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Friday, October 18
 

7:30pm EDT

Kickoff Keynote
Samantha Power’s life has all the ingredients of a great movie: Irish émigré, war correspondent, academic, Pulitzer Prize–winning author, Special Assistant to President Obama on the National Security Council, US Permanent Representative to the United Nations. For Power, the driving force of her interests and her ambition has been the desire to extend basic human rights to all. In her revelatory memoir, The Education of an Idealist, Power tackles the question, “What can one person do?” with deeply personal insight and honesty. As Colm Tóibín wrote, hers is the story of political power but also of its limitations in the corridors of power, “where compromise does battle with commitment.” Come hear how this impressive and powerful woman grappled with idealism, realpolitik, and motherhood all at the same time. Nicco Mele, journalist, Kennedy School faculty member, political strategist, and poetry enthusiast, will discuss idealism with Samantha Power in what is sure to be an inspiring and entertaining way to kick off BBF 2019.

This event is free admission and seating will be on a first-come, first-served basis. No tickets are required.
Moderators
avatar for Nicco Mele

Nicco Mele

Nicco Mele is an academic, writer, and businessman. He lectures on public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and is a renowned forecaster of business, politics, and culture. His firm, EchoDitto, is a leading internet strategy company working with nonprofits and Fortune... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Samantha Power

Samantha Power

Samantha Power is the former US permanent representative to the United Nations (2013–2017) and former member of President Obama’s cabinet. Her books include A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide (2002), which won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics... Read More →

Friday October 18, 2019 7:30pm - 8:30pm EDT
Old South Sanctuary 645 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Nonfiction   Special Event
 
Saturday, October 19
 

9:30am EDT

Louisa May Alcott's Boston
The character of Jo March, the heroine of Louisa May Alcott's Little Women, was loosely based on Alcott's own life, growing up in Boston and Concord. Join Boston By Foot to explore the sites where Alcott once lived and worked in Boston. The tour ends in Boston Common, and the guide will walk the group back to the Boston Book Festival following the tour.

$15 General Admission; Please purchase tickets in advance; space is limited.
https://bostonbyfoot.secure.force.com/ticket/#/events/a0S1R000008RcQrUAK
Saturday October 19, 2019 9:30am - 11:00am EDT
School and Washington St Plaza
  Special Event

10:00am EDT

Middle Grade: Fantasy
Authors of fantasy novels for kids are finding inspiration in a host of storytelling traditions from around the world. The result? A whole new world of amazing adventures to fuel all kids’ imaginations. In her bestselling The Storm Runner and its sequel The Fire Keeper, author JC Cervantes takes readers on an epic quest involving gods of Maya mythology. Katie Zhao’s debut novel, The Dragon Warrior, starts off in San Francisco’s Chinatown, but quickly launches into an exhilarating tale inspired by Chinese folklore and fairy tales. And in her new series launch, Tangled in Time: The Portal, beloved author Kathryn Lasky crafts a time-shift fantasy that moves between present-day Indiana and Tudor England. History, magic, adventure, danger…what’s not to love about this session, hosted by the BPL’s own Laura Koenig?
Moderators
avatar for Laura Koenig

Laura Koenig

Laura Koenig is the Team Leader for Children’s Services at the Central Library of the Boston Public Library. She was an integral part of the BPL’s redesign of their award-winning children’s and teen spaces. In 2016, she won Honorable Mention from the Urban Libraries Council... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for JC Cervantes

JC Cervantes

JC Cervantes is the New York Times–bestselling author of The Storm Runner, Tortilla Sun, and The Fire Keeper, the sequel to The Storm Runner based on Maya mythology. Cervantes has won the New Mexico Book Award and the Zia Book Award.
avatar for Katie Zhao

Katie Zhao

Katie Zhao graduated from the University of Michigan with a BA in English and a minor in political science and a masters in accounting. She wrote her first novel, The Dragon Warrior, during her last year in school, in between classes. Kirkus Reviews dubbed it an “ambitious debut... Read More →
avatar for Kathryn Lasky

Kathryn Lasky

Kathryn Lasky is the Newbery Honor–winning author of Sugaring Time and over a hundred other critically acclaimed books for children and adults like. Her latest is the children’s book Tangled in Time: The Portal, a “convincing, compelling time-travel series rife with Tudor drama... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 10:00am - 11:00am EDT
BPL Teen Central 700 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Kids

10:00am EDT

Scientists Get Dressed
How do scientists suit up, gown up, gear up, even dress up in costume to make new discoveries, save lives, and save our planet? From space to beneath the waves, from volcanoes to glaciers, “scientists get dressed for the work they do and the places they do it.” Award-winning children’s author/science writer Deborah Lee Rose (Beauty and the Beak, Jimmy the Joey) will read from her new picture book Scientists Get Dressed and talk about why scientists and engineers put on special clothing to do their extraordinary jobs—like spacewalking to fix the International Space Station or swimming with endangered whale sharks in the ocean. Rose will share a free educational guide and demonstrate the book's hands-on Scientists’ Glove Challenge activity, which any parent, teacher, librarian, community leader and even kids themselves can do, using easily available materials like winter mittens or dishwashing gloves.
Presenters
avatar for Deborah Lee Rose

Deborah Lee Rose

Deborah Lee Rose is a speaker and writer of nonfiction and fiction books for children. Her award-winning titles include Beauty and the Beak, Into the A, B, Sea, and The Twelve Days of Kindergarten. Her latest release, Scientists Get Dressed, is a picture book spotlighting scientists... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 10:00am - 11:00am EDT
BPL Rey Room 700 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Kids

10:00am EDT

L'Averti
Debut novelist Vanessa Léger will present her new book, L’Averti. Until his death in 1870, Auguste Roussel never ceased to believe in a glorious destiny for his newspaper. Three generations later, L’Averti still remains a family story, that of the Roussels, and is the eyewitness to their singular destiny in a changing world. L’Averti—La naissance d’une dynastie is the first volume of a rich family saga that will be told in a trilogy. Léger will be interviewed by French Cultural Center librarian Ingrid Marquardt, and there will be an opportunity for audience Q&A.
Moderators
avatar for Ingrid Marquardt

Ingrid Marquardt

Ingrid Marquardt leads the second largest private French library in the country, at the French Cultural Center in the heart of historical Back Bay. This position marries her love of French language and literature. Marquardt began her passion for French through the immersion program... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Vanessa Léger

Vanessa Léger

Vanessa Léger has a bachelor’s degree in Communication and Information (Journalism) from Moncton University. Her debut novel is L’Averti: The Birth of a Dynasty, the first in an original family saga trilogy.

Sponsors
avatar for French Cultural Center
avatar for Regroupement des éditeurs franco-canadiens

Saturday October 19, 2019 10:00am - 11:30am EDT
French Cultural Center 53 Marlborough St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Fiction

10:00am EDT

Join the Search for Waldo
Waldo’s been around for more than thirty years, and he just keeps getting better at hiding! This time he’s hiding at the Boston Public Library, and we need your help to find him. Pick up an entry form from one of our volunteers in the BPL Children’s Library, find the three Waldos hidden throughout the Boston Public Library, and return your completed form for a chance to win an amazing prize from Candlewick Press!
Saturday October 19, 2019 10:00am - 4:00pm EDT
BPL Children's Library 700 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Kids

10:00am EDT

Passport to Imagination
Here’s a great way to see the sights at the BBF! Pick up a Passport to Imagination at the Brainstorm Tent and travel through Copley Square taking part in fun activities. Have your passport stamped at each participating exhibitor, and return the completed passport to the Brainstorm Tent. Kids who return a completed passport will get a prize, donated by Candlewick Press, while supplies last!
Saturday October 19, 2019 10:00am - 4:00pm EDT
Brainstorm Tent 02116
  Kids

10:15am EDT

Writer Idol
Writer and comedian Steve Macone will perform the first page of YOUR unpublished manuscript for the audience and a panel of three established agent judges who specialize in literary and commercial fiction as well as narrative nonfiction: Sorche Fairbank (Fairbank Literary), Kimiko Nakamura (Dee Mura Literary), Beth Marshea (Ladderbird Literary Agency), and Serene Hakim (Ayesha Pande Literary). When an agent hears a line that would prompt her to stop reading, she will raise a hand. Macone will keep reading until a second agent raises a hand. The agents will then discuss why the lines gave them pause and offer suggestions to the author. All excerpts are read and evaluated anonymously. At the end, a winner will be crowned and win a prize. Note to participants: Please bring THE FIRST 250 WORDS of your manuscript double-spaced, titled, with its genre (fiction or nonfiction only, please) marked clearly at the top. Given the volume of submissions, we can’t guarantee that yours will be read aloud. This session is not for the thin-skinned! Sponsored by GrubStreet.
Moderators
avatar for Steve Macone

Steve Macone

Steve Macone is a former headline contributor at The Onion. His essays, humor writing, and reporting have also appeared in the American Scholar, New York Times, Atlantic, New Yorker, Boston Globe Magazine, Morning News, VICE, and Salon. He's been featured on NPR and Longreads, received... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Beth Marshea

Beth Marshea

Beth Marshea is the owner and lead agent at Ladderbird Literary Agency where she acquires work that pushes genres and boundaries and challenges the reader to accept new points of view. Marshea and her company are committed to the growth and development of both new and veteran authors... Read More →
avatar for Kimiko Nakamura

Kimiko Nakamura

Kimiko Nakamura is a literary agent with Dee Mura Literary. A graduate of Skidmore College and Boston University’s Book Publishing Program, Nakamura worked within Shambhala Publications and Harvard Common Press before becoming a literary agent. She partners with aspiring and published... Read More →
avatar for Serene Hakim

Serene Hakim

Prior to joining Ayesha Pande Literary in 2015, Serene Hakim worked at Laura Gross Literary Agency in Boston. Hakim holds an MA in French to English translation from NYU and a BA in French and women’s studies from the University of Kansas. Born to Lebanese immigrants in the Midwest... Read More →
avatar for Sorche Elizabeth Fairbank

Sorche Elizabeth Fairbank

A small, selective agency and member of AAR, the Author's Guild, the Agents Round Table, PEN, and GrubStreet's Literary Advisory Council, Fairbank Literary Representation is happily in its seventeenth year. Clients range from first-time authors to international best-sellers, prize... Read More →

Sponsors
avatar for GrubStreet

Saturday October 19, 2019 10:15am - 11:30am EDT
Old South Guild Room 645 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Sessions for Writers

10:30am EDT

Aesop's Fables in Copley Square
There are clues all around Copley Square that refer to Aesop’s Fables. Do we know why these clues are here? What do they refer to? Join Boston By Foot to examine these clues and learn the fables behind them. This 25-minute tour is sure to delight literature lovers of all ages!
Saturday October 19, 2019 10:30am - 10:55am EDT
Trinity Church Plaza
  Kids

10:30am EDT

Appearance by Mercy Watson
Meet the Porcine Wonder herself at the BBF!
Saturday October 19, 2019 10:30am - 11:00am EDT
Brainstorm Tent 02116
  Kids

10:30am EDT

Readings: Coming of Age
The journey from (relative) innocence to (hard-won) experience has been a favorite theme for storytellers throughout millennia and across media. Hear how three debut novelists have tackled this theme in this session of readings. Susan Bernhard’s haunting Winter Loon centers on a teenage boy coming of age while grappling with grief. Set in the early 1990s, Dana Czapnik’s The Falconer focuses on a heroine defining herself against expectations about sports, art, and gender. And in Cambria Brockman’s literary thriller Tell Me Everything, a young woman with a troubled past considers whether and how to reinvent herself at college. Our host for this session is Laura Szaro Kopinski of the Bookish Home review website and podcast.
Moderators
avatar for Laura Szaro Kopinski

Laura Szaro Kopinski

Laura Szaro Kopinski is a local elementary school librarian and the founder of A Bookish Home, a website that celebrates all things literary. Now, in addition, she hosts the A Bookish Home podcast where she talks books with authors, illustrators, booksellers, librarians and more professionals... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Cambria Brockman

Cambria Brockman

Cambria Brockman is a writer and owner of an award-winning wedding and portrait photography company, Cambria Grace. She grew up in Houston, London, and Scotland and earned a degree in English literature from Bates College in Lewiston, Maine. Her chilling first novel is entitled Tell... Read More →
avatar for Dana Czapnik

Dana Czapnik

Dana Czapnik is a novelist and sports editor, having worked for ESPN The Magazine, the United States Tennis Association, and the Arena Football League. Recipient of an Emerging Writers Fellowship from the Center for Fiction, she holds an MFA from Hunter College, where she was recognized... Read More →
avatar for Susan Bernhard

Susan Bernhard

Susan Bernhard is a writer, a Massachusetts Cultural Council fellowship recipient, and a graduate of the GrubStreet Novel Incubator program. Her haunting debut novel, Winter Loon, which tells the story of a fifteen-year-old boy who is determined to become a man but struggles with... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 10:30am - 11:15am EDT
BPL Newsfeed Cafe 700 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Fiction

10:30am EDT

BBF Unbound: Rewriting Our Stories: A Workshop for Immigrant and Diaspora Writers
For both readers and writers, so much of the value of books lies in their ability to act as a mirror. Yet while immigrants find themselves in the center of so much of today’s media, the question of whether or not these stories reflect our experiences is often more complicated than it seems. In this workshop created by and for immigrant and diaspora writers, moderators Frankie Concepcion (2019 Undocupoet Fellow, Sibling Rivalry Press) and Kayti Lahsaiezadeh (Kweli Journal, FreezeRay Poetry) will guide writers in a journey of self-reflection and empowerment as we re-engage with the stories we want the world to know, as told by our own voices. Through a series of prompts, guided discussion, and brave space practices, this workshop will be centered on community, craft, and celebrating our identities.
Presenters
avatar for Frankie Concepcion

Frankie Concepcion

Frankie Concepcion was born and raised in the Philippines but has lived in the United States for almost a decade. She is the founder of the Boston Immigrant Writer's Salon. Her fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared in publications such as Waxwing Literary Journal, the Fat City... Read More →
avatar for Kayti Lahsaiezadeh

Kayti Lahsaiezadeh

Kayti Lahsaiezadeh is a graduate of Boston College, where she earned a BA in English literature with a concentration in creative writing. She is an associate editor at Black Ocean Press and a production editor at BookBub. Lahsaiezadeh’s work has appeared in Post Road, Pea River... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 10:30am - 11:30am EDT
BPL Exchange 700 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  BBF Unbound   Sessions for Writers

10:45am EDT

BBF Unbound: Writing Beyond Binaries
With transgender and non-binary visibility on the rise, more writers are finally being recognized for their work. But how far have we come and how far do we have left to go? Join Alex Marzano-Lesnevich (The Fact of a Body), Gabe Cole Novoa (writing as Ava Jae; Beyond the Red Trilogy), Cameron Awkward-Rich (Transit, Sympathetic Little Monster), Alex Myers (Revolutionary, Continental Divide), Lisa Bunker (Zenobia July, Felix Yz), L. Nichols (Flocks), and Kay Ulanday Barrett (When the Chant Comes) as they discuss their experiences in publishing, writing beyond cisgender expectations, and their hopes for the next generation of trans and NB writers. This rich and timely conversation will be hosted by writer and teacher Milo Todd.
Please note that this is a low-scent/scent-free session. We ask that attendees be mindful of not wearing heavy perfumes, colognes, or other products that create strong scents, as well as not smoking cigarettes or marijuana immediately prior to the session.
Presenters
avatar for Alex Marzano-Lesnevich

Alex Marzano-Lesnevich

Alex Marzano-Lesnevich is the author of The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir, which received a 2018 Lambda Literary Award, the 2018 Chautauqua Prize, the 2019 Elle Grand Prix des Lectrices for Nonfiction, and the 2019 Prix France Inter-JDD, a prize for one book of any genre in... Read More →
avatar for Alex Myers

Alex Myers

Alex Myers is a teacher, speaker, writer, and advocate for transgender rights. Since coming out as transgender in 1995, he has worked with schools across the country, helping them create gender-inclusive policies, practices, and facilities. Myers is also an author; his essays have... Read More →
avatar for Cameron Awkward-Rich

Cameron Awkward-Rich

Cameron Awkward-Rich is a black, trans writer and educator, currently living in Northampton. His first collection of poetry, Sympathetic Little Monster, was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award. His second collection, Dispatch, was the winner of the 2018 Lexi Rudnitsky Editor’s... Read More →
avatar for Gabe Cole Novoa

Gabe Cole Novoa

Gabe Cole Novoa is a Latinx trans masculine author who writes speculative fiction featuring marginalized characters grappling with identity. When he isn't working on his next book, completing freelance editorial work, or buried under his TBR pile, you’ll likely find him making heart-eyes... Read More →
avatar for Kay Ulanday Barrett

Kay Ulanday Barrett

Kay Ulanday Barrett is a poet, performer, and cultural strategist. Barrett has been featured at the U.N., Lincoln Center, Symphony Space, Princeton University, the Tucson Poetry Festival, the New York Poetry Festival, The Poetry Project, the Dodge Poetry Foundation, the Hemispheric... Read More →
avatar for L Nichols

L Nichols

L. Nichols is an artist, illustrator, graphic designer, sign painter, educator, and sometime blacksmith. Nichols's work has appeared in the Village Voice, Gilt Taste, the Atlantic, the Zinester’s Guide to NYC, SMITH Magazine, the Nib, and the anthologies QU33R and We’re Still... Read More →
avatar for Lisa Bunker

Lisa Bunker

Lisa Bunker has written stories all her life. Her first novel, Felix Yz, about a boy fused with an alien, was published in 2017. Her second novel, Zenobia July, about a trans girl getting to live as a girl for the first time in a new family and school (and solving cyber crimes), was... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 10:45am - 11:45am EDT
BAC Beehive 951 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02115
  BBF Unbound   Fiction

10:45am EDT

Poetry at the Extremes
Former US Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky has been called “our finest living example of [the American civic poet]” by the New York Times. In his newest anthology, The Mind Has Cliffs of Fall: Poetry at the Extremes of Feeling, Pinsky continues to champion poetry’s relevance, by presenting a sweeping overview of how poets both ancient and contemporary have used poetry to address the full range of human emotion—from despair to ecstasy. Pinsky will be joined by contributors Maggie Dietz, Martín Espada, and Jill McDonough to read their own poems from the collection, as well as other collected poems demonstrating poetry at the heights and depths of emotion. Obama inaugural poet Richard Blanco, author most recently of How to Love a Country, will host what’s sure to be a powerful session exploring how poets articulate our most visceral emotions. Sponsored by Mass Poetry.
Moderators
avatar for Richard Blanco

Richard Blanco

Richard Blanco is a poet, professor, public speaker, memoirist, and civil engineer. He was the first immigrant, the first Latino, the first openly gay person, and the youngest person to be a US inaugural poet when he read at President Obama’s 2013 inauguration. He is also the first... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Jill McDonough

Jill McDonough

Jill McDonough is a poet and the recipient of three Pushcart prizes and fellowships from the Lannan Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Fine Arts Work Center, the New York Public Library, the Library of Congress, and Stanford’s Stegner program. Her books of poems... Read More →
avatar for Maggie Dietz

Maggie Dietz

Maggie Dietz is the author of poetry collections That Kind of Happy and Perennial Fall, which won New Hampshire’s 2007 Jane Kenyon Award for Outstanding Book of Poetry. Her work has appeared widely in poetry journals like Poetry, Ploughshares, Threepenny Review, Agni, and Harvard... Read More →
avatar for Martín Espada

Martín Espada

As a poet, editor, essayist, and translator, Martín Espada has published close to twenty books including the poetry collections Vivas to Those Who Have Failed; The Trouble Ball; The Republic of Poetry, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; and Alabanza. He has received the... Read More →
avatar for Robert Pinsky

Robert Pinsky

Robert Pinsky is a poet, translator, critic, and essayist who served as US Poet Laureate from 1997 to 2000. His work—which has earned him the PEN/Voelcker Award, the William Carlos William Prize, the Lenore Marshall Prize, Italy’s Premio Capri, the Korean Manhae Award, and the... Read More →

Sponsors
avatar for Mass Poetry

Saturday October 19, 2019 10:45am - 11:45am EDT
BPL McKim Exhibition Hall 700 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Poetry

11:00am EDT

Story Time: Susan Choi and John Rocco
In this animal-themed story time, Susan Choi and illustrator John Rocco will read their picture book Camp Tiger, and then Rocco will read his own picture book Noah Builds an Ark (ages 4–8)
Presenters
avatar for John Rocco

John Rocco

John Rocco is a New York Times–bestselling author and illustrator of many acclaimed children’s books, including Wolf! Wolf!, Blackout, and the cover designer and illustrator for many books from Rick Riordan’s multiple bestselling mythology series. Rocco’s first young adult... Read More →
avatar for Susan Choi

Susan Choi

Susan Choi is a novelist and recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. She is the author of The Foreign Student (1998), which won the Asian-American Literary Award for fiction; American Woman, which was a finalist for the 2004... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 11:00am - 11:45am EDT
BPL Children's Library 700 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Kids

11:00am EDT

Hannah Siglin
Hannah Siglin is a singer, songwriter, and guitarist from the Inland Northwest. Raised on folk music and studied in classical training, she writes songs that tangle intricate guitar parts with raw and intimate lyrics, beautiful both stripped down to her guitar and voice, or set over the dynamics of her band—acoustic bass, fiddle, and mandolin. Since moving to Boston to study songwriting at Berklee College of Music in 2015, Siglin has been honored with the Pat Pattison Scholarship, opened for Margaret Glaspy, and been featured with her band at Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival. She draws inspiration from a deep love of nature and her songs explore the themes that have shaped her coming of age:the losing and redefining of faith, love, and identity.
Presenters
avatar for Hannah Siglin

Hannah Siglin

Hannah Siglin is a singer, songwriter, and guitarist from the Inland Northwest. Raised on folk music and studied in classical training, she writes songs that tangle intricate guitar parts with raw and intimate lyrics, beautiful both stripped down to her guitar and voice, or set over... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 11:00am - 11:45am EDT
Berklee Stage 02116
  Music

11:00am EDT

Boston By Foot Literary Walking Tour
This mini Boston By Foot tour dips briefly into the Back Bay neighborhood to taste Boston's rich literary heritage. From the filling of the actual back bay about 1860 through today, connections with literature and writers of all flavors have flourished. This sampling aims to whet your appetite for more!
Saturday October 19, 2019 11:00am - 11:45am EDT
Outside BPL Boylston Street Entrance 700 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Special Event

11:00am EDT

BBF Unbound: Mystery Making
In this interactive workshop, five mystery authors representing different sub-genres—including cozy/traditional, thriller/suspense, and police procedural—will be led by moderator Connie Johnson Hambley to brainstorm on their feet and create a brand-new mystery using suggestions provided by the audience. Fun, fast-paced, and fascinating, this improv game offers important insights into mystery writers’ minds and the conventions of the different genres. A cozy mystery author may view a name, setting, or motive differently than a thriller or police procedural author. Sisters in Crime authors Frankie Bailey, Hallie Ephron, Kate Flora, Edith Maxwell, and Joanna Schaffhausen will engage the audience in a fun and lively session on how genre plays into plot and craft. They will show how variations on themes and relationships between victims and murderers can drive today’s crime fiction in unexpected ways.
Moderators
avatar for Connie Johnson Hambley

Connie Johnson Hambley

Connie Johnson Hambley horrified her parents by using her law degree to write high-concept thrillers rather than pursue gainful employment. Two novels in Connie’s Jessica Trilogy–where family secrets link a world-class equestrian to a Boston-based terrorist cell–won the Best... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Edith Maxwell

Edith Maxwell

Agatha and Macavity Award finalist Edith Maxwell writes the Amesbury-based historical Quaker Midwife Mysteries and award-winning short crime fiction. As Maddie Day, she pens the Cozy Capers Book Group Mysteries, set on Cape Cod, and the Country Store Mysteries. Maxwell lives north... Read More →
avatar for Frankie Y Bailey

Frankie Y Bailey

Frankie Y. Bailey is a professor in the School of Criminal Justice, University at Albany. Nominated for Edgar, Agatha, and Anthony awards for nonfiction, she has won a Macavity. Her amateur sleuth series features crime historian Lizzie Stuart. Her police procedural novels feature... Read More →
avatar for Hallie Ephron

Hallie Ephron

Hallie Ephron is a New York Times–bestselling author of eleven suspense novels reviewers have called “deliciously creepy.” Her newest, Careful What You Wish For, is about a professional organizer married to a man who can’t pass a yard sale without stopping. In a starred review... Read More →
avatar for Joanna Schaffhausen

Joanna Schaffhausen

Joanna Schaffhausen has a doctorate in psychology, which reflects her long-standing interest in the brain―how it develops and the many ways it can go wrong. No Mercy is her second novel featuring police officer Ellery Hathaway and FBI agent Reed Markham. Her debut, The Vanishing... Read More →
avatar for Kate Flora

Kate Flora

Kate Flora’s fascination with people’s criminal tendencies began in the Maine attorney general’s office dealing with deadbeat dads, abused kids, and employers’ discrimination. The author of twenty-one books, Flora has been a finalist for the Edgar, Agatha, Anthony, and Derringer... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 11:00am - 12:00pm EDT
BPL Orientation Room 700 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Fiction

11:00am EDT

Fiction: Writing the Writers
“Write what you know,” goes the old adage for beginning writers. The three renowned novelists who join us for this session certainly no longer need to follow this advice; nevertheless, in their recent work, all three creatively imagine their way into the lives of real-life characters with whom they share a vocation: writing and publishing. Christopher Castellani’s Leading Men explores the legacy of a pivotal summer in the lives and careers of playwright Tennessee Williams, his lover Frank Merlo, and actress Anja Bloom. The title character in Steven Rowley’s The Editor is none other than Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, who was a book editor late in her life and who, in Rowley’s novel, develops a friendship and mentorship with a debut novelist. In her exquisitely researched new novel Dawson’s Fall, Roxana Robinson finds inspiration in the letters and diaries of her own great-grandparents as she traces the career of a newspaper publisher struggling to navigate the thorny moral landscape of post–Civil War Charleston. Robin Kall, host of the podcast Reading with Robin and the Cardigan Connection reading series, will lead a discussion about the divide between public figures and private lives and about how fiction writers can use their craft to imagine and elucidate the lives of real-life figures both like and unlike themselves. Sponsored by Greenough Brand Storytellers
Moderators
avatar for Robin Kall

Robin Kall

Robin Kall has always been an avid reader. From sneaking copies of Judy Blume from her childhood librarian to developing her own radio program, Reading with Robin, in 2002, Kall is a literary influencer and book pusher in her own right. Over the past fifteen years Kall has built a... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Christopher Castellani

Christopher Castellani

Christopher Castellani is the author of the critically-acclaimed novels All This Talk of Love, which was a finalist for the Ferro-Grumley Literary Award, The Saint of Lost Things, and A Kiss from Maddalena, which received a Massachusetts Book Award in Fiction. His book of essays on... Read More →
avatar for Roxana Robinson

Roxana Robinson

Roxana Robinson is the award-winning author of ten books: six novels, three short-story collections, and a biography of Georgia O’Keeffe. Her fiction has been widely anthologized and broadcast on NPR and can be found in numerous literary journals and websites including the New Yorker... Read More →
avatar for Steven Rowley

Steven Rowley

Steven Rowley is the bestselling author of Lily and the Octopus. A starred review in Publishers Weekly called his new book, The Editor, “a winning dissection of family, forgiveness, and fame.” His books have been published in nineteen languages and are both set to be adapted for... Read More →

Sponsors
avatar for Greenough Brand Storytellers

Saturday October 19, 2019 11:00am - 12:00pm EDT
BPL Abbey Room 700 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Fiction

11:00am EDT

Reconsidering Appalachia
If you’ve read Hillbilly Elegy and think you know everything you need to know about Appalachia, come to this session for a very different perspective. We are joined by Chelsea Jack and Meredith McCarroll, both contributors to the anthology Appalachian Reckoning: A Region Responds to Hillbilly Elegy, which is critical of Hillbilly Elegy for being “anti-intellectual, overly anecdotal, and attempting to revitalize widely discredited ‘culture of poverty’ explanations for persistent inequities.” Our third panelist is Madeline ffitch, author of Stay and Fight, a powerful novel set in Appalachia in which a yuppie from Seattle becomes an unlikely homesteader with an unconventional family of choice. Publishers Weekly, in its starred review, called Stay and Fight a “remarkable, gripping debut novel.” Our moderator is author and poet Rusty Barnes, whose recent books include Appalachia Now: Short Stories of Contemporary Appalachia and Ridgerunner.
Moderators
avatar for Rusty Barnes

Rusty Barnes

Rusty Barnes, poet and crime writer, grew up in rural northern Appalachia. He received his BA from Mansfield University of Pennsylvania and his MFA from Emerson College. His fiction, poetry, and nonfiction have appeared in many journals and anthologies like Best Small Fictions 2015... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Chelsea Jack

Chelsea Jack

Chelsea Jack is a PhD student in anthropology at Yale. Her fields of interest are anthropology of medicine, environmental history and humanities, agrarian studies, American literature, nature writing, and history. Jack has contributed to Appalachian Reckoning: A Region Responds to... Read More →
avatar for Madeline ffitch

Madeline ffitch

Madeline ffitch is a writer with work in Tin House, Guernica, Granta, VICE, Electric Literature, and other publications. She co-founded the punk theater company Missoula Oblongata and is part of the direct-action collective Appalachia Resist! ffitch is the author of the short story... Read More →
avatar for Meredith McCarroll

Meredith McCarroll

Meredith McCarroll is the writer of Unwhite: Appalachia, Race, and Film and Appalachian Reckoning: A Region Responds to Hillbilly Elegy, a book that a starred Kirkus Reviews review called a “a welcome and valuable resource for anyone studying or writing about this much-maligned... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 11:00am - 12:00pm EDT
BPL Commonwealth Salon 700 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Fiction   Nonfiction

11:00am EDT

Chances of German Translation in the United States
According to the Translation Database at Publishers Weekly, 2018 was the second year in a row when the total number of translated works of fiction and poetry published in the United States declined, 606 titles compared to the peak of 666 titles in 2016. This is a tiny percentage of the total number of books published annually in the US (around 300,000). Contrast that with Germany: in 2016, 9,882 new translations were published in Germany, 13.6 percent of new releases, as reported in the Frankfurter Buchmesse “Books and the Book Trade in 2017 (2016 figures)” report. To this day, German-language readers lead the world in published translations. Authors like J.K. Rowling and Jojo Moyes top both German and American bestseller lists, but it’s rare for a German author to top charts in the US. Why does this cultural imbalance persist? Literary translators Danny Bowles and Katy Derbyshire will discuss these issues and more in this conversation.
Presenters
avatar for Daniel Bowles

Daniel Bowles

Daniel Bowles is an assistant professor of German studies at Boston College, where he researches and teaches twentieth-century and contemporary German literature, culture, and history. Christian Kracht’s The Dead is his latest translation. Previous translation work includes novels... Read More →
avatar for Katy Derbyshire

Katy Derbyshire

Katy Derbyshire is a British-born, Berlin-based translator and writer. She translates contemporary German writers including Clemens Meyer, Christa Wolf, Helene Hegemann, and Inka Parei. Her translation of Bricks and Mortar by Clemens Meyer was longlisted for the 2017 Man Booker Prize... Read More →

Sponsors
avatar for Goethe-Institut Boston

Saturday October 19, 2019 11:00am - 12:00pm EDT
199 Commonwealth Ave 199 Commonwealth Ave, Boston, MA, 02116
  Nonfiction

11:00am EDT

Picturing the World: Nonfiction Picture Books
Nonfiction stories for young readers have been gaining in popularity and critical acclaim; two of the four most recent Caldecott Medal winners have been picture book biographies. How do creators of nonfiction picture books choose their subjects and conduct research? How do they condense complicated life stories into thirty-two pages and select which details to include (and which to omit)? What is the role of illustration in bringing true stories to life on the page? These are just a few of the questions we’ll explore with authors of four exciting new nonfiction picture books, two about space and two about sports. Lesa Cline-Ransome is the author of several acclaimed picture book biographies; her latest, Counting the Stars, explores the life of NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson. Hayley Barrett also looks to the stars in her new book; What Miss Mitchell Saw is about the life of nineteenth-century astronomer (and Nantucket native) Maria Mitchell. On the sporting side, Karlin Gray’s Serena: The Littlest Sister is about tennis phenom Serena Williams, and Gloria Respress-Churchwell’s Follow Chester! traces the courageous story of Chester Pierce, Harvard’s first black football player. Whether you’re a parent, educator, librarian, aspiring picture book creator, or you just like a good (true) story, you’ll want to turn up for this fascinating session, hosted by Simmons University’s Megan Dowd Lambert, author of several picture books as well as the guidebook Reading Picture Books with Children.
Moderators
avatar for Megan Dowd Lambert

Megan Dowd Lambert

Megan Lambert is a senior lecturer in children’s literature at Simmons University. She writes and reviews for Kirkus Reviews and the Horn Book and is a consultant with Embrace Race: A Community about Race and Kids. She is an award-winning author of children’s picture books like... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Lesa Cline-Ransome

Lesa Cline-Ransome

Lisa Cline-Ransome is the award-winning author of multiple children’s picture books such as Satchel Paige, Young Pele, Before She Was Harriet, and more. Her latest release is the “detail-rich” (Kirkus Reviews) picture book biography of Katherine Johnson, Counting the Stars... Read More →
avatar for Hayley Barrett

Hayley Barrett

Hayley Barrett is the author of the picture book Babymoon (illustrated by Juana Martinez-Neal), which follows a new family as they welcome a child into the world. She is also the author of What Miss Mitchell Saw (illustrated by Diana Sudyka), a nonfiction account of Nantucket astronomer... Read More →
avatar for Gloria Respress-Churchwell

Gloria Respress-Churchwell

Gloria Respress-Churchwell is a children’s author, documentarian, and both a fiction and nonfiction writer. Her documentary and fictional history of Robert Churchwell, the “Jackie Robinson of Journalism,” is now on permanent display at the Smithsonian National Museum of African... Read More →
avatar for Karlin Gray

Karlin Gray

Growing up, Navy “brat” Karlin Gray lived in ten houses and attended eight schools. Since then, she has worked in a variety of jobs in Florida, Virginia, New York and Connecticut. Gray is the author of Nadia: The Girl Who Couldn’t Sit Still and An Extraordinary Ordinary Moth... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 11:00am - 12:00pm EDT
Old South Mary Norton 645 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Nonfiction   Sessions for Writers

11:00am EDT

YA Keynote: Marie Lu
Fans have long hoped for another book in the Legend series and Marie Lu, as usual, has not disappointed. With her latest release, Rebel, we get even more out of familiar characters and have new light shed on others. We’re beyond ecstatic to host Marie Lu as our YA Keynote! In its review of Rebel, Publishers Weekly says that "this tale of intrigue, alliances, and love will draw Legend fans and new readers into a fascinating world whose combined layers of privilege and surveillance draw comparisons to many present-day social ills." While the Legend series followed the romantic relationship between Day and June, Rebel focuses more on the brother relationship between Day and Eden, which adds a new dimension to already familiar relationships. Day is focused on keeping Eden safe, even at the cost of Day’s relationship with June. This story of interwoven relationships, politics, and change is sure to tug at the heartstrings and keep eager readers on the edge of their seats. Between Lu’s unmatched ability to craft suspense and her signature cinematic storytelling, Rebel is sure to satisfy Lu’s many eager and patient fans! Bring those burning questions you’ve been dying to ask the legendary writer herself and join moderator Siân Gaetano, children’s and YA editor at Shelf Awareness, in conversation with Marie Lu. Sponsored by Simmons University.
Moderators
avatar for Siân Gaetano

Siân Gaetano

Siân Gaetano is the children’s and YA editor at Shelf Awareness, which publishes newsletters for general readers as well as book professionals. She started the Horn Book Podcast and has worked as a book reviewer, publicity assistant, and reader of manuscripts for Arthur A. Levine... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Marie Lu

Marie Lu

Marie Lu is the young adult author of the Legend Series, which the New York Times describes as a series that “doesn’t merely survive the hype, it deserves it.” Her works also include the Young Elites trilogy; the Warcross series; the seventh book of the Spirit Animals series... Read More →

Sponsors
avatar for Simmons University

Saturday October 19, 2019 11:00am - 12:00pm EDT
Old South Sanctuary 645 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Young Adult

11:30am EDT

Appearance by Taco Dragon
Can't find Taco Dragon? Check the taco truck--it's almost lunchtime!
Saturday October 19, 2019 11:30am - 12:00pm EDT
Brainstorm Tent 02116
  Kids

11:30am EDT

Readings: Debut Novels
Have you ever dreamed of writing a novel? These three first-time novelists—all of whom have led distinguished careers in other fields before turning to fiction—are here to tell you it’s not too late! In this session of readings, we’ll hear from composer and Berklee professor Bill Banfield, whose novel Cedric’s Truth follows a protagonist navigating the intersections of artistic production and political activism. Playwright, poet, and journalist Mark Guerin turns his pen to fiction in You Can See More from Up Here, about a middle-aged man whose present-day experience of loss prompts him to revisit the rifts of the past. And, in The Last Book Party, journalist and speechwriter Karen Dukess pens a coming-of-age story set amid the Cape Cod summer homes of New York literati. Our host for this session is Jessica A. Kent, founder and editor-in-chief of the popular Boston Book Blog.
Moderators
avatar for Jessica A. Kent

Jessica A. Kent

Jessica A. Kent is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Boston Book Blog, a website that covers the local literary community. Previous publications include The Emerson Review, Boston Literary Magazine, Boston Thought, and Relevant Magazine, as well as being a recipient of the Lea... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Bill Banfield

Bill Banfield

Bill Banfield is a composer, recording artist, and author of multiple books. The Director of Africana Studies and a professor at Berklee College of Music, Banfield is the author of Cultural Codes, about the incorporation of the artist’s values into cultural aesthetic; Black Notes... Read More →
avatar for Karen Dukess

Karen Dukess

Before Karen Dukess became an author, she was a tour guide in the former Soviet Union, a newspaper reporter in Florida, a magazine publisher in Russia, and a speechwriter on gender equality for the United Nations Development Programme. She has also blogged for the Huffington Post... Read More →
avatar for Mark Guerin

Mark Guerin

Mark Guerin is an author, playwright, copywriter, and journalist from Boston. He won an Illinois Arts Council Grant, the Mimi Steinberg Award for Playwriting, and Sigma Tau Delta’s Eleanor B. North Poetry Award, and is a graduate of GrubStreet’s Novel Incubator program. You Can... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 11:30am - 12:15pm EDT
BPL Newsfeed Cafe 700 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Fiction

11:30am EDT

BBF Unbound: Long Time Gone
We may leave our childhood homes behind, but for some writers, our minds still dwell there, and our work stays rooted in the fertile soil of places left behind. We leave for reasons of economics, education, violence, or love, among others, but these places where we came of age leave their imprint on us--sometimes as a sweetness, sometimes as a scar, often both. Who are we to write about a place we have left behind? In this multi-genre session, Boston-based authors Desmond Hall, Marjan Kamali, and Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne will explore what it is about exile from our homelands (whether voluntary or not) that keeps us tethered to these places, how we wrestle with legacies, the benefits and burdens of writing about a place you only inhabit in your mind, how to access the small details of a place that make for great fiction and nonfiction, and when (or if) it’s time to move on. Our tour guide for this session is Kelly J. Ford, author of the novel Cottonmouths.
Moderators
avatar for Kelly J. Ford

Kelly J. Ford

Kelly J. Ford is the author of Cottonmouths, one of Los Angeles Review’s best books of 2017 for “its ability to go beneath the surface, striking impressive depths of character and setting.” Her shorter work can be found in Black Heart Magazine, Post Road Magazine, and others... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Desmond Hall

Desmond Hall

Writer Desmond Hall was born in Jamaica. His debut YA novel, Your Corner Dark, is set on the unforgiving streets and majestic mountains surrounding Kingston and tells the story of Frankie, an ambitious high school student who has just earned a ticket out with a full ride scholarship... Read More →
avatar for Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne

Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne

Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne is a novelist, essayist, and journalist whose reports on public health have appeared in the Atlantic, the Boston Globe, the Boston Globe Magazine, and GlobalPost. A former editor at the Atlantic, she is a graduate of both Amherst College and GrubStreet’s... Read More →
avatar for Marjan Kamali

Marjan Kamali

Marjan Kamali is a novelist and teacher whose work has been both anthologized and broadcast on BBC Radio 4. A graduate of UC Berkeley with an MBA from Columbia University and an MFA from New York University, Kamali is a teacher of writing at GrubStreet and former adjunct business... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 11:30am - 12:30pm EDT
Emmanuel Parish Hall 15 Newbury St, Boston, MA, 02116
  BBF Unbound   Fiction

11:30am EDT

Monster Mouth Puppets
It’s almost Halloween, so how about playing with some monsters? Learn how to create your own talking, chomping, monster mouth puppet in this fun, hands-on workshop with Puppet Showplace Theater's Resident Artist Sarah Nolen. Meet elaborate "Muppet-style" TV puppets, learn about their construction and design, then make and decorate your own original construction paper mouth puppet character and learn how to bring it to life.
Presenters
avatar for Puppet Showplace Theater

Puppet Showplace Theater

Puppet Showplace Theater is New England’s favorite puppetry destination. Each year, Puppet Showplace presents over 300 performances by professional puppet companies at its Brookline Village theater. Puppet Showplace Theater touring shows travel to schools, libraries, and cultural... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 11:30am - 12:30pm EDT
BPL Rey Room 700 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Kids

11:30am EDT

Memoir: Tim O'Brien
Tim O’Brien is best known for his acclaimed semi-autobiographical novel of the Vietnam War, The Things They Carried, as well as the National Book Award winner Going After Cacciato. His latest, Dad’s Maybe Book, is a love letter to his two sons, begun when they were very small and added to over a fifteen-year period. As an older dad, O’Brien was uncertain how much time he would have with his sons, so he wrote to offer them glimpses into the life and times, but also the abiding concerns, of their father. Full of wisdom and humor, Dad’s Maybe Book is both a touching celebration of fatherhood and a poignant memoir of a life in letters. O’Brien will be in conversation with Chris Walsh, who directs the writing program at Boston University and is the author of Cowardice: A Brief History.
Moderators
avatar for Chris Walsh

Chris Walsh

Chris Walsh is the director of Boston University’s Writing Program and has taught writing and literature at Emerson College, Harvard University, and as a Fulbright scholar at the University of Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso. His work can be found in Agni, the Los Angeles Review of... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Tim O'Brien

Tim O'Brien

Tim O’Brien is the author of The Things They Carried, Going After Cacciato, If I Die in a Combat Zone, In the Lake of the Woods, and July, July. A National Book Award recipient, he has had work appear in the New Yorker, Esquire, the Atlantic, and Playboy. His latest work, Dad’s... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 11:30am - 12:30pm EDT
Church of the Covenant 67 Newbury St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Memoir

11:30am EDT

Architecture: Bauhaus
The Bauhaus was founded in Germany one hundred years ago, and we are commemorating the occasion with a session that looks at multiple dimensions of the highly influential school of architecture and design. Elizabeth Otto, author of Haunted Bauhaus, explores an unexpected aspect of Bauhaus hiding beneath its slick surfaces: the experimentation with occult spirituality, gender fluidity, queer identities, and radical politics. In Gyorgy Kepes: Undreaming the Bauhaus, John R. Blakinger considers the work of an acolyte of Moholy-Nagy who, when transplanted to America, found himself trapped in a military-industrial-aesthetic complex. Kepes pioneered a new paradigm for creative practice: the artist as technocrat. The volume Bauhaus Futures asks “who are the pioneering experimentalists who reinscribe or resist Bauhaus traditions?” Contributors to Bauhaus Futures include Molly Wright Steenson, Laura Forlano, and our moderator, Robert Wiesenberger. Sponsored by MIT Press.
Moderators
avatar for Robert Wiesenberger

Robert Wiesenberger

Robert Wiesenberger is Associate Curator of Contemporary Projects at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts, where he also teaches in the graduate program in art history at Williams College. Before moving to the Berkshires he was, from 2013–2018, a Critic at the... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Elizabeth Otto

Elizabeth Otto

Elizabeth Otto is an art and cultural historian whose research centers on early twentieth-century visual and media culture, with a focus on Europe. She is a tenured associate professor of Modern Art, Film, and Media History, Gender Studies, and Curriculum Development at the University... Read More →
avatar for John R. Blakinger

John R. Blakinger

John R. Blakinger is an art historian, writer, and editor whose work has appeared in Tate Papers, CAA Reviews, and Design Issues. With a PhD in art history from Stanford University, he was also a pre-doctoral fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National... Read More →
avatar for Laura Forlano

Laura Forlano

Laura Forlano is a social scientist, design researcher, professor, and writer. Her work, which has earned her funding from the National Science Foundation and the Fulbright Award, has appeared in peer-reviewed journals such as the Journal of Business Anthropology, Demonstrations... Read More →
avatar for Molly Wright Steenson

Molly Wright Steenson

Molly Wright Steenson is a designer, author, professor, researcher, and international speaker. Her work focuses on the intersection of design, architecture, and artificial intelligence. She is the Senior Associate Dean for Research in the College of Fine Arts, the K&L Gates Associate... Read More →

Sponsors
avatar for MIT Press

Saturday October 19, 2019 11:30am - 12:30pm EDT
BAC Cascieri Hall 320 Newbury St, Boston, MA, 02115
  Nonfiction

11:30am EDT

Capitalism and Its Discontents
Money, money, money, money. The assumption that unbridled capitalism is good is at long last being questioned in many quarters where previously it was a given. Perfect timing for a discussion of the three books under consideration here. In Unbound: How Inequality Constricts Our Economy and What We Can Do About It, economist Heather Boushey makes a persuasive and highly readable case that inequality undermines growth and offers policy suggestions for how to reduce it. In Corruption: What Everyone Needs to Know, Ray Fisman looks at why corruption is so damaging, the perverse incentives that cause it, and how it can be combated. Mike Isaac provides a case study of everything that is suspect about startup culture in Super Pumped: The Battle for Uber. Join these three fabulous authors for a deep look at various aspects of the corrosive influence of money, led by Harvard Business School professor Michael Norton, author of Happy Money.
Moderators
avatar for Michael Norton

Michael Norton

Michael Norton is the Harold M. Brierley Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School and a member of Harvard’s Behavioral Insights Group. His work has appeared in a number of prestigious academic journals, including Science and the Annual Review of Psychology... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Ray Fisman

Ray Fisman

Ray Fisman holds the Slater Family Chair in Behavioral Economics at Boston University. Previously, he was the Lambert family professor of Social Enterprise and co-director of the Social Enterprise Program at Columbia University’s business school. Fisman’s research—much of it... Read More →
avatar for Heather Boushey

Heather Boushey

Heather Boushey is a leading economist, public thinker, editor, and executive director at the Washington Center for Equitable Growth. Her work, which focuses on the intersection of economic inequality and public policy, has twice landed Boushey on Politico’s top fifty “thinkers... Read More →
avatar for Mike Isaac

Mike Isaac

Mike Isaac is an award-winning technology correspondent at the New York Times. His coverage of Uber won the Gerald Loeb Award for distinguished business reporting. You can see him often on CNBC and MSNBC. Isaac’s book, Super Pumped, tells the story of Uber’s rise and fall against... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 11:30am - 12:30pm EDT
Trinity Forum 206 Clarendon St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Nonfiction

11:30am EDT

Violence, Justice, and Forgiveness
This session deals with complicated issues of crime and forgiveness. Martha Minow, in When Should Law Forgive?, asks whether laws should encourage individuals to forgive and when the law itself should be more forgiving. She points out that debtors (other than holders of student debt) are forgiven through bankruptcy proceedings, so why not a forgiveness process for those convicted of crimes? In The Limits of Blame, Erin I. Kelly argues that our practice of assigning blame goes beyond a pragmatic need for protection or a moral need to condemn harmful acts publicly and represents instead a desire for retribution that normalizes excessive punishment. Thomas Abt looks at crime prevention in Bleeding Out. He asserts that violent crime is by no means a permanent feature of urban life. By identifying the small number of people responsible for the majority of violent crime and deploying support and treatment, homicides and other violent crimes can be reduced dramatically. Our moderator for this conversation on the philosophical and practical issues around crime and punishment is Harvard Law professor Tomiko Brown-Nagin, author of Courage to Dissent: Atlanta and the Long History of the Civil Rights Movement.
Moderators
avatar for Tomiko Brown-Nagin

Tomiko Brown-Nagin

Tomiko Brown-Nagin is an American lawyer, an award-winning legal historian, an expert in constitutional law and education law and policy, and an academic administrator and professor. She is the current dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. Her work... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Martha Minow

Martha Minow

Martha Minow is the 300th University Anniversary Professor in Harvard and a former Dean of Harvard Law School who President Barack Obama calls the “teacher who changed my life.” She is the vice-chair of the Legal Services Corporation that helped launch a program of the UN High... Read More →
avatar for Erin I. Kelly

Erin I. Kelly

Erin I. Kelly is a professor of philosophy at Tufts University. Her research areas are in moral and political philosophy and the philosophy of law including ethics and criminal justice, with a focus on justice, the nature of moral reasons, moral responsibility, and theories of punishment... Read More →
avatar for Thomas Abt

Thomas Abt

Thomas Abt is a senior research fellow with the Center for International Development at Harvard Kennedy School, where he leads their Security and Development Seminar Series. He is also a senior fellow to the Criminal Justice Policy Program at Harvard Law School and the Igarape Institute... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 11:30am - 12:30pm EDT
BPL Rabb Hall 700 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Nonfiction

11:45am EDT

YA: Historical Fiction
In their recent novels, these three authors combine historical research with their storytelling skills to shed new light on some of the defining moments of the twentieth century. Julie Berry elevates Lovely War to the realm of myth, as Greek gods Apollo, Aphrodite, and Ares grapple over the fates of four mortals enmeshed in the First World War. Among the many starred reviews received by the novel is one from Kirkus Reviews, which calls the novel “An unforgettable romance so Olympian in scope, human at its core, and lyrical in its prose that it must be divinely inspired.” World War II is the focus of Kip Wilson’s debut novel White Rose, which uses free verse narrative to capture the inner struggles and courage of young members of a Nazi resistance movement. In a starred review, Kirkus called White Rose an “intense, bone-chilling reading experience.” Finally, Susan Kaplan Carlton’s In the Neighborhood of True takes readers to 1950s-era Atlanta, where a Northern transplant must navigate anti-Semitic sentiments while also making sense of her own romantic desires while, according to Publishers Weekly’s starred review, “the humidity and tension ris[e] with each chapter.” Helping us travel back in time is moderator James Kennedy, founder of the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival and author of the novel The Order of Odd-Fish.
Moderators
avatar for James Kennedy

James Kennedy

James Kennedy is the founder and curator of the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival, annually screened in cities across the United States, where kid filmmakers create movies that tell the entire story of a Newbery Medal–winning book in 90 seconds of less. The award-winning The Order... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Julie Berry

Julie Berry

Julie Berry is the award-winning author of children’s, middle-grade, and young adult books such as The Emperor’s Ostrich, The Passion of Dolssa, The Scandalous Sisterhood of Prickwillow Place, All the Truth That’s in Me, and many others. Her latest, The Lovely War, was praised... Read More →
avatar for Kip Wilson

Kip Wilson

Kip Wilson is a Massachusetts-based young adult writer and editor. Her work has won her honors like the PEN New England Discovery Award and been included on the Kids’ Indie Next List. Her latest book, White Rose, a historical novel-in-verse about anti-Nazi political activist Sophie... Read More →
avatar for Susan Kaplan Carlton

Susan Kaplan Carlton

Susan Kaplan Carlton is a long-time magazine writer published in Elle, Mademoiselle, Seventeen, Self, Parents, and other publications. She also writes historical young adult novels such as Love & Haight, a YALSA Best Book for Young Adults, and her latest, In the Neighborhood of True... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 11:45am - 12:45pm EDT
BPL Teen Central 700 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Young Adult

12:00pm EDT

Piao
Piao is a Chinese Canadian pop/R&B singer and the 2016 Slaight Scholar from Toronto. Born in Shanghai and raised in Toronto, her unique background has led her to unravel and bridge the gap between Chinese pop music and American R&B music. Her soulful, heartfelt, and dynamic performances reflect the world as she experiences it.
Presenters
avatar for Piao

Piao

Piao is a Chinese Canadian pop/R&B singer and the 2016 Slaight Scholar from Toronto. Born in Shanghai and raised in Toronto, her unique background has led her to unravel and bridge the gap between Chinese pop music and American R&B music. Her soulful, heartfelt, and dynamic performances... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 12:00pm - 12:45pm EDT
Berklee Stage 02116
  Music

12:00pm EDT

BBF Unbound: Flashing Your Fiction
Flash fiction are usually stories between fifty and two thousand words. Distilling experience into a few pages or paragraphs forces us to pay close attention to every conversation, every action, every gesture, every word. In this session, writer Elan Barnehama (Finding Bluefield) will guide participants thought a fast-paced flash fiction workshop. The first draft of anything is a messy process, so the group will first discuss a few techniques for getting started. And then, they’ll write. Next, each participant will read their untidy draft, and the group will respond by pointing out what they liked, followed by a chance for revision and rereading. Participants will leave with a story that’s well on its way to being submission-ready!
Presenters
avatar for Elan Barnehama

Elan Barnehama

Elan Barnehama’s first  novel, Finding Bluefield, is a road trip through the 1960s that explores what happens when society’s invisible become visible. His writing has appeared in Boston Accent, Jewish Fiction, Route 9, Drunk Monkeys, Running Wild Press Short Story Anthology... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 12:00pm - 1:00pm EDT
BPL Exchange 700 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  BBF Unbound   Sessions for Writers

12:00pm EDT

True Story
Four authors of nonfiction each get twelve minutes to tell you a true story. This year’s lineup will keep you riveted with tales of journeys, treasure, mind control, and, wait for it . . . mushrooms. Sandra Miller, author of Trove, goes on a treasure hunt for $10,000 in gold coins and discovers much more than money. Rob Cocuzzo, in The Road to San Donato, tells of a grueling bicycle trip with his father to his ancestral village to discover what role his family may have played during WWII when dozens of Jews were interned there before being sent to death camps. Stephen Kinzer, in his latest, Poisoner in Chief, tells the horrifying story of a powerful CIA chemist whose highly classified work involved experimenting with LSD on unsuspecting subjects, as well as scheming to poison Fidel Castro. Finally, adventurer Lawrence Millman treats us to ecological, ethnographic, and historical wit and wisdom about mushrooms from his delightful Fungipedia. Hosted by True Story veteran Larry Lindner, author of Saving Baby.
Presenters
avatar for Larry Lindner

Larry Lindner

Larry Lindner is a New York Times–bestselling co-author who has also written for many publications including the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and O, the Oprah Magazine. He is the former director of the Boston Literary District.
avatar for Lawrence Millman

Lawrence Millman

Lawrence Millman is a mycologist, an explorer, and the author of sixteen books, including At the End of the World: A True Story of Murder in the Arctic, Hiking to Siberia, and Last Places. His area of expertise is fungi, and he has studied them all over the world--Greenland, Honduras... Read More →
avatar for Robert Cocuzzo

Robert Cocuzzo

Robert Cocuzzo is an editor, author, and journalist from Massachusetts. He’s a long-time editor at Nantucket Magazine, and his other work has appeared in Outside, Town & Country, Departures, Luxury, and Boston Common. Cocuzzo’s debut book was the critically acclaimed Tracking... Read More →
avatar for Sandra A. Miller

Sandra A. Miller

Sandra A. Miller is a writer and essayist with work in over a hundred publications, including the Christian Science Monitor, the Boston Globe Magazine, NPR, Spirituality & Health, Yankee, and Modern Bride. She also wrote award-winning scripts for 11 Central Ave., a popular radio comic... Read More →
avatar for Stephen Kinzer

Stephen Kinzer

Stephen Kinzer is an award-winning foreign correspondent who, for more than two decades, covered 50+ countries on five continents for the New York Times, including Nicaragua, Turkey, and pre- and post-unification Germany. He is the author of several well-acclaimed books such as Bitter... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 12:00pm - 1:00pm EDT
Old South Guild Room 645 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Nonfiction

12:00pm EDT

Crime Fiction: For You My Love Forever
Born in Balmoral and living in Moncton, New-Brunswick in Eastern Canada, Suzan Payne has a degree in literature and has worked in media for over twenty years. Her book Annabelle is the first volume of a trilogy of critically acclaimed crime novels called Pour toi mon amour pour toujours (For you my love forever). The second title, Valérie, was launched in May, with the final installation, Joëlle, forthcoming in October. Her first two books have been both critically acclaimed and popular successes. Payne will be interviewed by French Cultural Center librarian Ingrid Marquardt, and there will be an opportunity for audience Q&A.
Moderators
avatar for Ingrid Marquardt

Ingrid Marquardt

Ingrid Marquardt leads the second largest private French library in the country, at the French Cultural Center in the heart of historical Back Bay. This position marries her love of French language and literature. Marquardt began her passion for French through the immersion program... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Suzan Payne

Suzan Payne

Suzan Payne has worked in the media for over twenty years. She is the author of a trilogy of critically acclaimed crime novels titled Pour toi mon amour pour toujours (For you my love forever): Annabelle, Valérie, and Joëlle.

Sponsors
avatar for French Cultural Center
avatar for Regroupement des éditeurs franco-canadiens

Saturday October 19, 2019 12:00pm - 1:30pm EDT
French Cultural Center 53 Marlborough St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Fiction

12:15pm EDT

Story Time: Matthew Cordell
Caldecott Medalist Matthew Cordell reads Explorers, about a family’s eventful trip to the natural history museum (ages 4–8)
Presenters
avatar for Matthew Cordell

Matthew Cordell

Matthew Cordell is a Caldecott Medal–winning author and illustrator of Wolf in the Snow and many other picture books such as Wish and Dream, Trouble Gum, and Another Brother. He has illustrated numerous highly lauded children’s books including The Only Fish in the Sea and Special... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 12:15pm - 12:45pm EDT
BPL Children's Library 700 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Kids

12:15pm EDT

Reading Like a Writer: Experimentation
Have you ever wondered how an author chose details to bring a place to life, why she chose her narrative’s point(s) of view, or how and why he pushes the boundaries of genre and form? In these three sessions, writers will open up about the nuts and bolts of their craft. Our host for each session will lead an audience discussion of a very short excerpt from each author’s work before bringing the author into the conversation to contextualize the excerpt, discuss her or his choices, and answer questions from the audience. A unique alternative to traditional readings, these sessions will appeal not only to aspiring fiction writers but also to readers looking to enrich their reading experience. This session will consist of three twenty-minute guided explorations of the work of authors whose recent fiction is experimental in nature, offering both challenges and rewards for readers: Christopher Boucher (Big Giant Floating Head), Sarah Rose Etter (The Book of X), and Ron MacLean (We Might As Well Light Something on Fire). Our host is novelist Michelle Hoover, author most recently of Bottomland.
Moderators
avatar for Michelle Hoover

Michelle Hoover

Michelle Hoover is an award-winning author and innovative writing professor and educator. She is the head and cofounder of the Novel Incubator program at GrubStreet and has been teaching creative writing in different capacities for years. A writing professor at Boston University for... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Christopher Boucher

Christopher Boucher

Christopher Boucher is a novelist, editor, and professor. He is author of the novels How To Keep Your Volkswagen Alive, about a man grieving the losses of his father and ‘60s Volkswagen Beetle, and Golden Delicious, about a Massachusetts town torn apart by economic strife. Also... Read More →
avatar for Ron MacLean

Ron MacLean

Ron MacLean is the author of Headlong, winner of the 2013 Indie Book Award for Best Mystery, and two previous books: Blue Winnetka Skies and Why the Long Face?. His short fiction has appeared in GQ, Narrative, Fiction International, Best Online Fiction 2010, and elsewhere. He is a... Read More →
avatar for Sarah Rose Etter

Sarah Rose Etter

Sarah Rose Etter is the author of Tongue Party, her debut collection of short stories that was selected by Deb Olin Unferth as the winner of the Caketrain Press award. Her first novel, The Book of X, was described as "a relentlessly original look at what it means to exist in a female... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 12:15pm - 1:15pm EDT
BAC Beehive 951 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02115
  Fiction   Sessions for Writers

12:15pm EDT

Reading Like a Writer: Perspective
Have you ever wondered how an author chose details to bring a place to life, why she chose her narrative’s point(s) of view, or how and why he pushes the boundaries of genre and form? In these three sessions, writers will open up about the nuts and bolts of their craft. Our host for each session will lead an audience discussion of a very short excerpt from each author’s work before bringing the author into the conversation to contextualize the excerpt, discuss her or his choices, and answer questions from the audience. A unique alternative to traditional readings, these sessions will appeal not only to aspiring fiction writers but also to readers looking to enrich their reading experience. This session will consist of three twenty-minute guided explorations of the work of authors whose recent novels offer innovative and sometimes surprising narrative perspectives: Susan Choi (Trust Exercise), Daphne Kalotay (Blue Hours), and Sandra Newman (The Heavens). Our host is novelist Dawn Tripp, author most recently of Georgia.
Moderators
avatar for Dawn Tripp

Dawn Tripp

Winner of the Massachusetts Book Award for fiction, Dawn Tripp is the author of Georgia: A Novel of Georgia O’Keeffe, which was awarded the 2017 Mary Lynn Kotz Award for Art in Literature, and three previous novels: Moon Tide, The Season of Open Water, and Game of Secrets, a Boston... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Sandra Newman

Sandra Newman

Sandra Newman is a nonfiction writer, memoirist, and author of The Only Good Thing Anyone Has Ever Done, The Country of Ice Cream Star, Changeling, and The Western Lit Survival Kit. Her most recent novel, The Heavens, was called “a strange and beautiful hybrid” by the New York... Read More →
avatar for Susan Choi

Susan Choi

Susan Choi is a novelist and recipient of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. She is the author of The Foreign Student (1998), which won the Asian-American Literary Award for fiction; American Woman, which was a finalist for the 2004... Read More →
avatar for Daphne Kalotay

Daphne Kalotay

Daphne Kalotay is a novelist, short story writer, educator, and reviewer. Her work has appeared in the Florida Review, the Paris Review, Poets & Writers, AGNI, Michigan Quarterly Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, Missouri Review, and Consequence, and she has contributed book reviews... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 12:15pm - 1:15pm EDT
BPL McKim Exhibition Hall 700 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Fiction   Sessions for Writers

12:30pm EDT

Appearance by Maisy
Let Maisy's colorful personality brighten your BBF day!
Saturday October 19, 2019 12:30pm - 1:00pm EDT
Brainstorm Tent 02116
  Kids

12:30pm EDT

BBF Unbound: The Novelist’s Feast: Four Authors on Food in Fiction
No matter what genre a novel falls under—be it a mystery starring a hard-boiled detective, a sweeping literary romance, or a comedy-horror about freshly-made zombies, the characters all have something in common—they have to eat! What a character eats (or doesn’t eat), when she eats, and why can reveal so much about her. The making and consuming of food can create setting, serve as a plot device, or act as a metaphor for deeper desires. Join this delicious discussion with novelists Jenna Blum (The Lost Family), Ramin Ganeshram (The General’s Cook), Crystal L. King (The Chef’s Secret), and Louise Miller (The Late Bloomers’ Club) and as they talk with our host, food writer Christina Koliander, about their approaches to using food in fiction.
Moderators
avatar for Christina Koliander

Christina Koliander

Christina Koliander has more than twenty years of experience as a cook and writer. She lives in Vermont and is working on a cookbook of healthy cooking for one that she hopes to finish in her lifetime.

Presenters
avatar for Crystal L King

Crystal L King

Crystal King is the author of The Chef's Secret and Feast of Sorrow, which was long-listed for the Center of Fiction's First Novel Prize. Her writing is fueled by a love of history and a passion for the food, language, and culture of Italy. She has taught classes in writing, creativity... Read More →
avatar for Jenna Blum

Jenna Blum

Jenna Blum writes moving novels of heart and tragedy. She moved Oprah Winfrey enough to be included on the list of Oprah’s Top Thirty Authors. Her first novel, Those Who Save Us, chronicles Trudy Schlemmer’s journey to uncover the truth of her and her mother’s past in Germany... Read More →
avatar for Louise Miller

Louise Miller

Louise Miller is an author and pastry chef living in Boston. Her debut novel, The City Baker’s Guide to Country Living, was an American Booksellers Association’s Indie Next pick and on the 2017 shortlist for the best women’s fiction of the America Library Association’s Reading... Read More →
avatar for Ramin Ganeshram

Ramin Ganeshram

Ramin Ganeshram is a veteran, award-winning journalist and writer for the New York Times and Newsday. She is also a professionally trained chef, an author of cookbooks with numerous accolades, and a food columnist whose work has appeared in Saveur, Gourmet, Bon Appetit, National Geographic... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 12:30pm - 1:30pm EDT
BPL Orientation Room 700 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Fiction

12:30pm EDT

Emerald Noir
If your visions of Ireland are all green fields, castles, Guinness, and sheep, two authors who have traveled to the Boston Book Festival from Northern Ireland are here to show you a different--and darker--side of the Emerald Isle. Kelly Creighton’s short fiction collection, Bank Holiday Hurricane, uses recurring characters and a defined geographic setting to create stories that the Irish Times calls “gritty and moving, with writing that can be both lyrical and stark.” And in Little Bird, Sharon Dempsey investigates what happens when a Welsh police detective lands in Belfast in order to forget her past--but winds up confronting a perplexing and threatening serial killer case. Leading this journey into the deepest, darkest corners of Éire is Boston Public Library president David Leonard, who also hails from the Land of Saints and Scholars.
Moderators
avatar for David Leonard

David Leonard

David Leonard is the president of the Boston Public Library. He first came to the the organization in 2009 as the chief technology officer. Before taking over as president, Leonard was the director of administration and technology; he also served as the acting director of administration... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Kelly Creighton

Kelly Creighton

Kelly Creighton is a Belfast-born writer who teaches creative writing, facilitates arts projects for community groups, and mentors new writers. Creighton is the founding editor of the Incubator Journal, which showcases the contemporary Irish story. She writes mostly crime and literary... Read More →
avatar for Sharon Dempsey

Sharon Dempsey

Sharon Dempsey is a journalist, creative writing facilitator, and crime fiction and nonfiction writer. She lives in Northern Ireland and currently teaches creative writing at Stranmillis College and Queen's University. She is the author of the crime novel Little Bird, as well as My... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 12:30pm - 1:30pm EDT
BPL Commonwealth Salon 700 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Fiction

12:30pm EDT

Elliot Ackerman: Places and Names
A combat veteran turned journalist tells a powerful story of war, revolution, and returning to the streets of conflict. A National Book Award finalist, journalist, novelist, and decorated Marine, Elliot Ackerman has reckoned with the horrors of war from many angles. He has guided fellow Marines through brutal urban combat in Iraq and Afghanistan, interviewed Syrian activists about their failed revolution, and sat down with a former al-Qaeda member in Iraq to discuss the future of the Middle East. Ackerman will sit down with the Christian Science Monitor’s Martin Kuz, himself a journalist who covered Afghanistan, to discuss his unflinching memoir, Places and Names, which reckons with the nature of combat and the human cost of the wars in Iran, Afghanistan, and Syria. Twelve years after Ackerman fought in the Battle of Fallujah, he revisited the Iraqi city to find that little had changed. In the end, he discovered that returning to the region where he fought his war offered no closure. Yet the candid and at times devastating stories he collects offer a unique, human view of the past two decades of strife in the Middle East. Prepare for a deeply personal discussion about America’s modern wars. Sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor.
Moderators
avatar for Martin Kuz

Martin Kuz

Martin Kuz is the West Coast correspondent for the Christian Science Monitor, based in Sacramento, California. He previously served as a projects reporter for the San Antonio Express-News and covered the war in Afghanistan for Stars and Stripes. He has worked as a staff reporter and... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Elliot Ackerman

Elliot Ackerman

Elliot Ackerman is the author of several novels, including Dark at the Crossing, which was a finalist for the National Book Award, and more recently Waiting for Eden. His writings appear in Esquire, the New Yorker, the Atlantic, and the New York Times Magazine, among other publications... Read More →

Sponsors
avatar for Christian Science Publishing Society

Saturday October 19, 2019 12:30pm - 1:30pm EDT
Old South Mary Norton 645 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Memoir

12:30pm EDT

Readings: Memoir
A true life story, well told, can be as riveting as any novel. The memoirists who will read in this session offer glimpses into four very different--but equally fascinating--lives. In If You Love Me, Maureen Cavanagh brings her poignantly personal story as a mother to bear on her work as an advocate for families coping with opioid addiction. Mothers and daughters also figure in Adrienne Brodeur's Wild Game, in which a teenage Adrienne was enlisted to orchestrate her mother’s infidelity and spent years coping with the repercussions. Family secrets are also at the center of William Dameron’s The Lie, a memoir about the hard-won battle to embrace his identity as a gay man--only to have his identity stolen for use in a catfishing scam. Finally, Susan Lewis Solomont’s Lost and Found in Spain will have listeners longing for their own Iberian adventure, as the wife of a former US Ambassador recounts how her time in that country expanded her sense of self and community. Our host for this session of memorable readings is Sean Tuohy, co-host of the Writer’s Bone podcast.
Moderators
avatar for Sean Tuohy

Sean Tuohy

Sean Tuohy is the co-host of Writer’s Bone, a creative arts podcast, along with Daniel Ford. He is also a screenwriter and stand-up comedian. Tuohy currently lives in Boston.

Presenters
avatar for Adrienne Brodeur

Adrienne Brodeur

Adrienne Brodeur is an award-winning author and editor with years of experience in the literary sphere. A former acquiring editor at Harcourt and HMH Books, Brodeur has earned the National Magazine Award for Best Fiction four times with Zoetrope, a literary magazine she founded with... Read More →
avatar for Maureen Cavanagh

Maureen Cavanagh

Maureen Cavanagh is an educator, recovery coach, and public speaker. She co-founded Magnolia New Beginnings, a nonprofit peer-support group for those living with or affected by substance use disorder. She is currently pursuing certification as a drug and alcohol counselor at UMass... Read More →
avatar for Susan Lewis Solomont

Susan Lewis Solomont

Susan Lewis Solomont is an award-winning entrepreneur, philanthropist, and community leader who has advised and worked with WGBH, Tufts University, Berklee College of Music, and many other institutions. From 2009 to 2013, she lived in Madrid with her husband, Alan D. Solomont, the... Read More →
avatar for William Dameron

William Dameron

William Dameron is an award-winning blogger, memoirist, and essayist. His work has appeared in publications including the New York Times, the Boston Globe, Salon, and the Huffington Post, as well as in the book Fashionably Late: Gay, Bi and Trans Men Who Came Out Later in Life. He... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 12:30pm - 1:30pm EDT
BPL Newsfeed Cafe 700 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Memoir

12:30pm EDT

Bitcoin Billionaires
The Winklevoss twins first caught the public’s attention when Boston’s own Ben Mezrich wrote about their role in launching Facebook in his 2009 bestseller, The Accidental Billionaires. Now, Mezrich (and the Winklevoss twins) are back with Bitcoin Billionaires, the unlikely story of how the brothers Tyler and Cameron made a bet on a nascent cryptocurrency called Bitcoin and won big. Whether you, like us, are big Mezrich fans or are just curious about crypto, come join Ben’s conversation with venture capitalist Anthony Tjan, author of Good People.
Moderators
avatar for Anthony Tjan

Anthony Tjan

Anthony Tjan is an entrepreneur, strategic advisor, and venture investor. He is co-author of the New York Times bestseller Heart, Smarts, Guts, and Luck and the author of Good People: The Only Leadership Decision That Really Matters. Tjan is the CEO of the Cue Ball Group, a private... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Ben Mezrich

Ben Mezrich

Ben Mezrich has built his career chronicling young genius. Mezrich can only be called prolific, producing a book for almost every year of his near two-decade writing career. He is perhaps best known for The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook, a Tale of Sex, Money, Genius... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 12:30pm - 1:30pm EDT
BPL Abbey Room 700 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Nonfiction

12:30pm EDT

Lions and Tigers and Dogs and Kids
The two fascinating books presented here offer insights into animal and human behavior. In Wildhood: The Epic Journey from Adolescence to Adulthood in Humans and Other Animals, the author duo behind bestseller Zoobiquity, Barbara Natterson-Horowitz and Kathryn Bowers, find that the same four challenges face every adolescent and young adult human and animal: safety, status, sex, and self-reliance. How they face those challenges shapes their adult destinies. In Our Dogs, Ourselves: The Story of a Singular Bond, head of the Dog Cognition Lab at Columbia University and bestselling author Alexandra Horowitz presents an entertaining investigation of the relationship between dogs and humans. Come hear these authors give presentations about their amazing work, followed by a convo and Q&A moderated by Tiziana C. Dearing, host of WBUR’s Radio Boston.
Moderators
avatar for Tiziana C. Dearing

Tiziana C. Dearing

Tiziana C. Dearing is a Professor of Practice at the Boston College School of Social Work as well as the current host of Radio Boston. Prior to that, she has had many years of experience leading in the nonprofit, academic, and business sectors, including a long stretch of consulting... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Alexandra Horowitz

Alexandra Horowitz

Alexandra Horowitz is a professor, psychologist, and nonfiction writer focused on research in dog cognition. With a PhD in cognitive sciences from the University of California, San Diego, Horowitz is also an assistant professor of psychology at Barnard College and the head of their... Read More →
avatar for Barbara Natterson-Horowitz

Barbara Natterson-Horowitz

Barbara Natterson-Horowitz is a professor, evolutionary biologist, cardiologist, and writer whose research centers on health and development through the natural world. A professor of medicine in the UCLA Division of Cardiology and a visiting professor at Harvard University’s Department... Read More →
avatar for Kathryn Bowers

Kathryn Bowers

Kathryn Bowers is an award-winning science journalist who has taught medical narrative and comparative literature at UCLA. She writes about health, biology, and evolution. Bowers is a Future Tense Fellow at New America in Washington, DC and has worked with James Fallow, the Washington... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 12:30pm - 1:30pm EDT
Old South Sanctuary 645 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Nonfiction

12:30pm EDT

True Crime: Crime in Context
Three harrowing stories of murder from the past are the focus of this chilling session. JoeAnn Hart blends memoir and true crime in Stamford '76, about the unsolved murder of Margo Olsen, whose body was found with an arrow piercing her heart, and the subsequent killing by police of Margo’s African American boyfriend, Howie Carter. What makes the story especially riveting is that Hart’s boyfriend at the time, also African American, was Carter’s best friend. A blend of racism, misogyny, and recession provides the backdrop. Mark Bowden’s latest, The Last Stone, explores the unsolved case of two girls abducted from a mall in 1975. Bowden covered the story as a reporter in '75, and then took it up again when, in 2013, a cold case squad detective discovered new evidence leading to a masterful interrogation and, finally, the truth. Cara Robertson, in The Trial of Lizzie Borden, contextualizes the sensational and sensationalized trial of Lizzie Borden for the axe murders of her father and stepmother and reveals the social anxieties of the Gilded Age that permeated the proceedings. In each of these stories, the historical and cultural environment of the times plays a role in the framing of the story. Amy MacKinnon, author of the novel Tethered, will moderate this discussion of crime and its context.
Moderators
avatar for Amy MacKinnon

Amy MacKinnon

Amy MacKinnon is a former congressional aide whose commentaries have appeared in Christian Science Monitor, the Boston Globe, the Seattle Times, and on NPR and This American Life. Her debut novel, Tethered, was described by Booklist as a “haunting” and “gracefully rendered... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Cara Robertson

Cara Robertson

Cara Robertson is a lawyer, former legal adviser to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia at The Hague, and former Supreme Court clerk. She holds a PhD in English from Oxford University and a JD from Stanford Law School, and her work has appeared in the Boston... Read More →
avatar for JoeAnn Hart

JoeAnn Hart

JoeAnn Hart is a fiction writer, journalist, and environmental activist whose work has appeared in the Boston Globe Magazine, Orion, Design New England, Solstice, and the Hopper. Anthologized in Black Lives Have Always Mattered, Hart’s pieces typically focus on the relationship... Read More →
avatar for Mark Bowden

Mark Bowden

Mark Bowden is the author of thirteen books, including the New York Times bestseller Black Hawk Down, which was adapted into a film that won two Academy Awards. He reported for the Philadelphia Inquirer for twenty years and now writes for the Atlantic, Esquire, and other newspapers... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 12:30pm - 1:30pm EDT
Emmanuel Sanctuary 15 Newbury St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Nonfiction

1:00pm EDT

Story Time: Hayley Barrett
Bring your babies and toddlers to hear author Hayley Barrett read her heartwarming new picture book Babymoon (ages 1–5)
Presenters
avatar for Hayley Barrett

Hayley Barrett

Hayley Barrett is the author of the picture book Babymoon (illustrated by Juana Martinez-Neal), which follows a new family as they welcome a child into the world. She is also the author of What Miss Mitchell Saw (illustrated by Diana Sudyka), a nonfiction account of Nantucket astronomer... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 1:00pm - 1:30pm EDT
BPL Children's Library 700 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Kids

1:00pm EDT

Sheila del Bosque
Born in 1994 in Havana, Sheila del Bosque is one of the most in-demand young flutists in Cuba. Her music features contemporary and traditional Afro-Cuban music with the influence of European and jazz ingredients. Del Bosque, who has a background in ancient, classical, and Cuban popular music, plays the baroque recorder and modern transverse flute. She has played with orchestras such as Ars Longa, Orchestra of Lyceum Mozartian from Havana, and the National Orchestra of Cuba. She has toured the world with ensembles such as the dance company Habana Compas Dance and the Cuban European Youth Orchestra, playing for artists such as Usher, Bon Jovi, and the Rolling Stones. At Berklee College of Music, del Bosque has shared the stage with musicians such as Paquito d’Rivera, Berta Rojas, and Omar Hakim.
Presenters
avatar for Sheila del Bosque Trio

Sheila del Bosque Trio

Born in 1994 in Havana, Sheila del Bosque is one of the most in-demand young flutists in Cuba. Her music features contemporary and traditional Afro-Cuban music with the influence of European and jazz ingredients. Del Bosque, who has a background in ancient, classical, and Cuban popular... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 1:00pm - 1:45pm EDT
Berklee Stage 02116
  Music

1:00pm EDT

Boston By Foot Literary Walking Tour
This mini Boston By Foot tour dips briefly into the Back Bay neighborhood to taste Boston's rich literary heritage. From the filling of the actual back bay about 1860 through today, connections with literature and writers of all flavors have flourished. This sampling aims to whet your appetite for more!
Saturday October 19, 2019 1:00pm - 1:45pm EDT
Outside BPL Boylston Street Entrance 700 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Special Event

1:00pm EDT

City of Jasmine
When Hammoudi, a young surgeon based in Paris, returns to Syria to renew his passport, he only expects to stay there a few days. But the authorities refuse to let him leave, and Hammoudi finds himself caught up in the fight against the regime. Meanwhile, budding actress Amal has also joined the protests against the government and her own father, by whom she feels betrayed. Realizing that they will never again be safe in their homeland, Amal and her boyfriend Youssef decide to flee to Europe in a desperate bid to survive. The two protagonists’ stories eventually come together when they meet in Berlin, where Amal and Youssef have started a new life together. City of Jasmine is an intimate and striking novel that offers real insight into the horrors and inhumanity of war, whilst also focusing on the humanity of the protagonists, marking Olga Grjasnowa as one of the most talented and admired young authors working in Germany today. Grajasnowa will be in conversation with Katy Derbyshire, who translated the novel into English.
Moderators
avatar for Katy Derbyshire

Katy Derbyshire

Katy Derbyshire is a British-born, Berlin-based translator and writer. She translates contemporary German writers including Clemens Meyer, Christa Wolf, Helene Hegemann, and Inka Parei. Her translation of Bricks and Mortar by Clemens Meyer was longlisted for the 2017 Man Booker Prize... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Olga Grjasnowa

Olga Grjasnowa

Olga Grjasnowa was born in Baku, Azerbaijan, moved to Germany at the age of twelve, and spent extended periods in Poland, Russia, and Israel. Grjasnowa is a graduate of the German Institute for Literature/Creative Writing in Leipzig. In 2010, her debut play, Mitfühlende Deutsche... Read More →

Sponsors
avatar for Goethe-Institut Boston

Saturday October 19, 2019 1:00pm - 2:00pm EDT
199 Commonwealth Ave 199 Commonwealth Ave, Boston, MA, 02116
  Fiction

1:00pm EDT

Fiction: Motherhood
All stories may be about relationships, but the connections--nourishing, fraught, or lacking--between mothers and their children offer especially rich fodder for fiction writers. In this session, we’ll explore how three accomplished writers portray the maternal bond. The twelve stories in National Book Award finalist Kate Walbert’s new short story collection, She Was Like That, combine to depict the vast complexities of women’s lives as daughters, wives, and mothers, showing, according to Kirkus Reviews, how “love and loneliness can occupy a heart together.” Helen Phillips’s literary thriller The Need, recently longlisted for the National Book Award, uses tropes of horror and suspense fiction to interrogate one young mother’s complicated and at times frightening feelings about motherhood, as she (not to mention readers) questions her grip on reality. And in Welcome to America, Linda Boström Knausgård turns the tables, utilizing the perspective of a young girl whose father has suddenly died to explore how this traumatic loss redefines everything, including her relationship with her mother. Novelist and parenting expert Lynne Griffin is the perfect host for this session on mothers and children in fiction.
Moderators
avatar for Lynne Griffin

Lynne Griffin

Lynne Griffin is the author of family-focused novels like Girl Sent Away, Sea Escape, and Life Without Summer, and parenting guides like Let’s Talk About it: Adolescent Mental Health and Negotiation Generation. Her articles have appeared in Parenting magazine, Boston Globe, Huffington... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Helen Phillips

Helen Phillips

Helen Phillips is a novelist, children’s book author, and professor at Brooklyn College. A graduate of Yale and Brooklyn College’s MFA program. Phillips has had work appear in the Atlantic, the New York Times, and Tin House. She is the author of five books: Some Possible Solutions... Read More →
avatar for Kate Walbert

Kate Walbert

Kate Walbert is the author of seven novels, including a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, a National Book Award finalist, and a New York Times Book Review ten best books of the year title. Her work can be found in the New Yorker, the Paris Review, The Best American Short... Read More →
avatar for Linda Boström Knausgård

Linda Boström Knausgård

Linda Boström Knausgård is a Swedish author and poet, as well as a producer of documentaries for national radio. Her first novel, The Helios Disaster, was awarded the Mare Kandre Prize and shortlisted for the Swedish Radio Novel Award 2014. Welcome to America, her second novel... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 1:00pm - 2:00pm EDT
BAC Cascieri Hall 320 Newbury St, Boston, MA, 02115
  Fiction

1:00pm EDT

My Real-Life Superhero Is...
Attention kids!! Are you ready to take action? Do you know who your real life superhero is? Would you like to write and illustrate a story about your superhero? Wondermore brings you the opportunity to create your own story in comic book form at Boston Book Fest this year.
Presenters
avatar for Wondermore

Wondermore

Wondermore is a Boston-based nonprofit organization with a mission to cultivate children’s curiosity, creativity, and academic achievement by igniting a love of good books. They organize visits and writing workshops by children’s authors and illustrators at underserved K–8 Boston... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 1:00pm - 2:00pm EDT
BPL Rey Room 700 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Kids

1:00pm EDT

Memoir: From Playbooks to Pi: A Former Raven Tells All
John Urschel was an offensive lineman for the Baltimore Ravens. He was, at the same time, a candidate for a PhD in mathematics at MIT. Not the usual football player’s track. In his memoir, Mind and Matter: A Life in Math and Football, co-authored with his wife, author Louisa Thomas, Urschel tells how his prodigious talent for math revealed itself at an early age. Football represented an entirely different, but equally intoxicating, thrill. Ultimately, Urschel chose mathematics over football. These days, as he finishes his doctorate at MIT, Urschel publishes papers on centroidal Voronoi tessellations. In his spare time, he visits local high schools to talk about STEM subjects. Shira Springer, WBUR’s Sports and Society reporter, will moderate the conversation about Urschel’s extraordinary path.
Moderators
avatar for Shira Springer

Shira Springer

Shira Springer covers stories at the intersection of sports and society for NPR and WBUR. She also writes regular columns on women’s sports for the Boston Globe and the Sports Business Journal and feature stories for the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine and other publications. She has... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for John Urschel

John Urschel

John Urschel is a former offensive lineman for the Baltimore Ravens and a current PhD candidate at MIT. He has a bachelor’s and master’s degree in mathematics from Penn State and is a winner of the Sullivan Award and the Campbell Trophy as recognition of his quality work as a... Read More →
avatar for Louisa Thomas

Louisa Thomas

Louisa Thomas is a historian, journalist, and author. She is also a former contributor for the New Yorker and former editor and writer for Grantland. A previous New England Fellow, Thomas is the author of both Louisa, a biography of First Lady Louisa Catherine Adams, the wife of John... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 1:00pm - 2:00pm EDT
Emmanuel Parish Hall 15 Newbury St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Memoir

1:00pm EDT

American Power: The Series Finale
Is America destined to become a second-rate power in the world? The answer is almost certainly yes, but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Andrew Bacevich, historian and professor emeritus of history and international relations at Boston University, offers fresh insights into the intellectual and military history of modern US foreign policy in Twilight of the American Century. He advises that US leaders on the left and right abandon the conceit of global leadership and instead focus on repairing our democracy. Harvard international affairs professor Stephen Walt concurs. His take, offered in The Hell of Good Intentions, is that a stubborn commitment to spreading democracy and open markets worldwide is at the root of our foreign policy failures. The one to repudiate those policies has been Donald Trump, but his flawed understanding of world affairs is only making things worse. Join two experts on foreign policy for an analysis and some prescriptions for managing the decline of American power, moderated by Anthony Brooks, senior political reporter for WBUR, Boston’s NPR news station.
Moderators
avatar for Anthony Brooks

Anthony Brooks

Anthony Brooks has more than thirty years of experience in public radio, whether as a producer, editor, reporter, or WBUR and NPR host/co-host (Radio Boston, On Point, Here & Now). He is the recipient of numerous broadcast awards including the Edward R. Murrow Regional Broadcasters... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Andrew Bacevich

Andrew Bacevich

Andrew Bacevich is a longtime historian and public intellectual. A professor emeritus of history and international relations at Boston University, Bacevich specializes in security studies, American foreign policy, and American diplomatic and military history. His work has appeared... Read More →
avatar for Stephen Walt

Stephen Walt

Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer Professor of International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and the former Academic Dean from 2002 to 2006. He is also a contributing editor at Foreign Policy magazine, co-chair of the editorial board of International... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 1:00pm - 2:00pm EDT
BPL Rabb Hall 700 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Nonfiction

1:00pm EDT

Fighting for the Right to Vote: From Women’s Suffrage to Voter IDs
Although most Americans regard the right to vote as essential to democracy, voting rights have been, and continue to be, a contested issue. In honor of the upcoming anniversary of the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote, the BBF presents a session dedicated to the subject of voting rights and the movements and people who have championed the cause. Susan Ware’s Why They Marched profiles nineteen of the largely overlooked women of diverse background and race who crusaded for women’s suffrage, a right that took a hundred years to win. Their stories provide insights into the ecosystem of the abolitionist, feminist, worker’s rights, and suffrage movements. Holly Jackson, whose American Radicals has been called an “electric debut” by Publishers Weekly, provides context by discussing radical American movements with a focus on those that reshaped American life, including the women’s rights movement. In Mr. President, How Long Must We Wait?, Tina Cassidy describes the heroic efforts of a young Quaker woman, Alice Paul, who used radical tactics borrowed from the British suffragettes. Paul’s efforts were inclusive of black women, even as the movement subtly endorsed the strategy of using women’s suffrage as a bulwark against the votes of blacks and immigrants. Gloria Browne-Marshall’s book, The Voting Rights War, covers the NAACP’s fight to bring voting rights cases before the Supreme Court. From the 1896 Plessy v Ferguson to today’s battles over felony disenfranchisement, gerrymandering, and photo ID laws, the NAACP has been a prominent advocate for extending and defending voting rights. Join our panel of experts in a spirited discussion of this perennially timely issue, moderated by Colby College professor Lydia Moland, author of the forthcoming Hegel’s Aesthetics: The Art of Idealism.
Moderators
avatar for Lydia Moland

Lydia Moland

Lydia Moland is an associate professor of philosophy at Colby College. She is the author of Hegel on Political Identity: Patriotism, National Identity, Cosmopolitanism and numerous articles on Hegel’s political philosophy and the philosophy of art. Moland has received fellowships... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Gloria J. Browne-Marshall

Gloria J. Browne-Marshall

Gloria J. Browne-Marshall is an associate professor of constitutional law at John Jay College (CUNY) and a civil rights attorney. She is an award-winning legal correspondent, a playwright, and a member of the National Press Club. She has appeared on BBC, CNN, CBS, NPR, C-SPAN, and... Read More →
avatar for Holly Jackson

Holly Jackson

Holly Jackson is an associate professor of English at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. Her writing on US cultural history has appeared in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Boston Globe, as well as a number of scholarly publications. Her book, American Radicals... Read More →
avatar for Susan Ware

Susan Ware

Susan Ware is a pioneer in women's history and a leading feminist biographer whom the New Yorker called "an appealing writer." She is the author and editor of several books on twentieth-century US history, including Forgotten Heroes: Inspiring American Portraits from Our Leading Historians... Read More →
avatar for Tina Cassidy

Tina Cassidy

Tina Cassidy is a writer and the chief marketing officer of WGBH. A former journalist who spent the majority of her career covering business, fashion, and politics at the Boston Globe, Cassidy now writes about women and culture. She is the author of Birth: The Surprising History of... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 1:00pm - 2:00pm EDT
Trinity Forum 206 Clarendon St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Nonfiction

1:00pm EDT

History Keynote
We are proud and honored to present historian David W. Blight to speak about his Pulitzer Prize–winning biography, Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom. Blight’s biography is as remarkable as his subject. In vivid prose, he examines the life of one of American history’s towering figures: a former slave who achieved international fame as an abolitionist, author, orator, political philosopher, and women’s rights advocate. Douglass was a prophet for the destruction and rebirth of the nation, and he lived to see it happen. He also lived to see the promise of Emancipation betrayed by Reconstruction, Jim Crow laws, and the reign of terror against blacks. Join us to hear David W. Blight speak about the extraordinary life and genius of Frederick Douglass. After a brief talk, Blight will be interviewed by Harvard professor Elizabeth Hinton, author of From the War on Poverty to the War on Crime.
Moderators
avatar for Elizabeth Hinton

Elizabeth Hinton

Elizabeth Hinton is a professor of history and African American studies at Harvard University. Her articles and op-eds have appeared in the Journal of American History, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Nation, Time, and other publications. Hinton co-edited The New Black... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for David W. Blight

David W. Blight

David W. Blight is a teacher, scholar, historian, and book reviewer. He is the author of Race and Reunion, American Oracle, A People and A Nation, and multiple annotations and introductory essays. His latest book, Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, is a Pulitzer Prize–winning... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 1:00pm - 2:00pm EDT
Church of the Covenant 67 Newbury St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Nonfiction

1:00pm EDT

Playful Engineers
Playful Engineers teaching artist Jay Mankita brings his "Traveling MakerSpace" to our Brainstorm Tent! In this hands-on, STEM-focused workshop, participants design, build, test, and play with chain reactions (Rube Goldberg machines), using materials like springs, ping-pong balls, Tinkertoys, dominoes—and even books! This is a great activity for parents and kids to try together—see what kinds of creative, crazy contraptions you can build as a family!
Presenters
avatar for Jay B Mankita

Jay B Mankita

Jay Mankita has worked with kids and families for over thirty years. His musical concerts are refreshingly positive and fun. His engineering workshops are experiential and inspiring. He has a strong passion for engineering and making things move, and teaches how he learns—with patience... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 1:00pm - 3:00pm EDT
Brainstorm Tent 02116
  Kids

1:30pm EDT

Life, Love, and the Pursuit of Happiness
In this session, two talented writers explore multiple facets of being a woman in the world, from the deadly serious to the sublimely silly. In her candid and witty essay collection, Womanish: A Grown Black Woman Speaks on Love and Life, Kim McLarin interrogates issues such as divorce, depression, parenting, the Obamas, and the sometimes fraught relationships between black and white women. In her poignant I Just Haven’t Met You Yet, Tracy Strauss details her own dating journey and offers advice to others on how to eliminate obstacles to success, especially the “inner love saboteur.” This wide-ranging conversation will be led by Zeninjor Enwemeka, business, tech, and culture reporter for WBUR. Sponsored by Emerson College.
Moderators
avatar for Zeninjor Enwemeka

Zeninjor Enwemeka

Zeninjor Enwemeka is a reporter at WBUR, covering business, tech, and culture both online and on air as part of the BostonomiX team. She is also the vice president of the Boston Association of Black Journalists. Before joining WBUR, she worked as a breaking news writer for Boston.com... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Kim McLarin

Kim McLarin

Kim McLarin is the author of the critically acclaimed novels Taming It Down, Meeting of the Waters, and Jump at the Sun, as well as the memoir Divorce Dog: Motherhood, Men, and Midlife. McLarin is also co-author of the memoir Growing Up X with Ilyasah Shabazz. Jump at the Sun was... Read More →
avatar for Tracy Strauss

Tracy Strauss

Tracy Strauss is a writer whose essays have been published in Glamour, New York Magazine, the Huffington Post, Salon, Publishers Weekly, Ploughshares, the Satirist, and Writer’s Digest Magazine, among others. Her scholarly work has appeared in publications including War, Literature... Read More →

Sponsors
avatar for Emerson College

Saturday October 19, 2019 1:30pm - 2:30pm EDT
Old South Guild Room 645 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Nonfiction

1:30pm EDT

Something New with Febo: A Poetry Workshop
Does the blank page taunt you? Do you feel like writers block might start charging you rent? Interested in a new approach to your craft? Using a new process Febo has developed called Slinging, this embodied workshop will get you up and moving and ready to write. All you need is a phone, something to write on and with, and a willingness to try something new. Sponsored by Mass Poetry.
Presenters
avatar for Febo

Febo

Anthony Febo is a poet, actor, youth worker, lover, and friend. He founded Mill City Slam, the adult slam poetry scene, and M.O.M.S., the Middlesex/UMass Lowell college slam poetry scene in 2010. Alongside his fellow partners in rhyme, in 2009 he founded FreeVerse!, a youth organization... Read More →

Sponsors
avatar for Mass Poetry

Saturday October 19, 2019 1:30pm - 2:30pm EDT
BPL Exchange 700 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Poetry   Sessions for Writers

1:30pm EDT

YA: Love and Relationships
Being a teenager means navigating new, exciting, and sometimes confusing relationships wherever you go—whether that’s in an amusement park or on a road trip. The talented novelists in this session take readers on eventful journeys into first love and other relationships. In The Revolution of Birdie Randolph, Stonewall Award winner Brandy Colbert writes about a girl who strives to be perfect in her parents’ eyes—until she starts falling for a boy who’s anything but. Jennifer Dugan’s Hot Dog Girl is a funny and charming queer romance set at the failing Magic Castle Playland amusement park. In Kristina Forest’s I Wanna Be Where You Are, a ballet dancer is determined to get to an audition, so she embarks on a road trip with her annoying (but undeniably cute) neighbor. Rachel Gold’s In the Silences finds gender-seeking teen Kaz tentatively embracing first love while also confronting racism in their small town. And in poet Morgan Parker’s debut YA novel Who Put This Song On?, the relationship her protagonist (also named Morgan) struggles to define is the one with herself, contending with anxiety and depression while learning to embrace her identity as a quirky black girl in a predominantly white town. Our host for this session of must-read new novels is Amy Pattee of Simmons University.
Moderators
avatar for Amy Pattee

Amy Pattee

Amy Pattee is an associate professor at Simmons University, where she teaches children's and young adult literature. After completing her master's in library science at Rutgers University, Pattee worked as a children's librarian. She received her doctorate in library and information... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Morgan Parker

Morgan Parker

Morgan Parker is a Pushcart Prize–winning poet, novelist, and nonfiction writer. Her publications include There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé, and most recently, the poetry collection Magical Negro and the YA novel Who Put This Song On?
avatar for Kristina Forest

Kristina Forest

Kristina Forest is a writer who currently works in children’s book publishing. She earned her MFA in creative writing with a concentration in writing for children at The New School. Her first novel, I Wanna Be Where You Are, published in June 2019. It’s a heartwarming young adult... Read More →
avatar for Jennifer Dugan

Jennifer Dugan

Jennifer Dugan is a young adult and comic writer based in upstate New York. Publishers Weekly called her debut young adult novel, Hot Dog Girl, “relatable and funny.”
avatar for Rachel Gold

Rachel Gold

Rachel Gold is the award-winning author of Just Girls and Being Emily, the first young adult novel to tell the story of a trans girl from her perspective. Penny Mickelbury says that “young teens gravitate to Rachel Gold’s novels with good reason: she gets them.” Her latest work... Read More →
avatar for Brandy Colbert

Brandy Colbert

Brandy Colbert is the award-winning author of young adult novels Little & Lion, Finding Yvonne, and Pointe. Her short fiction and essays can be found in several critically acclaimed anthologies for young people. She is a faculty member at Hamline University’s MFA writing for children... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 1:30pm - 2:45pm EDT
BPL Teen Central 700 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Young Adult

1:45pm EDT

Story Time: Grace Lin
Author and artist Grace Lin will read A Big Bed for Little Snow, the companion to her Caldecott Honor book A Big Mooncake for Little Star (ages 3–7)
Presenters
avatar for Grace Lin

Grace Lin

Grace Lin is an award-winning author and illustrator of books for children. Her New York Times–bestselling novel Where the Mountain Meets the Moon was named a Newbery Honor Book and her picture book A Big Mooncake for Little Star received a Caldecott Honor. Lin's newest picture... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 1:45pm - 2:15pm EDT
BPL Children's Library 700 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Kids

1:45pm EDT

Readings: Great New (England) Reads
If you’re looking for your book club’s next pick, your next vacation read, or just a stellar page-turner, the three novelists reading in this session will gladly help fill up your TBR list with some terrific reads that have New England settings, to boot. In Rival’s Break by bestselling author Carla Neggers, two FBI investigators head off on what should be a relaxing weekend on the Maine coast—but crime never takes a holiday. Lisa Duffy’s This Is Home focuses on an unlikely friendship arising among residents of a triple-decker in a fictional North Shore town. And you won’t want to miss Waisted, the latest novel by bestselling author Randy Susan Meyers; this darkly comic novel finds a pair of women seeking revenge when their Vermont weight-loss retreat and reality series goes horribly awry. Grab a coffee, a pastry, and a good friend for what’s sure to be a lively session of readings hosted by Robin Kall, host of the podcast Reading with Robin and the Cardigan Connection reading series.
Moderators
avatar for Robin Kall

Robin Kall

Robin Kall has always been an avid reader. From sneaking copies of Judy Blume from her childhood librarian to developing her own radio program, Reading with Robin, in 2002, Kall is a literary influencer and book pusher in her own right. Over the past fifteen years Kall has built a... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Carla Neggers

Carla Neggers

Carla Neggers is a New York Times–bestselling romance author of the Sharpe & Donovan and Swift River Valley series. With more than 75 novels to her name, Neggers is a founder of the New England Chapter of Romance Writers of America, former vice president of International Thriller... Read More →
avatar for Lisa Duffy

Lisa Duffy

Lisa Duffy is the author of The Salt House, a book club favorite which author Therese Walsh describes as “one of the best human portraits I’ve read in a novel.” A novel about a young family in the aftermath of tragedy, The Salt House was named a Best Book of the Month by Real... Read More →
avatar for Randy Susan Meyers

Randy Susan Meyers

Randy Susan Meyers is the author of the novels The Murderer’s Daughters and Accidents of Marriage, both of which were finalists for the Massachusetts Book Awards, as well as the The Widow of Wall Street, which was named a “Must Read Book” by the New York Post. Meyers currently... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 1:45pm - 2:30pm EDT
BPL Newsfeed Cafe 700 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Fiction

1:45pm EDT

Death Among Friends: Crime Gets Personal
Four mystery authors—Brendan DuBois, Elisabeth Elo, Chris Knopf, and Frances McNamara—explore the emotional and professional turmoil that results when family members, friends, and loved ones are threatened with harm, enmeshed in murder, or targeted by impersonal and amoral forces. Forced into action to save those
close to them, the central characters of their novels must also confront difficult truths about trust, loyalty, and the sacrifices they are willing to make. Mo Walsh, president of the New England chapter of Mystery Writers of America, will host this fascinating discussion. Sponsored by Mystery Writers of America–New England.
Moderators
avatar for Mo Walsh

Mo Walsh

Mo Walsh is a Massachusetts-based short story writer whose work has appeared in Mary Higgins Clark Mystery Magazine, Woman’s World, Windchill, Still Waters, and Deadfall. She also writes weekly newspaper features and is a former coordinator of the South Shore Writers Club.

Presenters
avatar for Brendan DuBois

Brendan DuBois

Brendan DuBois is the award-winning author of more than twenty novels and 150 short stories. His short fiction has appeared in Playboy, Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Analog, Asimov's SF Magazine, The Strand... Read More →
avatar for Chris Knopf

Chris Knopf

Chris Knopf is the author of Dead Anyway, Cries of the Lost, and the Sam Acquillo mystery series. He worked as a copywriter in advertising and was the creative director at Mintz & Hoke Advertising and PR, a company that Knopf and his wife took over in 2000. His latest Sam Acquillo... Read More →
avatar for Elisabeth Elo

Elisabeth Elo

Elisabeth Elo attended Brown University and later earned a PhD in American literature at Brandeis University. She has published scholarly articles on subjects as diverse as Walt Whitman and Cinderella, and her essays and Pushcart-nominated short stories can be found in a variety of... Read More →
avatar for Frances McNamara

Frances McNamara

Frances McNamara is the historical and mystery author of the Emily Cabot mysteries. Her work, which often combines fictional mysteries with the historical settings and icons of the period, includes the Emily Cabot mysteries—Death at the Fair, Death at Hull House, Death at Pullman... Read More →

Sponsors
avatar for Mystery Writers of America–New England

Saturday October 19, 2019 1:45pm - 2:45pm EDT
BPL McKim Exhibition Hall 700 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Fiction

1:45pm EDT

Walk This Way: The Song that Revolutionized American Music
It might be hard to remember (and let’s face it, some of you weren’t even born then), but there was a time when hip-hop was largely isolated to “a small underground community of independent labels and scrappy promoters,” not the juggernaut it is in the American popular music scene today. That all changed on July 4, 1986, when Run-DMC and Aerosmith released “Walk This Way,” one of the first rap songs played on Top-40 radio. Geoff Edgers, national arts reporter for the Washington Post, outlines the genesis of this seminal song in his book of the same title, tracing how two very different groups, with wildly divergent personalities and approaches, joined forces to build what Edgers calls “hip-hop’s Trojan horse, the music camouflaged enough to give timid programmers permission to play.” Edgers’s in-depth chronicle explores intersections of economics, geography, and race, documenting a collaboration that set the stage for the music we enjoy today. Edgers will be interviewed by Boston music journalist and reviewer Hassan Ghanny. Run, don’t walk, to what’s sure to be a provocative and entertaining discussion about what American music is today--and how we got here.
Moderators
avatar for Hassan Ghanny

Hassan Ghanny

Hassan Ghanny is a writer, performer, and music journalist currently living in Boston. His work deals with the intersections of music, media, culture, identity, and diaspora. Ghanny’s writing has been featured in Cuepoint, Tenderly, and Burnt Roti, and he is a regular writer for... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Geoff Edgers

Geoff Edgers

Geoff Edgers is a journalist, documentarian, podcast host, and the national arts reporter for the Washington Post. Formerly an arts reporter for the Boston Globe, Edgers has also been a correspondent for the Boston Phoenix and Raleigh News and Observer, and has had work appear in... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 1:45pm - 2:45pm EDT
BAC Beehive 951 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02115
  Nonfiction

2:00pm EDT

Marcus Prince
Marcus Prince, a musician and instrumentalist from Trinidad and Tobago, plays tenor steel pan, steel pan, clarinet, and saxophone. After graduating from Berklee College of Music, Prince hopes to continue his performance career and begin teaching.
Presenters
avatar for Marcus Prince

Marcus Prince

Marcus Prince, a musician and instrumentalist from Trinidad and Tobago, plays tenor steel pan, steel pan, clarinet, and saxophone. After graduating from Berklee College of Music, Prince hopes to continue his performance career and begin teaching.

Saturday October 19, 2019 2:00pm - 2:45pm EDT
Berklee Stage 02116
  Music

2:00pm EDT

Shape Shifting the Story: Fiction in Its Long and Short Forms
Writing (or reading) the great American novel and wondering about the fate of the short story
are much discussed topics. But as storytelling now runs from the intensely personal spoken word to the sweeping look at current, or past, times, authors seem less content with one form for fiction. This panel looks at the many ways stories come to authors, considering fictions in their long and short forms. Mira T. Lee, Brendan Mathews, and Steve Yarbrough will consider the creative and productive tensions that inspire writing (and reading) both novels and short stories. Moderated by Jessica Keener, herself a novelist and story writer and sponsored by Massachusetts Center for the Book, the Commonwealth affiliate of the Library of Congress and administrator of the Massachusetts Book Awards.
Moderators
avatar for Jessica Keener

Jessica Keener

Jessica Keener is the author of the national bestselling debut novel Night Swim and a collection of award-winning stories, Women In Bed. Her newest novel, Strangers In Budapest, was a 2017 and 2018 Indie Next pick and a Southern Independent Bestseller. It was selected as a “Best... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Brendan Mathews

Brendan Mathews

Brendan Mathews is the author of This Is Not a Love Song and The World of Tomorrow. The World of Tomorrow was named an Honor Book by the Massachusetts Book Awards and longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. It was also named an Indie Next Great Read and an Editors... Read More →
avatar for Mira T. Lee

Mira T. Lee

Mira T. Lee's debut novel, Everything Here Is Beautiful, was selected as a Top 10 Debut by the American Booksellers Association and named a Best Fiction title of 2018 by Amazon, O Magazine, Real Simple, and the Goodreads Readers Choice Awards. Her stories and essays have appeared... Read More →
avatar for Steve Yarbrough

Steve Yarbrough

Steve Yarbrough is the author of eleven books, most recently the novel The Unmade World. His other books are the nonfiction title Bookmarked: Larry McMurtry’s The Last Picture Show, the novels The Realm of Last Chances, Safe from the Neighbors, The End of California, Prisoners of... Read More →

Sponsors
avatar for Massachusetts Center for the Book

Saturday October 19, 2019 2:00pm - 3:00pm EDT
BPL Commonwealth Salon 700 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Fiction

2:00pm EDT

Is There Still Sex in the City?
Candace Bushnell’s novel Sex and the City was spun into a TV series megahit about a group of women friends who were NOT focused on finding husbands. It was a revolutionary idea. Now, almost a quarter century later, Bushnell is back with the semi-autobiographical Is There Still Sex in the City?, a novel with a new cast of female characters, newly single, over fifty, and trying to make sense of an altered dating landscape. For another view of women in midlife, Ada Calhoun will discuss her forthcoming Why We Can’t Sleep: Women’s New Midlife Crisis, an expansion of her viral story about GenX women on Oprah.com. Calhoun interviewed hundreds of women across the country about what they are experiencing and offers advice that is a little more nuanced than “lean in.” We promise you will be both challenged and entertained in this no-holds-barred conversation moderated by Robin Young, co-host of Here & Now on WBUR. The first 500 attendees will receive a complimentary teaser of Ada Calhoun’s new book!
Moderators
avatar for Robin Young

Robin Young

Robin Young is the co-host of Here & Now. Formerly, she has reported for NBC, CBS, ABC, as a substitute host and correspondent for The Today Show, as a second director on Boston Bruins and Red Sox telecasts, and even as the host of a cooking show. She is also a Peabody Award–winning... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Candace Bushnell

Candace Bushnell

Candace Bushnell is the New York Times–bestselling novelist and essayist of the blockbuster Sex and the City series. Her young adult novel, The Carrie Diaries, and her fictional Lipstick Jungle were adapted for popular television shows on the CW and NBC, respectively. Her latest... Read More →
avatar for Ada Calhoun

Ada Calhoun

Ada Calhoun is an essayist, memoirist, and critic for the New York Times Book Review. Her work has appeared in the New York Times, Billboard, Oprah.com, the New Yorker, and Cosmopolitan, and she has worked as an A-list ghostwriter on fourteen books since 2009, many of which were New... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 2:00pm - 3:00pm EDT
Old South Sanctuary 645 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Fiction   Nonfiction

2:00pm EDT

Reading Like a Writer: Setting
Have you ever wondered how an author chose details to bring a place to life, why she chose her narrative’s point(s) of view, or how and why he pushes the boundaries of genre and form? In these three sessions, writers will open up about the nuts and bolts of their craft. Our host for each session will lead an audience discussion of a very short excerpt from each author’s work before bringing the author into the conversation to contextualize the excerpt, discuss her or his choices, and answer questions from the audience. A unique alternative to traditional readings, these sessions will appeal not only to aspiring fiction writers but also to readers looking to enrich their reading experience. This session will consist of three twenty-minute guided explorations of the work of authors whose recent novels offer vivid portraits of places--from Havana to Nairobi: Lauren Acampora (The Paper Wasp), Jennifer Acker (The Limits of the World), and Pablo Medina (The Cuban Comedy). Our host is novelist Michelle Hoover, author most recently of Bottomland.
Moderators
avatar for Michelle Hoover

Michelle Hoover

Michelle Hoover is an award-winning author and innovative writing professor and educator. She is the head and cofounder of the Novel Incubator program at GrubStreet and has been teaching creative writing in different capacities for years. A writing professor at Boston University for... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Jennifer Acker

Jennifer Acker

Jennifer Acker teaches writing and editing at Amherst College, where she directs the Literary Publishing Internship, organizes LitFest, and is the founder and editor in chief of their literary review, The Common. Her short stories, essays, translations, and reviews can be found in... Read More →
avatar for Lauren Acampora

Lauren Acampora

Lauren Acampora is a novelist and short fiction writer whose work has appeared in the Paris Review, Guernica, New England Review, Missouri Review, Antioch Review, and Prairie Schooner. A graduate of Brown University, she has contributed to the New York Times Book Review and LitHub... Read More →
avatar for Pablo Medina

Pablo Medina

Pablo Medina is a Cuban American poet and novelist. He has written eighteen books of poetry, fiction, nonfiction, and translation. Medina was born in Havana, Cuba and emigrated to New York City at the age of twelve. His new novel is The Cuban Comedy, called “compulsively readable... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 2:00pm - 3:00pm EDT
BPL Orientation Room 700 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Fiction   Sessions for Writers

2:00pm EDT

Sea Stories
Join us for a stimulating mix of poetry, history, mystery, anthropology, and environmentalism, all relating to the sea. The session will begin with a reading by poet and naturalist Elizabeth Bradfield from her new collection, Toward Antarctica, informed by her work as a guide on ships in Antarctica. Christina Thompson will speak about Sea People, called a “grand, symphonic, beautifully written book,” by the Boston Globe. In it, she investigates what came to be known as the Problem of Polynesian Origins: the mystery of how a pre-literate people managed to navigate and inhabit the remotest islands in the Pacific Ocean. Bathsheba Demuth’s Floating Coast, hailed as brilliant by multiple reviewers, offers a uniquely told history of a unique place, Beringia, the Arctic land and waters that stretch from Russia to Canada. Demuth combines ecology, anthropology, and reportage to forge a fascinating environmental history of a largely overlooked landscape. David Armitage, professor of history at Harvard and editor, most recently, of Civil Wars: A History of Ideas, will moderate.
Moderators
avatar for David Armitage

David Armitage

David Armitage is the Lloyd C. Blankfein Professor of History at Harvard University, where he teaches intellectual and international history. He is the author or editor of seventeen award-winning books including The Ideological Origins of the British Empire, The Declaration of Independence... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Bathsheba Demuth

Bathsheba Demuth

Bathsheba DeMuth is an environmental historian, professor, and author. DeMuth specializes in the northern environments and cultures of the lands and seas of the Russian and North American Arctic, and she is an assistant professor of history and environment and society at Brown University... Read More →
avatar for Christina Thompson

Christina Thompson

Christina Thompson is a memoirist, editor, and professor. Her work, which has appeared in the Paris Review, the Boston Globe, and JSTOR Daily, often explores the effects of Westernization on the islands of the Pacific. She is the author of Come On Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You... Read More →
avatar for Elizabeth Bradfield

Elizabeth Bradfield

Elizabeth Bradfield is a poet, author, photographer, and naturalist. Her work has appeared in the New Yorker, West Branch, Poetry, the Atlantic Monthly, and Orion, and she earned a Stegner Fellowship and the Audre Lorde Prize. She was also a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award and... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 2:00pm - 3:00pm EDT
Old South Mary Norton 645 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Nonfiction   Poetry

2:15pm EDT

Technologies of Freedom or Control?
In his seminal 1983 book Technologies of Freedom, Ithiel de Sola Pool declared that electronic technology is conducive to freedom. Thirty-five years later, we worry that George Orwell’s vision may have been closer to the truth. Shoshana Zuboff’s brilliant work, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, points to how companies like Google and Facebook catalog our every move, emotion, desire, and even utterance, and then sell it to companies so they can predict and control our behavior. We give up the data gladly in return for convenience and the sometimes illusory promise of social connection. Roger McNamee, in Zucked, sounds a warning as he chronicles the optimism he experienced as an early investor in Facebook and his bitter disappointment when it became clear to him that Facebook has a decidedly dark underbelly. This chilling and necessary consideration of the technologies that surround us will be moderated by Meghna Chakrabarti, host of WBUR’s On Point.
Moderators
avatar for Meghna Chakrabarti

Meghna Chakrabarti

Meghna Chakrabarti is the host and editor of NPR and WBUR’s On Point alongside David Folkenflik and the host of Modern Love: The Podcast, a collaboration between WBUR and the New York Times. As a former host of Radio Boston, she and her team won the national excellence in radio/audio... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Shoshana Zuboff

Shoshana Zuboff

Shoshana Zuboff is the author of In the Age of the Smart Machine, The Support Economy, and her latest, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, which the Guardian calls “what may prove to be the first definitive account of the economic—and thus social and political—condition of our... Read More →
avatar for Roger McNamee

Roger McNamee

Roger McNamee is an American businessman, investor, venture capitalist, and musician. He is a founding partner of the venture capital firm Elevation Partners, a co-founder of private equity firm Silver Lake Partners, a former head of the T. Rowe Price Science and Technology Fund... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 2:15pm - 3:15pm EDT
Emmanuel Sanctuary 15 Newbury St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Nonfiction

2:30pm EDT

Appearance by Mother Bruce
Don’t let that cranky Bruce the Bear fool you—all he really wants is a hug!
Saturday October 19, 2019 2:30pm - 3:00pm EDT
Brainstorm Tent 02116
  Kids

2:30pm EDT

Story Time: Brendan Wenzel
Author and artist Brendan Wenzel reads his beautiful new book A Stone Sat Still, the perfect companion to his Caldecott Honor book They All Saw a Cat (ages 4–8)
Presenters
avatar for Brendan Wenzel

Brendan Wenzel

Brendan Wenzel is a New York–based illustrator and the recipient of a Caldecott Honor for his book, They All Saw A Cat. A graduate of Pratt Institute, he is also an ardent conservationist. His most recent release, A Stone Sat Still, focuses on a single stone in nature that provides... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 2:30pm - 3:00pm EDT
BPL Children's Library 700 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Kids

2:30pm EDT

Fiction: Art and Artists
The two novelists whose work we’ll explore in this session craft amazing stories of visual artists who had to fight to pursue their art. In a unique hybrid of biography and fiction, Catherine Cusset tells the Life of David Hockney, daring to imagine the psyche of the groundbreaking gay artist. The result, according to the New York Times, is “an affirming vision of a restless talent propelled by optimism and chance.” In The Age of Light, debut novelist Whitney Scharer illuminates the life of Vogue model turned photographer Lee Miller, who had to struggle to achieve respect as an artist in her own right--including from her lover, Man Ray. These two beautifully wrought novels—both works of art in their own right—offer insights into the artistic drive of their subjects. Moderating their conversation is Dawn Tripp, whose most recent novel is Georgia: A Novel of Georgia O’Keeffe. Sponsored by Other Press.
Moderators
avatar for Dawn Tripp

Dawn Tripp

Winner of the Massachusetts Book Award for fiction, Dawn Tripp is the author of Georgia: A Novel of Georgia O’Keeffe, which was awarded the 2017 Mary Lynn Kotz Award for Art in Literature, and three previous novels: Moon Tide, The Season of Open Water, and Game of Secrets, a Boston... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Catherine Cusset

Catherine Cusset

Frenchwoman Catherine Cusset is the author of thirteen award-winning novels, of which Life of David Hockney is the latest, a book that Kirkus Reviews labels “a perfect short exposé of Hockney’s life.” Cusset taught eighteenth-century French literature at Yale from 1991 to... Read More →
avatar for Whitney Scharer

Whitney Scharer

Whitney Scharer holds an MFA in creative writing from the University of Washington, and her short fiction has appeared in the Bellevue Literary Review, Cimarron Review, New Flash Fiction Review, and other journals. She is the recipient of an Emerging Artist Award in Literature from... Read More →

Sponsors
avatar for Other Press

Saturday October 19, 2019 2:30pm - 3:30pm EDT
BAC Cascieri Hall 320 Newbury St, Boston, MA, 02115
  Fiction

2:30pm EDT

90-Second Newbery Filmmaking Workshop
The 90-Second Newbery Film Festival is an annual video contest, culminating in live events, in which young filmmakers make movies that tell the entire stories of Newbery-winning books in about 90 seconds. For eight years, the 90-Second Newbery has showcased the best entries at annual screenings in fourteen cities across the country such as New York, Chicago, San Francisco—and right here in Boston! The screenings are hosted by festival founder James Kennedy (author of The Order of Odd-Fish) and other authors like Jon Scieszka, Linda Sue Park, Rita Williams-Garcia, and M.T. Anderson. In this workshop, James Kennedy will screen some of the best videos submitted and show participants how to create their own movies, providing practical advice for young filmmakers and the teachers, librarians, and families who might want to participate in the 90-Second Newbery in the future. (The deadline for next year’s screenings is January 10, 2020!)
Presenters
avatar for James Kennedy

James Kennedy

James Kennedy is the founder and curator of the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival, annually screened in cities across the United States, where kid filmmakers create movies that tell the entire story of a Newbery Medal–winning book in 90 seconds of less. The award-winning The Order... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 2:30pm - 3:30pm EDT
BPL Rey Room 700 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Kids

2:30pm EDT

A Country of Immigrants
For those who succeed in passing through the golden door of the promised land, the dream and the reality of America often clash. Abdi Nor Iftin, author of Call Me American, grew up during the civil war in Somalia. The story of his life and his determination to reach the United States is epic, his joy at succeeding unbounded—until the election of Donald Trump. Poet Richard Blanco, born in Spain of Cuban refugee parents, came to America as a child. His recent travels across the country to discover our shared identity provided material for his latest volume of poems, How to Love a Country. Both authors give voice to the complexity and contradictions of a place whose motto is e pluribus unum. Our discussion will be moderated by Simón Ríos, first-generation American and reporter for WBUR. Sponsored by G. Barrie Landry.
Moderators
avatar for Simón Ríos

Simón Ríos

Simón Rios is an award-winning, bilingual newsroom reporter at WBUR. Prior to WBUR, Rios spent two years working at the Standard-Times in New Bedford, where he covered business and immigration. A graduate of Emerson College, Rios worked as a carpenter, a cab driver, and a musician... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Abdi Nor Iftin

Abdi Nor Iftin

Abdi Nor Iftin is a memorist and former correspondent for NPR. He is the author of Call Me American, a memoir detailing his childhood in Mogadishu, the capital of Somalia, until he was granted a visa to live in the United States. In 2015, Iftin was the subject of This American Life... Read More →
avatar for Richard Blanco

Richard Blanco

Richard Blanco is a poet, professor, public speaker, memoirist, and civil engineer. He was the first immigrant, the first Latino, the first openly gay person, and the youngest person to be a US inaugural poet when he read at President Obama’s 2013 inauguration. He is also the first... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 2:30pm - 3:30pm EDT
Trinity Forum 206 Clarendon St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Memoir   Poetry

2:30pm EDT

Public Affairs Keynote
Civil rights attorney Ben Crump has represented the families of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, and other Black Lives Matter cases. In his book, Open Season: Legalized Genocide of Colored People, he argues that the criminal justice system discriminates against black and brown people, as well as people who are “colored” by virtue of sexual preference, religious beliefs, or gender. As evidence, Crump describes the effects of racial profiling, mass incarceration, voter disenfrachisement, and unequal educational opportunities for minority students. But Crump has hope. He believes that there is a cure for racism. Come hear this powerful advocate for justice discuss Open Season with Kenneth Mack, Lawrence D. Biele Professor of Law at Harvard and author of Representing the Race: The Creation of the Civil Rights Lawyer.
Moderators
avatar for Kenneth Mack

Kenneth Mack

Kenneth W. Mack is the inaugural Lawrence D. Biele Professor of Law and Affiliate Professor of History at Harvard University. He is also the co-faculty leader of the Harvard Law School Program on Law and History. His 2012 book, Representing the Race: The Creation of the Civil Rights... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Ben Crump

Ben Crump

Ben Crump is a civil rights attorney, author, and speaker who is known for representing Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown’s families in their respective cases. A frequent contributor to Time Magazine, Crump served as the first African American president of the Federal Bar Association... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 2:30pm - 3:30pm EDT
BPL Rabb Hall 700 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Nonfiction

2:30pm EDT

Poems of Bewilderment and Loss
According to an interview in BOMB, Nick Flynn’s latest collection of poetry, I Will Destroy You, was written “in a state of consciously and actively attempting not to write.” The result is a collection of poems, as Flynn admits, that “came out sideways,” depicting struggles with marriage, with fatherhood, with fidelity, and with mortality--in short, with what it means to be alive in the world. Martha Collins’s latest book, Because What Else Could I Do, is a spare yet visceral collection of fifty-five short poems, most addressed to her late husband in the six months following his sudden death. Booklist praises the collection, which “urgently and unflinchingly captures the shock and reverberation of unexpected grief.” Collins and Flynn will each read from their latest collections, followed by a discussion of the work, moderated by award-winning poet Fred Marchant. Sponsored by Mass Poetry.
Moderators
avatar for Fred Marchant

Fred Marchant

Fred Marchant is the author of five books of poetry, the most recent of which, Said Not Said, was recently recognized as an Honors Book for 2017 by the Massachusetts Book Awards. Earlier books include Full Moon Boat, House on Water, House in Air, and The Looking House. His first book... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Martha Collins

Martha Collins

Martha Collins has just published her tenth book of poetry, Because What Else Can I Do. Her previous volumes include Admit One: An American Scrapbook, White Papers, and the book-length poem Blue Front, as well as the paired volumes Night Unto Night and Day Unto Day. Collins has also... Read More →
avatar for Nick Flynn

Nick Flynn

Nick Flynn is the author of three memoirs: Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, which won the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for the Art of the Memoir and has been translated into fifteen languages; The Ticking is the Bomb: A Memoir of Bewilderment; and The Reenactments. Flynn is also the... Read More →

Sponsors
avatar for Mass Poetry

Saturday October 19, 2019 2:30pm - 3:30pm EDT
Emmanuel Parish Hall 15 Newbury St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Poetry

2:45pm EDT

Readings: Family
The three novelists whose work we’ll hear in this session all tackle issues of family, in all its warmth, messiness, and imperfections. Leah Hager Cohen, in Strangers and Cousins, explores family tribalism in the context of a wedding. Publishers Weekly, in a starred review, praised Cohen’s novel for “exploring the psychic depths of a seemingly ordinary event.” Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne’s Appalachian-set debut novel, Holding on to Nothing, also starts with a wedding—but in this case it’s a shotgun wedding between high-achieving Lucy and bad boy Jephtha. Can they form and maintain a family with few role models to draw on? And in The Forgotten Hours, praised by Kirkus as “a page-turner that also speaks to broader questions of sexual abuse, family loyalty, and the mutability of memory,” debut novelist Katrin Schumann raises profound questions about friendship and family loyalty, when a teenager’s father is accused of rape by her best friend. Our host for this session of readings is writer, editor, and book reviewer Bradley Babendir.
Moderators
avatar for Bradley Babendir

Bradley Babendir

Bradley Babendir is a writer and editor based in Boston. He writes about books, culture, and politics and has been published in the Paris Review, Literary Hub, Electric Literature, Rumpus, Washington Post, Kenyon Review, NPR, LA Review of Books, and other publications.

Presenters
avatar for Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne

Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne

Elizabeth Chiles Shelburne is a novelist, essayist, and journalist whose reports on public health have appeared in the Atlantic, the Boston Globe, the Boston Globe Magazine, and GlobalPost. A former editor at the Atlantic, she is a graduate of both Amherst College and GrubStreet’s... Read More →
avatar for Katrin Schumann

Katrin Schumann

Writer Katrin Schumann was born in Germany but grew up in Brooklyn and London—as a consequence, most of her writing explores our search for a sense of belonging, and the struggle to define ourselves in the context of our circumstances. Her work has been featured in the London Times... Read More →
avatar for Leah Hager Cohen

Leah Hager Cohen

Leah Hager Cohen is the author of six novels and five nonfiction works. Her work has been shortlisted for the Orange Prize and the IMPAC Dublin Literary Award and was a finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. Cohen is the Barrett Professor of Creative Writing at the College... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 2:45pm - 3:30pm EDT
BPL Newsfeed Cafe 700 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Fiction

2:45pm EDT

A Tribute to Tony Horwitz
Beloved reporter, historian, author, and friend Tony Horwitz died suddenly shortly after the publication of his latest book, Spying on the South: An Odyssey Across the American Divide. In that work, Tony followed the path through the American South of Frederick Law Olmsted, who, before he became a renowned landscape architect, was an undercover correspondent for the New York Times. Tony explored the racial and political divides plaguing the United States, using a perch on a barstool to find his informants. As always, his reportage is infused with his trademark humor in the face of things a Massachusetts Yankee finds difficult to hear. An all-star panel of Tony’s friends and colleagues will discuss Tony’s life and work. Join Harvard historian and lawyer Annette Gordon-Reed, author of The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family, which was awarded a Pulitzer Prize; Yale historian David W. Blight, whose Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom won this year’s Pulitzer Prize for history; and Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Ron Suskind, a former Wall Street Journal colleague of Tony’s and author of Life Animated, Hope in the Unseen, and The Way of the World, for a tribute to Tony Horwitz.
Moderators
avatar for Ron Suskind

Ron Suskind

Ron Suskind is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, lecturer at Harvard Law School, bestselling author, and founder of the mobile app Sidekicks. He is the author of Life, Animated, Confidence Men, The Way of the World, The One Percent Doctrine, The Price of Loyalty, and A Hope in... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for David W. Blight

David W. Blight

David W. Blight is a teacher, scholar, historian, and book reviewer. He is the author of Race and Reunion, American Oracle, A People and A Nation, and multiple annotations and introductory essays. His latest book, Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, is a Pulitzer Prize–winning... Read More →
avatar for Annette Gordon-Reed

Annette Gordon-Reed

Annette Gordon-Reed is the Charles Warren Professor of American Legal History at Harvard Law School and a Professor of History in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University. She is the 2009 Pulitzer Prize winner in History for The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 2:45pm - 3:45pm EDT
Church of the Covenant 67 Newbury St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Nonfiction

3:00pm EDT

The Great Nowitzki
Writer Thomas Pletzinger met NBA player Dirk Nowitzki (“Saint Dirk”) in Dallas, where the fans still love him and the opponents’ fans always feared him. In Germany, Nowitzki is more well-known than the game he plays. He’s famous because he’s famous. He’s been doing ads for a bank and an athletic brand for years and has been a guest on Germany’s most popular talk show. Joining Pletzinger to discuss the Nowitzki phenomenon is MIT digital humanities and media studies professor Kurt Fendt.
Moderators
avatar for Kurt Fendt

Kurt Fendt

Kurt Fendt teaches digital humanities and media studies subjects, as well as many upper-level German studies courses in Global Studies and Languages at MIT. A former executive director of MIT’s HyperStudio for Digital Humanities, Fendt has held visiting professorships at the University... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Thomas Pletzinger

Thomas Pletzinger

Thomas Pletzinger is an award-winning freelance writer and translator at the literary studio adler & söhne. He teaches creative writing at the Swiss Literature Institute in Biel, Switzerland. Bestattung eines Hundes (Funeral for a Dog) was his critically acclaimed debut novel. His... Read More →

Sponsors
avatar for Goethe-Institut Boston

Saturday October 19, 2019 3:00pm - 3:00pm EDT
199 Commonwealth Ave 199 Commonwealth Ave, Boston, MA, 02116
  Nonfiction

3:00pm EDT

Mestizas
Mestizas is a female group specializing in a fusion of flamenco, Latin, and jazz genres, with an extended repertoire. With vibrant vocals and outstanding musicianship, the band’s girl power stands out in a male-dominated environment as one of the most original bands at Berklee College of Music.
Presenters
avatar for Mestizas

Mestizas

Mestizas is a female group specializing in a fusion of flamenco, Latin, and jazz genres, with an extended repertoire. With vibrant vocals and outstanding musicianship, the band’s girl power stands out in a male-dominated environment as one of the most original bands at Berklee College... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 3:00pm - 3:45pm EDT
Berklee Stage 02116
  Music

3:00pm EDT

Boston By Foot Literary Walking Tour
This mini Boston By Foot tour dips briefly into the Back Bay neighborhood to taste Boston's rich literary heritage. From the filling of the actual back bay about 1860 through today, connections with literature and writers of all flavors have flourished. This sampling aims to whet your appetite for more!
Saturday October 19, 2019 3:00pm - 3:45pm EDT
Outside BPL Boylston Street Entrance 700 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Special Event

3:00pm EDT

BBF Unbound: Jump-Start a Story
The Surrealists used to pool their money and buy a one-way ticket to the furthest destination they could afford. They'd send one person off on an adventure and they'd have to make their way back somehow, and tell the others all about it when they returned. Along the way, they’d collect talismans that helped them navigate the dark places they encountered. In this workshop, we'll be sending each of you off on an adventure and when you get back, you'll have the outline of a new story. Lisa Lieberman (author of the Cara Walden historical noir mystery series) will be your tour guide, assisted by author and teacher Sharon Healy-Yang.
Presenters
avatar for Lisa Lieberman

Lisa Lieberman

Lisa Lieberman is the author of the Cara Walden series of historical mysteries, which are based on old movies and feature blacklisted Hollywood folks on the run in dangerous international locales. She mines her knowledge of modern European cultural and intellectual historian to write... Read More →
avatar for Sharon Healy-Yang

Sharon Healy-Yang

Sharon Healy-Yang is a writer and former educator from Massachusetts. She recently retired from her position as a teacher in the English Department at Worcester State University. Healy-Yang is the author of historical fiction novels Bait and Switch and Letter from a Dead Man.

Saturday October 19, 2019 3:00pm - 4:00pm EDT
BPL Exchange 700 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  BBF Unbound   Sessions for Writers

3:00pm EDT

Middle Grade: Growing Pains
Growing up comes with growing pains, and in this session, we’ll talk with three authors who have been there, done that, and now write about it! Hena Khan’s More to the Story takes a classic novel whose origin is here in New England--Little Women--and updates it for 2019, focusing on a tight-knit Muslim, Pakistani American family who have more than their fair share of struggles. In actor-turned-author Maulik Pancholy’s debut, The Best At It, a middle-schooler struggles to define his identity while also navigating anxiety and depression, in a novel Kirkus Reviews calls “a fast-paced journey riddled with heartbreakingly authentic moments of anxiety, confusion, and triumph.” Finally, in her middle-grade debut, My Life as an Ice Cream Sandwich, award-winning novelist Ibi Zoboi introduces readers to a memorable character who would rather keep her head in the stars than contend with the real world. Our host for this session about growing up and getting stronger is Lauren Rizzuto of Simmons University.
Moderators
avatar for Lauren Rizzuto

Lauren Rizzuto

Lauren Rizzuto is a writer, reviewer, and a graduate of Simmons College’s Children’s Literature MA program, where she now teaches. She also works as a bookseller at the Children’s Book Shop in Brookline and reviews books for the Horn Book Guide. Rizzuto is currently pursuing... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Ibi Zoboi

Ibi Zoboi

Ibi Zoboi is a Pushcart-nominated young adult and children’s author whose work has appeared in the New York Times Book Review, the Horn Book Magazine, and the Rumpus. She is the author of American Street, Pride, Black Enough, and her most recent release and middle-grade debut, My... Read More →
avatar for Hena Khan

Hena Khan

Hena Khan is the author of the children's books Amina’s Voice; Night of the Moon; Under My Hijab; It’s Ramadan, Curious George; and Golden Domes and Silver Lanterns. Khan’s latest release, More to the Story, follows four sisters in a Muslim family living in Georgia.
avatar for Maulik Pancholy

Maulik Pancholy

Maulik Pancholy is an award-winning actor seen in films, on Broadway, and hit television like 30 Rock, Whitney, Phineas and Ferb, and Sanjay and Craig. He served on President Barack Obama’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders and is the cofounder of Act... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 3:00pm - 4:00pm EDT
Old South Guild Room 645 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Kids

3:15pm EDT

Story Time: Ryan T. Higgins
Get ready to laugh as Ryan T. Higgins reads Bruce’s Big Storm, the latest installment in his bestselling Mother Bruce series (ages 5–7)—and keep your eyes open for that curmudgeonly bear himself!
Presenters
avatar for Ryan T. Higgins

Ryan T. Higgins

Ryan T. Higgins is a New York Times–bestselling author and illustrator of children’s picture books such as We Don’t Eat Our Classmates, Wilfried, and Be Quiet. He is a recipient of the E.B. White Award and an Ezra Jack Keats Honor. Higgins currently resides in Southern Maine... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 3:15pm - 3:45pm EDT
BPL Children's Library 700 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Kids

3:15pm EDT

Fiction: Campus Novels
From Harvard, MIT, and Lesley to Emerson, BC, and BU, the Boston Book Festival’s author lineup has always been enriched by our proximity to so many world-class colleges and universities. It’s about time that we put together a session of novels set on campus, too! Debut novelist Elizabeth Ames lives with her family on Harvard’s campus, so she knows of what she writes; her novel The Other’s Gold explores the moral crises of four dorm suitemates both during and after college. In Around Harvard Square, CJ Farley, former editor of the Harvard Lampoon, pens a satirical novel that touches on issues of race, class, and privilege. Mona Awad’s darkly comedic Bunny might make any aspiring MFA students think twice about their choices, as an outsider desperate for acceptance gets invited to an exclusive workshop--and drawn into a nightmarish world. And Jeanne Blasberg’s The Nine is set on the campus of an exclusive New Hampshire boarding school whose ivy-clad walls hide some sinister secrets. Pull on your favorite college sweatshirt and join us for a master class in storytelling, hosted by novelist Lisa Borders, author most recently of The Fifty-First State.
Moderators
avatar for Lisa Borders

Lisa Borders

Lisa Borders is the author of two novels, The Fifty-First State and Cloud Cuckoo Land, which was chosen by Pat Conroy as the winner of River City Publishing’s Fred Bonnie Award in 2002. Cloud Cuckoo Land received fiction honors in the 2003 Massachusetts Book Awards and was a finalist... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for CJ Farley

CJ Farley

CJ Farley is an author, journalist, and columnist. He is the author of novels and biographies, including Kingston by Starlight, a fact-based novel about an Irish immigrant in the Caribbean; Game World, a children’s book building off video game culture and Jamaican folklore; My Favorite... Read More →
avatar for Elizabeth Ames

Elizabeth Ames

Elizabeth Ames is a novelist and short story writer whose work has appeared in Ninth Letter and Third Coast. Winner of two Hopwood Awards, Ames holds an MFA from the University of Michigan. A part of the community at Quincy House, a residential dormitory at Harvard University, Ames... Read More →
avatar for Jeanne Blasberg

Jeanne Blasberg

Jeanne McWilliams Blasberg had a successful career in finance and in US Squash before embarking on a new career as an author. A graduate of Smith College, Blasberg spent much of her career on Wall Street and the management of Macy’s. She also rose to prominence as a nationally recognized... Read More →
avatar for Mona Awad

Mona Awad

Mona Awad’s debut novel, 13 Ways of Looking at a Fat Girl, won the Amazon Best First Novel Award and the Colorado Book Book Award, was shortlisted for the Giller Prize and longlisted for the International Dublin Award. Her writing has appeared in TIME, Electric Literature, McSweeney’s... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 3:15pm - 4:15pm EDT
BAC Beehive 951 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02115
  Fiction

3:15pm EDT

Don't Read Poetry
When a respected Harvard English professor, literary critic, and poet with several published collections of her own tells us “Don’t Read Poetry,” should we take her at her word? In Don’t Read Poetry, Stephanie Burt brings her trademark wit and enthusiasm to bear on the essential—but sometimes intimidating—prospect of reading poems. “Don’t assume poetry ever means only one thing,” writes Burt, “other than maybe a set of tools for making things with words.” In this lively, entertaining, and educational session, Burt will encourage us to let go of our assumptions about poetry and invite us to seek out poems and poets, both classic and contemporary, whose styles speak to us—and to share the poems we love with others. Joining Burt to discuss what Publishers Weekly calls an “eloquent literary primer” is poet Lillian-Yvonne Bertram, whose most recent collection is How Narrow My Escapes. Sponsored by Mass Poetry.
Moderators
avatar for Lillian-Yvonne Bertram

Lillian-Yvonne Bertram

Lillian-Yvonne Bertram is an assistant professor in the creative writing program at the University of Massachusetts-Boston. She was recently named the new director of the Chautauqua Institution Writers’ Festival. Bertram has published poetry, prose, and essays in numerous journals... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Stephanie Burt

Stephanie Burt

Stephanie Burt is an expert in American poetry, both in its composition and its critique. She has been called “one of the most influential poetry critics of a generation” by the New York Times. Burt also teaches at Harvard University, sharing with students not only her expertise... Read More →

Sponsors
avatar for Mass Poetry

Saturday October 19, 2019 3:15pm - 4:15pm EDT
BPL McKim Exhibition Hall 700 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Poetry

3:15pm EDT

YA: Warrior Girls
If you’re in search of drama and adventure, you won’t want to miss this! The authors whose books we explore in this session all feature kickass heroines conquering the biggest challenges the world can throw at them. Amy Rose Capetta and Cori McCarthy dream up a futuristic queer reincarnation of the Arthurian legend, and (spoiler alert) this time the Once and Future King is a girl named Ari. Fans of Westworld won’t want to miss Charlotte Nicole Davis’s bold debut, The Good Luck Girls, which finds a group of socially marginalized young women teaming up as outlaws in a reimagined Old West. In Rory Power’s debut Wilder Girls, when the planet has gone haywire and turned (literally) monstrous, female strength and solidarity is the only thing that can save the day . . . maybe. And in Brittney Morris’s debut Slay, the demon to slay is a troll--in this case an online troll, intent on taking down the hard work of a talented black girl video game developer. Educator Monique Harris will be our host for this hour celebrating powerful and resilient heroines.
Moderators
avatar for Monique Harris

Monique Harris

A transplant from San Francisco, Monique Harris graduated from San Francisco State University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in English Literature in 1997. She earned her teaching credential in Moderate Disabilities from the University of San Francisco in 2003. A special education... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Amy Rose Capetta

Amy Rose Capetta

Amy Rose Capetta is a science fiction, fantasy, and mystery writer. Her books include Entangled and Unmade, two novels comprising a space opera; The Brilliant Death and its sequel, The Storm of Life; and Echo After Echo, a murder mystery. Her book Once & Future, a collaboration with... Read More →
avatar for Charlotte Nicole Davis

Charlotte Nicole Davis

Charlotte Nicole Davis is the debut author of the young adult novel The Good Luck Girlsl. Described as Westworld meets The Handmaid’s Tale, the book is hailed by New York Times–bestselling author Dhonielle Clayton as “a dust-filled, bloody fairytale.” Davis is a graduate of... Read More →
avatar for Cori McCarthy

Cori McCarthy

Cori McCarthy is a young adult novelist, editor, picture book writer, and author of You Were Here, Now a Major Motion Picture, and Breaking Sky, which is soon to be developed by Sony Pictures. Their most recent release, Once & Future, is a collaboration with author Amy Rose Capetta... Read More →
avatar for Rory Power

Rory Power

Rory Power’s debut novel is the critically acclaimed Wilder Girls, a feminist Lord of the Flies meets Annihilation retelling. She grew up in New England, but received a Masters in Prose Fiction from the University of East Anglia across the pond. Power moved back home and currently... Read More →
avatar for Brittney Morris

Brittney Morris

Brittney Morris is the author of Slay, a young adult novel that follows a teenage video game developer as she takes on a real-life troll which Entertainment Weekly deemed the “YA debut we’re most excited for this year.” Her work has appeared in The Boston University Chimaerid... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 3:15pm - 4:15pm EDT
BPL Teen Central 700 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Young Adult

3:30pm EDT

Appearance by Madeline
Ooh la la, it's everyone's favorite Parisienne, Madeline! Stop by and say "Bonjour!"
Saturday October 19, 2019 3:30pm - 4:00pm EDT
Brainstorm Tent 02116
  Kids

3:30pm EDT

BBF Unbound: We Are America
Twenty-eight students from Lowell High School in Massachusetts set out to understand what it means to be American. They explored their own personal histories, drawing connections between these histories and the larger history of America. Together they wrote We Are America: Voices of the Nation’s Future—a collection of deeply personal stories—of finding the courage to speak, of searching for home, of seeking acceptance, of asking for help. Hearing about their personal acts of courage, their journeys and reflections, can help us better comprehend the beauty and breadth of diversity in this country. This session will elevate the voices of young people who are passionate, eloquent and deeply thoughtful about how we create space to celebrate and understand diversity in America. Students will be joined by their teacher, Jessica Lander, in a session hosted by Charles Thomas Lai FitzGibbon of Facing History and Ourselves.
Moderators
avatar for Charles Thomas Lai FitzGibbon

Charles Thomas Lai FitzGibbon

Charles Thomas Lai FitzGibbon is a former social studies teacher and current program associate for Facing History and Ourselves.

Presenters
avatar for Safiya Alsamarrai

Safiya Alsamarrai

Safiya Alsamarrai is a freshman at Middlesex Community College and is also a co-chair of the National Student Leadership Board for Generation Citizen. She moved to the United States from Iraq seven years ago.
avatar for Diane Chikulu

Diane Chikulu

Diane Chikulu is attending college at Middlesex Community College and is studying liberal arts. She hopes to be involved in the medical field.
avatar for Idalisse Fernandez

Idalisse Fernandez

Idalisse Fernandez aspires to attend college to study business, in the hopes of one day starting her own company.
avatar for Katherine Mary Huang

Katherine Mary Huang

Katherine Huang is a first-year student at MIT, planning to major in comparative media studies. In We Are America, she told the story of starting her nonprofit, Science and Us.
avatar for Jessica Lander

Jessica Lander

Jessica Lander is a writer and a highschool teacher who currently lives in her hometown of Cambridge, Massachusetts. She has taught all over the world, including in Thailand and Cambodia, and her work has featured in the Boston Globe Magazine, Huffington Post, Usable Knowledge, and... Read More →
avatar for Philly Marte

Philly Marte

Philly Marte is a freshman at Western New England University studying political science.
avatar for Ezequiel Nunez

Ezequiel Nunez

Ezequiel Nunez is a freshman at Fitchburg State University. He migrated to the United States from the Dominican Republic in 2015. He also plays the piano and the guitar.
avatar for Lucie Karaza Rwakabuba

Lucie Karaza Rwakabuba

Lucie Rwkabuba is from Democratic Republic of Congo. She is a freshman at the University of Massachusetts in Lowell and hopes her career will involve helping people.

Saturday October 19, 2019 3:30pm - 4:30pm EDT
BPL Orientation Room 700 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  BBF Unbound   Nonfiction

3:30pm EDT

"The Butlah Did It": Mysteries with a Boston Accent
Keep both eyes open when you walk home this evening, because if the writers in this session are to be believed, Boston’s a hotbed for mystery, mayhem--even murder! In Adam Abramowitz’s A Town Called Malice, a bike messenger and aspiring standup comic gets drawn into an investigation of an attempted hit job at Nick’s Comedy Stop. Edwin Hill’s protagonist is a Harvard librarian with a knack for researching missing people; in his new novel The Missing Ones, a missing persons case strikes close to home. Investigative reporter Hank Phillippi Ryan is a Boston institution, and so are her novels; in her latest standalone, The Murder List, Harvard Law student Rachel is unprepared for her role in researching a homicide case, and even less so for the fact that her boss, the assistant district attorney, may have a vendetta against her. Novelist Kate Racculia might live in Pennsylvania now, but her new novel Tuesday Mooney Talks to Ghosts sends readers on a spirited citywide scavenger hunt to find a dead millionaire’s fortune, in a story that’s a love letter to Boston and to one of Racculia’s favorite novels, The Westing Game. Get ready to explore Boston’s mean streets with these four authors and host Callum Borchers, a reporter for WBUR’s BostonomiX.
Moderators
avatar for Callum Borchers

Callum Borchers

Callum Borchers is a reporter who covers the Greater Boston business community for WBUR's BostonomiX. Before joining WBUR in 2018, he reported on the intersection of politics and media at the Washington Post and covered politics, business and sports at the Boston Globe. He was also... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Adam Abramowitz

Adam Abramowitz

Adam Abramowitz is the author of the Bosstown Novels, a series of suspense novels following a bike messenger as he fights to learn of his family’s criminal history. Bosstown, the first volume of the series, introduces Abramowitz’s protagonist, Zesty Meyers, with a local flair... Read More →
avatar for Edwin Hill

Edwin Hill

Edwin Hill is the author of the Hester Thursby mystery series. A graduate of Wesleyan University, he earned an MFA from Emerson College, working in Boston in educational publishing. His Hester Thursby series chronicles a four-foot-ten Harvard librarian who searches for missing people... Read More →
avatar for Hank Phillippi Ryan

Hank Phillippi Ryan

Hank Phillippi Ryan is a bestselling, award-winning mystery writer and on-air investigative reporter for Boston’s WHDH-TV. Winner of thirty-four Emmys, she has also earned five Agatha Awards, being the only author to receive an Agatha in four different categories. She is the author... Read More →
avatar for Kate Racculia

Kate Racculia

Kate Racculia has been a cartoonist, a planetarium operator, a movie and music reviewer, a coffee jerk, a bookseller, a designer, a finance marketing proposal writer, and a fundraising prospect researcher. Currently, she teaches online for GrubStreet, works at Pennsylvania’s Bethlehem... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 3:30pm - 4:30pm EDT
Old South Mary Norton 645 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Fiction

3:30pm EDT

One City One Story
What do Walkmans, A–Z Storage, and nursing homes have in common? To Celeste, the answer she so long sought becomes far more harrowing than she could have imagined. Author Ciera Burch takes readers along on this journey with Celeste, as the protagonist yearns for answers about her past from her enigmatic, aging grandmother. "Yvonne," this year's One City One Story Selection, mixes themes of family, loss, and connection with complex portraits of the titular character and her granddaughter as they reunite decades after the latter's adoption. Grab your copy at the BBF info tent, and join us for a discussion with Burch and Harvard University Office for the Arts’ Alicia Anstead, facilitator extraordinaire. Be sure to tweet your questions and thoughts beforehand at @1city1story! Sponsored by Bookbub.
Moderators
avatar for Alicia Anstead

Alicia Anstead

Alicia Anstead is a journalist, editor, and educator. She is currently the associate director for programming at the Office for the Arts at Harvard University and is the editor-in-chief of Inside Arts Magazine, produced by the Association of Performing Arts Professionals. Anstead... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Ciera Burch

Ciera Burch

Ciera Burch is currently an MFA candidate at Emerson College in Boston and a bookseller at Trident Booksellers and Cafe. Her fiction has appeared in American Literary Magazine, American University's literary magazine, Underground, the art and literary journal of Georgia State University... Read More →

Sponsors
avatar for BookBub

Saturday October 19, 2019 3:30pm - 4:30pm EDT
BPL Commonwealth Salon 700 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Fiction

3:45pm EDT

Readings: Past and Present
Today’s final readings session features three novels that engage with the past in ways that remain relevant today. Rachel Barenbaum’s debut novel, A Bend in the Stars, is set in 1914 Russia, and explores the intersections of science and medicine with the struggles of Russia’s Jews. Kris Frieswick’s debut, The Ghost Manuscript, is set in the present day but features a rare-book authenticator drawn into a mystery surrounding a sixth-century Welsh manuscript. And Marjan Kamali’s new novel, The Stationery Shop, bridges the present and the recent past. Sixty years after losing her first love, a political activist she met when both were young in Tehran, Roya has the opportunity to reconnect with him—and discover what went wrong. Appropriately enough, the host for this session is Kit Haggard, director of Boston’s first-in-the-nation Literary District, which celebrates Boston’s literary past and supports its present.
Moderators
avatar for Kit Haggard

Kit Haggard

Kit Haggard is an award-winning writer currently based in Boston. She is known for a number of critical essays on LGBTQ literature and the composition class she teaches at Emerson College focuses on the intersection of language and identity. Haggard’s fiction can be found in the... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Kris Frieswick

Kris Frieswick

Kris Frieswick is an award-winning editor, journalist, humorist, and author. She is the current deputy editor of the Mansion section of the Wall Street Journal, and her work can be found in the Economist, the Boston Globe Magazine, Departures, Medium, and other publications. The... Read More →
avatar for Marjan Kamali

Marjan Kamali

Marjan Kamali is a novelist and teacher whose work has been both anthologized and broadcast on BBC Radio 4. A graduate of UC Berkeley with an MBA from Columbia University and an MFA from New York University, Kamali is a teacher of writing at GrubStreet and former adjunct business... Read More →
avatar for Rachel Barenbaum

Rachel Barenbaum

Rachel Barenbaum is a novelist and book reviewer for the LA Review of Books and DeadDarlings. With degrees in business and literature and philosophy from Harvard University, she is also a graduate of the Novel Incubator program at GrubStreet. She has interviewed authors such as Madeline... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 3:45pm - 4:30pm EDT
BPL Newsfeed Cafe 700 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Fiction

3:45pm EDT

Fiction Keynote
We are delighted to present, for the first time at BBF, Elizabeth Strout, who has created some of the most memorable female characters in recent memory. Her 2009 Pulitzer Prize–winning novel Olive Kitteridge was praised by the Pulitzer committee for its “cumulative emotional wallop” and for the title character, Olive, “blunt, flawed, and fascinating.” Now, in a similarly structured volume of thirteen interconnected stories, Strout brings the irascible Olive back in Olive, Again, with all of the poignancy and emotional acuity of the first book. Come hear Elizabeth Strout in conversation with hometown favorite Andre Dubus III, author of Gone So Long, for a memorable fiction keynote session. Sponsored by Bookforum. Buy your copy of Olive, Again on-site before the session and get priority seating in the front of the venue!
Moderators
avatar for Andre Dubus III

Andre Dubus III

Andre Dubus III is a novelist with a long and celebrated career. He is the author of the memoir Townie, which is about his troubled childhood in and around Haverhill, Massachusetts, and his difficult relationship with his famous writer father. He is also the author of several novels... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Elizabeth Strout

Elizabeth Strout

Elizabeth Strout is a New York Times–bestselling novelist and short story writer whose work has earned her the Pulitzer Prize, the Taobuk Award for Literary Excellence, and the O. Henry Prize. Her books include Olive Kitteridge, which the Pulitzer Prize committee described as “blunt... Read More →

Sponsors
avatar for Bookforum

Saturday October 19, 2019 3:45pm - 4:45pm EDT
Old South Sanctuary 645 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Fiction

4:00pm EDT

Story Time: Mitali Perkins
Beloved author Mitali Perkins reads her picture book debut, Between Us and Abuela (ages 5–8)
Presenters
avatar for Mitali Perkins

Mitali Perkins

Mitali Perkins is the children’s author of Bamboo People, Rickshaw Girl, and You Bring the Distant Near, which was longlisted for the National Book Award. In 2019, Perkins has two new publications. Forward Me Back to You is a young adult novel about trauma, healing, and social justice... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 4:00pm - 4:30pm EDT
BPL Children's Library 700 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Kids

4:00pm EDT

Mom Rock
Mom Rock is a hard-hitting, upbeat rock band based in Boston. Members Curtis Heimburger (vocals, acoustic guitar, and synth), Josh Polack (vocals, electric guitar, and synth), and Wilson Reardon (drums) met in their first year studying at Berklee College of Music and later added Tara Maggiulli (vocals and bass) to round out their lineup. Their sound is inspired by bands such as Weezer, The Talking Heads, and Catfish and the Bottlemen. Over the last six months Mom Rock has taken the college music scene in Boston by storm, with the releases of their first three singles reaching over 65,000 listeners and over 285,000 streams on Spotify alone. They’re known for an incredibly fun and energetic live set consisting of their eclectic original songs, crowd surfing, and a sparkly pink and purple space suit.
Presenters
avatar for Mom Rock

Mom Rock

Mom Rock is a hard-hitting, upbeat rock band based in Boston. Members Curtis Heimburger (vocals, acoustic guitar, and synth), Josh Polack (vocals, electric guitar, and synth), and Wilson Reardon (drums) met in their first year studying at Berklee College of Music and later added Tara... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 4:00pm - 4:45pm EDT
Berklee Stage 02116
  Music

4:00pm EDT

Fiction: The Complexities of War
Wars have always been tragic, messy, and complicated to understand; novelists are perhaps uniquely equipped to help readers comprehend not only the scope of war but also its complex personal toll. Tim Murphy’s novel Correspondents spans nearly a century, but focuses largely on the Iraq War after 9/11, as a Boston-born journalist and her Iraqi translator navigate their complicated cultural heritages as they struggle to make sense of a senseless conflict. Ethiopian-born novelist Maaza Mengiste narrates the story of a young servant girl turned soldier during the 1935 Italian invasion that devastated her home country. In a starred review, Publishers Weekly praises The Shadow King’s “evocative, mesmerizing account of the role of women during wartime.” Abbigail Rosewood’s If I Had Two Lives intimately explores the personal legacy of war, as a young woman who spent much of her childhood in a Vietnamese military camp finds echoes of that past in her present-day relationships. Their conversation will be moderated by Catherine Parnell, senior associate editor of Consequence Magazine, which focuses on the culture and consequences of war.
Moderators
avatar for Catherine Parnell

Catherine Parnell

Catherine Parnell teaches creative writing at GrubStreet in Boston. She is the senior associate editor for Consequence Magazine, and her work has appeared in Post Road, Slush Pile, Baltimore Review, Diverse Voices Quarterly, Fiction Daily, Dos Passos Review, and other publications... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Abbigail N. Rosewood

Abbigail N. Rosewood

Abbigail N. Rosewood is a fiction writer whose work has been published in literary journals including The Adirondack Review, Columbia Journal, Green Hills Literary Lantern, and The Missing Slate. Rosewood earned her MFA in fiction from Columbia University. In 2012, she was the recipient... Read More →
avatar for Maaza Mengiste

Maaza Mengiste

Maaza Mengiste is an award-winning novelist and essayist. She was born in Addis Ababa but spent her childhood in Nigeria, Kenya, and the United States after her family fled the Ethiopian Revolution. Her debut novel, Beneath the Lion’s Gaze, was named one of the ten best contemporary... Read More →
avatar for Tim Murphy

Tim Murphy

Tim Murphy is a novelist and journalist whose work, which focuses mostly on HIV/AIDS and LGBTQ issues, has appeared in publications including the New York Times, New York Magazine, Out magazine, the Nation, POZ magazine, and the magazines of the ACLU and Lambda Legal. He is the author... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 4:00pm - 5:00pm EDT
Emmanuel Parish Hall 15 Newbury St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Fiction

4:00pm EDT

Media, Politics, and Fake News
The coarseness and chaos of our politics is echoed in our news media. And vice versa. This unmissable session shines a harsh light on the current state of the news. Jill Abramson takes on the media business in Merchants of Truth and calls journalism to account for selling out to advertisers. In Audience of One, James Poniewozik details the ways in which Donald Trump used media to “enlarge himself, to become a brand, a star, a demagogue, and a president.” Brian Rosenwald, in Talk Radio’s America, shows how talk radio evolved from informative discussions to a forum for outrage that polarized America and ultimately led to a Republican party unable to govern. Join these three distinguished authors for a look at how the changing news landscape has affected the political environment, moderated by Jeremy Hobson, co-host of Here & Now on WBUR.
Moderators
avatar for Jeremy Hobson

Jeremy Hobson

Jeremy Hobson is a co-host for Here & Now, where he started many regular segments including the DJ Sessions, the daily business segment, conversations with Recode, BackStory, the Atlantic’s Derek Thompson, and a weekly interview with political journalists. Previously, he hosted... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Brian Rosenwald

Brian Rosenwald

Brian Rosenwald is a co-editor of Washington Post’s Made By History section and a historical consultant for the Slate podcast Whistlestop. A senior fellow at the Robert A Fox Leadership Program at the University of Pennsylvania, Rosenwald has discussed politics on CNN, NPR, and... Read More →
avatar for James Poniewozik

James Poniewozik

James Poniewozik is the chief television critic for the New York Times. Previously, he wrote “Tuned In,” a column critiquing television and related media, for Time Magazine and was the media editor for Salon’s website. Poniewozik’s work has also appeared in Fortune and Rolling... Read More →
avatar for Jill Abramson

Jill Abramson

Jill Abramson was the first female executive editor of the New York Times. Previously working for the Wall Street Journal as an investigative reporter and deputy bureau chief, Abramson is the author of five books: Where They Are Now, a look at the seventy women of the Harvard 1974... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 4:00pm - 5:00pm EDT
Emmanuel Sanctuary 15 Newbury St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Nonfiction

4:00pm EDT

Resist: The Signs and Songs of Protest
This session looks at two perennial forms of subtle resistance in our culture: songs and posters. James Sullivan’s Which Side Are You On? examines twentieth-century American history through the lens of protest songs from each of its major social movements, such as anti-war, civil rights, women’s rights, worker’s rights, gay rights, and environmentalism. In Signs of Resistance, graphic designer Bonnie Siegler turns her eye to images of protest, beginning with the Revolutionary War all the way to the Trump and Black Lives Matter era. Join us for a lively musical and visual session about the history of protest in songs and signs moderated by Callie Crossley, BBF board member and host of Under the Radar on WGBH radio.
Moderators
avatar for Callie Crossley

Callie Crossley

Callie Crossley is a radio and TV host, award-winning documentary filmmaker and journalist, and commentator. She hosts Basic Black, a show focusing on current events concerning communities of color, as well as the weekly talk show Under the Radar with Callie Crossley on WGBH radio... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Bonnie Siegler

Bonnie Siegler

Bonnie Siegler is a New York–based graphic designer and founder of the award-winning studio Eight and a Half, which has clients including HBO, Saturday Night Live, and Late Night with Seth Meyers. Before that, she co-founded the design studio Number Seventeen, which created the... Read More →
avatar for James Sullivan

James Sullivan

James Sullivan is a writer, freelance journalist, editor, and music and cultural critic. He is currently a contributor to the Boston Globe, and has also been an editor for Rolling Stone, a critic for the San Francisco Chronicle, consultant for Pandora, and reviewer for Entertainment... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 4:00pm - 5:00pm EDT
BAC Cascieri Hall 320 Newbury St, Boston, MA, 02115
  Nonfiction

4:00pm EDT

Paper or Plastic and Other Environmental Conundrums
If you are one of those believers in science who think environmental degradation is the biggest problem facing the planet, this session is for you. Our three authors have some unexpected takes that will challenge your assumptions. Medical ethicist Harriet Washington’s A Terrible Thing to Waste: Environmental Racism and Its Assault on the American Mind, talks about the toxic pollution in communities of color and its effect on cognitive development. Andrew McAfee, in More from Less: The Surprising Story of How We Learned to Prosper Using Fewer Resources—And What Happens Next, offers copious data to show that thanks to technology, fewer resources are being consumed in manufacturing stuff, with positive implications for the environment. And in Bright Future: How Some Countries Have Solved Climate Change and the Rest Can Follow, Joshua Goldstein makes an impassioned case for nuclear power, the only truly clean energy. WBUR’s environmental senior producing editor, Barbara Moran, will lead this revelatory conversation about the environment. Sponsored by the Boston Public Library.
Moderators
avatar for Barbara Moran

Barbara Moran

Barbara Moran is the senior producing editor for WBUR’s environmental vertical. For more than twenty years, she has worked as a science journalist committed to covering issues of public health, environmental justice, and the intersection of science and society. She has written for... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Andrew McAfee

Andrew McAfee

Andrew McAfee is a scientist, writer, and researcher at the forefront of exploring how the digital world impacts our present and our future. He is the codirector of the Initiative on the Digital Economy at MIT, as well as principal research scientist at the MIT Sloan School of Management... Read More →
avatar for Harriet Washington

Harriet Washington

Harriet Washington is a research fellow, scholar, and author. A recipient of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, Washington has held fellowships at the Harvard School of Public Health, Stanford University, DePaul University College of Law, Harvard Medical School... Read More →
avatar for Joshua Goldstein

Joshua Goldstein

Joshua Goldstein is a scholar, professor, and writer with expertise in international relations, world order, and climate change. His work, which has earned him a MacArthur Foundation Individual Research and Writing Grant and the International Studies Association’s Karl Deutsch Award... Read More →

Sponsors
avatar for Boston Public Library

Saturday October 19, 2019 4:00pm - 5:15pm EDT
BPL Rabb Hall 700 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Nonfiction

4:00pm EDT

France in the World
France in the World combines the intellectual rigor of an academic work with the liveliness and readability of popular history. With a brand-new preface aimed at an international audience, this English-language edition edited by Stéphane Gerson will be an essential resource for Francophiles and scholars alike. This dynamic collection presents a new way of writing national and global histories while developing our understanding of France in the world through short, provocative essays that range from prehistoric frescoes to Coco Chanel to the terrorist attacks of 2015. Gerson will be interviewed by French Cultural Center librarian Ingrid Marquardt, and there will be an opportunity for audience Q&A.
Moderators
avatar for Ingrid Marquardt

Ingrid Marquardt

Ingrid Marquardt leads the second largest private French library in the country, at the French Cultural Center in the heart of historical Back Bay. This position marries her love of French language and literature. Marquardt began her passion for French through the immersion program... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Stéphane Gerson

Stéphane Gerson

Stéphane Gerson is a cultural historian and a professor of French studies at NYU. His first book, The Pride of Place: Local Memories and Political Culture in Nineteenth-Century France, won the Jacques Barzun Prize in Cultural History and the Laurence Wylie Prize in French Cultural... Read More →

Sponsors
avatar for Cultural Services of the French Embassy in the United States
avatar for French Cultural Center

Saturday October 19, 2019 4:00pm - 5:30pm EDT
French Cultural Center 53 Marlborough St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Nonfiction

4:15pm EDT

Memoir: Seeking the Self
We are pleased to feature the authors of two of the year’s most electrifying memoirs in this session. Many BBF fans will remember Saeed Jones as the engaging host of the 2016 fiction keynote with Colson Whitehead. He’s back at the BBF with How We Fight for Our Lives, a coming-of-age memoir that “marks the emergence of a major literary voice,” according to Kirkus Reviews. His poetically told story of growing up black and gay in the South reflects on overarching concerns about race, queerness, power, love and grief. Cyrus Grace Dunham’s A Year Without a Name is a searing and honest account of growing up alienated from one’s own body. Coming to terms with no longer wanting be called Grace and then with the decision to become Cyrus was only the first step in their trans experience, one that, as Kirkus Reviews puts it, “defies categorization as much as it defies resolution.” This is sure to be a riveting and powerful convo moderated by Arielle Gray, WBUR’s arts engagement producer for the ARTery. Sponsored by Creative Nonfiction.
Moderators
avatar for Arielle Gray

Arielle Gray

Arielle Gray is a Boston-based writer and multimedia artist. Her freelance work has appeared in VICE, Bustle, Huffington Post, Afropunk, and The Black Youth Project. She is also the current Arts Engagement Producer for The ARTery, WBUR’s Arts and Culture team. Much of her work focuses... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Saeed Jones

Saeed Jones

Saeed Jones’s debut poetry collection Prelude to Bruise was the winner of the 2015 PEN/Joyce Osterweil Award for poetry and the 2015 Stonewall Book Award/Barbara Gittings Literature Award. The book was also a finalist for the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award. Jones's latest... Read More →
avatar for Cyrus Grace Dunham

Cyrus Grace Dunham

Cyrus Grace Dunham has written about trans politics and prison abolition for publications including the New Yorker, the Village Voice, New York Magazine, and the London Sunday Times. Their debut book, the memoir A Year Without a Name, has been called by poet Mary Karr “a classic... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 4:15pm - 5:15pm EDT
Church of the Covenant 67 Newbury St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Memoir

4:30pm EDT

Black History Detectives: Discovering Nineteenth-Century Stories Through Documents and Artifacts
In this session, we’ll hear from two historians who have used innovative and painstaking research methods to shape their chronicles of African American history. Tera W. Hunter is the 2018 winner of the Museum of African American History (MAAH) Stone Book Award for Bound in Wedlock: Slave and Free Black Marriage in the 19th Century, and Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers is the author of They Were Her Property: White Women as Slave Owners in the American South, called “a taut and cogent corrective” by Parul Sehgal in the New York Times. Their conversation, moderated by historian Rayshauna Gray, will focus on the authors’ use of documents and artifacts—letters, newspaper advertisements, court records, birth certificates, etc.—as evidence and inspiration for building individual stories that are emblematic of African American history. They will speak to the discovery of particular primary sources that informed their work, and the way that these historical records and archival materials underpinned their research, highlighting themes of discovery, agency, tenacity, family, resilience, marriage, kinship, and the intertwining of slavery and freedom. Sponsored by the Plymouth Rock Foundation and the Jim and Cathy Stone Foundation to honor the MAAH Stone Book Award, this session will resonate with the tactile museum experience, combining the power of artifact and story to make history come alive.
Moderators
avatar for Rayshauna Gray

Rayshauna Gray

Rayshauna Gray is a Chicagoan living in Cambridge. She's thrilled to be living her childhood dream of being a time-traveling storyteller. She loves researching with Tufts University's history department and coordinating Harvard’s Opportunity Insights’ policy team. Gray also creates... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers

Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers

Stephanie E. Jones-Rogers is a writer and associate professor in the department of history at the University of California, Berkeley, where she specializes in African American history, women’s and gender history, and the history of American slavery. She earned her doctoral degree... Read More →
avatar for Tera W. Hunter

Tera W. Hunter

Tera W. Hunter is the Edwards Professor of American History and Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University. She is a specialist in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and her research focuses on gender, race, labor, and Southern histories. Hunter is the author... Read More →

Sponsors
avatar for Plymouth Rock Foundation
avatar for Stone Foundation

Saturday October 19, 2019 4:30pm - 5:30pm EDT
Old South Guild Room 645 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Nonfiction

4:45pm EDT

PEN Presents: Activism, Free Expression, and Dissent in Eurasia
With the crackdown on dissent and the subsequent chilling effect on free expression, artists and writers around the world continue to take a stand against repression. In countries with authoritarian regimes across Eurasia, their activism has had terrifying consequences: Akram Aylisli has experienced continuous harassment by Azeri authorities since 2012; Oleg Sentsov spent 5 years in the most severe Russian prison for a crime he did not commit; and dozens of citizen journalists continue to be arrested in Crimea. Polina Kovaleva (Project Director Eurasia, PEN America), Lev Golinkin (A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka), and Katherine Young (Farewell, Aylis: A Non-Traditional Novel in Three Works) come together to talk about the cases of Eurasian artists and writers who have been persecuted for their views, as well as to give their perspective on the intersection of political activism, art, and literature. Sponsored by PEN America.
Moderators
avatar for Polina Kovaleva

Polina Kovaleva

Polina Kovaleva joined the PEN America team in 2016 as the first Free Expression Programs coordinator for Eurasia. She came to New York from Paris, where she was with UNESCO’s Division of Freedom of Expression and Media Development. She is an active supporter of women’s and youth’s... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Katherine E. Young

Katherine E. Young

Katherine E. Young served as the inaugural Poet Laureate of Arlington, Virginia from 2016–2018. She was a 2017 National Endowment for the Arts Translation Fellow for her work on a trio of novellas by Akram Aylisli from Azerbaijan titled Farewell Aylis: A Non-Traditional Novel in... Read More →
avatar for Lev Golinkin

Lev Golinkin

Lev Golinkin is the author of A Backpack, a Bear, and Eight Crates of Vodka, Amazon’s Debut of the Month, a Barnes & Noble’s Discover Great New Writers program selection, and winner of the Premio Salerno Libro d’Europa. Golinkin, a graduate of Boston College, came to the United... Read More →

Sponsors
avatar for PEN America

Saturday October 19, 2019 4:45pm - 5:45pm EDT
BAC Beehive 951 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02115
  Fiction

5:00pm EDT

Learning from the Germans
As an increasingly polarized America fights over the legacy of racism, Susan Neiman, author of the contemporary philosophical classic Evil in Modern Thought, asks what we can learn from the Germans about confronting the evils of the past. In the wake of white nationalist attacks, the ongoing debate over reparations, and the controversy surrounding Confederate monuments and the contested memories they evoke, Neiman’s Learning from the Germans delivers an urgently needed perspective on how a country can come to terms with its historical wrongdoings. Neiman is a white woman who came of age in the civil rights–era South and a Jewish woman who has spent much of her adult life in Berlin. Working from this unique perspective, she combines philosophical reflection, personal stories, and interviews with both Americans and Germans who are grappling with the evils of their own national histories. Neiman will be interviewed by Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook, the founding Executive Director of the Future of Diplomacy Project at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Moderators
avatar for Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook

Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook

Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook is the current executive director of the Project on Europe and the Transatlantic Relationship. A German and American national, she is also the founding executive director of the Future of Diplomacy Project at the Harvard Kennedy School. Ashbrook is a former... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Susan Neiman

Susan Neiman

Susan Neiman is a philosopher, writer, and the director of the Einstein Forum. She studied philosophy at Harvard and the Freie Universität Berlin and was previously professor of philosophy at Yale and Tel Aviv University. Her works include Slow Fire: Jewish Notes from Berlin, The... Read More →

Sponsors
avatar for Goethe-Institut Boston

Saturday October 19, 2019 5:00pm - 6:00pm EDT
199 Commonwealth Ave 199 Commonwealth Ave, Boston, MA, 02116
  Nonfiction

5:00pm EDT

Science and Psychiatry
Confidence in science has declined in recent years, largely owing to the internet and social media. Naomi Oreskes, in Why Trust Science?, offers both a history and a defense of science. She asserts that although the rigorous vetting process is imperfect, it is a remarkably reliable way to know whether a particular scientific claim is trustworthy. On the other side of the equation, the limits of psychiatrists’ scientific claims are the subject of Anne Harrington’s Mind Fixers. She recounts psychiatric researchers’ efforts to find and treat the biological roots of mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and depression. Her view is that the record has often been disappointing, with claims having less to do with scientific breakthrough and more to do with industry profit-mongering and consumerism. Come join a timely discussion with two distinguished historians of science moderated by Carey B. Goldberg, host of WBUR’s CommonHealth.
Moderators
avatar for Carey B Goldberg

Carey B Goldberg

Carey Goldberg is the host of WBUR’s CommonHealth section. Prior to that, she was the Boston bureau chief of the New York Times, a staff Moscow correspondent for the Los Angeles Times, and a health and science reporter for the Boston Globe. Goldberg is a co-author of the triple... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Anne Harrington

Anne Harrington

Anne Harrington is the Franklin L. Ford Professor of the History of Science and faculty dean of Pforzheimer House at Harvard. She specializes in the history of neuroscience, psychiatry, and other mind and behavioral studies. Harrington was a consultant for the MacArthur Foundation... Read More →
avatar for Naomi Oreskes

Naomi Oreskes

Naomi Oreskes has written or cowritten seven books and over 150 essays, articles, and op-eds, including the milestone essay “Behind the Ivory Tower,” which was significant to the fight against global warming denial. Oreskes is currently the Professor of the History of Science... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 5:00pm - 6:00pm EDT
Old South Mary Norton 645 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Nonfiction

5:15pm EDT

The Peanuts Papers
The Peanuts comic strip, written and illustrated by Charles M. Schulz, ran for fifty years beginning in 1950. To say that Peanuts is beloved doesn’t really do it justice. Here, the editor, along with three of the thirty-three contributors to The Peanuts Papers: Charlie Brown, Snoopy & the Gang, and the Meaning of Life, discusses what the most influential comic strip of all time meant to them. Our distinguished Peanuts fan club includes: Chris Ware, master of the comic form, acclaimed New Yorker cover artist, and author of Rusty Brown; Chip Kidd, one of the world’s most important designers of book covers and author of Batman: Death by Design; Clifford Thompson, Whiting Award winner and author of What It Is: Race, Family, and One Thinking Black Man’s Blues; and editor Andrew Blauner, founder of Blauner Books Literary Agency. Our Peanuts appreciation will be hosted by Hillary Chute, Distinguished Professor of English and Art + Design at Northeastern and author of Why Comics?
Moderators
avatar for Hillary Chute

Hillary Chute

Hillary Chute is a leading expert on comics whose scholarship aims to provide understanding of comics’ merged visual/graphic language as a literary form. A professor of English and art, media, and design at Northeastern, Chute was a visiting professor in English at Harvard for the... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Chris Ware

Chris Ware

Chris Ware is a writer, cartoonist, and graphic designer of over two dozen covers for the New Yorker whose work has appeared at MOCA, the MCA, and the Whitney Museum of American Art. He is the creator of the Acme Novelty Library series and Jimmy Corrigan, the Smartest Kid on Earth... Read More →
avatar for Chip Kidd

Chip Kidd

Chip Kidd is an award-winning graphic designer and writer most recognized for his book covers for the publishing house Alfred A. Knopf. He’s worked with writers including John Updike, Katharine Hepburn, Cormac McCarthy, David Sedaris, and Haruki Murakami. Kidd is also an editor... Read More →
avatar for Andrew Blauner

Andrew Blauner

Andrew Blauner is a writer, editor, and the founder of Blauner Books. His work has been published in the New York Times and he has appeared on NPR’s On Point and the Brian Lehrer Show as well as Ben Cheever’s About Writing. His edited collections include Our Boston: Writers Celebrate... Read More →
avatar for Clifford Thompson

Clifford Thompson

Clifford Thompson is a writer whose work has appeared in Best American Essays, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Iowa Review, Film Quarterly, and other publications. He is the recipient of a Whiting Writers Award for nonfiction and teaches at New York University, Sarah... Read More →

Saturday October 19, 2019 5:15pm - 6:15pm EDT
Old South Sanctuary 645 Boylston St, Boston, MA, 02116
  Nonfiction

5:30pm EDT

Poems and Pints
We’re thrilled to return to the Room & Board furniture store for our annual toast to the art of poetry. Join fellow poetry fans to sample seasonal beers and pretzels and hear new work by four terrific poets: Kevin Coval (Everything Must Go), Brandon Melendez (Gold That Frames the Mirror), Morgan Parker (Magical Negro), and Claudia Wilson (Grown). Incredible poetry, cozy surroundings, a refreshing beverage, and the company of good friends—what better way to cap off the first day of BBF weekend? This laid-back evening of poetry for ages 21+ is sponsored by Mass Poetry and hosted by Mass Poetry’s education director, Erica Charis-Molling. 
Moderators
avatar for Erica Charis-Molling

Erica Charis-Molling

Erica Charis-Molling is a poet, educator, and librarian. Her writing has been published in Crosswinds, Presence, Glass, Anchor, Vinyl, Entropy, and Mezzo Cammin and is forthcoming in Redivider. She’s an alum of the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference and received her MFA in creative... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Morgan Parker

Morgan Parker

Morgan Parker is a Pushcart Prize–winning poet, novelist, and nonfiction writer. Her publications include There Are More Beautiful Things Than Beyoncé, and most recently, the poetry collection Magical Negro and the YA novel Who Put This Song On?
avatar for Brandon Melendez

Brandon Melendez

Brandon Melendez is a Mexican American poet from California. He won the 2018 Academy of American Poets Award and is a National Poetry Slam finalist and two-time Berkeley Grand Slam champion as well as a member of the 2017 Boston Poetry Slam team. His work has been published in the... Read More →
avatar for Claudia Wilson

Claudia Wilson

Claudia M. Wilson is a poet, instructor, and social worker who lives and plays in Amherst. They have featured at various venues in Ohio and Boston such as Writer's Block, Fazenda Queer Reading, and The Oberon. Wilson's present work in progress centers embodiment, familial relationships... Read More →
avatar for Kevin Coval

Kevin Coval

Kevin Coval is an award-winning poet and activist from Chicago known for his unique blend of personal experience and calls to action. He is the artistic director of Young Chicago Authors and the cofounder of Louder than a Bomb: The Chicago Teen Poetry Festival, now one of the nation’s... Read More →

Sponsors
avatar for Mass Poetry

Saturday October 19, 2019 5:30pm - 7:00pm EDT
Room & Board 375 Newbury St, Boston, MA, 02115
  Poetry
 
Sunday, October 20
 

12:00pm EDT

Kids' Keynote
In her acceptance speech for the 2018 Newbery Medal for her novel Hello, Universe, Erin Entrada Kelly recalled her loneliness and anxiety, growing up as one of the only Filipina children in her town. She remembered that she used to lie in bed at night, wondering about all the people in the world whom she might never meet but who could, perhaps be her friends. And then she would remind herself: “But that’s why we have books, isn’t it? So we can meet those people. Walk in their shoes. See our reflections. So we can discover that we never struggle alone.” We are thrilled to welcome Newbery Medalist Erin Entrada Kelly as this year’s BBF Kids’ Keynote. She’ll talk with host, educator and literary activist Kim Parker, about her new book Lalani of the Distant Sea, Kelly’s first foray into fantasy literature and richly informed by Filipino folktales. Kelly combines her profound talents for empathy and character development with depictions of a mysterious, magical world full of threats and promises alike. Set sail on a quest unlike any you’ve encountered before, and come with your questions for Erin Entrada Kelly about reading, writing, and finding friends in the books we read.
Moderators
avatar for Kim Parker

Kim Parker

Kimberly Parker is the assistant director of the Teacher Training Course (TTC) at Shady Hill School in Cambridge. She is an award-winning educator and literary activist, cofounder of #DisruptTexts, a grassroots effort for teachers to challenge the traditional literary canon and create... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Erin Entrada Kelly

Erin Entrada Kelly

Erin Entrada Kelly is a New York Times–bestselling author of children’s books. Her novel Hello, Universe was awarded the Newbery Medal in 2018. Her books The Land of the Forgotten Girls and Blackbird Fly earned the Asian Pacific American Librarians Association Award and the Golden... Read More →

Sunday October 20, 2019 12:00pm - 1:00pm EDT
Dewitt Center Gym 122 Dewitt Dr, Boston, MA, 02120
  Kids

12:00pm EDT

The Environment: Thinking into the Future
Why is it so damn difficult to make the changes that will be needed to avert environmental catastrophe? One reason is short-term thinking. In her fascinating new book, The Optimist’s Telescope, Bina Venkataraman, former advisor on climate change in the Obama administration, explains that for most of us, future scenarios seem vague and abstract, while what we want today is felt vividly, almost as a craving. Furthermore, the current costs of dealing effectively with the problem are deemed too high, regardless of the greater future costs to humanity of doing nothing. Governmental and corporate long-range, imaginative thinking is required, yet individuals must also be able to imagine and enact the future we want. That’s where Tatiana Schlossberg’s Inconspicuous Consumption comes in. Using accessible and witty prose, Schlossberg looks at four areas—technology, food, fashion, and fuel—and reveals the hidden ways that our consumption contributes to climate change. In the end, what will save us all is becoming well informed and holding our leaders accountable for inaction on climate change. Join us for an urgent and spirited conversation about present actions and future thinking, led by Andrew McAfee, author of More from Less.
Moderators
avatar for Andrew McAfee

Andrew McAfee

Andrew McAfee is a scientist, writer, and researcher at the forefront of exploring how the digital world impacts our present and our future. He is the codirector of the Initiative on the Digital Economy at MIT, as well as principal research scientist at the MIT Sloan School of Management... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Bina Venkataraman

Bina Venkataraman

Bina Venkataraman is a writer and leader who currently teaches in the program on science, technology, and society at MIT and serves as the Director of Global Policy Initiatives at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT. She is also a journalist and has recently been named as the editorial... Read More →
avatar for Tatiana Schlossberg

Tatiana Schlossberg

Tatiana Schlossberg is a former reporter and science writer who covered climate change and environmental policy and politics. She previously worked for the New York Times and the popular morning news column New York Today, as well as wrote columns for Bloomberg View. A graduate of... Read More →

Sunday October 20, 2019 12:00pm - 1:00pm EDT
Bolling School Committee Room 2300 Washington St, Roxbury, MA, 02119
  Nonfiction

12:00pm EDT

BBF Unbound: Creature Feature
From Aesop's fables to Odysseus’s dog Argos, from Wilbur the pig to Boxer the horse, animals have been a part of human tales (or should we say “tails”?) for as long as stories have existed. But how do we write the true stories of animals? What can we learn from reading nonfiction about non-human creatures? What does memoir and narrative nonfiction about animals, or that includes animals, teach us about the human experience? How can relationships with animals transcend human connection? How can the inclusion of animals in our stories further complicate our understanding of a character? And why write or read about animals at all? In this session, panelists Matthew Gilbert, Sangamithra Iyer, Jessie Male, and Grace Talusan, led by moderator E.B. Bartels, will discuss how and why they, and other writers, integrate animals into their nonfiction, spanning the range from works solely centered on the animal experience to animals as supporting characters in a memoir.
Moderators
avatar for E.B. Bartels

E.B. Bartels

E.B. Bartels graduated from Columbia University's School of the Arts with an MFA in creative nonfiction writing in 2014. Her essays have appeared in Catapult, Electric Literature, The Rumpus, The Millions, The Toast, The Butter, Ploughshares online, and the anthology The Places We’ve... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Grace Talusan

Grace Talusan

Grace Talusan is a memoirist, essayist, journalist, and author who teaches writing at Tufts University. Also a teacher at GrubStreet, Talusan has had work appear in Brevity, Creative Nonfiction, Boston Magazine, the Boston Globe, and the Rumpus. A graduate of Tufts University and... Read More →
avatar for Jessie Male

Jessie Male

Jessie Male is a PhD candidate in English and disability studies at the Ohio State University. Her research focuses on disability representation in contemporary memoir. Her work has been published in Guernica, Nerve, Refinery 29, Bustle, Palaver Journal, and other creative, academic... Read More →
avatar for Matthew Gilbert

Matthew Gilbert

Matthew Gilbert is the TV critic at the Boston Globe. Before that, he covered books and movies for the Globe, as well as celebrity and author interviews. Gilbert and Globe colleague Sarah Rodman do a weekly show about TV called “We Like to Watch.” He has also written for Slate... Read More →
avatar for Sangamithra Iyer

Sangamithra Iyer

Sangamithra Iyer is a writer and engineer who holds a BE in civil engineering from the Cooper Union, an MS in geotechnical engineering from UC Berkeley, and an MFA in creative writing from Hunter College. Iyer was an Emerging Writer Fellow at Aspen Summer Words and a finalist for... Read More →

Sunday October 20, 2019 12:00pm - 1:00pm EDT
Roxbury Innovation Center Multipurpose Room 2300 Washington St, Boston, MA, 02119
  Nonfiction   Memoir   BBF Unbound

12:00pm EDT

A Whole New World: Creating a Sense of Place in Fiction
In this interactive, hands-on workshop with award-winning author Mitali Perkins, participants will learn how to weave together the three strands of plot/emotion, place, and character into a single, gripping scene. They will be equipped to engage the five senses in creating a sense of place to transport readers directly into the scene. Participants will write in class and get feedback on the spot from the instructor in a guided, positive discussion.
Presenters
avatar for Mitali Perkins

Mitali Perkins

Mitali Perkins is the children’s author of Bamboo People, Rickshaw Girl, and You Bring the Distant Near, which was longlisted for the National Book Award. In 2019, Perkins has two new publications. Forward Me Back to You is a young adult novel about trauma, healing, and social justice... Read More →

Sunday October 20, 2019 12:00pm - 1:00pm EDT
Dewitt Center Arts & Crafts Room 122 Dewitt Dr, Boston, MA, 02120
  Young Adult   Sessions for Writers

12:00pm EDT

Animate Your Cityscape!
What can you do in four comic panels? Join 826 Boston at the Boston Book Festival and create comics that pop off the page, travel through time, and traverse the diverse natural environment and cityscapes of Boston. Using technology and crafting materials, you'll get to build 3-D comic cities for your characters to explore and problem solve!
Presenters
avatar for 826 Boston

826 Boston

826 Boston is a nonprofit youth organization that empowers traditionally underserved students aged 6–18 to find their voices, tell their stories, and gain communication skills to succeed in school and in life. All activities and programs are free and include after-school tutoring... Read More →

Sunday October 20, 2019 12:00pm - 2:00pm EDT
Bolling Municipal Building Lobby 2300 Washington St, Roxbury, MA, 02119
  Kids

12:00pm EDT

Join the Search for Waldo
Waldo’s been around for more than thirty years, and he just keeps getting better at hiding! This time he’s hiding in Dudley Square, and we need your help to find him. Pick up an entry form from one of our volunteers at the BBF merchandise table in the Bolling Building, find the three Waldos hidden throughout the Bolling Building and Frugal Bookstore, and return your completed form for a free book (while supplies last) and a chance to win an amazing prize from Candlewick Press!
Sunday October 20, 2019 12:00pm - 4:00pm EDT
Bolling Municipal Building Lobby 2300 Washington St, Roxbury, MA, 02119
  Kids

12:15pm EDT

Hear a Story, Meet a Friend
Who loves their white shoes? Tie or Velcro up your favorite pair of white (or blue, or rainbow) shoes and pop on over to Frugal Bookstore to hear a fun selection of picture books hand-picked by BPL Grove Hall Branch librarian Angela Bonds and meet beloved character Pete the Cat. You can even make your very own shirt for Pete, complete with four groovy buttons!
Presenters
avatar for Angela Bonds

Angela Bonds

Angela Bonds is a children’s librarian at the Grove Hall Branch of the Boston Public Library. She has worked for the Boston Public Library as a librarian, a library assistant, and a shelver. She enjoys sharing books with kids and teens.

Sunday October 20, 2019 12:15pm - 1:00pm EDT
Frugal Bookstore 57 Warren St, Boston, MA, 02119
  Kids

12:30pm EDT

Readings: Short Stories
Maybe you eagerly await each week’s New Yorker to peruse the fiction selection there; or perhaps you haven’t picked up a short story since high school. Either way, you’ll find something new to appreciate in this session showcasing the work of three exciting practitioners of the form. Chaya Bhuvaneswar’s collection White Dancing Elephants focuses largely on the experiences of immigrant women of color in stories that are both visceral and, at times, harrowing; NPR’s review says, “Yes, reading this will be painful, but you will enjoy every page.” Mandeliene Smith’s Rutting Season presents characters on the cusp of sometimes surprising decisions; in a starred Kirkus Review, the collection is praised as “at once powerful and delicate, compassionate and cleareyed.” And Dariel Suarez sets the eleven stories in A Kind of Solitude in his native Cuba after the Soviet revolution; Kenyon Review praises the stories as “full-bodied and confident, and read like the work of a seasoned master.” Hosting this session of short fiction readings is Nakia Hill, educator, facilitator, and author of the poetry collection Water Carrier. Sponsored by Massachusetts Center for the Book.
Moderators
avatar for Nakia Hill

Nakia Hill

Nakia Hill is the author of two books: Water Carrier (2018) and I Still Did It (2019). She was named one of seven 2018 artists-in-residence for the City of Boston. The author, educator, and journalist specializes in launching creative writing and publishing programs for students who... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Chaya Bhuvaneswar

Chaya Bhuvaneswar

Chaya Bhuvaneswar is a physician, poet, and fiction writer whose work explores sexual violence alongside Hindu myth and history. Her prose has appeared in Narrative Magazine, Tin House, Electric Lit, The Millions, Joyland, and Michigan Quarterly Review, and her poetry in Indolent... Read More →
avatar for Dariel Suarez

Dariel Suarez

Dariel Suarez is a Cuban-born writer and an inaugural City of Boston Artist Fellow. He received his MFA in fiction from Boston University and is currently the Director of Core Programs and Faculty at GrubStreet. He is the author of the poetry chapbook In the Land of Tropical Martyrs... Read More →
avatar for Mandeliene Smith

Mandeliene Smith

Mandeliene Smith is a fiction writer whose work has appeared in Guernica, The Sun, New England Review, and the Massachusetts Review. Nominated for the Pushcart Prize, her short story "Mercy" was also selected by author Stephen King for the list of “100 Other Distinguished Stories... Read More →

Sponsors
avatar for Massachusetts Center for the Book

Sunday October 20, 2019 12:30pm - 1:30pm EDT
Dewitt Center Classroom 122 Dewitt Dr, Boston, MA, 02120
  Fiction

12:45pm EDT

BBF Unbound: So You Think You Can Write a Picture Book?
Writing picture books for children is easy, right? Not so fast! Writing picture books is a craft and an art. Whether it’s hitting the right word count, leaving room for the illustrator, making multiple revisions, writing in rhyme, or crafting poetic prose, picture book writing has its own set of challenges, especially when the audience is our most precious resource: children! Using their own journeys as examples, our panel of published picture book authors and illustrators will discuss the pitfalls and perils of picture book writing, while providing valuable resources and insider tips for pursuing the craft, including what it takes to turn a manuscript into a book. There will be an opportunity for interested audience members and aspiring authors to ask questions. Panelists are Joy Nelkin Wieder (The Passover Mouse), Carol Gordon Ekster (You Know What?), Nicole Tadgell (illustrator, A Fist For Joe Louis And Me), and Susan Edwards Richmond (Bird Count).
Presenters
avatar for Carol Gordon Ekster

Carol Gordon Ekster

Carol Gordon Ekster was an elementary school teacher for thirty-five years. She is the author of numerous children’s picture books including Where am I Sleeping Tonight? and Before I Sleep: I Say Thank You. Her latest, You Know What? Is a 2018 CLEL Bell Picture Book Awards Nominee... Read More →
avatar for Joy Wieder

Joy Wieder

Joy Nelkin Wieder is an author and illustrator with several children’s books to her name. She teaches creative writing and enjoys school and library visits. Her debut picture book The Passover Mouse received honorable mention for the SCBWI PJ Library Jewish Stories Award and was... Read More →
avatar for Nicole Tadgell

Nicole Tadgell

Nicole Tadgell is the award-winning illustrator of more than thirty picture books, including Annie Astronaut, Follow Me Down to Nicodemus Town, and Nelson Mandela: From Prisoner to President. Tadgell's work has been honored with the Children's Africana Book Award, the Americas Award... Read More →
avatar for Susan Edwards Richmond

Susan Edwards Richmond

Susan Edwards Richmond teaches preschool on a farm and wildlife sanctuary in eastern Massachusetts. She learns the native birds wherever she travels and is the author of five collections of nature-based poetry for adults. Kirkus Reviews called her debut children’s book, Bird Count... Read More →

Sunday October 20, 2019 12:45pm - 1:45pm EDT
Roxbury Innovation Center Classroom 2300 Washington St, Boston, MA, 02119
  BBF Unbound   Sessions for Writers

1:00pm EDT

Street Art Walking Tour
Participants will get a first-hand street art tour experience by twenty-year veteran graffiti and street artist Cedric “Vise1” Douglas. The public art tour starts in Dudley Square, Roxbury, and goes throughout various parts of the local area, ending at Northeastern University. These walls have been sanctioned in commission by universities, public high schools, and private business owners. Attendees will get an insider‘s view on what a street artist is, the difference between graffiti and street art, a glimpse at some of the meanings behind the artist process, and an explanation of the techniques. Every participant receives a free authentic “Vise1” sticker from the artist. At the completion of the tour, participants will have the option to design their very own t-shirt with stencils, for their own first-hand experience at creating street art.
Presenters
avatar for Cedric Douglas

Cedric Douglas

Cedric Douglas is a public artist, designer, and street artist who has created work in the Boston area for more than twenty years. His work is inspired by everyday life idioms and the subculture of guerrilla or street art. He uses this approach to express his social views on the world... Read More →

Sunday October 20, 2019 1:00pm - 2:30pm EDT
Bolling Municipal Building Lobby 2300 Washington St, Roxbury, MA, 02119
  Special Event

1:30pm EDT

Graphic Novelize Your Life!
You’ve been waiting all day for the moment: you’re going to be smooth and say “hi” to the person you’re dying to meet. The bell rings. The hallway is packed with kids. You walk quickly to catch up to him or her. He or she is right beside you! But . . . you keep walking, down the hall and onto your bus. Ugh. You didn’t do it. . . again. If you’ve had something you were dying to do, or something that scared the heck out of you, or was embarrassing, then you have the raw material for a great autobiographical comic! In this workshop with cartoonist Jonathan Todd, you’ll recreate the moment in a detailed, journal-like entry. Then you’ll convert your written scene into the start of a comic: first you’ll make a quick sketch to plan everything out, then draw a detailed version and learn different ways to “ink” it so it’s polished and ready to share.
Presenters
avatar for Jonathan Todd

Jonathan Todd

Jonathan Todd is a Boston-based illustrator, cofounder of the Boston Kids Comic Fest, and debut author of the upcoming middle-grade graphic novel, Timid.

Sunday October 20, 2019 1:30pm - 2:30pm EDT
Dewitt Center Arts & Crafts Room 122 Dewitt Dr, Boston, MA, 02120
  Kids

1:30pm EDT

Sunday Story Time
Bring the whole family to this exciting session featuring new picture books--read for you by their creators themselves! Artist EB Goodale recently won a Massachusetts Book Award for her earlier collaboration with Julia Denos, Windows; now she's here to present their new project, Here & Now, a beautifully illustrated meditation on mindfulness we could all benefit from. Author and illustrator Oge Mora, who received Caldecott Honors for her first book, Thank You, Omu!, will read from her new book, Saturday, which celebrates a mother and daughter’s special day together—even when things don’t go perfectly. Debut author Gloria Respress-Churchwell will introduce us to a real-life character with a courageous story: Chester Pierce, Harvard’s first black football player. She tells his story in Follow Chester! And finally, Raúl Gonzales III will take us on a trip to a bustling mercado packed with lively and unexpected details, in ¡Vamos!: Let’s Go to the Market. BPL Grove Hall Branch librarian Angela Bonds will host this fun series of story times for kids and their grownups.
Moderators
avatar for Angela Bonds

Angela Bonds

Angela Bonds is a children’s librarian at the Grove Hall Branch of the Boston Public Library. She has worked for the Boston Public Library as a librarian, a library assistant, and a shelver. She enjoys sharing books with kids and teens.

Presenters
avatar for Oge Mora

Oge Mora

Oge Mora is a Caldecott Honor writer, painter, and Caldecott Honoree who lives in Providence, Rhode Island. Her first picture book, Thank You Omu!, is about a community who forms around one lady’s famous stew, and her most recent release, Saturday, follows a mother and daughter... Read More →
avatar for Raúl Gonzalez

Raúl Gonzalez

Raúl Gonzalez the Third is an award-winning illustrator, author, and artist living in Boston. His work centers on the contemporary Mexican American experience and his memories of growing up in El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Gonzalez is well-known for his Lowriders graphic... Read More →
avatar for Gloria Respress-Churchwell

Gloria Respress-Churchwell

Gloria Respress-Churchwell is a children’s author, documentarian, and both a fiction and nonfiction writer. Her documentary and fictional history of Robert Churchwell, the “Jackie Robinson of Journalism,” is now on permanent display at the Smithsonian National Museum of African... Read More →
avatar for E.B. Goodale

E.B. Goodale

E. B. Goodale is a designer, printmaker, and illustrator with a strong background in stationery. Windows, written by Julia Denos, was her debut picture book, which received an Ezra Jack Keats honor for illustration and was an ALSC Notable book for 2018. Her second picture book with... Read More →

Sunday October 20, 2019 1:30pm - 2:30pm EDT
Roxbury Innovation Center Multipurpose Room 2300 Washington St, Boston, MA, 02119
  Kids

1:30pm EDT

Back to the Land
There have been back-to-the-land movements in America ever since people started leaving the land in the first place. Today’s new crop of farmers is interested in sustainability, environmentalism, and social justice. Leah Penniman, co-founder of Soul Fire Farm, returns to her roots in Boston to talk about Farming While Black, a manual for African-heritage people who want to “reclaim their rightful place of dignified agency in the food system.” Emmet van Driesche shares his experience in creating a meaningful and fulfilling life from farming in Carving Out a Living on the Land. Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern looks at Latino immigrant farmers as they transition from farmworkers to farm owners in The New American Farmer. This eye-opening discussion of modern small-scale farming will be moderated by Glynn Lloyd, President and Founder of City Fresh Foods and board member of the Urban Farming Institute.
Moderators
avatar for Glynn Lloyd

Glynn Lloyd

Glynn Lloyd is the founder and president of City Fresh Foods, an innovative food service operation that daily provides healthy meals to elders, school students, child care and other institutional clients. Lloyd has been actively involved in Boston’s urban community for the last... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Emmet Van Driesche

Emmet Van Driesche

Emmet Van Driesche is an editor, teacher, blogger, and owner of a Christmas tree farm in western Massachusetts. Through classes and his videos, he teaches the basics and techniques of wooden spoon carving, which he also documents on a blog about the overlaps of entrepreneurship and... Read More →
avatar for Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern

Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern

Laura-Anne Minkoff-Zern is an assistant professor of food studies and is an affiliated faculty member in the departments of geography and women's and gender studies at Syracuse University. Her research and teaching broadly explore the interactions between food and racial justice and... Read More →
avatar for Leah Penniman

Leah Penniman

Leah Penniman is a Black Kreyol educator, farmer/peyizan, author, and food justice activist from Soul Fire Farm in Grafton, New York. She co-founded Soul Fire Farm in 2011 with the mission to end racism in the food system and reclaim our ancestral connection to land. As co-executive... Read More →

Sunday October 20, 2019 1:30pm - 2:30pm EDT
Bolling School Committee Room 2300 Washington St, Roxbury, MA, 02119
  Nonfiction

1:30pm EDT

Poetry Keynote: Reginald Dwayne Betts
Dwayne Betts’s personal story is one of reinvention and redemption. Convicted of felony carjacking in his teens, Betts was sentenced to nine years in prison. He was released after eight, determined to use education to change his path in life and to advocate for others. With inspiring speed, he earned a bachelor’s degree, an MFA, and a law degree—becoming one of the first felons to do so—from Yale Law School. As well, he’s currently a PhD candidate in law at Yale. Poet, memoirist, lawyer, husband, father, and, yes, felon Reginald Dwayne Betts brings all these identities to bear on his new poetry collection, Felon, which indicts the profoundly destabilizing effects prison and the post-incarceration period have on ex-convicts, making the case that prison is not merely a place but also a force that exerts itself powerfully on individuals and communities. Betts’s poems also push the boundaries of poetry itself, incorporating traditional forms but also creating new ones that help illuminate the language and themes of each piece, while underscoring their vital importance. Boston Pulse performer, and student, Sumeya Aden will open the session; then, Betts will give a brief talk and reading, followed by an interview and Q&A led by journalist and Mass Poetry board chair Nicco Mele. Sponsored by G. Barrie Landry.
Moderators
avatar for Nicco Mele

Nicco Mele

Nicco Mele is an academic, writer, and businessman. He lectures on public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and is a renowned forecaster of business, politics, and culture. His firm, EchoDitto, is a leading internet strategy company working with nonprofits and Fortune... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Reginald Dwayne Betts

Reginald Dwayne Betts

Reginald Dwayne Betts is the author of a memoir and three books of poetry. His memoir, A Question of Freedom: A Memoir of Learning, Survival, and Coming of Age in Prison, was awarded the 2010 NAACP Image Award for nonfiction. His books of poetry are Shahid Reads His Own Palm, Bastards... Read More →
avatar for Sumeya Aden

Sumeya Aden

Sumeya is a Muslim youth activist, spoken word poet navigating racism. She is a Boston Pulse Poet, student at John D O’Bryant High School.

Sunday October 20, 2019 1:30pm - 2:30pm EDT
Dewitt Center Gym 122 Dewitt Dr, Boston, MA, 02120
  Poetry

2:00pm EDT

BBF Unbound: A Home Is a Poem
In this generative workshop, participants craft collaborative poems in the shape of Dorchester’s most iconic architecture. Like its namesake, a Triple Decker Poem builds community through collaboration. All participants will have the chance to write and reflect together on what it means to share space—in a neighborhood and in a creative work. This session is facilitated by U-Meleni Mhlaba Adebo, Lynn Drew, Anna Ross, Candelaria Silva-Collins, Aaron Devine, and Alexa Koch, members of Write on the DOT, a reading series and literary platform that supports and promotes local writing in Dorchester.
Moderators
avatar for Aaron Devine

Aaron Devine

Aaron Devine is an author, educator, translator, and community advocate. His writing has appeared in publications including McSweeney’s Internet Tendency, The Good Men Project, Origins Journal, Window Cat Press, and Write on the DOT. He received his MFA in Fiction from the University... Read More →
avatar for Alexa Koch

Alexa Koch

Alexa Koch is a freelance writer and young adult novelist who has had work appear in Washington Square News, the Miami Hurricane, and Euphoria. With her bachelor's degree from the University of Miami, Koch is an MFA candidate at the University of Massachusetts Boston. She has contributed... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Anna Ross

Anna Ross

Anna Ross is a 2018 Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellow in Poetry and the author of the award-winning poetry collections If a Storm, Figuring, and Hawk Weather. Her poems have appeared in Harvard Review Online, New Republic, and Paris Review, among other publications. Ross... Read More →
avatar for Candelaria Silva-Collins

Candelaria Silva-Collins

Candelaria Silva-Collins is the coordinator of the Community Membership Program at the Huntington Theater Company, as well as the program manager for the Fellowes Athenaeum Trust Fund of the Boston Public Library. She is also an active part of the Arts and Business Council of Greater... Read More →
avatar for Lynn Drew

Lynn Drew

Lynn Drew is a Boston-based writer and editor with an MFA in fiction from the University of Massachusetts-Boston. She is the co-organizer of the reading series Write on the Dot, where she has hosted numerous original literary game shows such as the Insta-Poet Challenge. Other events... Read More →
avatar for U-Meleni Mhlaba-Adebo

U-Meleni Mhlaba-Adebo

U-Meleni Mhlaba-Adebo is a multi-award-winning international bestselling author and Top 10 charted soul singer. She is a native of Zimbabwe, Botswana, and South Africa, and is based in Boston. She has delivered several hundred high-impact workshops taught through the mediums of poetry... Read More →

Sunday October 20, 2019 2:00pm - 3:00pm EDT
Frugal Bookstore 57 Warren St, Boston, MA, 02119
  BBF Unbound   Poetry   Sessions for Writers

2:00pm EDT

YA: The Best-Laid Plans
Part of growing up is figuring out what to do when life throws you a curveball--or even a wild pitch. Do you duck? Try to catch it? Or just let it go and see what happens next? In this session, four YA authors present stories about situations that don’t quite follow the playbook. Even non–sports fans will find something to enjoy in Eric Kester’s YA debut, Gut Check; Wyatt knows he’s not going to be able to follow the path forged by super-athletic older brother. Instead, Wyatt needs to figure out what role he’s meant to play in his economically challenged, football-obsessed hometown. In Nandini Bajpai’s lighthearted US debut, A Match Made in Mehendi, called “a sweet and quirky romance” by Kirkus Reviews, a Punjabi American girl decides to capitalize on her family’s matchmaking credentials by creating a new dating app for teens--but things start to backfire when a mean girl gets an unwanted match. BBF favorite Tami Charles is back with a companion to last year’s Like Vanessa; in Becoming Beatriz, a teenage Puerto Rican gang leader in Newark starts to imagine her life as a dancer after tragedy strikes and she becomes disillusioned with gang life. Finally, in National Book Award winner Thanhha Lai’s YA debut, Butterfly Yellow, a young Vietnamese refugee in search of her brother crosses paths with an aspiring Texas cowboy, and the odd couple team up on a surprising journey. Did writing these four exciting new novels go exactly according to plan, we wonder? Come hear from the authors themselves in a conversation and Q&A led by Akunna Eneh, BPL Dudley Branch programs and community outreach librarian.
Moderators
avatar for Akunna Eneh

Akunna Eneh

Akunna Eneh began her librarian career with the Boston Public Library almost ten years ago as a teen librarian for the Dudley Branch. Currently, she is the programs and community outreach librarian for the Dudley Branch. Eneh has also been a part of an outreach program to teens in... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Nandini Bajpai

Nandini Bajpai

Nandini Bajpai grew up in New Delhi, India in a big family full of readers. She is the author of Red Turban White Horse, Starcursed, and Rishi and the Karmic Cat. Her American debut, the young adult contemporary, A Match Made in Mehendi, is a “winning romance” (Publishers Weekly... Read More →
avatar for Tami Charles

Tami Charles

Tami Charles is a writer of picture books, nonfiction, young adult and middle grade books including the lauded Fearless Mary and the Definitely Daphne series. Her debut middle grade novel, Like Vanessa, earned Top 10 spots on the Indies Introduce and Spring Kids' Next lists, three... Read More →
avatar for Eric Kester

Eric Kester

Eric Kester is the bestselling author of That Book About Harvard, a comedic memoir about Kester’s years as an undergraduate. His work has appeared in the New York Times, the Huffington Post, the Boston Globe, and the Harvard Crimson, where as a student he wrote a column. Kester’s... Read More →
avatar for Thanhha Lai

Thanhha Lai

Thanhha Lai is a National Book Award–winning children’s author. With an MFA from New York University, she began her writing career as a reporter for the Orange County Register before shifting to fiction, publishing short stories in magazines and literary journals. In 2005, she... Read More →

Sunday October 20, 2019 2:00pm - 3:00pm EDT
Dewitt Center Classroom 122 Dewitt Dr, Boston, MA, 02120
  Young Adult

2:30pm EDT

Drumming Performance
Take a moment in your BBF day to enjoy a lively drumming performance by Akili Jamal Haynes, Nko Fallou Small, and Joh Camara. Together they perform as Chibuzo Dunun, and you’ll love their energy and irresistible rhythms. Want to take a dance break? We might join you!
Presenters
avatar for Chibuzo Dunun

Chibuzo Dunun

Acclaimed local African drumming performers Chibuzo Dunun are made up of Akili Jamal Haynes, Nko Fallou Small, and Joh Camara.

Sunday October 20, 2019 2:30pm - 3:00pm EDT
Bolling Municipal Building Lobby 2300 Washington St, Roxbury, MA, 02119
  Music

2:30pm EDT

The Stuff of Stars: Create Your Universe Workshop
From the book The Stuff of Stars and based on what we know about how the universe was formed, join artist and illustrator Ekua Holmes to create a mixed media mobile of planets, galaxies, organisms, and creatures. Work with marbleized papers, holographic papers, and other cool collage elements plus your imagination to envision the emergence of our world from the great void. The final product is a mobile that can hang at home, in the office or classroom. 

Presenters
avatar for Ekua Holmes

Ekua Holmes

Ekua Holmes is a visual artist whose work explores themes of family, relationships, hope, and faith. The first children’s book she illustrated is Carole Boston Weatherford’s Voice of Freedom: Fannie Lou Hamer, which was a Caldecott Honor Book and a Robert F. Sibert Honor Book... Read More →

Sunday October 20, 2019 2:30pm - 3:30pm EDT
Roxbury Innovation Center Classroom 2300 Washington St, Boston, MA, 02119
  Kids

3:00pm EDT

Blues Men
Join two accomplished authors and jazz aficionados for a wide-ranging conversation about life, music, and singing the blues. Berklee College of Music professor Bill Banfield’s distinguished career as a composer, jazz guitarist, and recording artist has earned him numerous honors in the music world. His latest work is a novel, Cedric’s Truth, about a musician who bucks the creative constraints of corporate culture, only to end up disillusioned. Clifford Thompson is an award-winning author, memoirist, essayist, and jazz critic whose latest, What It Is: Race, Family and One Thinking Man’s Blues, questions the disparity between his long-held beliefs and the reality with which he is confronted today. Join us for a blend of culture, politics, and jazz with two renaissance men, moderated by José Massó, host of WBUR's ¡Con Salsa!
Moderators
avatar for José Massó

José Massó

For more than forty years, José Massó has been the host of WBUR's ¡Con Salsa!, described as "part music show, part party, part community center." In 2010, Massó became the first Puerto Rican/Latino to be inducted into the Massachusetts Broadcasters Hall of Fame. Beyond his on-air... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Bill Banfield

Bill Banfield

Bill Banfield is a composer, recording artist, and author of multiple books. The Director of Africana Studies and a professor at Berklee College of Music, Banfield is the author of Cultural Codes, about the incorporation of the artist’s values into cultural aesthetic; Black Notes... Read More →
avatar for Clifford Thompson

Clifford Thompson

Clifford Thompson is a writer whose work has appeared in Best American Essays, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the Iowa Review, Film Quarterly, and other publications. He is the recipient of a Whiting Writers Award for nonfiction and teaches at New York University, Sarah... Read More →

Sunday October 20, 2019 3:00pm - 4:00pm EDT
Roxbury Innovation Center Multipurpose Room 2300 Washington St, Boston, MA, 02119
  Fiction   Memoir

3:00pm EDT

Memoir: Origin Stories
We are all products of both our family and the time and place we live in. The three accomplished memoirists in this session explore aspects of the power of home and family in identity creation. Sarah M. Broom’s The Yellow House, longlisted for a National Book Award for nonfiction, is, according to the New York Times review, “among the essential memoirs of this vexing decade.” The yellow house in New Orleans East was witness to the lives of Broom and her eleven siblings. Maureen Stanton, who grew up in the shadow of Walpole State Prison, describes in Body Leaping Backward how, as her family simultaneously dissolves and loses its toehold in the middle class, Stanton also descends into drug use and criminal behavior. People Magazine, which chose Stanton's memoir as a "Best New Book" called Body Leaping Backward "a blazingly important memoir about the possibility of change." Grace Talusan’s The Body Papers, a memoir in essays, tells a riveting story of her immigrant Filipino family and of her abuse within that family. Novelist Celeste Ng praised Talusan’s memoir, noting that “Grace Talusan writes eloquently about the most unsayable things: the deep gravitational pull of family, the complexity of navigating identity as an immigrant, and the ways we move forward even as we carry our traumas with us." Callie Crossley, host of Under the Radar on WGBH radio, will moderate the discussion with these talented authors.
Moderators
avatar for Callie Crossley

Callie Crossley

Callie Crossley is a radio and TV host, award-winning documentary filmmaker and journalist, and commentator. She hosts Basic Black, a show focusing on current events concerning communities of color, as well as the weekly talk show Under the Radar with Callie Crossley on WGBH radio... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Grace Talusan

Grace Talusan

Grace Talusan is a memoirist, essayist, journalist, and author who teaches writing at Tufts University. Also a teacher at GrubStreet, Talusan has had work appear in Brevity, Creative Nonfiction, Boston Magazine, the Boston Globe, and the Rumpus. A graduate of Tufts University and... Read More →
avatar for Maureen Stanton

Maureen Stanton

Maureen Stanton is the author of Killer Stuff and Tons of Money: An Insider’s Look at the World of Flea Markets, Antiques, and Collecting and Body Leaping Backward: Memoir of a Delinquent Girlhood, which Kirkus Reviews dubbed a “compellingly honest coming-of-age memoir.” She... Read More →
avatar for Sarah M. Broom

Sarah M. Broom

Sarah Broom is a writer whose work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the New Yorker, O, The Oprah Magazine, and the Oxford American. She earned her master's degree in journalism from the University of California, Berkeley and has been awarded fellowships at Djerassi Resident... Read More →

Sponsors
avatar for Mass Humanities

Sunday October 20, 2019 3:00pm - 4:00pm EDT
Bolling School Committee Room 2300 Washington St, Roxbury, MA, 02119
  Memoir

3:00pm EDT

YA/Speculative Fiction Keynote: Akwaeke Emezi
The people of the town of Lucille live blessed lives; years ago, heroes known as angels chased away all of the monsters, and kids like Jam and her best friend Redemption have grown up without the kinds of threats that kept their parents and grandparents in fear. Jam’s mother Bitter tells her that “monsters” and "angels” aren’t like the ones she might have seen in old books; “It’s all just people, doing hard things or doing bad things.” But Jam starts to wonder about that when a frightening creature in her mother’s latest painting comes to life. The creature asks Jam to call it Pet, and says that it’s on a mission—to hunt and kill the monster that, Pet claims, is lurking unseen in Redemption’s otherwise love- and happiness-filled home. That’s the evocative premise of Pet, award-winning author Akwaeke Emezi’s debut novel for young readers, which has already been longlisted for the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature and received a host of starred reviews, including one from Kirkus Reviews, which writes, “This soaring novel shoots for the stars and explodes the sky with its bold brilliance.” Like the best speculative fiction, Pet is rich in metaphor and surreal imagery, but Emezi’s slim novel also engages with real-world issues--from gender to domestic abuse to civic and personal responsibility--in concrete ways that will feel both relevant and urgent for readers of all ages. Emezi will be interviewed by children’s literature critic and educator Nicholl Montgomery—you won’t want to miss their enthralling conversation.
Moderators
avatar for Nicholl Montgomery

Nicholl Montgomery

Nicholl Montgomery is currently a PhD candidate and teaching fellow in the curriculum and instruction department at Boston College. She teaches undergraduate and graduate literacy courses. Before attending Boston College, Montgomery taught middle school and high school English for... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Akwaeke Emezi

Akwaeke Emezi

Akwaeke Emezi is a fiction writer, memoirist, and visual artist whose debut novel, Freshwater, is currently in early development for a television series on FX. A 2018 National Book Foundation “5 Under 35” honoree, Emezi has had work appear in The Cut, Buzzfeed, and Vogue.com... Read More →

Sunday October 20, 2019 3:00pm - 4:00pm EDT
Dewitt Center Gym 122 Dewitt Dr, Boston, MA, 02120
  Young Adult

3:00pm EDT

Poetry: Shifting the Canon
If you love poetry, it’s not news to you that the art form has bloomed in recent years, embraced by talented young writers as a bold and powerful means to convey a broad range of emotions, experiences, and identities. In this session, we’ll hear readings by three of the most exciting young poets at work today. Porsha Olayiwola, City of Boston Poet Laureate and curator of this session, is the author of the new collection i shimmer sometimes, too. Lillian-Yvonne Bertram is an award-winning poet who teaches at UMass–Boston; her new collection is How Narrow My Escapes. And Camonghne Felix, a communications strategist for Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign, is the author of Build Yourself a Boat, recently longlisted for the National Book Award in Poetry. Their readings will be followed by an insightful conversation about the possibilities and limitations of poetry to articulate issues of gender, race, migration, sexuality, injustice, and more, led by Tatiana M. R. Johnson, author of the collection for the love of black girls. Bring a friend and grab a seat and a snack at the Dudley Cafe for this perceptive exploration of the state of poetry today.
Moderators
avatar for Tatiana M.R. Johnson

Tatiana M.R. Johnson

Tatiana M.R. Johnson is a writer, artist, and teacher in the Boston area. She is also a poetry MFA candidate at Emerson College and a poetry editor for Redivider. Johnson was the 2018 Gish Jen fellow for the Writer’s Room of Boston and is a 2017 Pushcart Prize XI nominee. Her work... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Camonghne Felix

Camonghne Felix

Camonghne Felix is a poet, writer, speaker, and political strategist living in New York City. She received an MA in arts politics from NYU, an MFA from Bard College, and has received fellowships from Cave Canem, Callaloo, and Poets House. Her first full-length collection of poems... Read More →
avatar for Lillian-Yvonne Bertram

Lillian-Yvonne Bertram

Lillian-Yvonne Bertram is an assistant professor in the creative writing program at the University of Massachusetts-Boston. She was recently named the new director of the Chautauqua Institution Writers’ Festival. Bertram has published poetry, prose, and essays in numerous journals... Read More →
avatar for Porsha Olayiwola

Porsha Olayiwola

Porsha Olayiwola is the current poet laureate for the city of Boston. She is a writer, performer, educator, and curator who uses afro-futurism and surrealism to examine historical and current issues in the Black, women, and queer diasporas. She is an individual World Poetry Slam champion... Read More →

Sunday October 20, 2019 3:00pm - 4:15pm EDT
Dudley Cafe 15 Warren St, Boston, MA, 02119
  Poetry

3:15pm EDT

Find Your Story, Draw Your Story
In fabulous books for young readers like ¡VAMOS! Let’s go to the Market and Lowriders to the Center of the Earth, Raúl the Third conjures up creative characters and takes them to a border town market, up into space and down to the underworld--all with just the power of his imagination and a few ballpoint pens. In this workshop, Raúl the Third will help kids find the stories they already have inside them, and guide them through the process of creating a character or scene that will get them started on their own wild storytelling ride.
Presenters
avatar for Raúl Gonzalez

Raúl Gonzalez

Raúl Gonzalez the Third is an award-winning illustrator, author, and artist living in Boston. His work centers on the contemporary Mexican American experience and his memories of growing up in El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Gonzalez is well-known for his Lowriders graphic... Read More →

Sunday October 20, 2019 3:15pm - 4:15pm EDT
Dewitt Center Arts & Crafts Room 122 Dewitt Dr, Boston, MA, 02120
  Kids

3:30pm EDT

BBF Unbound: You Are a Writer
Have you spent months, even years, dreaming about writing that novel (or short story or essay) but never seem to be able to get actual words down on paper? Join late-blooming author Louise Miller in this workshop designed to help you move past your blocks and fears, get your butt in the chair, and get writing. In the first half of the workshop we will engage in exercises designed to help you free up your thinking, brainstorm new ideas, work with your inner critic, and create a realistic writing schedule. The second half of the workshop will be devoted to short writing exercises with prompts to get that pen moving. Participants will leave with the beginnings of new writing projects, new tools to help you keep writing, and resources to help you find and create the writing life you always dreamed of.
Presenters
avatar for Louise Miller

Louise Miller

Louise Miller is an author and pastry chef living in Boston. Her debut novel, The City Baker’s Guide to Country Living, was an American Booksellers Association’s Indie Next pick and on the 2017 shortlist for the best women’s fiction of the America Library Association’s Reading... Read More →

Sunday October 20, 2019 3:30pm - 4:30pm EDT
Frugal Bookstore 57 Warren St, Boston, MA, 02119
  BBF Unbound   Sessions for Writers

3:30pm EDT

Fiction: Immigration
Behind the rhetoric and the policy, the story of American immigration is made up of countless tales of individuals and families. Few of their journeys here were easy; neither, in many cases, was the process of adjusting to a new culture. But all of these stories are fascinating, important, and worthy of being told. In this session, we’ll hear from two writers who craft immigration narratives in their recent fiction. Inspired in part by her own family history, Juliet Grames’s novel The Seven or Eight Lives of Stella Fortuna follows the twentieth-century journey of its title character from her native Calabria to Hartford, Connecticut, in a story that, according to the Washington Post, “brings to life a woman that time and history would have ignored.” In The Water Diviner and Other Stories, winner of the Iowa Short Fiction Prize, Ruvanee Pietersz Vilhauer follows the varied experiences of Sri Lankan immigrants to the United States, confronting prejudice, bullying, suspicion, and changing self-perceptions in the wake of shifting economic class and changing professional identities. Our host for what’s sure to be a perceptive and timely conversation is Danielle Legros Georges, director of Lesley University’s MFA in Creative Writing program.
Moderators
avatar for Danielle Legros Georges

Danielle Legros Georges

Danielle Legros Georges is a writer, poet, professor of creative writing, and the interim director of the MFA in Creative Writing program at Lesley University. Her books of poems include Maroon (2001), The Dear Remote Nearness of You (2016), and Letters from Congo (2017). She is also... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Juliet Grames

Juliet Grames

Juliet Grames is a book editor, novelist, and publisher and curator of the Soho Press Crime imprint. Grames has had work appear in Publishers Weekly, Words Without Borders, CrimeReads, Anderbo, and Electric Lit. Born in Hartford, Connecticut, Grames grew up in a tight-knit Italian... Read More →
avatar for Ruvanee Vilhauer

Ruvanee Vilhauer

Ruvanee Pietersz Vilhauer is a psychologist by profession with a PhD from the University of Chicago. Prior to her current position at New York University, she worked as a science writer for NASA, a biology researcher, and a prison therapist. Vilhaeur won the Commonwealth Short Story... Read More →

Sunday October 20, 2019 3:30pm - 4:30pm EDT
Dewitt Center Classroom 122 Dewitt Dr, Boston, MA, 02120
  Fiction

3:30pm EDT

Wee Wear the Crowns: Celebrating Black Identity and Experience
Join Wee The People for an all-ages art-making event celebrating Black identity, Black experience, and unapologetic Black JOY: Wee Wear the Crowns! At this drop-in workshop, we'll learn about Black icons like Jean-Michel Basquiat, the world-famous artist who used his art to crown Black American heroes as kings: musicians, athletes, writers, and revolutionaries. Then it's time to dive into our own art-making with Identity Crowns, a collage activity for all ages and backgrounds that reflects and affirms Black identity, culture, and expression.
Presenters
avatar for Wee the People

Wee the People

Wee The People is an arts-based series of programming and events for kids exploring social justice and the power of protest.

Sunday October 20, 2019 3:30pm - 5:00pm EDT
Bolling Municipal Building Lobby 2300 Washington St, Roxbury, MA, 02119
  Kids

4:00pm EDT

How to Code a Rollercoaster Reading and Hands-on Workshop
Here’s a little secret: prolific wildly popular children’s picture book creator Josh Funk, author of hits like Lady Pancake and Sir French Toast and It’s Not Hansel and Gretel, is also a software engineer in his spare time. Now Josh’s worlds collide (hopefully not literally) in his latest picture book, How to Code a Rollercoaster. Pearl and her trusty robot sidekick Pascal use code to solve a pretty big problem: how to bypass the line for the most popular ride at the amusement park. After hearing Josh read the book, kids and grownups will team up with the STEM experts from South End Technology Center at Tent City to make a light-up illustration from the book using a circuit of copper tape, large bubblegum LED, and small coin cell battery. The first twenty kids will receive their very own littleBits electronic building kit to take home!
Presenters
avatar for Josh Funk

Josh Funk

Josh Funk is the author of picture books like the Lady Pancake & Sir French Toast series, It’s Not a Fairy Tale series, How to Code with Pearl and Pascal series, Lost in the Library, and many others. He graduated from UMass Amherst Commonwealth College with a degree in computer... Read More →
avatar for South End Technology Center @ Tent City

South End Technology Center @ Tent City

The South End Technology Center @ Tent City (The Tech Center) is a collaborative venture between the Tent City Corporation (TCC) and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The Tech Center's fundamental purpose is to enable people to become producers of knowledge and sharers... Read More →

Sunday October 20, 2019 4:00pm - 5:00pm EDT
Roxbury Innovation Center Classroom 2300 Washington St, Boston, MA, 02119
  Kids

4:30pm EDT

One City One Story
What do Walkmans, A–Z Storage, and nursing homes have in common? To Celeste, the answer she so long sought becomes far more harrowing than she could have imagined. Author Ciera Burch takes readers along on this journey with Celeste, as the protagonist yearns for answers about her past from her enigmatic, aging grandmother. "Yvonne," this year's One City One Story Selection, mixes themes of family, loss, and connection with complex portraits of the titular character and her granddaughter as they reunite decades after the latter's adoption. Grab your copy at the BBF info table in the Bolling Building, and join us for a discussion with Burch and Harvard University Office for the Arts’ Alicia Anstead, facilitator extraordinaire. Be sure to tweet your questions and thoughts beforehand at @1city1story! Sponsored by Bookbub.
Moderators
avatar for Alicia Anstead

Alicia Anstead

Alicia Anstead is a journalist, editor, and educator. She is currently the associate director for programming at the Office for the Arts at Harvard University and is the editor-in-chief of Inside Arts Magazine, produced by the Association of Performing Arts Professionals. Anstead... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Ciera Burch

Ciera Burch

Ciera Burch is currently an MFA candidate at Emerson College in Boston and a bookseller at Trident Booksellers and Cafe. Her fiction has appeared in American Literary Magazine, American University's literary magazine, Underground, the art and literary journal of Georgia State University... Read More →

Sponsors
avatar for BookBub

Sunday October 20, 2019 4:30pm - 5:30pm EDT
Roxbury Innovation Center Multipurpose Room 2300 Washington St, Boston, MA, 02119
  Fiction

4:30pm EDT

Romance Keynote: Jasmine Guillory
Novelist (and Wellesley alumna) Jasmine Guillory has rightfully received acclaim for her heartwarming and inclusive approach to writing romance fiction. In novels from The Wedding Guest to The Proposal to The Wedding Party, Guillory has written charming, sexy novels set in a diverse, funny, and supportive friend group any of us would love to be part of. Now, in Royal Holiday, Guillory has expanded her sights, as Maddie (heroine of The Wedding Party) and her straight-talking fifty-something mom Vivian head to England, where Maddie’s on assignment. There Vivian embarks on a courtship with none other than the Queen’s private secretary, Malcolm. Guillory will be interviewed by the Boston Globe’s Love Letters columnist Meredith Goldstein, whose novel The Singles also focused on friends at a wedding. If you’re an Anglophile, adore Hallmark Christmas movies, or are just in search of a touching romance between mature characters, you won’t want to miss hearing from the fabulous Jasmine Guillory or picking up her book (here’s a hint—it would make a great holiday gift!).
Moderators
avatar for Meredith Goldstein

Meredith Goldstein

Meredith Goldstein is an advice columnist and entertainment reporter for the Boston Globe. Her advice column, Love Letters, is a daily dispatch of wisdom for the lovelorn that has been running online and in the paper since 2009. Readers ask questions, get answers from Goldstein, and... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Jasmine Guillory

Jasmine Guillory

Jasmine Guillory is a New York Times–bestselling romance novelist and essayist whose work has appeared in Oprah Magazine, Cosmopolitan, Real Simple, and Shondaland. Her debut novel, The Wedding Date, was lauded by author Roxane Gay as “a charming, warm, sexy gem” and was a New... Read More →

Sunday October 20, 2019 4:30pm - 5:30pm EDT
Dewitt Center Gym 122 Dewitt Dr, Boston, MA, 02120
  Fiction

4:30pm EDT

Tiny World: Pins!
Welcome to Tiny World! This workshop with illustrator Keith Zoo, creator of Tiny World: Pins!, will help you create your very own super-cute pins perfect for adorning a backpack or jacket, or giving to your friends! The first twenty attendees will get their very own kit with all the supplies needed to complete the workshop, plus additional materials to continue creating at home!
Presenters
avatar for Keith Zoo

Keith Zoo

Keith Zoo is an artist, illustrator, and designer who’s been the lead artist at Fablevision Studios and a 2D artist and UI designer at The Molasses Flood game studio. He’s illustrated books such as the Monster Juice series, the Project Terra series, Code This Game, and Mobi. His... Read More →

Sunday October 20, 2019 4:30pm - 5:30pm EDT
Dewitt Center Arts & Crafts Room 122 Dewitt Dr, Boston, MA, 02120
  Kids

4:30pm EDT

Cities: Change Is the Only Constant
This session offers a fresh look at the issues around changing urban landscapes, gentrification, and community. Boston College professor Carlo Rotella’s The World Is Always Coming to an End uses a combination of journalism, memoir, and archival research to paint a portrait of a city in flux that challenges our assumptions about the meaning of neighborhoods and communities. Poet Kevin Coval teamed up with an artist for Everything Must Go, an illustrated collection of poems that celebrates his Chicago neighborhood before the process of displacement and reinvention took hold—a process being repeated in urban areas all across the country. In People Before Highways, Karilyn Crockett, Lecturer in Public Policy and Urban Planning at MIT, offers a case study for how an unlikely multiracial coalition of urban and suburban residents and activists stopped an interstate highway from being built in the heart of Boston. This thought-provoking session will be moderated by Lily Song, Lecturer in Urban Planning and Design at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. Sponsored by the Wagner Foundation.
Moderators
avatar for Lily Song

Lily Song

Lily Song is a lecturer in urban planning and design and senior research associate with the Transforming Urban Transport–Role of Political Leadership (TUT-POL) project at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design (GSD). Her research focuses on the relations between urban... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Carlo Rotella

Carlo Rotella

Carlo Rotella is a nonfiction writer, academic, and journalist who writes for the New York Times Magazine and the Washington Post Magazine. Recipient of the 2007 Whiting Award and the L. L. Winship/PEN New England Award, Rotella has had his work appear in the New Yorker, Critical... Read More →
avatar for Karilyn Crockett

Karilyn Crockett

Karilyn Crockett is an independent scholar and the director of Economic Policy & Research for the City of Boston. She holds a PhD in American studies from Yale University. Crockett’s book, People Before Highways: Boston Activists, Urban Planners and a New Movement for City Making... Read More →
avatar for Kevin Coval

Kevin Coval

Kevin Coval is an award-winning poet and activist from Chicago known for his unique blend of personal experience and calls to action. He is the artistic director of Young Chicago Authors and the cofounder of Louder than a Bomb: The Chicago Teen Poetry Festival, now one of the nation’s... Read More →

Sponsors
avatar for Wagner Foundation

Sunday October 20, 2019 4:30pm - 5:30pm EDT
Bolling School Committee Room 2300 Washington St, Roxbury, MA, 02119
  Nonfiction   Poetry
 
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