Book Smart

Beloved Texas Book Festival reveals star author lineup for 2022

Arlington's Sandra Brown will appear at the Texas Book Festival this fall.

After two years of virtual and hybrid programming, the Texas Book Festival is returning in full in-person force November 5 and 6 in downtown Austin. With a sizable list of impressive literary talent for readers of all ages, the beloved bookworm gathering has uncovered 15 authors that will headline the fest.

The festival will feature Arlington resident, Texas literary legend, and author of 73 New York Times bestsellers Sandra Brown;Screen Actors Guild Award recipient and nine-time NAACP Image Award winner Omar Epps; Good Morning America Book Club Pick author and Women’s Prize finalist Angie Cruz; Pulitzer Prize finalist and Guggenheim Fellow biologist David George Haskell; NYT bestselling children’s author-illustrator and Caldecott medalist Michaela Goade, and many more.

“This announcement marks the beginning of our Festival season, and we are very excited to bring talented authors and thousands of readers together again at our beloved annual event, ” says Lois Kim, the festival's executive director. “We hope all Texans, young and old, newly Texan or seventh generation, are marking their calendars to join us for an epic literary weekend.”

Included in the sneak peek on July 13 is actor-producer Omar Epps, known for his roles in House, Shooter, This Is Us, and many more television shows and feature films. Epps will present his debut young-adult novel Nubia: The Awakening, an epic Afro-futurist saga billed as perfect for fans of Black Panther.

Returning to the festival is Angie Cruz, the award-winning author who debuted her first novel, Soledad, at Texas Book Festival 2001. Cruz will present her new work, How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water, about a woman who, faced with an unexpected job loss amid the Great Recession, re-evaluates her life. Texas native, DFW resident, and formerTBF First Edition Literary Gala emcee (2003) Sandra Brown also returns, presenting her latest novel, Overkill, in which a former NFL superstar struggles with a crisis of conscience and juggles a life-or-death decision.

"There’s something special about seeing authors in-person again," says TBF literary director Matthew Patin. "Virtual programming provided us, and continues to provide, creative opportunities, yet nothing quite matches an author visiting Austin once more. In pre-COVID times we took a physical appearance for a given, but now it feels that much more valuable and important. And the fifteen names here are only a fraction of what’s to come.”

The full list of sneak peek authors includes:

Vishwesh Bhatt, I Am From Here: Stories and Recipes from a Southern Chef
Sandra Brown, Overkill
Sandra Cisneros, Woman Without Shame: Poems
Angie Cruz, How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water
Erin Entrada Kelly, Those Kids from Fawn Creek
James Kirchick, Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington
Omar Epps, Nubia: The Awakening
Sidik Fofana, Stories from the Tenants Downstairs
Michaela Goade, Berry Song
Xochitl Gonzalez, Olga Dies Dreaming
David George Haskell, Sounds Wild and Broken: Sonic Marvels, Evolution's Creativity, and the Crisis of Sensory Extinction
Elizabeth McCracken, The Hero of This Book
Matt de la Peña, Patchwork
Mary Laura Philpott, Bomb Shelter: Love, Time, and Other Explosives
Roger Reeves, Best Barbarian: Poems

Holiday News

American Airlines expects record-setting travel on Thanksgiving 2024

Photo courtesy of American Airlines

American Airlines ready for takeoff.

The holidays are looming and American Airlines is ramping up. Over the upcoming Thanksgiving weekend, the Fort Worth-based airline expects to process nearly 8.3 million customers across more than 77,000 flights.

According to a statement from American's COO David Seymour, the airline is having a good fall season and canceled fewer flights than its peers during October.

“Thanks to the hard work of our 130,000 team members, we canceled fewer flights than any of our major competitors this October and beat our own records for on-time departures and arrivals,” Seymour says.

That's surely good news. One hates to rain on their parade, but in June 2024, the only flight I booked this year, my flight was canceled less than 24 hours before take-off. I had made hotel reservations, scheduled a pet sitter, planned events, and arranged for a friend to pick me up at the destination airport. One employee speculated that it may have been "insufficient crew." Their only solution offered was: Feel free to reschedule your flight.

Thanksgiving facts and figures
The travel window runs from November 21 to December 3, and the airline expects to carry more than 500,000 more customers than it did last year.

The most-traveled day will be Sunday, December 1. The second most-traveled day will be Monday, December 2.

The peak of peak: 1,035 mainline and regional aircraft will be enroute at 10:45 am on Sunday, December 1 — the highest number of flights handled at any given time during American’s travel period.

The airline expects to serve more than 6.8 million Biscoff cookies on board from November 21 to December 3.

Travel tips
Download the American Airlines app and check in for your flight, noting added any bags to your trip. This will save you time at the airport.

If traveling internationally, download the Mobile Passport Control app, which can speed up your entry into the U.S. Global Entry members can download the Global Entry app, which allows you to submit your entry and go straight to the officer.

Upon arrival at the airport lobby, scan your mobile boarding pass to print bag tags quickly at a kiosk. If you’re not checking bags, go straight to TSA security with your mobile boarding pass.

holidays