Boston Book Festival 2019

Writer and comedian Steve Macone will perform the first page of YOUR unpublished manuscript for the audience and a panel of three established agent judges who specialize in literary and commercial fiction as well as narrative nonfiction: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.

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.

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.

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.

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.