September 18, 2013 More than 100 Authors to Speak at Library of Congress National Book Festival

No fewer than 112 stellar authors writing for all ages and tastes – historians, novelists, children’s and teens’ authors, poets, biographers, illustrators and graphic novelists – will delight legions of fans at the 13th annual Library of Congress National Book Festival, on Saturday, Sept. 21 and Sunday, Sept. 22, 2013, between 9th and 14th streets on the National Mall. The event, free and open to the public, will run from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Saturday and from noon to 5:30 p.m. on Sunday, rain or shine.

Special features of this year’s festival include a Library of Congress Pavilion packed with presentations from the Library’s curators and collections, plus a presentation of top awards Sunday at noon in the Special Programs Pavilion for 5th- and 6th-grade students who wrote essays in the multi-state “A Book That Shaped Me” contest. During that session, a trio of excellent literacy programs that have won awards in the premiere Library of Congress Literacy Awards will be announced.

In keeping with the festival’s theme, “Books That Shaped the World,” fans are invited to go to the official website at www.loc.gov/bookfest and, using a survey form, nominate books that they believe meet that description. Balloting will also take place in-person at the Festival’s Library of Congress Pavilion. The Library of Congress National Book Festival is part of a larger Library of Congress “Celebration of the Book.”

Poets and authors slated to appear at the festival include Katherine Applegate, Marie Arana, Rick Atkinson, Margaret Atwood, Paolo Bacigalupi, Nicholson Baker, Lynda Barry, Bonnie Benwick, A. Scott Berg, Holly Black, Taylor Branch, Monica Brown, Fred Bowen, Christopher Buckley, Fred Chao, Jeff Chu, Susan Cooper, Alfred Corchado, Justin Cronin, Matt de la Peña, Giada De Laurentiis, Don DeLillo, Daniel DeSimone, Stuart Eizenstat, Kathryn Erskine, Richard Paul Evans, David Finkel, Brian Floca, Amity Gaige, Eric Gansworth, Cristina Garcia, Albert Goldbarth, Alyson Hagy, Mark Helprin, Kevin Henkes, Jonathan Hennessey, Gilbert Hernandez, Jaime Hernandez, Juan Felipe Herrera, Jennifer and Matthew Holm, Khaled Hosseini, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Sheila Miyoshi Jager, Oliver Jeffers, Pati Jinich, Adam Johnson, William P. Jones, Cynthia Kadohata, Thomas Keneally, Matthew J. Kirby, Jon Klassen, Hoda Kotb, Kirby Larson, Grace Lin, Mario Livio, Rafael López, Jonathan Maberry, Kenneth W. Mack, William Martin, Ayana Mathis, D.T. Max, James McBride, D.J. MacHale, Heather McHugh, Lisa McMann, Terry McMillan, Brad Meltzer, Wesley Granberg-Michaelson, Elizabeth Moon, Christopher Myers, David Nasaw, Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, Kadir Nelson, Patrick Ness, Joyce Carol Oates, Katherine Paterson, Richard Peck, Benjamin Percy, Tamora Pierce, Daniel Pink, Andrea and Brian Pinkney, Matthew Quick, Lesa Cline-Ransome and James Ransome, Linda Ronstadt, Veronica Roth, Christel Schmidt, Jon Scieszka, Chad “Corntassel” Smith, Andrew Solomon, Sonya Sones, Walter Stahr, Manil Suri, James L. Swanson, Mark Teague, Evan Thomas, U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey, Steve Vogel, Dean Young, George Weigel, William Wegman, Charles Whelan and Henry Wiencek.

The 2013 Library of Congress National Book Festival will feature authors, poets and illustrators in several pavilions, including two Sunday-only pavilions: Graphic Novels/Science Fiction and Special Programs. Festival-goers can meet and hear firsthand from their favorite poets and authors, purchase books and get them signed, have photos taken with PBS storybook characters and participate in a variety of activities.

More than 200,000 people are estimated to have attended the festival in 2012. Details about the Library of Congress National Book Festival can be found on its website at wwww.loc.gov/bookfest.

At the festival, representatives from across the United States and its territories will celebrate their unique literary offerings in the Pavilion of the States. The Let’s Read America Pavilion will offer reading activities that are fun for the whole family. The Library of Congress Pavilion will showcase treasures in the Library’s vast online collections and offer information about Library programs.

The 2013 National Book Festival is made possible through the generous support of National Book Festival Board Co-Chairman David M. Rubenstein; Charter Sponsors the Institute of Museum and Library Services, Target, The Washington Post and Wells Fargo; Patrons the National Endowment for the Arts and PBS KIDS; Contributors AT&T, and Digital Bookmobile Powered by OverDrive, the Hay-Adams, Scholastic Inc., and--in the Friends category--the Marshall B. Coyne Foundation Inc., the Harper Lee Prize for Legal Fiction, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Small Press Expo (SPX). Thanks also to C-SPAN2’s Book TV, The Junior League of Washington, The Links, Incorporated and the Mensa Education and Research Foundation.

The Library of Congress, the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution, is the world’s preeminent reservoir of knowledge. Many of the Library’s rich resources and treasures may be accessed through its website, www.loc.gov.