and talented poets, among other topics.
- Expanded programming in Geektown, the Festival’s space for teens, including robotics displays, Dungeons and Dragons adventure tent, trivia contest, and photo booth.
- Student winners of the 2018 Tricentennial-themed San Antonio Book Festival Fiction Contest, sponsored by the Texas Cavaliers, will be recognized at an awards ceremony at the Festival, with King Antonio presenting.
Our full 2018 San Antonio Book Festival Author Lineup:
MEET THE AUTHORS
Crystal Allen (The Magnificent Mya Tibbs: The Wall of Fame Game)
Cristin O’Keefe Aptowicz (How to Love the Empty Air)
Juli Berwald (Spineless: The Science of Jellyfish and the Art of Growing a Backbone)
David Biello (The Unnatural World: The Race to Remake Civilization in Earth’s Newest Age)
Holly Black (The Cruel Prince)
Nate Blakeslee (American Wolf: A True Story of Survival and Obsession in the West)
Stefan Merrill Block (Oliver Loving: A Novel)
David Bowles (Feathered Serpent, Dark Heart of Sky: Myths of Mexico)
Paige Britt (Why Am I Me?)
Kenny Braun (As Far As You Can See: Picturing Texas)
Peter Brown (Hometown Texas)
Francisco Cantú (The Line Becomes a River: Dispatches from the Border)
Kelly Grey Carlisle (We Are All Shipwrecks: A Memoir)
Cyrus Cassells (The Gospel According to Wild Indigo)
Linda Castillo (Down a Dark Road)
Angela Cervantes (Me, Frida, and the Secret of the Peacock Ring) and (Coco: The Junior Novelization)
Daniel Chacón (The Cholo Tree)
Henry Cisneros (Building Equitable Cities: How to Drive Economic Mobility and Regional Growth)
Sandra Cisneros (A House of My Own: Stories from My Life)
Cary Clack (contributor, Literary San Antonio)
Catherine Nixon Cooke (Powering a City: How Energy and Big Dreams Transformed San Antonio)
Elizabeth Crook (The Which Way Tree)
Steven L. Davis (The Most Dangerous Man in America: Timothy Leary, Richard Nixon and the Hunt for the Fugitive King of LSD)
Kate Winkler Dawson (Death in the Air: The True Story of a Serial Killer, the Great London Smog, and the Strangling of a City)
Melissa del Bosque (Bloodlines: The True Story of a Drug Cartel, the FBI, and the Battle for a Horse-Racing Dynasty)
James R. Dennis (Correspondence in D Minor)
Jodi Egerton (Typewriter Rodeo: Real People, Real Stories, Custom Poems)
Mark Eisner (Neruda: The Poet’s Calling)
Lewis Fisher (Maverick: The American Name That Became a Legend)
Dan Flores (Coyote America: A Natural and Supernatural History)
David Fruchter (Typewriter Rodeo: Real People, Real Stories, Custom Poems)
Adriana M. Garcia (All Around Us)
Meg Gardiner (Into the Black Nowhere)
John Gibler (I Couldn’t Even Imagine That They Would Kill Us: An Oral History of the Attacks Against the Students of Ayotzinapa)
Bárbara Renaud González (Las Nalgas de JLo/JLo’s Booty)
Xelena González (All Around Us)
Don Graham (Giant: Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, James Dean, Edna Ferber, and the Making of a Legendary American Film)
Claudia Gray (Defy the Worlds)
Daryl Gregory (Spoonbenders: A Novel)
Stephanie Elizondo Griest (All the Agents and Saints: Dispatches from the U.S. Borderlands)
Laurie Ann Guerrero (contributor, Literary San Antonio)
Stephen Harrigan (contributor, Literary San Antonio)
Rodrigo Hasbún (Affections)
J.R. Helton (Bad Jobs and Poor Decisions: Dispatches from the Working Class)
Yuri Herrera (Kingdom Cons)
Roger D. Hodge (Texas Blood: Seven Generations Among the Outlaws, Ranchers, Indians, Missionaries, Soldiers, and Smugglers of the Borderlands)
Joe Holley (Hometown Texas)
Anna Maria Hong (H&G) and (Age of Glass)
Ladee Hubbard (The Talented Ribkins: A Novel)
Michael Hurd (Thursday Night Lights: The Story of Black High School Football in Texas)
David Cay Johnston (It’s Even Worse Than You Think: What the Trump Administration Is Doing to America)
Jim LaVilla-Havelin (West: Poems of a Place)
Cynthia Levinson (Fault Lines in the Constitution: The Framers, Their Fights, and the Flaws that Affect Us Today) and (The Youngest Marcher: The Story of Audrey Faye Hendricks, a Young Civil Rights Activist)
Sanford Levinson (Fault Lines in the Constitution: The Framers, Their Fights, and the Flaws that Affect Us Today)
Jardine Libaire (White Fur: A Novel)
David Liss (Renegades)
David Litt (Thanks, Obama: My Hopey Changey White House Years)
Attica Locke (Bluebird Bluebird)
Diana López (Coco: A Story about Music, Shoes, and Family)
Carmen Maria Machado (Her Body and Other Parties)
Lauren Markham (The Far Away Brothers: Two Young Migrants and the Making of an American Life)
Juana Martinez-Neal (Alma and How She Got Her Name)
Seamus McGraw (A Thirsty Land: The Making of an American Water Crisis)
Gregory McNamee (Tortillas, Tiswin, and T-Bones: A Food History of the Southwest)
Bryan Mealer (The Kings of Big Spring: God, Oil, and One Family’s Search for the American Dream)
Michael Merschel (Revenge of the Star Survivors)
Bryce Milligan (editor, Literary San Antonio) and (Take to the Highway: Arabesques for Travelers)
Bill Minutaglio (The Most Dangerous Man in America: Timothy Leary, Richard Nixon and the Hunt for the Fugitive King of LSD)
Tomás Q. Morín (Patient Zero)
Naomi Shihab Nye (contributor, Literary San Antonio) and (Voices in the Air: Poems for Listeners)
Ijeoma Oluo (So You Want to Talk About Race)
Daniel Peña (Bang: A Novel)
Sean Petrie (Typewriter Rodeo: Real People, Real Stories, Custom Poems)
Sasha Pimentel (For Want of Water and Other Poems)
Paula Poundstone (The Totally Unscientific Study of the Search for Human Happiness)
Jessica Powell (Venture of the Infinite Man)
Jorge Ramos (Stranger: The Challenge of a Latino Immigrant in the Trump Era)
Jan Reid (Sins of the Younger Sons)
Matthew Restall (When Montezuma Met Cortés: The True Story of the Meeting That Changed History)
Jason Reynolds (Sunny) and (For Every One)
José Antonio Rodríguez (House Built on Ashes: A Memoir)
Benjamin Alire Sáenz (The Inexplicable Logic of My Life) and (The Last Cigarette on Earth: A Book of Poems)
Joel Salcido (The Spirit of Tequila)
Erika L. Sánchez (I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter) and (Lessons on Expulsion: Poems)
Neal Shusterman (Thunderhead)
Christina Soontornvat (In a Dark Land: A Changelings Story)
Divya Srinivasan (Cinnamon)
Natalia Sylvester (Everyone Knows You Go Home)
Don Tate (Strong as Sandow: How Eugen Sandow Became the Strongest Man on Earth)
Mark Updegrove (The Last Republicans: Inside the Extraordinary Relationship Between George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush)
Luis Alberto Urrea (The House of Broken Angels)
Martin Wilson (We Now Return to Regular Life)
David Yaffe (Reckless Daughter: A Portrait of Joni Mitchell)
Jennifer Ziegler (Revenge of the Happy Campers: A Brewster Triplets Novel)
Adrian Todd Zuniga (Collision Theory)
