The Fourth Annual Brattleboro Literary Festival comes to downtown Brattleboro on the evening of Friday, October 7 and continues through Sunday, October 9. The festival is free and open to the public and presents readings and book signings at a variety of venues.
Last year’s festival drew more than 3,500 book lovers. This year, more than 30 writers, editors, and scholars are included in the festival.
Novelists gracing the reading stage include Vermont’s own John Irving, author of The World According to Garp and Hotel New Hampshire; Andrea Barrett, a National Book Award winner and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; and Margot Livesey, whose infamous Eva Moves the Furniture was a New York Times Notable Book, an Atlantic Monthly Best Book of the Year and a PEN/Winship finalist.
Non-fiction writers include Stephen Greenblatt, author of Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare, a finalist for the National Book Award, the Pulitzer Prize, the Los Angeles Times Book Award, and the National Book Critics Circle Award;
and Christopher Merrill, author of books on the Balkan wars and Mt.Athos in Greece.
The festival is honored to host exiled Iraqi poet Dunya Mikhail, author of The War Works Hard. Other poets include Maxine Kumin, Pulitzer Prize Winner and Poet Laureate of New Hampshire; Russell Edson, one of the United States’ foremost prose poets and Major Jackson, who was shortlisted for the National Book Critics Circle Award.
The festival promises fun for the whole family, presenting, for young adult readers and adults alike, Katherine Paterson, author of the favorite, Bridge to Terabithia and Laban Carrick Hill, author of more than twenty books for young adults including Harlem Stomp! A Cultural History of the Harlem Renaissance .
This year’s special events include a book arts exhibition at Catherine Dianich Gallery, a censorship panel with members of the Freedom to Write and the Intellectual Freedom Committees, a Saul Bellow tribute, and an exhibit of James McGarrell’s work accompanied by the poetry of Rosanna Warren.
Come enjoy the gorgeous foliage in a town filled with great authors!
A schedule of events, list of venues, author biographies and other information can be found at www.brattleboroliteraryfestival.org or by calling 802-365-4483.