A book lover’s dream list of 89 authors will gather in downtown San Antonio for the third annual San Antonio Book Festival (SABF) on Saturday, April 11, the festival’s organizers announced Tuesday. The day-long festival at the San Antonio Central Library and the Southwest School of Art is expected to draw thousands.
“The excitement really starts to build once we announce our lineup of authors and word starts to spread. People start planning what authors they want to see, what books they haven’t read yet, and whose signings they will attend,” said Katy Flato, the book festival’s executive director. “Our Literary Director Clay Smith does such a great job of picking authors and books that reflect big themes and literary trends. It’s a really excellent line up: diverse, multi-cultural, and multi-genre.”
Flato said “war literature” will be explored in-depth at this year’s event, for example, with several major authors of war-related fiction and non-fiction confirmed to attend, including Michael Pitre, author of “Fives and Twenty-Fives,” and Ross Ritchell, author of ‘The Knife.” Helen Thorpe takes on the issue of women in uniform and combat in “Soldier Girls.”
Smith said “fiction is the big growth area” at this year’s festival.
“Our fiction program is really rich this year,” Smith said at the announcement party held at 1111 Austin Highway, sponsored by Guillermo Nicolas, a festival patron and the owner of the new multi-family development. “The beauty of the festival is our relevancy: we are really reflecting the most important ideas and issues of our time.”
In a city with a Spring calendar crowded with events, including the ever-growing Fiesta celebrations, the San Antonio Book Festival has proven to be a phenomenon, an instant success. The festival seemingly emerged out of the clouds in 2013, the brainchild of Flato, Smith, and Tracey Ramsey Bennett, the executive director of the San Antonio Public Library Foundation.
At first, the festival was an outgrowth of the Texas Book Festival in Austin, one of the nation’s top literary gatherings, but almost immediately spun off as its own entity as locals quickly embraced it. With little funding, marketing or advance publicity, the festival drew thousands in its first year, and the crowds grew in 2014. Even more people are expected to attend this year.
The festival is a high-energy mix of author presentations and interviews moderated by prominent locals, book signings, panel discussions, and for attendees, the opportunity to mingle and meet with authors amid a fiesta atmosphere of live music, food trucks, children, teen and and young adult literature centers, and a nonstop schedule of other attractions.
Flato and Smith said there are no immediate plans to expand the event, although book festivals in Austin and elsewhere unfold over multiple days. Even now, the most dedicated festival goers here can only attend a fraction of the dozens of simultaneous author events. Smith said one of the festival’s draws is its tantalizing choice of authors.
The San Antonio Book Festival remains a volunteer-driven event that draws on the willingness of hundreds of volunteers to put on the festival. Flato and many in her organizing group work without pay. If the festival wants to achieve its full potential in future years, greater public and private funding, including corporate sponsorships, synonymous with major literary festivals in other cities, will be essential.
The Rivard Report once again will publish multiple feature stories and interviews with dozens of the authors between now and April 11. For now, here are the 2015 San Antonio Book Festival List of Authors (more information is available at the festival’s website: www.saplf.org/festival):
Kenna Lang Archer, Unruly Waters: A Social and Environmental History of the Brazos River
Blue Balliett, Pieces and Players
Matt Barreto, Latino America: How America’s Most Dynamic Population is Poised to Transform the Politics of the Nation
Chris Barton, The Amazing Age of John Roy Lynch
Diane Gonzales Bertrand, There’s a Name for This Feeling: Stories / Hay un nombre para lo que siento: Cuentos
Sheila Black, Wen Kroy
Scott Blackwood, See How Small
Jay Brandon, Shadow Knight’s Mate
Jen Bryant, The Right Word: Roget and His Thesaurus
Robert Bryce, Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper: How Innovation Keeps Proving the Catastrophists Wrong
Peggy Caravantes, The Many Faces of Josephine Baker: Dancer, Singer, Activist, Spy
Rosemary Catacalos, Her Texas: Story, Image, Poem & Song
Raúl Colón, Portraits of Hispanic American Heroes
Maureen Corrigan, So We Read On: How the Great Gatsby Came to Be and Why it Endures
Rachel Crawford, Her Texas: Story, Image, Poem & Song
Tracy Dahlby, Into the Field: A Foreign Correspondent’s Notebook
Rod Davis, South, America
Patrick Dearen, The Big Drift
Geoff Dyer, Another Great Day at Sea: Life Aboard the USS George H.W. Bush
Arielle Eckstut, The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published
Joann Eckstut, The Secret Language of Color
Lewis F. Fisher, American Venice: The Epic Story of the San Antonio River
Carolyn Dee Flores, Dale, dale, dale: Una fiesta de números / Hit It, Hit It, Hit It: A Fiesta of Numbers
Henry Flores, Latinos and the Voting Rights Act
Carrie Fountain, Instant Winner
Jack Gantos, The Key that Swallowed Joey Pigza
Xavier Garza, The Great and Mighty Nikko
Mary Carolyn Hollers George, Rosengren’s Books: An Oasis for Mind and Spirit
Jeff Guinn, Glorious
Robert L. Gulley, Heads Above Water: The Inside Story of the Edwards Aquifer
Recovery Implementation Program
S.C. Gwynne, Rebel Yell: The Violence, Passion, and Redemption of Stonewall Jackson
J.R. Helton, The Jugheads
Juan Felipe Herrera, Portraits of Hispanic American Heroes
Joe Holley, The Purse Bearer: A Novel of Love, Lust and Texas Politics
Martha Louise Hunter, Painting Juliana
Francisco Jiménez, Taking Hold: From Migrant Childhood to Columbia University
Bret Anthony Johnston, Remember Me Like This
Sobia Khan, Her Texas: Story, Image, Poem and Song
Matt Lankes, Boyhood: Twelve Years on Film
Diane Lawson, A Tightly Raveled Mind
Andrew Levy, Huck Finn’s America
David Liss, The Day of Atonement
José Lozano, Little Chanclas
Josh Malerman, Bird Box
Seamus McGraw, Betting the Farm on a Drought: Stories from the Front Lines of Climate Change
Mark Menjivar, The Luck Archive: Exploring Belief, Superstition, and Tradition
Mary Guerrero Milligan, Her Texas: Story, Image, Poem & Song
Tomás Q. Morin, The Heights of Machu Picchu
Naomi Shihab Nye, The Turtle of Oman
Michael O’Brien, The Face of Texas
Richard Parker, Lone Star Nation: How Texas Will Transform America
Joe Nick Patoski, Sir Doug and the Genuine Texas Cosmic Groove
Kate Payne, Hip Girl’s Guide to the Kitchen
Jim Peyton, Naturally Healthy Mexican Cooking
Aaronetta Hamilton Pierce, Black is the Color of Strength
Michael Pitre, Fives and Twenty-fives
Neal Pollack, Repeat
Christopher Prieto, Southern Living Ultimate Guide to BBQ: The Complete Guide to Year-Round Cooking & Grilling
Kirstin Valdez Quade, Night at the Fiestas: Stories
Octavio Quintanilla, If I Go Missing
Isabel Quintero, Gabi, a Girl in Pieces
Eli Reed, Eli Reed: A Long Walk Home
Richard Reeves, Infamy: The Shocking Story of the Japanese American Internment in World War II
Ross Ritchell, The Knife
Spelile Rivas, The Cucuy Stole My Cascarones / El Coco me robó los cascarones
Maggie Rivas-Rodriguez, Latina/os and World War II
Lance Rubin, Denton Little’s Deathdate
Antonio Ruiz-Camacho, Barefoot Dogs
Jan Jarboe Russell, The Train to Crystal City: FDR’s Secret Prisoner Exchange Program
and America’s Only Family Internment Camp During World War II
Mary Doria Russell, Epitaph: A Novel of the O.K. Corral
René Saldaña, Jr., Dale, dale, dale: Una fiesta de números / Hit It, Hit It, Hit It: A Fiesta of Numbers
Marian Schwartz, Anna Karenina
Cyndy Severson, Hill Country Houses
Maggie Shipstead, Astonish Me
Scott Simon, Unforgettable: A Son, a Mother, and the Lessons of a Lifetime
Mary Helen Specht, Migratory Animals
David Henry Sterry, The Essential Guide to Getting Your Book Published
Natalia Sylvester, Chasing the Sun
Don Tate, The Amazing Age of John Roy Lynch
Terry Thompson-Anderson, Texas on the Table: People, Places, and Recipes
Celebrating the Lone Star State
Helen Thorpe, Soldier Girls: The Battles of Three Women at Home and at War
Chris Tomlinson, Tomlinson Hill: The Remarkable Story of Two Families who Share
the Tomlinson Name – One White, One Black
Luis Alberto Urrea, Wandering Time: Western Notebooks
Amanda Eyre Ward, The Same Sky
Frederick Williams, Black is the Color of Strength
Lawrence Wright, Thirteen Days in September: Carter, Begin, and Sadat at Camp David
Andrew Yang, Smart People Should Build Things: How to Restore Our Culture of Achievement, Build a Path for Entrepreneurs, and Create New Jobs in America
Emilio Zamora, The World War I Diary of José de la Luz Sáenz
Jennifer Ziegler, Revenge of the Flower Girls
*Featured/top image: San Antonio Book Festival 2014. Photo courtesy of the San Antonio Public Library.
Related Stories:
SA Book Festival Fiction Contest Ups the Ante
San Antonio Book Festival Even Better the Second Time
San Antonio Book Festival Will Draw Thousands Downtown
“A River Runs Through It…” Essay Contest Preludes Book Festival
Q&A with Katy Flato: Book Festival Director, Mother, and Author Groupie
