The Texas Book Festival will host nearly 200 authors this year, officials announced today as they released the festival’s full line-up.
Noted authors Chandler Baker, Oscar Cásares, Ann Cleeves, Tamron Hall, Nathan Harris, Louis Menand and Sam Quinones are among those featured at the hybrid event which will take place both online and in-person Oct. 25-31.
Organizers recently announced that out of an abundance of caution, and with Austin currently in Stage 5 of pandemic risk, the free festival would have mostly virtual panels and author appearances with only a limited number in-person author events.
Virtual adult author programming will run from Oct. 25-31, with select in-person sessions at Austin Public Library Main Branch on Oct. 31.
Virtual children’s programming will run the weekend of Oct. 23-24, and select in-person appearances by picture book authors will take place at Symphony Square in downtown Austin on Saturday, Oct. 30.
Attendees can now see which authors will have virtual or in-person sessions on Texas Book Festival’s website The full schedule will be released online in early October.
Michener Center for Writers graduate Nathan Harris will present his debut novel and Oprah Book Club pick, “The Sweetness of Water,” a historical page-turner that captures the life-changing alliance of two freedmen brothers and a Georgia farmer.
Austin-based Oscar Cásares, author of the story collection “Brownsville,” named a Notable Book of 2004 by the American Library Association, will participate in a panel centered on “Nepantla Familias: An Anthology of Mexican American Literature on Families in Between Worlds,” an anthology to which he contributed. “Nepantla Familias” brings together Mexican American essays, poems, and short stories that will immerse readers in the complexities between cultures with traditional and shifting identities.
Emmy Award–winning TV host, journalist, and Texan Tamron Hall will present her debut novel and the first book in her thrilling Jordan Manning fiction series, “As the Wicked Watch,” a story in which a reporter unravels the disturbing mystery around the deaths of two Black girls, the work of a serial killer terrorizing Chicago.
Texas authors featured at this year’s festival include Jeff Abbott, Kate Biberdorf, H. W. Brands, Ellen Riojas Clark, May Cobb, Carrie Fountain, Cassy Joy Garcia, Dolores Huerta, Priya Huq, Bill Minutaglio, Juan Miró, Tomás Q. Morín, Jarrett and Jerome Pumphrey, Divya Srinivasan, S. Kirk Walsh, Lawrence Wright, and many more.
Previously announced authors include Rumaan Alam, Sandra Cisneros, Mary Gaitskill, Elizabeth McCracken, R. J. Palacio, Raj Patel, Amor Towles and Colson Whitehead.
