This post is for you locals out there... Last year, something amazing happened. San Antonio got its own book festival. And not just a little, puny, insignificant book festival. A real live, highly planned, amazingly entertaining one. Headed up by Katy Flato (the most efficient organizer and one of the most generous people I know) and the San Antonio Public Library Foundation (yup, San Antonio has a private charitable organization that augments our public library system's budget... raising more that 35 million dollars in the past three decades), year two is turning out to be even more fun with more things to do for anyone and everyone who loves the written word. And it's all FREE!
The San Antonio Book Festival takes over our bright red and amazing Central Library, the lovely Southwest School of Art, and the street in-between on Saturday, April 5 for book signings, conversation, lectures, readings, and activities for kids. This all day event features food trucks, live music, and more books and writers than you can possibly fathom (or at least fit into two city blocks). Poetry. Fiction. Nonfiction. It has it all!
Everyone's favorite morning show veteran, Jane Pauley, and National Book Award winner Barry Lopez (one of our authors) are headlining a roster of more than 90 talents who are participating in this incredible display of literary prowess. The lineup is stellar. I'm particularly stoked about Philip Meyer, the author of the epic Texas novel, The Son, who will be in conversation with Michael Fisher, the VP of Faculty and Student Affairs at Trinity University and head of editorial board where I work.
This festival is exactly why San Antonio has been getting a good rap as an amazing place to live, because we support the literary arts and come out full force when people create awesome things. The day is being capped off this year by the debut of San Antonio's Literary Death Match, a show described by the Los Angeles Times as the “most entertaining reading series ever.” The smack down takes place at The Charline McCombs Empire Theatre and is the only part of the festival that you actually need a ticket for, available here. If you make it out, (which if you live in San Antonio you should because if you don't you are totally lame, and I mean TOTALLY lame), be sure to stop by and say hi at the Trinity University Press booth, where I'll be shilling our wares and talking about books all day, or until my voice gives out. A special treat for all you vintage book lovers. A trip to Central Library is not complete without a visit to the basement for a shopping spree at the BookCellar, a used book shop that sells record LPs, withdrawn library books, new and used reads, and more. All run by volunteers and open every day, year round. The kids' section is HUGE, and I spent many an hour there back during my stay-at-home mommy years. Ahhhh, memories of all the books I discovered down that hallowed hole. (I bought my first James Flora there!)
Anyway, be there or be totally square.
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