Book Festival Fun
Texas Book Festival 2014 announces largest lineup ever and new after-party
Earlier this week, Texas Book Festival revealed the complete list of more than 275 authors headed to Austin for this year's event, slated for October 25 and 26 at the Texas State Capitol grounds. When the eight headlining authors were announced last month, literary director Steph Opitz promised the festival would feature great opportunities for discovering new authors.
"There are, of course, some huge authors with celebrity above and beyond their writing, but there are also some powerhouse emerging writers coming this year," Opitz said. "A lot of festival attendees will get to say, 'I saw that author first, at the Texas Book Festival.'"
The list includes a number of impressive celebrity authors whose names resonate far beyond the literature world, including reggae legend Ziggy Marley, chef Lidia Bastianich, former White House Counsel John Dean and filmmaker Richard Linklater. And, as has come to be expected of the festival — which is the largest book festival in Texas and one of the premier literary events in the country — many of the nation's literary superstars will be in attendance.
Headliners include Joyce Carol Oates, Martin Amis, Meg Wolitzer and bestselling author Edan Lepucki. The latter made waves when Stephen Colbert picked her debut novel, California, to make a case for indie bookstores and against Amazon.com.
As promised, there are plenty of lesser-known, badass emerging authors coming to town too. These are a few folks we're especially excited about:
- Elizabeth McCracken (Thunderstruck & Other Stories)
- Michael McGriff (Our Secret Life in the Movies)
- Jess Row (Your Face in Mine)
- Issac Fitzgerald (Pen & Ink)
- LeslieJamison (The Empathy Exams)
- Lacy M. Johnson (The Other Side)
With more than 275 authors in attendance, this will be the largest in the Texas Book Festival's 19-year history — although not intentionally. "It wasn't that we intentionally set out to make it bigger," Opitz said. "It's that there were so many fantastic submissions we fell in love with this year that we had to make more room."
In addition to the complete lineup, the festival announced a first-ever after-party on Friday evening after the annual gala at the Four Seasons. For $75, after-party attendees have a chance to mingle with authors over cocktails, so more people can be part of the festivities.
The 2014 festival is free and open to the public. You can find the complete list of 2014 authors, as well as information about attending, volunteering and purchasing tickets for the gala, on the Texas Book Festival website.
