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Friday, October 12
 

7:30pm EDT

Kickoff Keynote
You need this ticket from Eventbrite to sign up:  Kickoff Keynote 10/12/18 7:30-9:00pm
Michael Pollan writes about the places where nature and culture intersect and the everyday moral dilemmas that ensue. His previous books include bestsellers such as The Omnivore’s Dilemma, The Botany of Desire, and Cooked. Now Pollan has turned his discerning eye from our stomachs to our minds. His latest work, How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence, is one of the most talked-about books of the year. Not the sort to write about something he hasn’t experienced, Pollan’s research included doses of LSD, psilocybin, and Sonoran Desert toad venom. Although Pollan doesn’t advocate the recreational use of psychedelics, he is persuasive on the therapeutic possibilities. Join us to kick off Boston Book Festival 2018 with a mind-expanding interview with Michael Pollan. Meghna Chakrabarti, host of WBUR and NPR’s On Point, will guide us on this magical mystery tour of the world of psychedelics. A not-to-be missed happening.

Note that this event is now SOLD OUT. If any additional tickets become available, they will be sold at the door for $10 CASH ONLY beginning at 7pm on 10/12/2018.
Moderators
avatar for Meghna Chakrabarti

Meghna Chakrabarti

Meghna Chakrabarti serves as host and editor of On Point from NPR and WBUR. She is the former host of Radio Boston, WBUR’s acclaimed weekday show with a focus on news, in-depth interviews with extraordinary people, and analysis on broader issues that have an impact on Boston and... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Michael Pollan

Michael Pollan

Michael Pollan has made a career reporting on food and the environment. He is the author of Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation, The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals, and nearly a dozen other books about food, gardening, and psychology. The Omnivore’s... Read More →

Friday October 12, 2018 7:30pm - 9:00pm EDT
Old South Sanctuary 645 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Ticketed Events, Kickoff Keynote |   Nonfiction, Kickoff Keynote
 
Saturday, October 13
 

9:30am EDT

Morning Dance Party
No one wants to sleep in on BBF day, especially when we’re starting things off with a morning dance party! Grab a cold brew coffee and get ready to dance like no one’s watching. Daybreaker founder Radha Agrawal will host a dance energizer* to get the BBF party started before her session later in the morning. Providing the music is Yanina Johnson, a singer/songwriter from Cambridge who studies at Berklee College of Music.

*please note this is not a Daybreaker event
Presenters
avatar for Radha Agrawal

Radha Agrawal

Radha Agrawal is a self-styled “community architect” whose entrepreneurial endeavors have centered on community building in a variety of ways. She is the cofounder and CEO at Daybreaker, a community-focused company that hosts early morning raves and yoga sessions in dozens of... Read More →
avatar for Yanina Johnson

Yanina Johnson

Yanina Johnson is a singer/songwriter from Cambridge. She studies at Berklee College of Music as a music business major with a minor in recording and production. She sets out to be self-sufficient, involving herself in all aspects of music, including production, business, and performance... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 9:30am - 10:15am EDT
Berklee Stage, Copley Square 560 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Berklee Stage   Music   Interactive Events

9:30am EDT

Circle Round
Circle Round is a storytelling podcast for kids ages 4 to 10. Created and produced by parents of young children, Circle Round, presented by WBUR, tells carefully selected folktales from around the world. In this session, families will get to see two Circle Round Stories performed live on stage, accompanied by live music. In “Latchkey Stew,” we’ll meet some people who don’t know the first thing about sharing…until a young girl teaches them the lesson of a lifetime. And in the Turkish story “The Unwelcome Guest,” an entire town of people learn a lesson about appearances, in a most delicious way. Start off your BBF day by sharing two mouthwatering stories with your family!
Presenters
avatar for Circle Round

Circle Round

Circle Round is a storytelling podcast for kids ages four to ten. Created and produced by parents of young children, Circle Round tells carefully-selected folktales from around the world.  Stories are adapted for today's families into ten- to twenty-minute diverse episodes that delve... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 9:30am - 10:15am EDT
BPL Rabb Hall 700 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Kids

10:00am EDT

Story Time with Brian Lies
Author and artist Brian Lies gets kids ready for winter with Got to Get to Bear’s! (ages 4–8)
Presenters
avatar for Brian Lies

Brian Lies

Brian Lies is an author and illustrator of books for children. Since 1989, when he illustrated his first book, he has written and/or illustrated more than two dozen books, including his New York Times bestselling bat series: Bats at the Beach, Bats at Library, Bats at the Ballgame, and Bats... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 10:00am - 10:30am EDT
BPL Children's Library 700 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Kids

10:00am EDT

Kids' Keynote
Kate DiCamillo’s indelible characters--from India Opal Buloni (and her dog Winn-Dixie) to Despereaux and Raymie Clarke--have become friends to an entire generation of young readers. DiCamillo’s thoughtful, hopeful characters and her emotionally authentic novels show that she deeply understands and respects children--both those she writes about and those she writes for. DiCamillo is also a passionate advocate for reading, having served as the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. Now lucky readers have the opportunity to get to know one of DiCamillo’s characters--Louisiana Elefante, first introduced in Raymie Nightingale--a lot better, as she stars in her very own novel, Louisiana’s Way Home. When her grandma abruptly uproots their small family, Louisiana comes to realize that everything she thought she knew about herself was wrong. “Who am I? Who am I?” Louisiana wonders, first in despair and eventually in curiosity and wonder--poignantly embarking on a journey of self-discovery that will resonate with all readers. We are honored to welcome two-time Newbery Medalist Kate DiCamillo as this year’s BBF Kids’ Keynote. DiCamillo will be interviewed by Lauren Rizzuto of the Center for the Study of Children’s Literature at Simmons University, and DiCamillo will also conduct an extended Q&A with children in the audience. Sponsored by Simmons University.

Special signing guidelines for this event: The featured title for this event is Louisiana’s Way Home. Kate will sign and personalize an unlimited number of the new book, and just ONE additional backlist title per person. Kate will do autographs and first name personalizations only, and will not sign any posters, bookmarks, scraps of notebook paper, etc. Thanks for your cooperation with these guidelines!
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.

Presenters
avatar for Kate DiCamillo

Kate DiCamillo

Kate DiCamillo is one of the most celebrated authors working in children’s literature today. DiCamillo’s books often borrow elements from her childhood in Florida with a single mother, and her writing conveys a deep understanding of the sadness and humor of growing up. She is... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 10:00am - 11:00am EDT
Old South Sanctuary 645 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Kids

10:00am EDT

Comics in Color
Join the artist and author of LunchTimeComiX, Cagen Luse, for a drop-in comic making workshop. Design your own characters and make a four-panel comic strip!
Ages 8+
Presenters
avatar for Cagen Luse

Cagen Luse

Cagen Luse is a visual artist and entrepreneur. He is the artist and author of LunchTime ComiX (@lunchtimecomix), a comic series about life, love, family, and the issues people of color face in today's world. Installments of the series have been published in the local alt-weekly DIG... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 10:00am - 11:00am EDT
BPL Rey Room 700 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Kids   Interactive Events

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 13, 2018 10:00am - 4:00pm EDT
BPL Children's Library 700 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Kids   Interactive Events

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 and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, while supplies last!
Saturday October 13, 2018 10:00am - 4:00pm EDT
Brainstorm Tent, Copley Square 560 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Kids   Interactive Events

10:15am EDT

Youth Activism
In the wake of February’s tragic mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, student Emma Gonzalez “called BS” on the notion that “us kids don't know what we're talking about.” And certainly young people have increasingly taken up her call, assuming leadership roles and speaking out about issues affecting their lives. In this session, we’ll hear from Parkland journalism teacher Melissa Falkowski, whose student journalists’ passionate and inspiring reporting has been collected in We Say #NeverAgain. Boston Globe journalist Jenn Abelson will speak about I Have the Right To, the book she co-wrote with Chessy Prout, whose story of seeking justice in the wake of high school sexual assault has helped many fellow survivors find courage to speak out. For young people looking for a road map on how to get involved in their own communities, Eric David Dawson of the organization Peace First--along with young Peace First activist Amanda Matos--will talk about how to transform communities one step at a time. Finally, Alexandra Styron will use examples from her new book Steal This Country to talk about how young people can transform anger into action. Guiding their conversation is DiDi Delgado, an organizer of Cambridge Black Lives Matter and head of operations for the Society of Urban Poetry. You’ll walk out of this session fired up and ready to change the world.
Moderators
avatar for DiDi Delgado

DiDi Delgado

DiDi Delgado is consistently on the front lines blazing pathways, creating channels, and fostering connections in support of the most marginalized. She is an award winning poet, author, activist, and freelance journalist. She is currently Head of Operations at SOUP (The Society Of... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Jenn Abelson

Jenn Abelson

Jenn Abelson is an award-winning investigative journalist for the Boston Globe. A graduate of Cornell, she joined the staff of the Globe in 2001. She has uncovered and reported on several major cases of fraud and abuse, such as sexual assault at prep schools in New England, sexual... Read More →
avatar for Eric David Dawson

Eric David Dawson

Eric David Dawson is the CEO and cofounder of Peace First, a nonprofit that teaches young people to become peacemakers. The organization started as a student-run program at Harvard, and Dawson has been part of it since the beginning. He started his career running a summer camp in... Read More →
avatar for Amanda Matos

Amanda Matos

Growing up in a Puerto Rican family in the Bronx, Amanda Matos became aware of the injustices that women of color face in the United States. Early on in life, she witnessed the racism and sexism her own family experienced which motivated her to take action. Matos started WomanHOOD... Read More →
avatar for Alexandra Styron

Alexandra Styron

Alexandra Styron is the author of Steal This Country: A Handbook for Resistance, Persistence, and Fixing Almost Everything, a guidebook for teens on how to resist and rebuild in contemporary America, inspired by Abbie Hoffman’s seminal Steal This Book. Steal This Country was preceded... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 10:15am - 11:15am EDT
Emmanuel Sanctuary 15 Newbury St, Boston, MA 02116, USA
  Nonfiction   Young Adult

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 13, 2018 10:30am - 10:55am EDT
Trinity Church Steps Copley Square Park, 560 Boylston St., Boston, MA 02116
  Kids   Interactive Events

10:30am EDT

Appearance by Paddington
Snap a quick photo with Paddington before he runs to Back Bay Station!
Saturday October 13, 2018 10:30am - 11:00am EDT
Brainstorm Tent, Copley Square 560 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Kids

10:30am EDT

Readings: Unforgettable Stories
This session of readings features two accomplished practitioners of the short story form, and one novelist whose latest work, according to André Aciman, “should only be read in one sitting.” In The Price of a Haircut, Brock Clarke offers eleven razor-sharp stories that walk the fine line between satire and surrealism. In her debut collection, How to Love a Jamaican, award-winning writer Alexia Arthurs tells powerful, unsentimental stories of migration from her own homeland of Jamaica. And novelist Evan Fallenberg, in his novel The Parting Gift, tells a riveting story of religion, sexuality, and heartbreak, all in the form of a single letter written by the narrator. Hosting this session is Mary Mahoney, host of Chapters, a podcast that tells the stories of readers’ lives through the books that have meant the most to them. Sponsored by BookBub.

Moderators
avatar for Mary Mahoney

Mary Mahoney

Mary Mahoney is a historian and digital storyteller currently serving as the Andrew W. Mellon postdoctoral fellow in digital humanities at Trinity College. She hosts a podcast called Chapters that tells the stories of readers' lives through the books that have meant the most to them... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Alexia Arthurs

Alexia Arthurs

Alexia Arthurs is a debut author on the rise. She won the 2017 Plimpton Prize, awarded by the Paris Review, for her story “Bad Behavior.” Arthurs grew up in Jamaica and New York, and earned her master’s degree from the Iowa Writers Workshop. She began teaching there in the fall... Read More →
avatar for Brock Clarke

Brock Clarke

Brock Clarke is an award-winning novelist and writing professor. His seven books of fiction have earned him many awards and accolades. His 2010 novel, Exley, was named a Kirkus Best Book of the Year and was a finalist for a number of awards. An Arsonist’s Guide to Writers’ Homes... Read More →
avatar for Evan Fallenberg

Evan Fallenberg

Evan Fallenberg is an award-winning author, translator, and educator. Born in Ohio, he lived in France and Japan after college, before settling in Israel, where he got a job at the Museum of the Diaspora. He began teaching English and translating books—he has since translated everything... Read More →

Sponsors
avatar for BookBub

Saturday October 13, 2018 10:30am - 11:15am EDT
BPL Newsfeed Cafe 700 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Fiction

10:30am EDT

BBF Unbound: Sister Resisters: A Celebration of Feminism through Romance
Romance readers form one of the most engaged reading communities in the country. Thanks to mainstream attention from the media, romance readers and authors are becoming a major force in the literary sphere. Even Princeton University has recognized this important movement, developing academic courses that examine the role of romance fiction in women’s lives. Many novelists approach their writing from the perspective of female empowerment and equality, a hot-button topic in today’s political climate. Join bestselling authors Sarah MacLean, Isabel Cooper, Caroline Linden, Falguni Kothari, and Grace Burrowes as they discuss the strong women--from fiction and real life--who inspire the tenacious females they write about. Sarah Rettger, Porter Square Books events manager and romance novel aficionado, will host a lively discussion for romance fans and those looking for an of-the-moment introduction to the genre.
Moderators
avatar for Sarah Rettger

Sarah Rettger

Sarah Rettger is the events manager at Porter Square Books in Cambridge. Her articles, interviews, and book reviews have appeared in Book Riot, Kirkus Reviews, and The Horn Book, among other publications. 

Presenters
avatar for Grace Burrowes

Grace Burrowes

Grace Burrowes discovered romance novels when in junior high and has been reading them voraciously ever since. Burrowes has a bachelor's degree in political science and a bachelor's of music in music history (both from Pennsylvania State University); a master's degree in conflict... Read More →
avatar for Isabel Cooper

Isabel Cooper

During the day, Isabel Cooper maintains her guise as a mild-mannered project manager in legal publishing. In her spare time, she enjoys video games, ballroom dancing, various geeky hobbies, and figuring out what wine goes best with leftover egg rolls. Cooper lives with two thriving... Read More →
avatar for Falguni Kothari

Falguni Kothari

Falguni Kothari is the author of unconventional love stories and kick-ass fantasy tales. Her four novels are all flavored by her South Asian heritage and expat experiences. An award-winning Indian Classical, Latin, and Ballroom dancer, she currently spikes her endorphin levels with... Read More →
avatar for Caroline Linden

Caroline Linden

Caroline Linden was born a reader, not a writer. She earned a math degree from Harvard University and wrote computer code before discovering that writing fiction was far more fun. Since then, the Boston Red Sox have won the World Series three times, which is not related but still... Read More →
avatar for Sarah MacLean

Sarah MacLean

A lifelong romance reader, Sarah MacLean wrote her first romance novel on a dare, and never looked back. She is a New York Times- and USA Today-bestselling author of historical romances, and the author of a monthly column at the Washington Post celebrating the best of the romance... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 10:30am - 11:30am EDT
Boston Architectural College The Beehive 951 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Fiction

10:30am EDT

Fiction: Out of the Shadows
Halloween is right around the corner, and this session will introduce you to a trio of spooky novels that will add an extra chill to the lengthening autumn evenings. Horror master J.D. Barker teams up with Dacre Stoker (yes, that Stoker) on Dracul, a prequel to Dracula that’s drawn from Bram Stoker’s original notes and sketches for his 1897 masterpiece. Alma Katsu was also inspired by true life--in this case the ill-fated Donner Party--which in her novel The Hunger is made even more terrifying thanks to some supernatural intervention. And, closer to home, Hester Fox writes about the dark secrets of a New England manor house in her atmospheric debut novel The Witch of Willow Hall. How do novelists terrify readers? Why do readers enjoy the thrill of scary stories? Gothic literature specialist Bridget Marshall of UMass-Lowell will be our guide through the darker side of fiction in this spine-tingling session.
Moderators
avatar for Bridget Marshall

Bridget Marshall

Bridget M. Marshall is coeditor of the collection Transnational Gothic: Literary and Social Exchanges in the Long Nineteenth Century and author of The Transatlantic Gothic Novel and the Law, 1790-1860. Her research and teaching focus on the Gothic, nineteenth-century American literature... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for JD Barker

JD Barker

JD Barker released his debut novel Forsaken, which was read and approved by Stephen King (a character of King’s makes an appearance in the book), in 2014. Forsaken won a New Apple Medalist Award and was nominated for a Stoker Award. Barker's work caught the attention of the Stoker... Read More →
avatar for Hester Fox

Hester Fox

Hester Fox is a debut author, artist, and a museum collections maintenance technician. Her day job has allowed her to travel and work with a variety of priceless artifacts. She has a master’s degree in historical archaeology and creates art prints. The Witch of Willow Hall is her... Read More →
avatar for Alma Katsu

Alma Katsu

Alma Katsu is a bestselling author whose work has been compared to Anne Rice and Diana Gabaldon. Her debut novel—and first book in the Taker Trilogy—The Taker, was published in 2011 and was named one of the top ten debut novels of 2011 by Booklist. Before becoming a writer, Katsu... Read More →
avatar for Dacre Stoker

Dacre Stoker

Dacre Stoker is the great grand-nephew of Bram Stoker and the bestselling coauthor of Dracula the Un-Dead (2009), with Ian Holt, and the coeditor of The Lost Journal of Bram Stoker: The Dublin Years (2012), with Dr. Elizabeth Miller. Before turning to writing, Stoker had a long... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 10:30am - 11:30am EDT
Church of the Covenant 67 Newbury St, Boston, MA 02116, USA
  Fiction

10:30am EDT

Nature in the City
Join PUDDLESTOMPERS teacher Hattie Hebard for a creative Nature in the City exploration! Learn about various types of nature that are ingrained in Boston, and see what you can discover yourselves.  With hands-on exploration and plenty of teaching aids, PUDDLESTOMPERS Nature Exploration will help you and your little one explore the nature around us all. Ask us about our many programs, from drop-off vacation programs to our weekend birthday parties.  Make sure to stop by to create a fox tail perfect for pouncing, or color a Nature in the City scavenger hunt to take home!
Ages 3-8
Presenters
avatar for Hattie Hebard

Hattie Hebard

Hattie Hebard is an educator with Puddlestompers, whose mission is to connect the youngest naturalists, ages 2 to 8 (and their parents and caregivers) to the open spaces in their communities. By providing children and families with seeds of interest and tools of exploration, Puddlestompers... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 10:30am - 11:30am EDT
Brainstorm Tent, Copley Square 560 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Kids   Interactive Events

10:30am EDT

Bullets into Bells: Poetry and Music
How do artists grapple with tragedy? Poet Brian Clements (whose wife Abbey Clements was a teacher at Sandy Hook and survived the mass shooting there) dealt with unimaginable horror in the best way he knew how: by gathering poets and community members to reflect on the urgent need for gun control. Martín Espada’s poem “Heal the Cracks in the Bell of the World” inspired the title of the resulting volume, Bullets into Bells: Poets and Citizens Respond to Gun Violence. Espada and Brian Clements will read their poems, and Abbey Clements and anti-gun activist Clai Lasher-Sommers will share their responses. And, as befits the line from Espada’s poem--”Here the bells sing of a world where weapons crumble deep / in the earth, and no one remembers where they were buried”--the readings will be interspersed with music on themes of peace and nonviolence, performed by the Back Bay Ringers handbell ensemble. Hosting this powerful and transformative session is poet and activist Julie Carr, author most recently of Someone Shot My Book, a collection of essays on the role of art in a violent culture.
Moderators
avatar for Julie Carr

Julie Carr

Julie Carr is an award-winning author of poetry and prose, as well as the cofounder of Counterpath Press. Her poems and essays have appeared in such journals as The Nation, Boston Review, APR, New American Writing, Denver Quarterly, Volt, A Public Space, 1913, and The Baffler, as... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Abbey Clements

Abbey Clements

Abbey Clements is Deputy Lead in Connecticut of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America and a teacher at Head o'Meadow Elementary in Newtown, CT. Previously, she taught 2nd grade at Sandy Hook School, where she taught at the time of the shooting on December 14, 2012.
avatar for Brian Clements

Brian Clements

Brian Clements is a poet and coeditor of Bullets into Bells: Poets & Citizens Respond to Gun Violence (Beacon, 2017). He is a professor of Writing, Linguistics, and Creative Process at Western Connecticut State University.
avatar for Martín Espada

Martín Espada

Martín Espada’s many books of poems include Vivas to Those Who Have Failed (2016), The Trouble Ball (2011), The Republic of Poetry (2006), and Alabanza (2003). He has received the 2018 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize, the Shelley Memorial Award, an Academy of American Poets Fellowship... Read More →
avatar for Clai Lasher-Sommers

Clai Lasher-Sommers

Clai Lasher-Sommers is the executive director of GunSense Vermont and a Fellow with Everytown Survivors Network. She was shot at the age of thirteen by her stepfather with a .306 high-powered hunting rifle.  
avatar for Back Bay Ringers

Back Bay Ringers

Back Bay Ringers (BBR) is an advanced, auditioned, handbell ensemble. Under the direction of Griff Gall, BBR has quickly developed a reputation for excellence, regularly performing at Boston-area landmarks such as Faneuil Hall, Symphony Hall, the Boston Children's Museum, and the... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 10:30am - 11:30am EDT
BPL McKim Exhibition Hall Dartmouth St, Boston, MA 02116, USA
  Poetry   Music

10:30am EDT

BBF Unbound: Making Poems Better
Poet Scott Edward Anderson will share his insights on the process of revision in writing poetry. Workshop participants will examine the poems "Ox Cart Man," by Donald Hall (1928-2018) and "Black Angus, Winter" by Anderson. Whether you are an avid writer of poetry or just want to improve your poetry reading experience, this workshop will help illuminate the revision process as it relates to a poet’s work.
Presenters
avatar for Scott Edward Anderson

Scott Edward Anderson

Scott Edward Anderson is the author of Dwelling, an ecopoem (2018) and Fallow Field (2013). He has been a Concordia Fellow at the Millay Colony for the Arts, and received both the Nebraska Review Award and the Aldrich Emerging Poets Award.  His poetry has appeared in the Alaska... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 10:30am - 11:30am EDT
BPL Exchange 700 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Poetry   Sessions for Writers

10:30am EDT

YA: Hard Truths
In recent novels by this quartet of superb writers, the truth is either difficult to define, slippery to grasp, or impossible to face. In Lambda Literary Award-winner Sara Farizan’s Here to Stay, Bijan is on the verge of basketball stardom and hard-won popularity at his prep school--until an online bully paints him as a terrorist and forces him to address bigotry he had hoped to ignore. In Mark Oshiro’s debut novel Anger Is a Gift, Moss, who lost his father to police brutality, must stand up and speak truth to power when his school perpetuates systemic violence and white supremacy. School violence also factors in Kody Keplinger’s That’s Not What Happened, in which Lee, an eyewitness to a school shooting, finally feels compelled to tell the truth even when it risks disrupting the tidy narrative her small community has been telling itself. And finally, in Printz Award-winner An Na’s A Place Between Breaths, the truth may be more painful than it’s possible to bear, as young researcher Grace strives to find a cure for the schizophrenia that claimed her mother, even as she fears she herself may be succumbing to mental illness. Moderator Candace McDuffie will lead a heartfelt and honest discussion among these talented writers.
Moderators
avatar for Candace McDuffie

Candace McDuffie

Candace McDuffie is a dedicated journalist and teacher who holds a master's degree in education specializing in Critical and Creative Thinking from the University at Massachusetts Boston. Her work has been featured in publications such as Marie Claire, Forbes, Glamour, Teen Vogue... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Sara Farizan

Sara Farizan

Sara Farizan is an Iranian American YA author giving voice to Iranian and queer characters in her novels. Her debut novel, If You Could Be Mine (2013) is about two girls living in Tehran, Iran, who are very much in love, but their love is both forbidden and very dangerous. The book... Read More →
avatar for Kody Keplinger

Kody Keplinger

Kody Keplinger is the bestselling author of the young adult novel The DUFF. Keplinger wrote the book when she was a seventeen-year-old high school student in Kentucky; the book was published when she was nineteen. It was named a YALSA Top Ten Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Readers... Read More →
avatar for An Na

An Na

An Na was born in South Korea and grew up in San Diego, California. She is the author of A Step from Heaven, which won the Michael L. Printz Award and was a finalist for the National Book Award; Wait for Me; and The Fold. Her most recent novel is The Place Between Breaths. In one... Read More →
avatar for Mark Oshiro

Mark Oshiro

Mark Oshiro is the Hugo finalist (in the Fan Writer category) creator of the online Mark Does Stuff universe (Mark Reads and Mark Watches), where he analyzes book and television series unspoiled. He was the nonfiction editor of Queers Destroy Science Fiction! and the coeditor (with... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 10:30am - 11:30am EDT
BPL Teen Central 700 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Young Adult

10:30am 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, Lori Galvin, and Kimiko Nakamura. When an agent hears a line that would prompt her to stop reading, he or 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, and Salon. His work has been featured on NPR, Longreads, and... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Sorche Fairbank

Sorche Fairbank

Since establishing Fairbank Literary Representation in 2002, Sorche Fairbank has represented bestselling authors, Edgar recipients, award-winning journalists, and of course one of her favorite kinds of client--the debut author. She is a member of AAR, the Author's Guild, and The... Read More →
avatar for Lori Galvin

Lori Galvin

Lori Galvin is a literary agent interested in both fiction (especially thrillers and smart women’s fiction) and nonfiction (cookbooks, memoir, and personal development). Based in Boston, her clients include Cambria Brockman (Tell Me Everything, Ballantine), Kwame Onwuachi (Notes... 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 →

Sponsors
avatar for GrubStreet

Saturday October 13, 2018 10:30am - 11:45am EDT
Old South Guild Room 645 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Interactive Events   Sessions for Writers

10:45am EDT

Story Time with Sheetal Sheth
Actress turned author Sheetal Sheth reads from her debut picture book Always Anjali (ages 4–8)
Presenters
avatar for Sheetal Sheth

Sheetal Sheth

Sheetal Sheth is an actress, writer, and producer. She has starred in nearly twenty feature films and earned a loyal international following. Most recently, her short film Grin, which she also produced, has been picking up awards on the festival circuit, including Best Actress. Sheth... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 10:45am - 11:15am EDT
BPL Children's Library 700 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Kids

10:45am EDT

Memoir: Animal Story
Calling all animal lovers--and not just the dog and cat parents out there. Would you eat tacos every day for every meal for the rest of your life? No (well, maybe). How about wearing only denim jeans? No way. So why befriend only one species? Pet owners know this better than anyone. With more than twenty books to her name, Sy Montgomery is proud of her cross-species friendships. In How to Be a Good Creature, life lessons are taught through interactions with thirteen animals, including a pack of emus, a tarantula, an octopus, a beloved Scottie puppy, and a weasel. Fellow animal lover Vicki Croke--author of Elephant Company and wildlife reporter for WBUR--will join Sy Montgomery to delve into nature writing, portraying characters who may squeak instead of speak, and the power of feathered, hairy, and scaly friends. Sponsored by the MSPCA-Angell.
Moderators
avatar for Vicki Croke

Vicki Croke

Vicki Croke has made a career out of reporting the life and time of animals for a variety of media. Croke currently reports on animal issues for Here & Now on NPR and for The Wild Life on WBUR. She is the author of the New York Times–bestselling Elephant Company, which tells the... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Sy Montgomery

Sy Montgomery

Sy Montgomery's research for films, articles, and twenty-two books has led her to hike the Altai Mountains of Mongolia looking for snow leopards and track tree kangaroos in Papua New Guinea, among other adventures. Montgomery writes books for both adults and children, and has scripted... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 10:45am - 11:45am EDT
Old South Mary Norton 645 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Memoir

10:45am EDT

Rage Against the Screen: Gathering IRL
Do you have hundreds of friends on Facebook and yet find yourself wondering who your people really are? Radha Agrawal calls this “community confusion,” which she experienced when she moved to NYC. Her solution was to found Daybreaker, an international phenomenon where people get up at dawn to attend dance parties. In Belong: Find Your People, Create Community, and Live a More Connected Life, she breaks down the process of finding meaningful connections to your chosen tribe. Priya Parker, also an expert on connecting IRL, wrote The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters, to help people make the most of any gathering, whether for work or play. Parker draws on her experience as a facilitator at high-powered multi-day meetings, demonstrating creative ways to make meaningful, memorable, intentional gatherings. If you are looking to enhance your off-screen life, come attend this live event, hosted by Lisa Pierpont, Editor-in-Chief of Boston Common Magazine. Sponsored by Boston Common Magazine.
Note: As a special bonus, Radha Agrawal will kick off a morning dance party (note that this is not a Daybreaker event) at 9:30am at the outdoor stage in Copley Square. Music by Yanina Johnson.

Moderators
avatar for Lisa Pierpont

Lisa Pierpont

Lisa Pierpont is the editor-in-chief of Boston Common Magazine, a luxury lifestyle publication, and the group editor of Modern Luxury's Boston Interiors, Weddings, and Charity & Social Datebook publications. She is also the founder and editor-in-chief of Boldfacers.com, a multimedia... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Radha Agrawal

Radha Agrawal

Radha Agrawal is a self-styled “community architect” whose entrepreneurial endeavors have centered on community building in a variety of ways. She is the cofounder and CEO at Daybreaker, a community-focused company that hosts early morning raves and yoga sessions in dozens of... Read More →
avatar for Priya Parker

Priya Parker

Priya Parker is a facilitator and strategic advisor.  She is the founder of Thrive Labs, at which she helps activists, elected officials, corporate executives, educators, and philanthropists create transformative gatherings. She works with teams and leaders across technology, business... Read More →

Sponsors
avatar for Boston Common Magazine

Saturday October 13, 2018 10:45am - 11:45am EDT
BPL Rabb Hall 700 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Nonfiction

10:45am 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 he captured a character’s distinctive personality? 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 sensitive and interesting narrative perspectives: Heather Abel (The Optimistic Decade), Mira T. Lee (Everything Here Is Beautiful), and Elizabeth Winthrop (The Mercy Seat). 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 Heather Abel

Heather Abel

Heather Abel is the debut author of The Optimistic Decade, a book borne of “an obsession with idealism and disillusionment.” Set at a remote camp in Colorado, the books comically chronicles five characters coming to terms and falling apart in their summer microcosm. Publishers... Read More →
avatar for Mira T. Lee

Mira T. Lee

Mira T. Lee has been many things, including a pop-country drummer, a graphic designer, and a biology graduate student. But most recently, she is a novelist. Her debut novel, Everything Here Is Beautiful, was published this year to praise and fanfare. Indies Introduce selected it as... Read More →
avatar for Elizabeth H. Winthrop

Elizabeth H. Winthrop

Elizabeth H. Winthrop is the author most recently of the novel The Mercy Seat. The novel documents the last hours before an execution of an African American man for the alleged rape of a white woman in Louisiana in 1943. The Mercy Seat is Winthrop’s fourth novel; her other books... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 10:45am - 11:45am EDT
BPL McKim Lower Level B Dartmouth St, Boston, MA 02116, USA
  Sessions for Writers   Fiction

11:00am EDT

Hip & Hop in the House
Hip is a turtle who raps slowly. Hop is a rabbit who raps, not surprisingly, quickly. Even though they both live in Oldskool County, neither of them has ever met. Until now. Join Somerville-based picture book author, illustrator, and musician Jef Czekaj as he reads and raps his way through his latest picture book, Hip & Hop in the House! Combining music with traditional storytelling, Jef’s performances lie somewhere between rap concert and storytime. Jef will also read from his book Cat Secrets, a book written exclusively for cats.

Note: To purchase a copy of Jef's book following the event, visit our friends at Wondermore in Booth 54!
Presenters
avatar for Jef Czekaj

Jef Czekaj

Jef Czekaj is a cartoonist, children's book author and illustrator, and musician. Czekaj has written and/or illustrated thirteen books with titles like Hip and Hop in the House!, Cat Secrets, A Call for a New Alphabet, and Austin, Lost in America. His books have been named Junior... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 11:00am - 11:30am EDT
Berklee Stage, Copley Square 560 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Berklee Stage   Kids   Music

11:00am EDT

Compositions
Novelist, poet, essayist, and journalist J.R. Léveillé will present his newest book, Compositions. Compositions is a hybrid work conceived on the margins of the pictorial dimension where the textual and the visual are combined in a literary work of art. It can be read or not, even though every word was carefully chosen; its works can be carefully looked at and analyzed for hours or just rapidly gone through: this book is an art object that goes beyond the literary frame. Léveillé will be interviewed by French Cultural Center librarian Ingrid Marquardt, and there will be an opportunity for audience Q&A.
Presenters
avatar for J.R. Léveillé

J.R. Léveillé

Born in Winnipeg, Canada, J. Roger Léveillé has published over thirty books (novels, poetry, essays) in Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, and in France.  He has a master's degree in French literature and  worked as a journalist and producer at Radio-Canada, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation... Read More →
avatar for Ingrid Marquardt

Ingrid Marquardt

Ingrid Marquardt leads the second largest private French library of 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 →

Saturday October 13, 2018 11:00am - 12:00pm EDT
French Cultural Center 53 Marlborough St, Boston, MA 02116, USA
  Fiction
  • about Ingrid Marquardt leads the second largest private French library of 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 in Milton, Mass., and has followed it around France and the world. She took a break from this first love to pursue a bachelor's degree in English with a minor in Irish studies at Boston College and a master's of library and Information sciences at Simmons College.<br><br>

11:00am EDT

Fiction: Hilarity and Heartache
Love stories--both in real life and on the page--are rarely as simple as “happily ever after.” In this session, we’ll hear from three authors whose most recent novels illustrate the vicissitudes--and bittersweet comedy--of modern relationships. Stephen McCauley, who’s been exploring unconventional relationships since his first novel, The Object of My Affection, does it again with charm and conviction in My Ex-Life, in which a gay man explores whether you can go home again when his ex-wife asks him to tackle her daughter’s college admissions crisis. In Chelsey Johnson’s Stray City, a young lesbian in 1990s Portland, Oregon, does the unthinkable--she hooks up with a man, becoming pregnant and consequently questioning everything she thought she knew about her identity. And Andrew Martin, in his debut novel Early Work, traces the sexual, ethical, and literary misadventures of millennials whose reality has been (over)determined by the books they read. Leading the discussion is Jessica Keener, whose own most recent novel is Strangers in Budapest.
Moderators
avatar for Jessica Keener

Jessica Keener

Novelist Jessica Keener's literary talents were recognized early on; she was awarded a full scholarship to Brown University based on her creative writing portfolio. Since then, she has gone on to publish short stories in publications such as Redbook, Night Train, and The Southeast... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Chelsey Johnson

Chelsey Johnson

Chelsey Johnson’s debut novel, Stray City, is set in Portland, and is about a lesbian woman who becomes pregnant after an ill-judged one-night stand with a man. Buzzfeed wrote that “Johnson's writing is very funny yet emotionally tender, and ultimately is a heartwarming celebration... Read More →
avatar for Andrew Martin

Andrew Martin

Andrew Martin's stories have appeared in  the Paris Review, Zyzzyva, and Tin House's Flash Fridays series, and his nonfiction has been published by the New Yorker, the New York Review of Books, the Washington Post, and others. His debut novel is Early Work, which the Chicago Review... Read More →
avatar for Stephen McCauley

Stephen McCauley

Stephen McCauley had many careers before settling on being a novelist: kindergarten teacher, travel agent, yoga instructor. He wrote The Object of My Affection as his Columbia University MFA thesis. A professor sent it to an agent, it was accepted by Simon and Schuster, 20th Century... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 11:00am - 12:00pm EDT
Emmanuel Parish Hall 15 Newbury St, Boston, MA 02116, USA
  Fiction

11:00am EDT

America's Original Sin: Racism
Some say that slavery is America’s original sin--a grave crime that cast a hereditary stain on Americans through the generations. The three works considered in this session offer solid evidence to confirm that racism is alive today, but offer glimpses of hope nonetheless. Jabari Asim, in We Can’t Breathe, shows how the past informs the present in essays that explore black experience “with a voice that is both compelling and convincing,” according to Kirkus Reviews. In The Injustice Never Leaves You, Monica Muñoz-Martinez relates how vigilantes and officers of the law killed Mexican residents of Texas with impunity between 1910 and 1920 and how the violence lingered in those communities for generations. Laura Wides-Muñoz, in The Making of a Dream, tells the stories of five young undocumented activists whose own stories intersect with the watershed events of the last two decades, from 9/11, to the “Dream Acts” during the Obama presidency, to the rebirth of the anti-immigrant right and the election of Donald Trump. Participate in this important and timely conversation on a problem that just won’t go away, moderated by WBUR’s Maria Garcia, senior editor of the ARTery. Sponsored by Harvard University Press.
Moderators
avatar for Maria Garcia

Maria Garcia

Maria Garcia is the senior editor of The ARTery, WBUR's Arts and Culture Team. She oversees WBUR's arts coverage for the radio and the web. Garcia came to Boston from New York City where she earned a master of arts in journalism, with a focus on arts and culture reporting, from Columbia... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Jabari Asim

Jabari Asim

Jabari Asim is a writer and educator who has been writing about the African American experience for decades. Asim is a former editor at the Washington Post (a position he held for eleven years) and was the editor in chief at The Crisis, the primary publication of the NAACP, from 2007... Read More →
avatar for Monica Muñoz Martinez

Monica Muñoz Martinez

Monica Muñoz Martinez is an assistant professor of American studies at Brown University, where she teaches courses in Latinx studies, immigration, histories of violence, histories of policing, and public memory in US history. She was selected for a prestigious Carnegie Fellowship... Read More →
avatar for Laura Wides-Muñoz

Laura Wides-Muñoz

Laura Wides-Muñoz has built a successful and award-winning career reporting on immigration and Latinx lives in America and around the world. She has reported on the Guatemalan Civil War, Cuba, and the Hispanic affairs beat for the Associated Press, which earned her a managing editor... Read More →

Sponsors
avatar for Harvard University Press

Saturday October 13, 2018 11:00am - 12:00pm EDT
Trinity Forum 206 Clarendon St, Boston, MA 02116, USA
  Nonfiction

11:00am EDT

Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine: When Astrophysics Meets Spirituality
From the acclaimed author of Einstein’s Dreams, here is an inspired, lyrical meditation on religion and science that explores the tension between our yearning for permanence and certainty and the modern scientific discoveries that demonstrate the uncertain nature of the world. As a physicist, Alan Lightman has always held a scientific view of the world. As a teenager, he was impressed by the logic and materiality of a universe governed by a small number of disembodied laws that decree all things in the world are material and impermanent. But one summer evening, while looking at the stars from a small boat at sea, Lightman was overcome by the overwhelming sensation that he was merging with something larger than himself—a grand and eternal unity, a hint of something absolute and immaterial. The Christian Science Monitor science editor Noelle Swan and science writer Eoin O’Carroll will lead a discussion with Lightman, whose new book Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine is an exploration of these seemingly contradictory impulses. Sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor.
Moderators
avatar for Eoin O'Carroll

Eoin O'Carroll

Eoin O'Carroll is a staff writer for the Christian Science Monitor's science, technology, and environment desk. He began working at the Monitor in 2005 and has worked as an environment blogger, web producer, SEO coach, and science editor. Before joining the science desk as a writer... Read More →
avatar for Noelle Swan

Noelle Swan

Noelle Swan currently leads science, technology, and environment coverage at the Christian Science Monitor. Since joining the Monitor in 2013, Swan has worked as both an editor and writer for both the website and the weekly magazine. She has written several cover and feature stories... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Alan Lightman

Alan Lightman

Alan Lightman is a rare breed; he has led both a successful science career as a professor and researcher at MIT and also become an accomplished novelist. He has also written and published poetry, essays, short stories, and reviews. After earning his PhD in theoretical physics from... Read More →

Sponsors
avatar for Christian Science Monitor

Saturday October 13, 2018 11:00am - 12:00pm EDT
BPL Commonwealth Salon Dartmouth St, Boston, MA 02116, USA
  Nonfiction

11:15am EDT

Berlin
It’s no exaggeration to say that the publication of the final volume in Jason Lutes’s epic graphic novel Berlin is one of the landmark publishing events of this year. Certainly this impressively researched saga about the Weimar Republic and the rise of fascism can be considered Lutes’s masterwork, having been published over the course of the last twenty years and garnering many award nominations along the way. Lutes’s intricately, architecturally illustrated novel brings to life the city of Berlin as well as its inhabitants, whose stories remain both historically fascinating and urgently relevant. Novelist Alexander Chee has called Berlin “a newly necessary book,” and certainly Lutes could not have foretold when he began drawing the comic in 1996 just how timely this historical novel would become. Following Lutes’s presentation of his work, he’ll be interviewed by N.C. Christopher Couch of UMass Amherst, author of numerous books on graphic novels and curator of exhibits on comic art. Come celebrate this remarkable achievement in the art form.
Moderators
avatar for N. C. Christopher Couch

N. C. Christopher Couch

N. C. Christopher Couch is a senior lecturer in comparative literature at UMass Amherst. He holds a PhD in art history from Columbia University. He is the author of numerous books and articles on Latin American art and on graphic novels and comic art, including The Will Eisner Companion... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Jason Lutes

Jason Lutes

Jason Lutes is an acclaimed cartoonist. After graduating from Rhode Island School of Design in 1991, he began publishing minicomics with Penny Dreadful and, starting in 1993, the weekly comic “Jar of Fools,” published in The Stranger in Seattle. By 1995, he was the art director... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 11:15am - 12:15pm EDT
Boston Architectural College Cascieri Hall 320 Newbury St, Boston, MA 02115, USA
  Fiction

11:15am EDT

Atlas Obscura Workshop
The Atlas Obscura Explorer’s Guide for the World’s Most Adventurous Kid encourages readers to find global connections and explore their world, whether it’s in Antarctica or their own backyard. All of the places in the book are real, even if they seem like fiction! Join the book’s coauthor Rosemary Mosco for a workshop about writing exciting nonfiction. Learn the joys of creating very, very short stories, and use the five senses to help your readers feel like they’re truly visiting a place you love. Ages 8-12, with an adult.
Presenters
avatar for Rosemary Mosco

Rosemary Mosco

Rosemary Mosco is a science writer and artist. She is the author of the graphic novel Solar System and the webcomic Bird and Moon. Her work has been featured by Audubon, Upworthy, Science News, The Huffington Post, and others. She lives in Massachusetts. Her latest collaboration... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 11:15am - 12:15pm EDT
BPL Rey Room 700 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Kids   Interactive Events

11:30am EDT

Appearance by Rainbow Fish
Meet Rainbow Fish and celebrate the things that make us each unique!
Saturday October 13, 2018 11:30am - 12:00pm EDT
Brainstorm Tent, Copley Square 560 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Kids

11:30am EDT

Story Time with Francie Latour and Ken Daley
Author Francie LaTour and artist Ken Daley read from the book they made together: Aunt Luce’s Talking Paintings (ages 5–8)
Presenters
avatar for Ken Daley

Ken Daley

Ken Daley is a dedicated artist whose work draws heavily from his African Caribbean roots. Daley grew up in Canada and earned his degree in architectural technology from Humber College in Toronto. He also has an honorary degree from the Art Centre of Central Technical School. His... Read More →
avatar for Francie Latour

Francie Latour

Francie Latour is a children’s book author, journalist, and advocate for diversity and disadvantaged children. Since 2012, she has served as the coordinator of the Broad Diversity Initiative at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. She is also the codirector and cofounder of Wee... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 11:30am - 12:00pm EDT
BPL Children's Library 700 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Kids

11:30am EDT

Readings: Fun and Feminist Historical Fiction
The BBF’s fiction lineup might skew toward the serious this year, but here’s your chance to mix things up and hear readings from three new intriguing, female-centered twists on historical fiction. In her new novel, The Lady’s Guide to Petticoats and Piracy, Stonewall Honor winner Mackenzi Lee will inspire teens and adult readers alike with a story about women building unexpected friendships in a society set up to stifle their ambitions. Theodora Goss’s novel European Travel for the Monstrous Gentlewoman also explores women’s friendships--in this case, those forged by the daughters of literature’s mad scientists (from Mary Jekyll to Justine Frankenstein)--as they solve a kidnapping case. And Laura Andersen’s latest novel takes a Gothic turn, imagining three generations of a family in an Irish manor house supposedly haunted by a spectre known as The Darkling Bride. Meet your book club at this can’t-miss session of readings hosted by Whitney Scharer, author of the forthcoming historical novel The Age of Light. Sponsored by BookBub.
Moderators
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, and other journals. She is the recipient of an Emerging Artist Award in Literature from the St. Botolph Club Foundation... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Laura Andersen

Laura Andersen

Laura Andersen is the author of award-winning novels of historical romance and intrigue. She started writing seriously in 2003 on a dare from a friend, and eventually set herself the goal of getting published by the age of forty—she missed that goal by only four years. Her debut... Read More →
avatar for Theodora Goss

Theodora Goss

Theodora Goss is an award-winning fantasy novelist, short story writer, and writing professor.  Her debut novel, The Strange Case of the Alchemist’s Daughter (2017) ,picks up the collective stories of the famous literary scientists and detectives of nineteenth-century literature... Read More →
avatar for Mackenzi Lee

Mackenzi Lee

Mackenzi Lee is an author burning bright in young adult fiction. Her 2017 novel, The Gentleman’s Guide to Vice and Virtue, won the 2017 New England Book Award and a Stonewall Honor, was both a New York Times and ABA bestseller, and garnered five starred reviews. Her debut novel... Read More →

Sponsors
avatar for BookBub

Saturday October 13, 2018 11:30am - 12:15pm EDT
BPL Newsfeed Cafe 700 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Fiction   Young Adult

11:30am EDT

Lost in Translation
Literary translations are often taken for granted by readers. For translators, they are works of art in their own right. Going beyond linguistics, Irena Stanic Rasin uses her first-hand experience as a translator to explore the not-frequently-thought-of obstacles translators face. Using Gianna Manzini’s book Sulla Soglia (Threshold), easy-to-comprehend examples in Italian, and the backdrop of Eataly Boston, Stanic Rasin will engage readers to gain new perspective on literary translations. Sponsored by La Scuola at Eataly Boston.
Presenters
avatar for Irena Stanic Rasin

Irena Stanic Rasin

Irena Stanic Rasin is an author, translator, and language instructor. Her first book for (pre)adolescents, co-authored with psychologist Latinka Basara, was published in Croatia in 2014. The book has received a recommendation from the Croatian Ministry of Science and Education “for... Read More →

Sponsors
avatar for Eataly Boston

Saturday October 13, 2018 11:30am - 12:15pm EDT
La Scuola at Eataly Boston Prudential Center, 800 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Nonfiction

11:30am EDT

Capitalism vs. Democracy
Does democracy need to be reformed to preserve economic growth for all, or does capitalism need to be reformed to preserve democracy? That is the question we will tackle with three preeminent thinkers. Economist Dambisa Moyo, one of Time Magazine’s100 Most Influential People, argues in Edge of Chaosthat economic growth is paramount and that democracy must undergo radical reforms to deliver it. Robert Kuttner’s title speaks volumes: Can Democracy Survive Global Capitalism?  Kuttner blames global, predatory capitalism for workers’ declining prospects and the subsequent dwindling of democracy. Yascha Mounk, in The People vs. Democracy, deemed by The Economist a “standout” book on this subject, thinks people have fallen out of love with democracy and offers a brilliant analysis of why and what to do about it. Our moderator-cum-referee is Rebecca Henderson, who teaches Reimagining Capitalism at Harvard Business School.
Moderators
avatar for Rebecca Henderson

Rebecca Henderson

Rebecca Henderson is one of 25 University Professors at Harvard, a research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research and a fellow of both the British Academy and of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Her research explores the degree to which the private sector can... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Robert Kuttner

Robert Kuttner

Robert Kuttner is an award-winning economics journalist and professor. He was a long-time columnist at BusinessWeek and is a cofounder and coeditor of The American Prospect magazine. He has also worked as a staff writer and columnist for the Washington Post, economics editor of... Read More →
avatar for Yascha Mounk

Yascha Mounk

Yascha Mounk is a writer, academic, and public speaker known for his work on the rise of populism and the crisis of liberal democracy. He is the author of The People versus Democracy: Why Our Freedom Is in Danger and How to Save It, which explains the causes of the populist rise and... Read More →
avatar for Dambisa Moyo

Dambisa Moyo

Dambisa Moyo is a global economist and author who analyzes the macroeconomy and international affairs. Her latest book is Edge of Chaos: Why Democracy is Failing to Deliver Economic Growth and How to Fix It. She advises companies, corporate boards, CEOs, and management on investment... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 11:30am - 12:30pm EDT
Old South Sanctuary 645 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Nonfiction

11:45am EDT

Not Just a Game: Sports and Social Change
Join us for what is sure to be a fascinating and timely discussion of the outsize role athletes can have in effecting social change. Former NBA player and activist Etan Thomas interviewed dozens of athletes, media personalities, and family members of young blacks killed by police for We Matter, “an important read, executed uniquely,” according to Library Journal.  Amy Bass, in One Goal, tells the uplifting story of a high school soccer team that overcame racism in a Maine town whose residents now include many Somali refugees. Wil Haygood’s Tigerland is an inspirational tale of how two high school teams from a segregated, poor school in Ohio won state championships in the racially charged atmosphere of the late ’60s. Finally, Howard Bryant’s The Heritage takes a nuanced approach to athlete-activists, showing how the activist tradition of Jackie Robertson, Muhammad Ali, Tommie Smith, and others was undermined by apolitical, corporate-friendly athletes like O.J. Simpson, Michael Jordan, and Tiger Woods and is now being revived by the likes of LeBron James and Colin Kaepernick. Moderated by the legendary Bill Littlefield, who hosted WBUR’s Only a Game from 1993 to 2018.
Moderators
avatar for Bill Littlefield

Bill Littlefield

Bill Littlefield was for twenty-five years the host of Only a Game, a weekly sports show on WBUR and NPR. Littlefield hosted Only a Game from 1993 to 2018, but was on the air with WBUR and NPR beginning in 1984. In addition to his lengthy radio career, Littlefield is the author of... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Amy Bass

Amy Bass

Amy Bass is a scholar, writer, and professor whose writing and research has focused on the intersection of African American culture, race, and sports in America. Her first book, Not the Triumph But the Struggle: 1968 Olympics and the Making of the Black Athlete (2002), took the Black... Read More →
avatar for Howard Bryant

Howard Bryant

Howard Bryant is a senior writer for ESPN.com and ESPN magazine, and he regularly appears on ESPN TV programming, including SportsCenter and Outside the Lines. He is the sports correspondent for NPR's Weekend Edition Saturday. He is the author of The Last Hero: A Life of Henry Aaron... Read More →
avatar for Wil Haygood

Wil Haygood

Wil Haygood has had a remarkable career. He had a decades-long career in journalism, working for the Boston Globe as a foreign and national correspondent and being named a Pulitzer Prize finalist for his work. He joined the staff of the Washington Post in 2002. In 2008, he published... Read More →
avatar for Etan Thomas

Etan Thomas

Etan Thomas is a former NBA basketball player whose career has turned to writing and advocacy. He played in the NBA for nine seasons, from 2000 to 2011, playing for the Dallas Mavericks, the Washington Wizards, the Oklahoma City Thunder, and the Atlanta Hawks. In 2005, he published... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 11:45am - 1:00pm EDT
Emmanuel Sanctuary 15 Newbury St, Boston, MA 02116, USA
  Nonfiction

12:00pm EDT

Boston By Foot Tour
The Boston Book Festival and Boston By Foot were meant to be together! These two BBFs are teaming up to offer a free walking tour of Copley Square’s literary neighborhood. This mini-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! Also check out our kids’ listings for a special Boston By Foot walking tour for kids and families!
Saturday October 13, 2018 12:00pm - 12:45pm EDT
BPL Civic Table (outside BPL entrance) 700 Boylston St., Boston, MA 02116
  Interactive Events

12:00pm EDT

Tyson Jackson
Tyson Jackson first discovered his love of music at age three in his hometown of West Palm Beach, Florida. Throughout his academic career, he has attended performing arts institutions dedicated to music, further piqueing his interest in and love for the art. Under the mentorship of world-renowned artists including Ron Blake, Nona Hendryx, and Terri Lyne Carrington, Jackson is carving out his path to success in the music industry.
Presenters
avatar for Tyson Jackson

Tyson Jackson

Tyson Jackson first discovered his love of music at age three in his hometown of West Palm Beach, Florida. Throughout his academic career, he has attended performing arts institutions dedicated to music, further piqueing his interest in and love for the art. Under the mentorship of... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 12:00pm - 12:50pm EDT
Berklee Stage, Copley Square 560 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Berklee Stage   Music

12:00pm EDT

Jerusalem's Old City: Under My Window
Michal Ronnen Safdie has documented the rich and varied scene of three religions sharing the world’s most contested religious site in her gorgeous volume, Under My Window. The narrow passage below her window in Jerusalem’s Old City is a conduit for Palestinians on their way to work, Christians going to the Holy Sepulchre, Muslim pilgrims visiting the Temple Mount, and Jews on their way to the Western Wall of the Old Temple. Her stunning images capture both the intimate and personal and the large-scale public events that create the spectacle of daily life in Jerusalem. Join Michal Safdie and journalist and contributing editor at The Atlantic, Peter Beinart, for a discussion of both the fraught and beautiful aspects of life in Jerusalem.
Moderators
avatar for Peter Beinart

Peter Beinart

Peter Beinart is an associate professor of journalism and political science at the City University of New York. He is also a contributor to the Atlantic, a senior columnist at the Forward, a CNN political commentator, and a fellow at The Foundation for Middle East Peace. Binary is... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Michal Safdie

Michal Safdie

Michal Safdie is a photographer of culture and conflict around the world. Born in Israel, Safdie has photographed the Western Wall and orthodox women in Israel, refugees in Darfur, and the Gacaca trials in Rwanda, as well as a variety of studies of  the natural world. She has exhibited... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 12:00pm - 1:00pm EDT
Boston Architectural College The Beehive 951 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Nonfiction

12:00pm EDT

BBF Unbound: A Home Is a Poem
Participants in this generative workshop 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, Anna Ross, Candelaria Silva-Collins, Aaron Devine, and Daniel Elfanbaum, members of Write on the DOT, a reading series and literary platform that supports and promotes local writing in Dorchester.
Presenters
avatar for Aaron Devine

Aaron Devine

Aaron Devine is a writer, educator, and translator. His writing has been published in McSweeney's Internet Tendency, The Good Men Project, Origins Journal, and Window Cat Press. He earned his MFA in fiction from UMass Boston in 2013. In 2011 he helped found the Write on the DOT reading... Read More →
avatar for Daniel Elfanbaum

Daniel Elfanbaum

Daniel Elfanbaum is a graduate student at UMass-Boston and a freelance writer. He is also an enthusiastic bicycle commuter and guide.
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 →
avatar for Anna Ross

Anna Ross

Anna Ross is a poet and educator. She is the 2018 Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellow in poetry and has published several collections and chapbooks of poetry. Her collection If a Storm (2013) was the winner of the Robert Dana-Anhinga Prize for Poetry. Her chapbooks have... Read More →
avatar for Candelaria Silva-Collins

Candelaria Silva-Collins

Candelaria Silva-Collins is a driving force behind the continuation and outreach of the arts in Boston. She is the coordinator of the Community Membership Program at the Huntington Theatre Company, as well as the program manager for the Fellowes Athenaeum Trust Fund of the Boston... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 12:00pm - 1:00pm EDT
BPL Exchange 700 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Poetry   Sessions for Writers

12:00pm EDT

YA: Space!
These three talented authors have set their sights on the stars in more ways than one. Sasha Aslberg and her coauthor Lindsay Cummings launched their Androma Saga with Zenith, an action-packed space opera about a crew of female space pirates. In what was called a “provocative jaunt” in Publishers Weekly’s starred review, Printz honoree Andrew Smith combines satire and absurdism in Rabbit & Robot, about a group of teenage boys who escape (sort of) from an Earth that’s been ravaged by war and technology. And, in her first book following her Eisner Award-winning memoir Spinning, graphic novelist Tillie Walden compiles her webcomic On a Sunbeam, which The Verge has called “a must-read comic about boarding schools in space.” Things on Earth are pretty weird right now, so maybe we can find some answers among the celestial spheres. Guiding our craft, er, discussion is Amy Pattee of the Center for the Study of Children’s Literature at Simmons College.
Moderators
avatar for Amy Pattee

Amy Pattee

Amy Pattee is an associate professor in Simmons College's School of Library and Information Science, where she teaches children's and young adult literature. After completing her master's in library science at Rutgers University, Amy Pattee worked as a children's librarian at public... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Sasha Alsberg

Sasha Alsberg

Sasha Alsberg is a best-selling young adult novelist and popular Booktuber. She has been vlogging about books on her YouTube channel, Abookutopia, since 2013.  She published a short story in the YA short story collection Because You Love to Hate Me in 2017. Alsberg wrote the first... Read More →
avatar for Andrew Smith

Andrew Smith

Andrew Smith is an award-winning author of wonderfully weird books for young adults. His 2014 book, Grasshopper Jungle, was named a Michael L. Printz Honor Book, earned a 2014 Boston Globe-Horn Book Award, and was longlisted for the Carnegie Medal. He is also the author of Winger... Read More →
avatar for Tillie Walden

Tillie Walden

Tillie Walden is still at the very beginning of her career as a comics artist and writer, but that hasn’t kept her back from tremendous achievement. Walden’s graphic memoir, Spinning (2017), published when she was just twenty-one, won an Eisner Award, was named a  New York City... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 12:00pm - 1:00pm EDT
BPL Teen Central 700 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Young Adult

12:00pm EDT

Inventors, Makers, Barrier Breakers
Come and explore the world of high-tech invention and innovation, with Tumblehome's Inventors, Makers, and Barrier Breakers book-related activities workshop! Teachers, parents, and students will enjoy trying different fun hands-on activities to accompany chapters from the book. Learn about Ben Franklin's electricity experiments using a plasma ball and create LED light using handheld motor DC generators. Learn about Lydia Villa-Kamaroff's DNA work by playing with our functional DNA and protein kits, originally developed at MIT. Play with basic circuitry using both "soft" and "hard" circuits and learn how you can make sounds, lights, and sense the world around you using some easy-to-find materials or even your own smartphone! Hear from the author of the book itself, Dr. Pendred Noyce, who happens to be the daughter of one of the inventors in the book! Sponsored by Tumblehome Learning.
Ages 10+, or younger with an adult
Presenters
avatar for Barnas Monteith

Barnas Monteith

As a student, Barnas Monteith was the winningest contestant in Massachusetts science fair history, and as an adult he has served for many years as the chair of the Massachusetts State Science and Engineering Fair. Monteith adds to his background in paleontology, geology, entrepreneurship... Read More →
avatar for Penny Noyce

Penny Noyce

Penny Noyce is a doctor, educator, and author of twelve books for young people. She grew up in Silicon Valley, studied biochemistry at Harvard and medicine at Stanford, and did her medical residency in Minneapolis before moving to the Boston area. For twenty-five years she served... Read More →

Sponsors
avatar for Tumblehome Learning

Saturday October 13, 2018 12:00pm - 1:30pm EDT
Brainstorm Tent, Copley Square 560 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Kids   Interactive Events

12:15pm EDT

Story Time with Laura Vaccaro Seeger
Author and artist Laura Vaccaro Seeger reads from Blue, the companion to her Caldecott Honor Book Green (ages 3–7)
Presenters
avatar for Laura Vaccaro Seeger

Laura Vaccaro Seeger

Laura Vaccaro Seeger is a New York Times bestselling author and illustrator. She has twice received the Caldecott Honor Award, for First the Egg and Blue. Seeger is also a winner of the New York Times Best Illustrated Book Award, the Boston Globe/Horn Book Award for Best Picture Book... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 12:15pm - 12:45pm EDT
BPL Children's Library 700 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Kids

12:15pm EDT

Fiction: Love and Trauma
The three accomplished novelists in this session have crafted remarkable portraits of characters struggling with how to reconcile the damage of the past with the promise of a new future. In Gone So Long, Andre Dubus III sets up a provocative situation--a woman in her 40s is about to meet the father she can’t remember, the man who murdered her mother and now wants to make amends--in a novel that, according to Booklist, “asks what it means to atone for the unforgivable.” In Jenna Blum’s The Lost Family, an Auschwitz survivor who blames himself for the deaths of his family tries to start anew as a chef in America, with mixed results. And in Aminatta Forna’s Happiness, two lonely people--a Ghanaian trauma specialist and an American wildlife biologist--meet by chance on Waterloo Bridge, and their hopes for personal redemption send them on an odyssey that illustrates the interconnectedness of both humans and the natural world. Please join these three masterful writers for a wide-ranging conversation about empathy, resilience, and the craft of fiction, moderated by novelist Henriette Lazaridis, author of The Clover House.
Moderators
avatar for Henriette Lazaridis

Henriette Lazaridis

Henriette Lazaridis has dedicated her career to telling stories. Her debut novel, The Clover House (2013), was called a “stunning debut novel” by USA Today. She earned degrees in English literature from Middlebury College, Oxford University (as a Rhodes Scholar) and the University... Read More →

Presenters
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 (2005), chronicles Trudy Schlemmer’s journey to uncover the truth of her and her mother’s past in... Read More →
avatar for Aminatta Forna

Aminatta Forna

Aminatta Forna is the author of The Hired Man, The Memory of Love, and Ancestor Stones, and the harrowing memoir of Forna’s childhood and the disappearance and death of her father in Sierra Leone in the mid-1970s, The Devil That Danced on the Water (2002). Her work has won her many... Read More →
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 six novels and a memoir, Townie, about his troubled childhood in and around Haverhill, Massachusetts, and his difficult relationship with his famous writer father. His books of fiction are The Cage... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 12:15pm - 1:15pm EDT
Church of the Covenant 67 Newbury St, Boston, MA 02116, USA
  Fiction

12:15pm EDT

Middle Grade: Ghosts, Golems, and Gigantic Lizards
It’s almost Halloween, and we’re getting in the mood with a session that’s all about spirits, the supernatural, and unexpected magic--some benevolent, some less so. Daniel José Older’s Dactyl Hill Squad is a Civil War novel with a twist--this time the conflict is being fought on the backs of dinosaurs, and kids can save the day! Camille DeAngelis’s middle-grade debut, The Boy from Tomorrow, is about a boy and a girl who become friends--even though they live a century apart. An even more unusual friendship is at the heart of Jonathan Auxier’s historical fantasy Sweep, in which a big-hearted soot golem helps save Nan, the young chimney sweep who loves him. And in Small Spaces, Katherine Arden’s launch of a Vermont-set quartet of spooky seasonal tales, scarecrows and hay mazes usher a menacing past into the present. Whether your tastes run toward the spine-tingling or you like just a hint of magic, you’ll find something to enjoy at this session, hosted by Stacy Collins from Simmons University.
Moderators
avatar for Stacy Collins

Stacy Collins

Anastasia “Stacy” Collins is an academic liaison librarian at the Simmons College Beatley Library. An avid Trekkie and Gorey devotee, she holds a master's degree in children’s literature and a master's degree in library and information science. Collins reviews for Kirkus Reviews... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Katherine Arden

Katherine Arden

Katherine Arden is the author of the dark and whimsical Winternight trilogy that reimagines myth and being a woman in Medieval Russia. The first in the series and her debut novel, The Bear and the Nightingale, was a bestseller that Booklist called “utterly bewitching” in a starred... Read More →
avatar for Jonathan Auxier

Jonathan Auxier

Jonathan Auxier is an award-winning author of fantastical books for children. His 2012 debut, Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes, is about a blind orphan in Victorian London who finds a set of magical eyes that allow him to see a unseen world. His second book, the Victorian ghost... Read More →
avatar for Camille DeAngelis

Camille DeAngelis

Camille DeAngelis is a writer of the fantastic and unusual. Her 2015 young adult novel about teenage cannibals, Bones and All, won the Alex Award in 2016. She is also the author of Immaculate Heart (2016); Petty Magic: Being the Memoirs and Confessions of Miss Evelyn Harbinger... Read More →
avatar for Daniel José Older

Daniel José Older

Daniel José Older is a Latino author who has taken all reading levels by storm with his gritty approach to fantasy literature. His first novel, Half-Resurrection Blues, an urban fantasy and the first in his Bone Street Rumba series, was named a New York Times Notable Book of 2015... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 12:15pm - 1:15pm EDT
BPL McKim Lower Level B Dartmouth St, Boston, MA 02116, USA
  Kids

12:15pm EDT

BBF Unbound: Twitter Ate My Brain
Like it or not, social media is here to stay. But beyond celebrity bloggers, fake news, and teen angst about "likes," the effect of social media extends way beyond the perils of diversion: this platform is altering our brains. Literally. We speak with digital media guru Sree Sreenivasan, child behavioral expert Michael Rich, neuroscientist Earl Miller, cognitive scientist Maryanne Wolf, and a social media case study--the Super Bowl “Selfie kid” Ryan McKenna, about why, if, and how we should tame the media beast. Life sciences journalist Sylvia Pagán Westphal will moderate this topical discussion--you’ll never look at your newsfeed the same way again! 
Moderators
avatar for Sylvia Pagán Westphal

Sylvia Pagán Westphal

Sylvia Pagán Westphal is a science and healthcare writer based in Boston. She is a former staff writer at the Los Angeles Times, New Scientist Magazine, and the Wall Street Journal, and her articles have appeared in the Boston Globe, the New York Times, Smithsonian Magazine, and... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Ryan McKenna

Ryan McKenna

Ryan McKenna is fourteen years old and an eighth grade student at Thayer Academy in Braintree. He lives with his parents and older brother in Scituate. Ryan's life changed drastically at last year's Super Bowl when Justin Timberlake unexpectedly took a selfie with Ryan as part of... Read More →
avatar for Earl Miller

Earl Miller

Earl Miller is the Picower Professor of Neuroscience at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Miller uses experimental and theoretical approaches to study the neural basis of the high-level cognitive functions that underlie complex goal-directed behavior. The focus is on the... Read More →
avatar for Michael Rich

Michael Rich

Michael Rich is the founder and director of the Center on Media and Child Health, an academic center of excellence at Boston Children’s Hospital dedicated to investigating, translating, and innovating with media to optimize the physical, mental, academic and social-emotional health... Read More →
avatar for Sree Sreenivasan

Sree Sreenivasan

Sree Sreenivasan is a leading consultant, speaker and trainer for nonprofits, corporations, startups, and executives. He’s doing more than fifty workshops in more than twenty-five cities in more than ten countries this year. In 2018, he and his best friend Andrew Lih launched Digimentors... Read More →
avatar for Maryanne Wolf

Maryanne Wolf

Maryanne Wolf is an award-winning cognitive neuroscientist and child development expert who has devoted her career to studying how humans read and think. The author of more than 150 scientific publications, Wolf also writes compellingly for a general audience; her 2007 book Proust... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 12:15pm - 1:15pm EDT
Old South Mary Norton 645 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Nonfiction

12:15pm EDT

Mister Rogers
If you are under the age of 52, you probably grew up singing “It’s You I Like” with Mr. Rogers. The show Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood turned 50 this year, and to mark the anniversary Maxwell King, former director of the Fred Rogers Center, wrote The Good Neighbor, the first full-length biography of Fred Rogers. Was Fred Rogers a complicated or conflicted guy? Of course. Was he also the kind, understanding, good person that he portrayed in his TV persona? Most emphatically, yes. Was Tom Hanks a good choice to play Mr. Rogers in an upcoming movie? That’s above our paygrade to say. But we know you will want to hear Maxwell King discuss the life and times of Fred Rogers with WBUR’s Deborah Becker.
Moderators
avatar for Deborah Becker

Deborah Becker

Deborah Becker is a senior correspondent and host at WBUR. Her reporting focuses on mental health, criminal justice, and education. Becker is also a substitute host on several WBUR programs and helps produce and report for various WBUR special projects. She also worked on the launch... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Maxwell King

Maxwell King

Maxwell King has had a long career in journalism and philanthropy. He spent much of his career as a journalist at the Philadelphia Inquirer, becoming an assistant city editor in 1973 and a city editor a year later. He held a variety of editorial positions before becoming editor of... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 12:15pm - 1:15pm EDT
BPL McKim Exhibition Hall Dartmouth St, Boston, MA 02116, USA
  Nonfiction

12:30pm EDT

Appearance by Taco Dragon
If you can't find Taco Dragon, try looking for him at the taco truck--it's lunchtime!
Saturday October 13, 2018 12:30pm - 1:00pm EDT
Brainstorm Tent, Copley Square 560 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Kids

12:30pm EDT

Readings: Finding the Way
Journeys--both literal and metaphorical--form the unifying theme of this session of readings by Massachusetts novelists. In Aaron Thier’s satirical yet philosophical The World Is a Narrow Bridge, a couple of underemployed millennials embark on a cross-country road trip after receiving a visitation from Yahweh. Meghan Maclean Weir’s debut novel The Book of Essie also takes up issues of spirituality, as the daughter of an evangelical family who live their lives in front of the reality-show cameras embarks on a journey of deception that opens the possibility of a different kind of future. And in Louise Miller’s sophomore effort, The Late Bloomers’ Club, the protagonist, Nora, must navigate a narrow path between tradition and innovation and between loyalty to the past and her own heart’s desires. Our navigator for this session is novelist Lisa Borders, author of The Fifty-First State. Sponsored by BookBub.
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 Louise Miller

Louise Miller

Louise Miller is the author of the novels The City Baker's Guide to Country Living and, most recently, The Late Bloomers' Club. She is a professional pastry chef, an art school dropout, an amateur flower gardener, an old-time banjo player, an obsessive moviegoer, and a champion of... Read More →
avatar for Aaron Thier

Aaron Thier

Aaron Thier is the author of three novels: The Ghost Apple (2014), Mr. Eternity (2016), and his latest novel, The World is a Narrow Bridge. Thier has received a literature fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts. He is a former columnist for Lucky Peach and is a contributor... Read More →
avatar for Meghan MacLean Weir

Meghan MacLean Weir

Meghan MacLean Weir is a woman who can do it all; she is a working physician and a writer. Her debut novel, The Book of Essie, is about an evangelical family starring in a reality TV show when their seventeen-year-old daughter becomes pregnant. Before becoming a novelist, Weir published... Read More →

Sponsors
avatar for BookBub

Saturday October 13, 2018 12:30pm - 1:15pm EDT
BPL Newsfeed Cafe 700 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Fiction

12:30pm EDT

Fiction: Myth, Fate, and Family
The two powerful novels considered in this session explore how we come to terms with history--familial and personal--to create a more tenable future. In New Yorker book critic James Wood’s novel Upstate, Vanessa, a philosophy professor in upstate New York, has forged a new life far from her childhood home in the UK. A serious bout of depression brings her father and sister for a visit and prompts a profound examination of family bonds and a reckoning with the past. In Madeline Miller’s NYT bestseller Circe, another daughter--this one a goddess and a witch--deals with an exile that, although not self-imposed like Vanessa’s, allows for self-reinvention. Although Upstate is set firmly in reality and Circe takes place in the fantastical world of Greek mythology, each raises urgent questions about self and other, family histories and societal norms. Join us for an illuminating conversation led by novelist Dawn Tripp, author of Georgia and Game of Secrets. Sponsored by PEN America.
Moderators
avatar for Dawn Tripp

Dawn Tripp

Dawn Tripp is a winner of the Massachusetts Book Award for Fiction and author of three novels set in New England: Moon Tide, The Season of Open Water, and Game of Secrets, a Boston Globe bestseller. Her essays have appeared in publications including the Virginia Quarterly Review... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Madeline Miller

Madeline Miller

Madeline Miller has a BA and MA from Brown University in Latin and ancient Greek, and she has been teaching both for over a decade. She has also studied at the Yale School of Drama, specializing in adapting classical tales to a modern audience. Her first novel, The Song of Achilles... Read More →
avatar for James Wood

James Wood

Called by Vivian Gornick "among the most highly regarded literary critics of our moment," James Wood has been a staff writer and book critic at The New Yorker since 2007. In 2009, he won the National Magazine Award for reviews and criticism. He was the chief literary critic at the... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 12:30pm - 1:30pm EDT
Trinity Forum 206 Clarendon St, Boston, MA 02116, USA
  Fiction

12:30pm EDT

Massachusetts Fiction Writers on Their Craft and Culture
Three highly acclaimed Massachusetts fiction writers who have recently turned to critical  works on craft and culture--Christopher  Castellani (The Art of Perspective), Gish Jen  (Tiger Writing, The Girl at the Baggage Claim), and Margot Livesey (The Hidden Machinery)--join moderator Sven Birkerts (Then Again: The Art of Time in Memoir) to  discuss this critical turn and its relationship to their fiction. Is there a difference in their fiction and criticism? Or is fiction also a critical intervention? Who do they imagine as their readers in  each case? The panel is sponsored by Massachusetts Center for the Book, administrator of, among other programs, the Massachusetts Book Awards.
Moderators
avatar for Sven Birkerts

Sven Birkerts

Sven  Birkerts is  the  author  of  ten  books  of  criticism,  essays,  and  memoir.  Former  Director  of  the  Bennington  Writing  Seminars,  he  currently  edits  the  journal  AGNI,  based  at  Boston University.  

Presenters
avatar for Christopher Castellani

Christopher Castellani

Christopher Castellani's fourth novel, Leading Men, for which he received a Guggenheim Fellowship, will be published by Viking in February 2019. He is also the author of the novels All This Talk of Love, The Saint of Lost Things, and A Kiss from Maddalena, which received a Massachusetts... Read More →
avatar for Gish Jen

Gish Jen

Gish Jen writes both fiction and nonfiction. Her stories have appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, Ploughshares, and other magazines. Four of them have appeared in The Best American Short Stories, including The Best American Short Stories of the Century, edited by John Updike. Featured... Read More →
avatar for Margot Livesey

Margot Livesey

Margot Livesey was born and grew up on the edge of the Scottish Highlands. She has taught in numerous writing programs including Emerson College, Boston University, Bowdoin College, and the Warren Wilson low residency MFA program, and is the author of a collection of stories and eight... Read More →

Sponsors
avatar for Massachusetts Center for the Book

Saturday October 13, 2018 12:30pm - 1:30pm EDT
BPL Commonwealth Salon Dartmouth St, Boston, MA 02116, USA
  Fiction

12:30pm EDT

BBF Unbound: Queering the Canon
From memoir to plays, novels to essays, today’s queer writers are making their stamp on the written word across genres. But queer authors face additional challenges in bringing their works to market, from questions of identity and “writing in one’s own lane,” finding receptive or hard-to-reach audiences, tackling tropes, and the weight of creating Happily Ever Afters (or not) for a community inured to rejection, violence, and stereotype. Moderator Kelly J. Ford (Cottonmouths) will lead a discussion with Sara Farizan (Here to Stay), Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich (The Fact of a Body), Milo Todd (The Falcon of Doves), and David Valdes Greenwood (The Mermaid Hour) on the complications, expectations, and jubilations of living, writing, and publishing while queer.
Moderators
avatar for Kelly J. Ford

Kelly J. Ford

Kelly J. Ford is the author of Cottonmouths, named one of 2017’s best books of the year by the Los Angeles Review. Her work has appeared in Black Heart Magazine, Fried Chicken and Coffee, and Knee-Jerk Magazine, and is forthcoming in Post Road Magazine. She is Framingham State University’s... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Sara Farizan

Sara Farizan

Sara Farizan is an Iranian American YA author giving voice to Iranian and queer characters in her novels. Her debut novel, If You Could Be Mine (2013) is about two girls living in Tehran, Iran, who are very much in love, but their love is both forbidden and very dangerous. The book... Read More →
avatar for David Valdes Greenwood

David Valdes Greenwood

David Valdes Greenwood’s plays have been staged coast to coast, most recently including the National New Play Network Rolling World Premiere of The Mermaid Hour. A former Boston Globe Magazine columnist and a Huffington Post blogger, he is the author of four books, including Homo... Read More →
avatar for Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich

Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich

Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich is the author of The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir, receipient of the 2018 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Memoir and the 2018 Chautauqua Prize. Named one of the best books of the year by Entertainment Weekly, Audible.com, Bustle, Book Riot... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 12:30pm - 1:30pm EDT
Old South Guild Room 645 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Fiction   Nonfiction   Memoir

12:30pm EDT

Memoir: Love Letters
Dear Abby, Ask Amy--can you believe people used to post letters to advice columnists? Not too long ago, that became email. And now, we listen. Podcasts are the new mainstream but how to take a beloved genre--the advice column--off the page and into an ear bud? Globe columnist Meredith Goldstein transformed “Love Letters” from a column to a narrative storyline under the tutelage of podcast producer Amy Pedulla. Together they’ll pull back the curtain to explore what makes Love Letters different from the other love-related podcasts and why hearing about a breakup--with voices--is so different from reading about it. They’ll also chat about Can’t Help Myself, Goldstein’s new memoir where she admits that even advice columnists need advice.
Presenters
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 →
avatar for Amy Pedulla

Amy Pedulla

Amy Pedulla is an award-winning radio and podcast producer. She has produced the Boston Globe's Love Letters podcast, Milk Street Radio (PRX) (winner of two Gold Davey Awards, nominated for "Best New Series" and "Best Podcast" by The Taste Awards, Lifestyle Podcast Honoree, and The... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 12:30pm - 1:30pm EDT
BPL Rabb Hall 700 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Memoir

12:45pm EDT

Desirable Body
Hubert Haddad will present his bestselling book, Desirable Body, a medical mystery/fantasy/love story that delves deeply into the nature of consciousness while raising many of the ethical and existential issues facing scientists today. This author talk will be moderated by Shuchi Saraswat, curator of the Transnational Literature Series at Brookline Booksmith, an events series focused on migration, exile and displacement and works in translation. Their conversation will be followed by audience Q&A.
Moderators
avatar for Shuchi Saraswat

Shuchi Saraswat

Shuchi Saraswat's photographs and prose have appeared in Ecotone, Tin House online, Women’s Review of Books, and Quick Fiction. Her essay "The Journey Home" received a special mention in Pushcart XLII 2018 and will be anthologized in Trespass: Ecotone Essayists Beyond the Boundaries... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Hubert Haddad

Hubert Haddad

Hubert Haddad is a poet, playwright, short story writer and novelist. Born in Tunisia, he began publishing in 1967 with his first collection of poems, Le Charnier déductif. Haddad is the recipient of the Grand Prix du Roman de la Société des Gens de Lettres and the Prix des Cinq... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 12:45pm - 1:45pm EDT
French Cultural Center 53 Marlborough St, Boston, MA 02116, USA
  Fiction

12:45pm EDT

Setting the Scene: Maps // Stories
Inspired by the Norman B. Leventhal Map Center’s collection and upcoming exhibition Crossing Boundaries: Art // Maps, participants will explore maps and a few map-inspired artworks through the lens of storytelling to try and figure out the narratives they contain. Participants will create their own maps of settings for the tales they want to tell, populating them with characters and significant story elements. Everyone can take home their own story map. Facilitators will be Michelle LeBlanc and Lynn Brown from the Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library.
Ages 7+, with an adult
Presenters
avatar for Norman B. Leventhal Map and Education Center

Norman B. Leventhal Map and Education Center

The Norman B. Leventhal Map & Education Center at the Boston Public Library, created in 2004, is a nonprofit organization established as a public-private partnership between the Library and philanthropist Norman Leventhal. Its mission is to use the collection of 200,000 maps and five... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 12:45pm - 1:45pm EDT
BPL Rey Room 700 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Kids   Interactive Events

12:45pm EDT

How to Invent Everything
The bestselling and Eisner Award-winning author of Romeo and/or Juliet, creator of Dinosaur Comics, and writer of The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl, Ryan North, is back with another wry and hilarious masterpiece: How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler. As Publishers Weekly said in its starred review, it’s a “witty pop science guide intended for those demanding times when one needs to create a civilization from scratch.” A must-read for anyone planning an adventure back in time or perhaps to another planet. Poet and comic book aficionado Stephanie Burt will host what is sure to be one of the most entertaining sessions at BBF.
Moderators
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 →

Presenters
avatar for Ryan North

Ryan North

Ryan North is the writer responsible for Dinosaur Comics, the Eisner and Harvey award-winning Adventure Time comics, the #1 bestselling anthology series Machine of Death, and the New York Times-bestselling and Eisner Award-winning Unbeatable Squirrel Girl series for Marvel. He's turned... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 12:45pm - 1:45pm EDT
Boston Architectural College Cascieri Hall 320 Newbury St, Boston, MA 02115, USA
  Nonfiction

12:45pm EDT

True Story
In this engaging session, three nonfiction authors will present their work,TED-style, in a fast-paced presentation. Like TED, we will be videotaping them for inclusion on the Ideas in Action website, so the authors will be in top form. Salk Institute biologist Dr. Satchin Panda will present his electrifying scientific work from The Circadian Code. He explains how your body’s circadian clock works and how you can use this knowledge to treat many conditions. Rachel Slade will tell the tragic tale of the sinking of the El Faro from her book, Into the Raging Sea, a New York Times Editor’s Choice. Owing to the existence of 26 hours of recorded conversation among the crew before the ship sank off the coast of the Bahamas, Slade was able to construct a harrowing account of dreadful decision-making. John Kaag, author of Hiking with Nietzsche, tells a deeply personal story of how his search for wisdom led him on two journeys to the mountains above Sils Maria where Nietzsche wrote Thus Spoke Zarathustra. These three fascinating and vastly different presentations will be hosted by John Werner, founder of Ideas in Action and curator of TEDxBeaconStreet.
Moderators
avatar for John Werner

John Werner

John Werner has taken a career as an innovator in a multitude of directions. He is currently a vice president at Meta Co., an augmented reality tech company, but he started his career in education. He was a founding member of Citizen Schools, an extended-day middle-school program... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for John Kaag

John Kaag

John Kaag is a writer and professor of philosophy at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Although he has written a number of books, he is best known for American Philosophy: A Love Story (2016). The book was selected as a New York Times Editor’s Choice and an NPR Best Book of... Read More →
avatar for Satchin Panda

Satchin Panda

Satchin Panda is a leading expert in the field of circadian rhythm research. He is a professor in the Regulatory Biology Department at the Salk Institute and a founding executive member of the Center for Circadian Biology at the University of California, San Diego. Panda is a Pew... Read More →
avatar for Rachel Slade

Rachel Slade

Rachel Slade has a long history as a Boston journalist and has recently embarked on a new career as an author of narrative nonfiction. From 2007 to 2017, Slade was a writer and editor at Boston magazine, holding the titles of home design editor, senior editor, articles editor, and... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 12:45pm - 1:45pm EDT
Emmanuel Parish Hall 15 Newbury St, Boston, MA 02116, USA
  Nonfiction

1:00pm EDT

Story Time with Raúl Colón
Award-winning author and artist Raúl Colón reads from his new book Imagine! (if “reads” is the right word--the book is wordless!) (ages 4–8)
Presenters
avatar for Raúl Colón

Raúl Colón

Raúl Colón is an award-winning artist and illustrator of over thirty books for children. His 2014 wordless picture book, Draw!, was an ALA Notable Children's Book, Georgia Children's Picture Book Award Nominee, and International Latino Book Award First Place winner, among other... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 1:00pm - 1:30pm EDT
BPL Children's Library 700 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Kids

1:00pm EDT

Boston By Foot Tour
The Boston Book Festival and Boston By Foot were meant to be together! These two BBFs are teaming up to offer a free walking tour of Copley Square’s literary neighborhood. This mini-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! Also check out our kids’ listings for a special Boston By Foot walking tour for kids and families!
Saturday October 13, 2018 1:00pm - 1:45pm EDT
BPL Civic Table (outside BPL entrance) 700 Boylston St., Boston, MA 02116
  Interactive Events

1:00pm EDT

Eating from the Ground Up
“What do I do with kohlrabi?” “How about beet greens, are they edible?” In her late twenties, Alana Chernila paid for a CSA share by working at the local farmers’ market, and she fielded questions like these weekly. When a friend suggested she start a blog, “Eating from the Ground Up” was born. Two cookbooks later (The Homemade Pantry, The Homemade Kitchen), Chernila is back with a third cookbook, Eating from the Ground Up, empowering eaters everywhere to make simple, perfect vegetables. Against the backdrop of Eataly Boston, Alana Chernila will chat about how to start a blog (and turn it into a cookbook), her food writing (Food52, Martha Stewart Living), and what you should make for dinner. Sponsored by La Scuola at Eataly Boston.

Presenters
avatar for Alana Chernila

Alana Chernila

A graduate of St. John’s College in Santa Fe, Alana Chernila craves green chile almost every day. She is the author of three cookbooks, The Homemade Pantry, The Homemade Kitchen, and most recently Eating From the Ground Up. Chernila keeps a blog of the same name, which she started... Read More →

Sponsors
avatar for Eataly Boston

Saturday October 13, 2018 1:00pm - 1:45pm EDT
La Scuola at Eataly Boston Prudential Center, 800 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Nonfiction

1:00pm EDT

Autumn Jones
Autumn Jones is a soulful singer-songwriter from Maplewood, New Jersey, graduating from the same high school as Lauryn Hill, one of her inspirations. Jones, who features emotional lyrics and a powerhouse voice, has performed in the Boston area at venues such as Mavericks, Midway Cafe, Ryles Jazz Club, and the Red Room at Cafe 939.
Presenters
avatar for Autumn Jones

Autumn Jones

Autumn Jones is a soulful singer-songwriter from Maplewood, New Jersey, graduating from the same high school as Lauryn Hill, one of her inspirations. Jones, who features emotional lyrics and a powerhouse voice, has performed in the Boston area at venues such as Mavericks, Midway Cafe... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 1:00pm - 1:50pm EDT
Berklee Stage, Copley Square 560 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Berklee Stage   Music

1:15pm EDT

Authoritarianism
History provides us with many examples of authoritarian leaders and tyrants. So does Shakespeare. This session looks at our present political circumstances with an assist from the past. The great Shakespeare scholar Stephen Greenblattt will talk about his latest work, Tyrant, and show how the Bard’s plays, from Richard III to Julius Caesar to Macbeth, mirror our own times. Yale historian Timothy Snyder has spent his career studying twentieth-century European history. His latest book, The Road to Unfreedom, shows in forensic detail that authoritarianism is on the rise again, that the driving force is Putin’s Russia, and that the fruits of Putin’s malign influence, including the presidency of Donald Trump, are being sown in western democracies, which are more fragile than we imagined. To illustrate the current authoritarian threat, Amy Siskind’s The List enumerates the Trump regime’s actions that pose a threat to our democratic norms, from his acceptance of white supremacists to his demonization of the press. Our moderator for this chilling and important conversation is Harvard’s Timothy Patrick McCarthy, Director of Culture Change and Social Justice Initiatives at the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy and author of the forthcoming Stonewall’s Children: Living Queer History in the Age of Liberation, Loss, and Love.
Moderators
avatar for Timothy Patrick McCarthy

Timothy Patrick McCarthy

Timothy Patrick McCarthy is an award-winning historian, teacher, activist, and public servant. He holds a joint faculty appointment in Harvard’s undergraduate honors program in history and literature, the Graduate School of Education, and the John F. Kennedy School of Government... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Stephen Greenblatt

Stephen Greenblatt

Pulitzer Prize–winning literary historian Stephen Greenblatt has made a career out of the study of William Shakespeare and the cultural output of the early modern era. He taught at the University of California, Berkeley for nearly thirty years before taking a position at Harvard... Read More →
avatar for Amy Siskind

Amy Siskind

Amy Siskind is an advocate, writer, and expert on fostering women’s success, and a national public face for these issues. She is the cofounder and president of The New Agenda, an advocacy nonprofit working for the economic  and gender-based advancement of women and girls. At the... Read More →
avatar for Timothy Snyder

Timothy Snyder

Timothy Snyder is a leading scholar and historian of European history. Currently the Housum Professor of History at Yale University, Snyder has taught a variety of courses, including European political history and the history of the Holocaust, since 2001. He earned his PhD from Oxford... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 1:15pm - 2:15pm EDT
Old South Sanctuary 645 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Nonfiction

1:30pm EDT

Appearance by Maisy
Let Maisy's colorful personality brighten your BBF day!
Saturday October 13, 2018 1:30pm - 2:00pm EDT
Brainstorm Tent, Copley Square 560 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Kids

1:30pm EDT

Readings: Intimacy, Intrigue, and Inheritance
Nothing’s simple in this trio of intriguing novels about the intricacies of lives and relationships. In Suzanne Matson’s Ultraviolet, three generations of women strive to define themselves as individuals but also in relation to one another; Kirkus praises the novel’s “unsentimental reflection on both the tribulations and the importance of filial connection.” In The Dante Chamber, a companion to The Dante Club, Matthew Pearl imagines a group of detectives--who also happen to be nineteenth-century literary luminaries--investigating a mystery that may implicate one of their own. Finally, in Spencer Wise’s The Emperor of Shoes, the personal and global become entangled when a young man sets out to oversee his family’s shoemaking business in southern China and realizes the human cost of economic prosperity. Our host for this session of fascinating fiction readings is Aaron Devine, organizer of the Dorchester reading series Write on the DOT. Sponsored by BookBub.
Moderators
avatar for Aaron Devine

Aaron Devine

Aaron Devine is a writer, educator, and translator. His writing has been published in McSweeney's Internet Tendency, The Good Men Project, Origins Journal, and Window Cat Press. He earned his MFA in fiction from UMass Boston in 2013. In 2011 he helped found the Write on the DOT reading... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Suzanne Matson

Suzanne Matson

Suzanne Matson received a BA in English from Portland State University, an MA in creative writing from the University of Washington, and a PhD in English from the University of Washington, where she was awarded the Robert B. Heilman Dissertation Prize, an Academy of American Poets... Read More →
avatar for Matthew Pearl

Matthew Pearl

Matthew Pearl's novels offer a fascinating mix of history and mystery. His novels, which include The Dante Club and The Poe Shadow,  have been international and New York Times bestsellers and been translated into more than thirty languages. His nonfiction writing has appeared in... Read More →
avatar for Spencer Wise

Spencer Wise

Spencer Wise is a debut author whose historical novel, The Emperor of Shoes, tells the story of a Bostonian expat living in Southern China while running his family's shoe factory and falling in love. The book was named a Library Journal Best Debut of Summer 2018. Wise himself was... Read More →

Sponsors
avatar for BookBub

Saturday October 13, 2018 1:30pm - 2:15pm EDT
BPL Newsfeed Cafe 700 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Fiction

1:30pm EDT

BBF Unbound: Take Your Audio Shelfie
Audio Shelfie is a digital storytelling project that gives readers a space to tell stories about the roles books play in their lives. The hosts pose questions about reading and collect stories from participants that are then paired with a photo of the storyteller to create an "audio shelfie." This live session is an “Audio Shelfie” mini-storytelling festival. To prepare for the session, we’re asking readers to think and write about this question: “What is the most meaningful reading experience of your life?” During the session, host Mary Mahoney will also play some recorded stories from the Audio Shelfie site in which readers address the same question. Those present who want to share their own stories will be invited to do so for the audience, and have their stories recorded to be part of our digital storytelling project. Whether you want to share your story or just listen to others’, meet other readers at this celebration of the place of books in our lives.
Presenters
avatar for Mary Mahoney

Mary Mahoney

Mary Mahoney is a historian and digital storyteller currently serving as the Andrew W. Mellon postdoctoral fellow in digital humanities at Trinity College. She hosts a podcast called Chapters that tells the stories of readers' lives through the books that have meant the most to them... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 1:30pm - 2:30pm EDT
BPL Exchange 700 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Interactive Events   Sessions for Writers

1:30pm EDT

Memoir: Confronting a Nazi Past
As Julie Lindahl researched her memoir, The Pendulum: A Granddaughter’s Search for Her Family’s Forbidden Nazi Past, she saw things that disturbed her. It was not just at the German Federal Archives where she learned that her grandfather was an SS Special Führer for Landed Estates in East Prussia and Poland, although that was plenty disturbing. What she saw around her was a resurgence of the kind of racism that reached a fever pitch during her grandparents’ time. Her memoir became not just a reckoning with a past that was hidden from her as a child growing up in Brazil, where her grandparents had fled from prosecution for war crimes, but also a plea to the descendants of both the perpetrators and the survivors to sound the alarm. Lindahl will be interviewed by Leslie Gilbert-Lurie, whose memoir, Bending Toward the Sun, tells the story of her mother, a Holocaust survivor, and the ripple effects of trauma through the generations.
Moderators
avatar for Leslie Gilbert-Lurie

Leslie Gilbert-Lurie

Leslie Gilbert-Lurie is a human rights lawyer, philanthropist, and writer. She has worked for the betterment of children in the Los Angeles area and around the world. Gilbert-Lurie is the cochair of the Human Rights Watch’s Los Angeles Committee and is also a founding board member... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Julie Lindahl

Julie Lindahl

Julie Lindahl is a Brazilian-born American author, educator, and democracy activist who lives in Sweden. In 2010 she learned that her grandparents had been in the SS in occupied Poland throughout the duration of WWII, seeking refuge in Latin America as new war crimes trials started... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 1:30pm - 2:30pm EDT
Boston Architectural College The Beehive 951 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Memoir

1:30pm EDT

Strange but True Crime
This session explores some obscure objects of desire that have driven people to commit bizarre crimes. In The Feather Thief, journalist and documentarian Kirk Wallace Johnson profiles a young American flutist who risked everything to steal a collection of priceless feathers from the British Museum of Natural History. Why? To feed his obsession with the Victorian art of salmon fly-tying, of course. In The Dinosaur Artist, New Yorker staff writer Paige Williams investigates the rarified world of fossil hunting and the black market trade in dinosaurs. In the process, she questions the conflict between science and commerce. And in In Vino Duplicitas, Peter Hellman, journalist and long-time contributor to Wine Spectator, shines a light on wine fraud, forgery, gullible billionaires, and competitive snobbery in the highest echelons of wine connoisseurship. These three works of nonfiction read like thrillers in the hands of these outstanding authors. Shira Springer, who covers stories on sports and society for WBUR, will moderate this discussion of strange but entirely true crimes.
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... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Peter Hellman

Peter Hellman

Peter Hellman is an author and journalist with a decades-long career who has written about everything from wine fraud to true crime to the Holocaust. He is the author of Chief!: Classic Cases from the Files of the Chief of Detectives (1974), about NYPD Chief of Detectives Al Seedman... Read More →
avatar for Kirk Wallace Johnson

Kirk Wallace Johnson

Kirk Wallace Johnson is a journalist, writer, and former refugee worker. He first served in Baghdad with the US Agency for International Development. In the aftermath of the Iraq War, Johnson worked on the ground in Fallujah as the first construction coordinator for the Agency. He... Read More →
avatar for Paige Williams

Paige Williams

Paige Williams is a decorated journalist. A staff writer at the New Yorker, she is also a former newspaper reporter, having worked for the Washington Post, the Charlotte Observer, and the Clarion-Ledger. She won the National Magazine Award for features writing and has been anthologized... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 1:30pm - 2:30pm EDT
Emmanuel Sanctuary 15 Newbury St, Boston, MA 02116, USA
  Nonfiction

1:30pm EDT

YA: What's the Inspiration?
Novelists find inspiration wherever life takes them--these three talented writers transform classic stories and symbols into something entirely fresh and new. In Blanca & Roja, Anna-Marie McLemore combines elements of “Snow White and Rose Red” and Swan Lake, transforming them into an original Latinx fairy tale that Kirkus Reviews calls “a poignant retelling” in a starred review. As she did previously in Saving Hamlet, Molly Booth finds inspiration in Shakespeare, this time recasting Much Ado About Nothing as a queer summer camp romance, in Nothing Happened, praised by Booklist for its “vibrant, diverse cast and respectful depiction of mental health issues.” And Nova Ren Suma, in A Room Away from the Wolves, infuses a foreboding story of abuse and escape with classic elements of Gothic mysteries and dark fairy tales, in the process, according to NPR, making “the Gothic bitingly modern.” Where will you find your inspiration? Perhaps in this rich discussion, moderated by Laura Koenig of the Boston Public Library.
Moderators
avatar for Laura Koenig

Laura Koenig

Laura Koenig is the Team Leader for Children’s Services at the Central Library of the Boston PublicLibrary, where she was an integral part of the redesign of their award-winning children’s and teenspaces. She is an active presenter and committee member for the Association for... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Molly Booth

Molly Booth

If there is one thing you should know about Molly Booth, it is that she really likes Shakespeare. The various work of this young adult novelist, theater director, and podcaster all has to do with the Bard. In her first book, Saving Hamlet (2016), Emma Allen unwittingly time travels... Read More →
avatar for Anna-Marie McLemore

Anna-Marie McLemore

Anna-Marie McLemore grew up in a Mexican American family, and she writes her YA books from that space. She attended the University of Southern California on a Trustee Scholarship. A Lambda Literary Fellow, her work has been featured by the Huntington-USC Institute on California and... Read More →
avatar for Nova Ren Suma

Nova Ren Suma

Nova Ren Suma is a bestselling author of young adult fiction. Her novel The Walls Around Us (2015) was a New York Times bestseller and a finalist for an Edgar Award. She is also the author of Imaginary Girls (2011) and 17 & Gone (2013). She is the cocreator, with Emily X.R. Pan, of... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 1:30pm - 2:30pm EDT
BPL Teen Central 700 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Young Adult

1:45pm EDT

Story Time with Melissa Stewart
Prolific and award-winning nonfiction author Melissa Stewart celebrates animal underdogs with her new book Pipsqueaks, Slowpokes, and Stinkers (ages 4–8)
Presenters
avatar for Melissa Stewart

Melissa Stewart

Melissa Stewart is the award-winning author of more than 180 science books for children, including Can an Aardvark Bark? (2017); No Monkeys, No Chocolate (2013); and Feathers: Not Just for Flying (2013). She is also the coauthor of Perfect Pairs: Using Fiction & Nonfiction Picture... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 1:45pm - 2:15pm EDT
BPL Children's Library 700 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Kids

1:45pm EDT

Dangerous Places
In the world of crime fiction, danger lurks everywhere: at home, at work, at leisure, in settings familiar, exotic, and unimaginable. Four mystery authors reveal how they deal with danger in vastly different locations and situations. James Hayman sets his Mike McCabe/Maggie Savage thrillers in Portland, Maine. Paul Kemprecos’s detective/adventure novels take place by the sea, on the seas, and under the sea. Clea Simon’s most recent noir took readers deep into Boston’s punk rock history. And Susan Oleksiw’s three mystery series all have distinctive settings: from a New England farm to a tourist hotel in southern India. Moderator Mo Walsh, president of the New England chapter of Mystery Writers of America, will be our fearless guide through these perilous locales. Sponsored by Mystery Writers of America-New England.
Moderators
avatar for Mo Walsh

Mo Walsh

Mo Walsh sets her short crime stories in places and situations that have distinctive character: a second-rate resort, a society wedding, an all-night convenience store, an alien spaceship. Her first published story, “Roadside Roulette,” won the Mary Higgins Clark Short Mystery/Suspense... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for James Hayman

James Hayman

James Hayman sets his Mike McCabe/Maggie Savage thrillers in Portland, Maine, the state’s most populous city and tourist destination, and the largest tonnage seaport in New England. His team of police detectives debuted in 2009 in The Cutting. Four more McCabe/Savage thrillers... Read More →
avatar for Paul Kemprecos

Paul Kemprecos

Paul Kemprecos sets his detective/adventure novels by the sea, on the seas, and under the sea. His series about philosophic fisherman, charter boat captain, and part-time PI Aristotle “Soc” Socarides made its Shamus Award–winning debut in 1991 with Cool Blue Tomb, took a hiatus... Read More →
avatar for Susan Oleksiw

Susan Oleksiw

Susan Oleksiw’s three mystery series occur in distinctive settings. Below the Tree Line (2018) in the new Pioneer Valley series introduced Felicity O'Brien, a rural New England farmer and healer who receives extravagant offers for her family land. In Oleksiw’s Anita Ray series... Read More →
avatar for Clea Simon

Clea Simon

Clea Simon returned to her Boston punk rock past in fall 2017 with World Enough (Severn House), an edgy urban noir. Author of three nonfiction books and 22 cozy/amateur sleuth mysteries, mostly featuring cats, she went feline again in 2018 with the black cat–narrated Cross My... Read More →

Sponsors
avatar for Mystery Writers of America-New England

Saturday October 13, 2018 1:45pm - 2:45pm EDT
BPL McKim Exhibition Hall Dartmouth St, Boston, MA 02116, USA
  Fiction

1:45pm EDT

Fiction: Between Cultures
The fiction writers we’ll meet in this session all write about characters whose primary struggles transpire in the liminal spaces between places, viewpoints, or ways of life. Yang Huang’s interconnected short stories collected in My Old Faithful trace a three-decade family history in China and the United States, as personal joys and sorrows play out against the background of China’s rapid social and economic change. Family stories are also at the center of Fatima Farheen Mirza’s buzzed-about debut novel A Place for Us, as a family wedding in India reunites parents and children who have been divided by geography and generation. This session also features two Boston-centered novels. In Pushcart Prize-winning author Blair Hurley’s The Devoted, a young woman finds herself torn between a charismatic Zen master and the remnants of her rigid Catholic upbringing. And Sam Graham-Felsen’s coming-of-age novel Green takes readers back to the early 1990s, as a white boy attending a predominantly black middle school is compelled to acknowledge his own privilege for the first time. Bridging any gaps between these four talented writers is our moderator, award-winning writer and educator Adam Stumacher.
Moderators
avatar for Adam Stumacher

Adam Stumacher

Adam Stumacher is an award-winning writer of both fiction and nonfiction, as well as an educator. His short stories have been published in Granta, Narrative, The Kenyon Review, The Sun, TriQuarterly, and was anthologized in Best New American Voices. He has won a Nelson Algren Award... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Sam Graham-Felsen

Sam Graham-Felsen

Sam Graham-Felsen is an author, journalist, and the former blogger of the 2008 Barack Obama campaign. His debut novel is Green, which is set in Jamaica Plain and delves into white privilege, racism, and the dawning of racial awareness by chronicling the friendship of white David... Read More →
avatar for Yang Huang

Yang Huang

Yang Huang is both a successful writer and a computer engineer. Raised in China, Yang Huang moved to the United States for college. She earned a degree in computer science, and later her MFA from the University of Arizona. Her first novel, Living Treasures, was published in 2014... Read More →
avatar for Blair Hurley

Blair Hurley

Blair Hurley is a writer, educator, and debut novelist. Her novel, The Devoted, is about a lost young woman who falls in love with Zen Buddhism and her spiritual teacher as she embarks on her spiritual and sexual coming of age. The book was named a top pick for summer and fall 2018... Read More →
avatar for Fatima Farheen Mirza

Fatima Farheen Mirza

Fatima Farheen Mirza is a graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a recipient of the Michener-Copernicus Fellowship. Her first novel, A Place for Us, was an "Indie Next List" pick and an instant New York Times bestseller. It was also the first book acquired by Sarah Jessica... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 1:45pm - 2:45pm EDT
Old South Mary Norton 645 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Fiction

1:45pm 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 he captured a character’s distinctive personality? 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 rural Vermont: Robin MacArthur (Heart Spring Mountain), William Martin (Bound for Gold), and Laura van den Berg (The Third Hotel). Our host is novelist Henriette Lazaridis, author of The Clover House. 
Moderators
avatar for Henriette Lazaridis

Henriette Lazaridis

Henriette Lazaridis has dedicated her career to telling stories. Her debut novel, The Clover House (2013), was called a “stunning debut novel” by USA Today. She earned degrees in English literature from Middlebury College, Oxford University (as a Rhodes Scholar) and the University... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Laura van den Berg

Laura van den Berg

Laura van den Berg is the award-winning author of two novels, two story collections, and numerous stories and essays. Her first novel, Find Me (2015), was longlisted for the 2016 International Dylan Thomas Prize and was selected as a best book of the year by NPR and Buzzfeed. Her... Read More →
avatar for Robin MacArthur

Robin MacArthur

Robin MacArthur is a writer, educator, and musician. She is the editor of Contemporary Vermont Fiction: An Anthology and is half of the folk-music duo Red Heart the Ticker. MacArthur has received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and two Creation Grants. Her debut... Read More →
avatar for William Martin

William Martin

New York Times bestselling author William Martin is a historical fiction writer of legendary American locations, from Cape Cod to Annapolis to The City of Dreams. His first novel, Back Bay, introduced Boston treasure hunter Peter Fallon, who is still tracking artifacts across the... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 1:45pm - 2:45pm EDT
BPL McKim Lower Level B Dartmouth St, Boston, MA 02116, USA
  Sessions for Writers   Fiction

2:00pm EDT

Everywhere and Nowhere
Join social justice project Wee the People for Everywhere and Nowhere, an interactive workshop exploring powerful stories of the immigrant experience: leaving home, crossing borders, finding belonging, and celebrating culture. This workshop will feature a storytime with live music, a kids' Round the World open mic, and a passport craft activity to places real and imagined! 2:00pm storytime will read A Different Pond (a story from Vietnam).
Ages 4+, with an adult
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.Profile of Wee the People

Saturday October 13, 2018 2:00pm - 2:45pm EDT
Brainstorm Tent, Copley Square 560 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Kids   Interactive Events   Music

2:00pm EDT

Sheila del Bosque
Born in 1994 in Havana, Sheila del Bosque is one of the most in-demand young flutists in Cuba. A performer on recorder, Baroque, and modern transverse flute, with a background in ancient, classical, and Cuban popular music, del Bosque has played with orchestras such as Ars Longa, Orchestra of Lyceum Mozartian from Havana, and the National Orchestra of Cuba. Del Bosque has toured the world with various ensembles like the dance company Habana Compas Dance and the Cuban European Youth Orchestra. Sheila del Bosque's Trio mixes contemporary and traditional Afro-Cuban music with the influence of European and jazz ingredients.
Presenters
avatar for Sheila del Bosque

Sheila del Bosque

Born in 1994 in Havana, Sheila del Bosque is one of the most in-demand young flutists in Cuba. A performer on recorder, Baroque, and modern transverse flute, with a background in ancient, classical, and Cuban popular music, del Bosque has played with orchestras such as Ars Longa... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 2:00pm - 2:50pm EDT
Berklee Stage, Copley Square 560 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Berklee Stage   Music

2:00pm EDT

Science Comics Workshop
From the depths of the ocean to the vastness of outer space, from the mysteries of physics to the marvels of the human body, cartoons can help kids visualize even the most complicated concepts and make learning about science (even more) fun! In this interactive session, cartoonists Alex Graudins (Science Comics: The Brain), Maris Wicks (Science Comics: Coral Reefs), and Braden Lamb and Shelli Paroline (One Day a Dot: The Story of You, the Universe, and Everything) will lead young science artists through two fun and silly drawing exercises. And at the end of the hour? The group will have made a comic!
Ages 9-13
Presenters
avatar for Alex Graudins

Alex Graudins

Alex Graudins is a cartoonist who has published comics both in print and online. The Brain: The Ultimate Thinking Machine, written by Tory Woollcott, is her first book. She has contributed to Sweaty Palms (volume 2),  Dirty Diamonds (issues 6–8), The Adventure Zine, and the graphic... Read More →
avatar for Braden Lamb

Braden Lamb

Braden Lamb is an artist and cartoonist, and one of the hands behind the award-winning monthly Adventure Time comics. Lamb studied film in upstate New York before moving to Boston and starting an art career. Lamb worked with his wife and art partner, Shelli Paroline, on Adventure... Read More →
avatar for Shelli Paroline

Shelli Paroline

Shelli Paroline loved reading comics and science fiction as a child and grew up to create comics herself. She and her husband Braden Lamb form an Eisner Award-winning art team, collaborating on such series as the Adventure Time comics and The Midas Flesh. Paroline is codirector of... Read More →
avatar for Maris Wicks

Maris Wicks

Maris Wicks has found a way to combine two of her greatest passions: science and comics. She is the writer and illustrator of science comics; she has turned everything from the human body to coral reefs to urban ecology into incredible and colorful comics. She has written and/or illustrated... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 2:00pm - 3:00pm EDT
BPL Rey Room 700 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Kids   Interactive Events

2:00pm EDT

In the Public Interest?
Sometimes it is difficult to believe that people in positions of power are looking out for the public interest. In her amazing history of the opioid crisis, Dopesick, author Beth Macy traces the history of the epidemic, from the early days when Purdue Pharma put OxyContin on the market with dubious claims about its less addictive properties, to the present, when sympathy for those addicted to opioids may be plentiful but little funding for treatment is forthcoming, despite the predominance of the afflicted living in Trump country. Eve Ewing, in Ghosts in the Schoolyard, a “chilling must- read investigation of racism in Chicago’s education system” according to Foreword Reviews, asks what role race, power, and history played in the closing of 54 public schools in Chicago in 2013. The book offers a critique of the housing, education, and legal systems that contribute to the problem. This discussion of communities in distress will be led by Meghan Irons, reporter and City Hall Bureau Chief for the Boston Globe.
Moderators
avatar for Meghan Irons

Meghan Irons

Meghan Irons is a veteran journalist at the Boston Globe, covering a range of topics that touch on how culture, politics, and social issues intersect with everyday life. She was a member of the award-winning project 68 Blocks, has explored the diverse communities in Boston, and currently... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Eve Ewing

Eve Ewing

Eve Ewing is a Chicago-bred writer, artist, and scholar who has made her career about fighting social and racial injustice, particularly in the sphere of public education. Her first book, Electric Arches, is a collage of visual art, poetry, and prose that ruminates on the experience... Read More →
avatar for Beth Macy

Beth Macy

Beth Macy is a journalist, frequent lecturer/speaker, and a Midwesterner who lives in Virginia. In 2010 she was awarded a Nieman Fellowship for Journalism by Harvard University. She is the author of the bestsellers Truevine: Two Brothers, a Kidnapping and a Mother’s Quest: A True... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 2:00pm - 3:00pm EDT
BPL Commonwealth Salon Dartmouth St, Boston, MA 02116, USA
  Nonfiction

2:00pm EDT

Renaissance Redux
This session will look at two notable Renaissance people: one whose very name is synonymous with the scientific and artistic achievements of that era, and one whose name was barely known to us, until now. Walter Isaacson, whose previous bestsellers explored other restless, creative geniuses such as Benjamin Franklin, Einstein, and Steve Jobs, delves into the astonishing creativity and curiosity that drove the most famous of Renaissance men, Leonardo da Vinci. And, in Renaissance Woman: The Life of Vittoria Colonna, author Ramie Targoff, professor of English and co-chair of Italian studies at Brandeis University, examines the life and times of an extraordinary woman--the first to publish poetry in Italy. Her connections to the powerful, including Charles V and more than one pope, as well as her close friendship with Michelangelo, gave her tremendous influence and power in Roman society. As the NYT Book Review states, “Vittoria Colonna has always deserved to be better known. Ramie Targoff’s fine book will surely make that happen." Our discussion of these fascinating figures will be led by modern-day Renaissance man David Leonard, president of the Boston Public Library. Sponsored by the Boston Public Library.
Moderators
avatar for David Leonard

David Leonard

Born in Dublin, David Leonard first arrived in Boston in 1992 to pursue a doctorate in philosophy at Boston College. In 2009, with extensive experience in technology and management consulting, Leonard joined the management team at the Boston Public Library, one of Boston’s great... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Walter Isaacson

Walter Isaacson

Walter Isaacson is a veteran of print and broadcast journalism. Former chairman and CEO of CNN, Isaacson began his career in journalism at The Sunday Times of London and the New Orleans Times-Picayune. Starting in 1978, Isaacson was a correspondent, then a national editor, then an... Read More →
avatar for Ramie Targoff

Ramie Targoff

Ramie Targoff is a writer, researcher, and educator whose work focuses on the literature and culture of the Renaissance, with an emphasis on the relationship between literature and religion. She is the author of six books, including John Donne, Body and Soul (2008) and Posthumous... Read More →

Sponsors
avatar for Boston Public Library

Saturday October 13, 2018 2:00pm - 3:00pm EDT
BPL Rabb Hall 700 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Nonfiction

2:00pm EDT

Saving Planet Earth
Our planet is facing an unprecedented threat from one, and only one, species: humans. There are two diametrically opposing mindsets on how to repair the damage that’s already been done and prepare, the earth for an ever-growing number of people on it: use much less or innovate much more. In The Wizard and the Prophet, Charles Mann, referred to by the Washington Post as a “compelling and forensic analyst of big tipping points in human affairs,” explores these narratives through the “prophet” who believes that there are natural limits to the planet and humans should conserve more; and the “wizard” who is convinced human ingenuity can overcome any challenge. Astrobiologist David Grinspoon is squarely in the wizard camp. In Earth in Human Hands, called by the Daily Kos a “page-turning masterpiece of speculative nonfiction,” he takes a planetary perspective on the Anthropocene and notes that while humans did not intend to alter the planet, we have done so inadvertently and now what is required is intentional planetary change. Come prepared for one of the most important conversations of our time that explores everything from apocalyptic environmentalism to interplanetary colonization, moderated by Beth Daley of InsideClimate News.
Moderators
avatar for Beth Daley

Beth Daley

Beth Daley is an award-winning journalist who has over twenty years of experience investigating and writing about health, science, and the environment. Currently the director of strategic development at InsideClimate News, she wrote for the Boston Globe for nearly two decades and... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for David Grinspoon

David Grinspoon

David Grinspoon is a celebrated astrobiologist, author, and person who talks a lot about science. He is a senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute and an adjunct professor at the University of Colorado. He has worked on several spacecraft missions with space agencies in... Read More →
avatar for Charles C. Mann

Charles C. Mann

Charles C. Mann is a journalist and author. His book 1491 won the U.S. National Academy of Sciences’ Keck award for the best book of the year. A correspondent for the Atlantic Monthly, Science, and Wired, he has covered the intersection of science, technology, and commerce for many... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 2:00pm - 3:00pm EDT
Church of the Covenant 67 Newbury St, Boston, MA 02116, USA
  Nonfiction

2:15pm EDT

Dévorés
Charles-Étienne Ferland will present his science fiction novel Dévorés. Ferland deploys his background in environmental science and insect ecology in his novel, which  brings readers into a dystopian world where food reserves and agricultural crops are ravaged by a new wasp-like insect species that operates until there is almost nothing left to eat but the last prey...human beings. Anyone who ventures outside during the day is doomed to a deadly destiny, and soon people compete against one another for the remaining commodities. Ferland 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 of 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 Charles-Étienne Ferland

Charles-Étienne Ferland

From Montréal, Québec, Canada, Charles-Étienne Ferland pursued arts and environmental studies at the University of Ottawa, in Ontario, receiving a baccalaureate degree after which he did an internship in insect classification at the Linné Station in Sweden. He then started a master's... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 2:15pm - 3:30pm EDT
French Cultural Center 53 Marlborough St, Boston, MA 02116, USA
  Fiction

2:15pm EDT

Urbanism
Urban areas are the future, and they are also the laboratories for technological innovation and social change. We are pleased to present three outstanding authors on the subject of urbanism. Jeff Speck’s Walkable City distilled the key to urban liveability in one word: walkability. Now, in Walkable City Rules, Speck offers an action plan for cities that desire to enhance street life and livability. Cassim Shepard, founding editor-in-chief of Urban Omnibus, surveys the ways in which citizens are on the vanguard of urban practices today in his book, Citymakers. He argues that the challenges of growing inequality and climate change demand creative coalitions among citizen-activists, ecologists, artists, and public officials. And Matthew Frederick, an advocate for Radical Urbanism, in his engaging 101 Things I Learned in Urban Design School, gives an overview of the basic rules of urban design. Diana Ramirez-Jasso, provost of the Boston Architectural College, will moderate what is sure to be a lively conversation about cities.
Moderators
avatar for Diana Ramirez-Jasso

Diana Ramirez-Jasso

Diana Ramirez-Jasso has dedicated her career to the creation and teaching of architecture and design. Ramirez-Jasso, who joined the staff of Boston Architectural College in 2010, became the provost of the college in 2017. Her areas of research and study particularly deal with the... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Matthew Frederick

Matthew Frederick

Matthew Frederick is an architect, urban designer, and advocate for Radical Urbanism, a new philosophy of urban development. His first book, 101 Things I Learned in Architecture School, was a Los Angeles Times bestseller. It remains, eleven years after publication, the intermittent... Read More →
avatar for Cassim Shepard

Cassim Shepard

Cassim Shepard is a media producer, filmmaker, lecturer, and educator whose work focuses on cities, buildings, and urban development. His film and video work tells the stories of cities and the development of urban spaces. His documentary work has been commissioned by and screened... Read More →
avatar for Jeff Speck

Jeff Speck

Jeff Speck is a city planner and urban designer who advocates for more walkable and generally accessible cities. As director of design at the National Endowment for the Arts from 2003 through 2007, he oversaw the Mayors' Institute on City Design and created the Governors' Institute... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 2:15pm - 3:30pm EDT
Boston Architectural College Cascieri Hall 320 Newbury St, Boston, MA 02115, USA
  Nonfiction

2:15pm EDT

MIT Press Pitchfest
Editors receive hundreds of inquires each year. What makes one book project stand out from the rest? Pitchfest will give six contestants--out of dozens who submitted proposals--the opportunity to present their best science or technology book idea before a panel of judges--Harvard Book Store head buyer Rachel Cass; MIT Press acquiring editors Beth Clevenger and Jermey Matthews; professor and MIT Press editorial board chair David Kaiser; and Knight Science Journalism associate director Ashley Smart--and a live audience: that’s you! The winner will be given the opportunity to workshop a full-fledged book proposal with an MIT Press editor, get advice on how to navigate the publishing world, and receive a $1000 cash prize. This session will be hosted by MIT Press editor Robert V. Prior and is sponsored by the MIT Press, a leading publisher of books and journals at the intersection of science, technology, and the arts.

The submissions period for Pitchfest is now closed. For more information, visit https://mitpress.mit.edu/pitchfest.
Presenters
avatar for Rachel Cass

Rachel Cass

Rachel Cass is the Buying & Inventory Manager at Harvard Book Store in Cambridge. She became a bookseller in 2006, managed the award-winning Harvard Book Store author event series from 2011 to 2013, and became head buyer in 2013. Before becoming a bookseller, she pursued graduate... Read More →
avatar for Beth Clevenger

Beth Clevenger

Since joining the MIT Press in early 2014, Beth Clevenger has published a diverse set of scholarly and trade books on the environment and cities, spanning the environmental humanities, climate change, renewable energy, food justice, the science of cities, and displacement and gentrification... Read More →
avatar for David Kaiser

David Kaiser

David Kaiser is the Germeshausen Professor of the History of Science and Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also chairs the Editorial Board of the MIT Press. His award-winning books include How the Hippies Saved Physics: Science, Counterculture... Read More →
avatar for Jermey Matthews

Jermey Matthews

Jermey Matthews is a former science writer and books editor for Physics Today magazine and a former PhD research scientist and engineer. He now acquires trade books and textbooks in physics, astronomy, chemistry, materials science, engineering, and mathematics for the MIT Press.
avatar for Robert V. Prior

Robert V. Prior

During his thirty years at MIT Press, Robert V. Prior has published hundreds of trade and scholarly books in areas as diverse as neuroscience, computer science, natural history, electronic privacy, evolution, and design. He has even managed to sneak one novel onto the otherwise completely... Read More →
avatar for Ashley Smart

Ashley Smart

Ashley Smart recently joined MIT as the associate director of the Knight Science Journalism program. Prior to that he spent eight years as an editor at Physics Today magazine and was a 2015-16 Knight Science Journalism fellow.

Sponsors
avatar for MIT Press

Saturday October 13, 2018 2:15pm - 3:30pm EDT
Old South Guild Room 645 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Sessions for Writers   Interactive Events

2:30pm EDT

Appearance by Mother Bruce
Bruce the Bear might seem cranky, but we bet you can cheer him up!
Saturday October 13, 2018 2:30pm - 3:00pm EDT
Brainstorm Tent, Copley Square 560 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Kids

2:30pm EDT

Story Time with Adam Rex
Author and artist Adam Rex reads from his hilarious new book Are You Scared, Darth Vader? (ages 5–8). Costumes encouraged!
Presenters
avatar for Adam Rex

Adam Rex

Adam Rex started drawing and painting as a young child, and he never looked back. Now he is the New York Times bestselling author and illustrator of Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich. His other books include The True Meaning of Smekday, which was made into the hit animated movie Home... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 2:30pm - 3:00pm EDT
BPL Children's Library 700 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Kids

2:30pm EDT

Readings: Reimagining History
In this session, we’ll hear readings by three inventive novelists whose fiction takes a decidedly unconventional approach to retelling history. In the first two volumes of her Winternight trilogy (most recently The Girl in the Tower) Katherine Arden skillfully weaves together medieval Russian history and fairy tales in a combination that Kirkus praises for “[transforming] old material into something fresh.” Debut novelist Jordy Rosenberg’s Confessions of the Fox (called a “cunning masterpiece of vulpine versatility” by the New Yorker) is simultaneously a genderqueer reimagining of the legendary eighteenth-century outlaw Jack Sheppard and a satire of modern-day academia. And in his retro-Afrofuturistic novella The Black God’s Drums, P. Djèlí Clark populates nineteenth-century New Orleans with airships, Haitian sky smugglers, and powerful orisha magic. Our host for this journey into an imagined past is novelist Jennifer S. Brown, author of Modern Girls. Sponsored by BookBub.
Moderators
avatar for Jennifer S. Brown

Jennifer S. Brown

Jennifer S. Brown lives, writes, runs, and mothers in the suburbs of Boston. She earned a BFA in filmmaking from New York University and an MFA in creative writing from the University of Washington. Brown later worked as an editor at what was then billed a, “that little online bookstore... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Katherine Arden

Katherine Arden

Katherine Arden is the author of the dark and whimsical Winternight trilogy that reimagines myth and being a woman in Medieval Russia. The first in the series and her debut novel, The Bear and the Nightingale, was a bestseller that Booklist called “utterly bewitching” in a starred... Read More →
avatar for P. Djèlí Clark

P. Djèlí Clark

P. Djèlí Clark is a writer of speculative fiction that explores African American and Afro-Caribbean magic and mythology. His short stories have been published in Daily Science Fiction, Every Day Fiction, Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Tor.com, and the anthologies Griots I & II, Steamfunk... Read More →
avatar for Jordy Rosenberg

Jordy Rosenberg

Jordy Rosenberg is the author of Confessions of the Fox, a New York Times Editor's Choice selection that was also longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize. He is a professor of eighteenth-century literature, gender and sexuality studies, and critical theory at the University... Read More →

Sponsors
avatar for BookBub

Saturday October 13, 2018 2:30pm - 3:15pm EDT
BPL Newsfeed Cafe 700 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Fiction

2:30pm EDT

What an MFA in Creative Writing Can Do for You (And What It Can't)
In this informal discussion session, Lesley University MFA faculty Janet Pocorobba and Danielle Legros Georges and alumna Heather Hughes will engage participants, and offer their experiences in and viewpoints on MFA programs: from practical advice, to statements of conviction, to cautionary tales. Topics may include artistic faith and the value of community, how to choose the best writing program for you, the difference between full-time and low-residency programs, nurturing confidence in developing one’s craft, the importance of diversity in writing culture and writing programs, and common concerns of emerging writers. If your BBF day has inspired you to jumpstart your writing career, come with your burning questions about pursuing an MFA! Sponsored by Lesley University.
Presenters
avatar for Danielle Legros Georges

Danielle Legros Georges

Danielle Legros Georges is a professor of creative writing and the interim director of the MFA in Creative Writing Program at Lesley University. She is the author of two books of poems, The Dear Remote Nearness of You and Maroon; the chapbook Letters from Congo; and editor of... Read More →
avatar for Heather Hughes

Heather Hughes

Heather Hughes hangs her heart in her native Miami and in Somerville. She is an associate editor at Harvard University Press and letterpress tutor at the Bow & Arrow Press, as well as a writer for Mass Poetry online and an editorial associate for Scoundrel Time. Her poems appear in The... Read More →
avatar for Janet Pocorobba

Janet Pocorobba

Janet Pocorobba is an associate professor at Lesley University and the associate director of their low-residency MFA Program in Creative Writing. She received her MFA from Lesley in June 2006. Her memoirs, essays, and reviews have appeared in The Rumpus,Harvard Review, The Writer... Read More →

Sponsors
avatar for Lesley University

Saturday October 13, 2018 2:30pm - 3:30pm EDT
Emmanuel Parish Hall 15 Newbury St, Boston, MA 02116, USA
  Sessions for Writers

3:00pm EDT

Boston By Foot Tour
The Boston Book Festival and Boston By Foot were meant to be together! These two BBFs are teaming up to offer a free walking tour of Copley Square’s literary neighborhood. This mini-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! Also check out our kids’ listings for a special Boston By Foot walking tour for kids and families!
Saturday October 13, 2018 3:00pm - 3:45pm EDT
BPL Civic Table (outside BPL entrance) 700 Boylston St., Boston, MA 02116
  Interactive Events

3:00pm EDT

Everywhere and Nowhere
Join social justice project Wee the People for Everywhere and Nowhere, an interactive workshop exploring powerful stories of the immigrant experience: leaving home, crossing borders, finding belonging, and celebrating culture. This workshop will feature a storytime with live music, a kids' Round the World open mic, and a passport craft activity to places real and imagined! 3:00pm storytime will read Mama’s Nightingale (a story from Haiti).
Ages 4+, with an adult
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.Profile of Wee the People

Saturday October 13, 2018 3:00pm - 3:45pm EDT
Brainstorm Tent, Copley Square 560 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Kids   Interactive Events   Music

3:00pm EDT

Malaya
Malaya is a performer, singer/songwriter, and artist hailing from Detroit, Michigan. She gone on to perform on many stages across the nation, sharing the stage with John Legend, Demi Lovato, and Greg Phillinganes and opening for India.Arie, Bryson Tiller, and Aretha Franklin. With her style of what she calls “Organic” music, she brings a high-energy performance with a smooth R&B/soul voice like no other.
Presenters
avatar for Malaya

Malaya

Malaya is a performer, singer/songwriter, and artist hailing from Detroit, Michigan. She gone on to perform on many stages across the nation, sharing the stage with John Legend, Demi Lovato, and Greg Phillinganes and opening for India.Arie, Bryson Tiller, and Aretha Franklin. With... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 3:00pm - 3:50pm EDT
Berklee Stage, Copley Square 560 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Berklee Stage   Music

3:00pm EDT

Fiction: Death by Design
We’re thrilled to be hosting the launch of B.A. Shapiro’s enticing new literary thriller The Collector’s Apprentice at the BBF this year. Shapiro, who gained a reputation for combining art and intrigue in previous novels like The Art Forger and The Muralist, here offers readers a tale of secret identities, murder, and vengeance set amid the heady 1920s art world in Paris and Philadelphia. Joining Shapiro is Charles Belfoure, whose latest novel, The Fallen Architect, is also a historical thriller about reinvention and redemption, this time about an architect who has collapsed into disgrace after the tragic failure of his signature project. Hosting this conversation about the mysteries that lurk behind architectural facades and beneath artistic masterpieces is novelist Dawn Tripp, author of Georgia and Game of Secrets.

We regret that due to a family emergency, B.A. Shapiro has had to cancel her appearance at the BBF this year. We hope you will enjoy a conversation between Charles Belfoure and Dawn Tripp, and then stick around to purchase copies of Belfoure's novel as well as Shapiro's, available exclusively to BBF attendees before its official on-sale date of 10/16.
 
Moderators
avatar for Dawn Tripp

Dawn Tripp

Dawn Tripp is a winner of the Massachusetts Book Award for Fiction and author of three novels set in New England: Moon Tide, The Season of Open Water, and Game of Secrets, a Boston Globe bestseller. Her essays have appeared in publications including the Virginia Quarterly Review... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Charles Belfoure

Charles Belfoure

Charles Belfoure has combined two seemingly disparate occupations—author and architect—into one successful career. His focus on historical architecture and its preservation is part of everything he does, both in writing nonfiction and fiction and, of course, in his work as an... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 3:00pm - 4:00pm EDT
Boston Architectural College The Beehive 951 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Fiction

3:00pm EDT

Middle Grade: Choices and Challenges
What was the biggest decision you faced today? Whether to skip piano lessons to come to the BBF? Whether to eat lunch at the taco truck or the dumpling truck? Or are you weighing decisions that might affect your whole life and the lives around you? Those are the kinds of choices facing characters dreamed up by the authors you’ll meet today. In Pura Belpré Award–winning author Meg Medina’s new novel, Merci Suárez Changes Gears, the title character must decide what to prioritize when school obligations, social pressures, and family responsibilities all come crashing in. In former teacher Tami Charles’s debut novel Like Vanessa, middle-schooler Vanessa Martin must choose whether to accept the status quo or sign up for a beauty pageant like her idol, Vanessa Williams. And in Kheryn Callender’s debut novel Hurricane Child, Caroline must decide whether to acknowledge her crush on another girl and seize a dangerous opportunity to find her own missing mother. Their conversation will be moderated by educator Monique Harris. The decision to include this session in your BBF day is an easy one!
Moderators
avatar for Monique Harris

Monique Harris

A transplant from San Francisco, California, 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... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Kheryn Callender

Kheryn Callender

Kheryn Callender is an author and editor who is dedicated to promoting diversity in literature for young readers. They are an associate editor at Little, Brown Books for Young Readers. Their debut novel is Hurricane Child, a middle-grade book about Caroline Murphy, whose life is terminally... Read More →
avatar for Tami Charles

Tami Charles

When Tami Charles was a teacher, she noticed that, although there was more diversity in children’s books than when she was young, there still just wasn’t enough. So she decided to write some books of her own. Her debut middle grade novel, Like Vanessa, is about thirteen-year-old... Read More →
avatar for Meg Medina

Meg Medina

Meg Medina is an award-winning author of work for young readers. She writes for young adult, middle grade, and young children. In 2016, her young adult novel, Burn Baby Burn, was longlisted for the National Book Award and shortlisted for the Kirkus Prize. The same year, her picture... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 3:00pm - 4:00pm EDT
BPL Teen Central 700 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Kids

3:00pm EDT

BBF Unbound: Telling Your Personal Story in a Time of Crisis
In the #MeToo era, how do you decide whether you have a personal story worth sharing? Once you’re ready, how do you go about getting it out into the world, whether under your own byline or as a source for a reporter? Two expert storytellers and advocates--Jaclyn Friedman and Lesley Kinzel--will get into the ethics of personal sharing in the public sphere. We’ll talk upsides, pitfalls, tips for maximizing impact, advice for making your story friendly to journalists without selling out your truth, and strategies for weathering the inevitable blowback when you go viral. We’ll also zoom out to talk about the history and gender politics of the personal essay, and push back on the idea that women’s first-person narratives are disposable, self-indulgent, and unreliable. If you’ve got a story to tell, there’s never been a more important moment for it.
Presenters
avatar for Jaclyn Friedman

Jaclyn Friedman

Jaclyn Friedman is a writer, educator and activist, and creator of three books: Yes Means Yes: Visions of Female Sexual Power and a World Without Rape (one of Publishers Weekly’s Top 100 Books of 2009), What You Really Really Want: The Smart Girl’s Shame-Free Guide to Sex & Safety,and... Read More →
avatar for Lesley Kinzel

Lesley Kinzel

Lesley Kinzel spent five years as an editor and writer at xoJane.com, a women's media publication that predicated the height of the so-called "personal essay bubble." She has been a body acceptance advocate for twenty years and is also the author of a memoir, Two Whole Cakes.Buy?... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 3:00pm - 4:00pm EDT
BPL Exchange 700 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Sessions for Writers

3:00pm EDT

BBF Unbound: Free Write: A Reentry and Recovery Workshop Experience
Facilitated by Writers Without Margins and located within a prison reentry program, the Wyman Writer's Workshop is a weekly workshop engaging men in post-incarceration and addiction recovery. This session at the Boston Book Festival, hosted by Writers Without Margins cofounder Cheryl Buchanan, will give a public audience the opportunity to experience a WWM workshop firsthand, while providing individuals from Wyman with the opportunity to lead and guide their own workshop. Modeled after the program’s typical format, participants Mathematics Millionaire X, Zachary Paul, and Basem Attia will facilitate by generating discussion around a poem’s relevant themes, metaphors, and message and then pick a topical writing prompt to further explore and inspire the creative writing process with the audience. Come participate in a truly inclusive reading and writing experience and learn more about the inspiring work of Writers Without Margins.
Moderators
avatar for Cheryl Buchanan

Cheryl Buchanan

Cheryl Buchanan is a co-founder of Writers Without Margins, Inc., a nonprofit whose mission is dedicated to the fusion of art and advocacy. Previously, she practiced law for over a decade, on behalf of more than five hundred survivors of childhood sexual abuse and trauma. She has... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Basem Attia

Basem Attia

Basem Attia is an artist and poet raised in Portugal and the United States. He was brought up Christian, but is now a practicing Muslim. He speaks four languages (English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Cape Verdean Creole), has traveled to seven countries, and is obsessed with history... Read More →
avatar for Zachary Paul

Zachary Paul

Zachary Paul is a recovering heroin addict and convicted felon, but don’t judge a book by its cover. After being released from state prison, while in a six-month reentry program, he picked up writing, which has helped him expand his mind and been a good outlet to aid in his recovery... Read More →
avatar for Mathematics Millionaire X

Mathematics Millionaire X

Mathematics Millionaire X grew up in Cambridge, Boston, detox holdings, halfway houses, and the state prison system. He comes from a great family and a nurturing upbringing but got caught up in the game of the streets. His mother is his everything. Trying to recover on a daily basis... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 3:00pm - 4:00pm EDT
BPL Orientation Room Dartmouth St, Boston, MA 02116, USA
  Sessions for Writers   Interactive Events

3:15pm EDT

Story Time with Anika Denise
Anika Denise reads from Lights, Camera, Carmen!, the sequel to Starring Carmen! (ages 5–7)
Presenters
avatar for Anika Denise

Anika Denise

Anika Denise became a children’s book author almost by accident. Denise always liked to write, but she started her career in New York City advertising. Eventually, she changed course and began to write children’s stories. Denise’s first book, Pigs Love Potatoes, was published... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 3:15pm - 3:45pm EDT
BPL Children's Library 700 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Kids

3:15pm EDT

Diplomacy: The Art of the Deal
Diplomacy is the practice and art of negotiating between nations without arousing hostilities. It is not, as the title of Ambassador Wendy Sherman’s book reveals, for wimps. Sherman, who was lead US negotiator for the Iran nuclear deal, writes in Not for the Faint of Heart about her years at the Department of State in a variety of senior positions and describes the characteristics required to succeed in a very challenging field--traits that have served her well in other domains. James Sebenius and his co-authors of Kissinger the Negotiator conducted a series of in-depth interviews with their subject and with independent sources  to write this revealing assessment of Kissinger’s masterful skills as a negotiator. Love him or hate him, Kissinger is a pro whose strategies for negotiation apply to diplomatic challenges as well as other negotiations. Assistant Secretary of Defense under President Clinton and author of Destined for War, Graham Allison, who knows a thing or two about diplomacy, will moderate.
Moderators
avatar for Graham Allison

Graham Allison

Graham Allison has had a significant impact, both in higher education and in Washington, on the way that we look at and handle foreign affairs in the United States. He is considered one of the top US analysts in defense policy and national security. Allison served as a special advisor... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for James K. Sebenius

James K. Sebenius

James K. Sebenius is an expert in negotiation. For decades, he has been a leader in teaching the art of negotiation at the Harvard Business School and Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard. At the Belfer Center, Sebenius is currently a faculty affiliate and... Read More →
avatar for Wendy Sherman

Wendy Sherman

Wendy Sherman is a veteran ambassador; she has garnered a lifetime of experience in global diplomacy in both the public and private sectors. Sherman has served in the State Department under the Obama and Clinton administrations. From 2011 to 2015, she served as the undersecretary... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 3:15pm - 4:15pm EDT
Old South Mary Norton 645 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Nonfiction

3:15pm EDT

Caught in the Middle: The Other America
On November 9, 2016, many of us East Coast liberals woke up to the notion that there are a lot of people who do not share our experience of the world. Join us to discuss what we’ve been missing, because it turns out to be important to the future of our country. Sarah Kendzior, a journalist and a scholar, lives in the Midwest and writes about its decline in the NYT bestseller The View from Flyover Country. Ben Bradlee, Jr., in The Forgotten, writes about one county in Pennsylvania that serves as a microcosm of the nation. The county went for Obama twice, but then voted overwhelmingly for Trump. And, in Prius or Pickup?, political scientist Jonathan Weiler draws on original research to show that our political differences stem from personality differences that color our worldview. Poet Austin Smith, who grew up on an Illinois dairy farm, will start us off with a reading from his collection, Flyover Country. Midwesterner and cohost of WBUR’s Here & Now, Jeremy Hobson, will moderate this timely and urgent conversation.
Moderators
avatar for Jeremy Hobson

Jeremy Hobson

Jeremy Hobson is the cohost of Here & Now, a midday news magazine show on WBUR and NPR. He conducts nearly two thousand interviews a year on a range of topics, speaking with world leaders, governors and members of Congress, as well as actors, musicians, business leaders, athletes... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Ben Bradlee Jr.

Ben Bradlee Jr.

Ben Bradlee Jr. began his career as a journalist and spent twenty-five years at the Boston Globe. As deputy managing editor of the Globe, Bradlee supervised the Pulitzer Prize-winning Spotlight team investigation into sexual abuse by priests in the Boston archdiocese. In the film... Read More →
avatar for Sarah Kendzior

Sarah Kendzior

Sarah Kendzior is a celebrated journalist who is working to decode the effect and influence of the Trump administration on the Midwest. Kendzior writes about US politics for the Globe and Mail and regularly contributes to Fast Company and NBC News. A former op-ed columnist for Al... Read More →
avatar for Austin Smith

Austin Smith

Austin Smith is an award-winning poet and professor. He has published three chapbooks: In the Silence of the Migrated Birds, Wheat and Distance, and Instructions for How to Put an Old Horse Down. His first collection, Almanac, was chosen by Paul Muldoon for the Princeton Series of... Read More →
avatar for Jonathan Weiler

Jonathan Weiler

Jonathan Weiler is an educator and academic and a nonfiction writer and sports blogger. Since 2005, Weiler has taught at the University of North Carolina, where he has taught courses on European politics, human rights, and Russian politics. He is also the director of Graduate Studies... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 3:15pm - 4:15pm EDT
Emmanuel Sanctuary 15 Newbury St, Boston, MA 02116, USA
  Nonfiction   Poetry

3:15pm EDT

BBF Unbound: Self-Publishing for Authors Who Want to Make It Big
Everyone has a voice, and every voice should be heard. With the proliferation and acceptance of self-publishing options in the last twenty-five years, everyone’s voice now has a viable outlet. People unfamiliar with the publishing world have legitimate concerns about the expectations, practicalities, and realities of the self-publishing world. This discussion forum will address these issues and inspire writers to take the next step. John Fiske, self-published author and college writing professor, will moderate the discussion with the panelists: novelist Brunonia Barry, self-published author and Syntax founder Jim Delay, and bookseller Meg Wasmer.
Moderators
avatar for John Fiske

John Fiske

John Fiske teaches developmental and first-year writing at Bunker Hill Community College and Endicott College. His five self-published books are The Library Book (2006), The Pilots’ Guide to the Airports of Historic Massachusetts (2011), Titan’s Gold (2017), Khufu’s Gold (2018... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Brunonia Barry

Brunonia Barry

Brunonia Barry is the New York Times and international bestselling author of The Lace Reader, The Map of True Places, and The Fifth Petal. Her work has been translated into more than thirty languages and has been an Amazon Best of the Month and a People Magazine Pick. Barry was... Read More →
avatar for Jim Delay

Jim Delay

Jim Delay is an award-winning humor writer and the author of Invasions on Hickory Road: A Comedy of the Hidden Realities. After writing about the triumph of bad taste, the weirdness of political campaigning, the cushy lives of household pets, and the impenetrable smugness of clergy... Read More →
avatar for Meg Wasmer

Meg Wasmer

Meg Wasmer is an eleven-year veteran of the bookselling community. Being an avid booklover from childhood on, Meg devours fantasy, science fiction, and graphic novels. She currently manages the independent bookstore Cabot Street Books & Cards, Hugobooks’ newest and most unique location... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 3:15pm - 4:15pm EDT
BPL McKim Exhibition Hall Dartmouth St, Boston, MA 02116, USA
  Sessions for Writers

3:15pm EDT

Reading Like a Writer: Character
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 he captured a character’s distinctive personality? 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 develop indelible, unforgettable characters: Lise Haines (When We Disappear), Jaap Robben (You Have Me to Love), and Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore (Sketchtasy). Our host is novelist Michelle Hoover, author most recently of Bottomland. Sponsored by Emerson College.
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 Lise Haines

Lise Haines

Lise Haines is a successful author and writing professor. She is a senior writer-in-residence at Emerson College and is a former Briggs-Copeland Lecturer at Harvard. Her debut novel, In My Sister’s Country, was published in 2002 and was a finalist for the 2003 Paterson Fiction... Read More →
avatar for Jaap Robben

Jaap Robben

Jaap Robben is a poet, playwright, performer, and acclaimed children’s author. You Have Me to Love, his first novel for adults, has received international glowing reviews and was the winner of the 2014 Dutch Booksellers Award, the Dioraphte Prize, and the ANV Award for best Dutch... Read More →
avatar for Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore

Mattilda Bernstein Sycamore is an author and queer activist. Her 2013 memoir, The End of San Francisco, won the 2014 Lambda Literary Award, and she edited the collection Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots?, which was a Stonewall Honor Book and a nominee for a Lambda Literary Award... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 3:15pm - 4:15pm EDT
BPL McKim Lower Level B Dartmouth St, Boston, MA 02116, USA
  Sessions for Writers   Fiction

3:15pm EDT

On Leadership
You need this ticket from Eventbrite to sign up:  "On Leadership" 10/13/18 3:15-4:15pm
What makes a good leader? Expertise? Wisdom? Personality? It’s hard to imagine a more qualified group to explore the question of leadership. Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin’s new work, Leadership in Turbulent Times, examines the qualities and traits of four past presidents: Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson. She maintains that although they differed enormously in background and abilities, all were guided by a deep sense of moral purpose and the desire to improve the lives of others. Senator John Kerry's memoir, Every Day Is Extra, tells his story: decorated Vietnam War vet, prosecutor, five-term US senator, presidential candidate, and Secretary of State. He has served in positions of leadership and has been close to power his entire life. None other than Samantha Power, former US Ambassador to the UN under President Obama and author of A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genocide, will moderate. This trifecta of luminaries will discuss our leaders past, present, and future in what is sure to be a highlight of BBF 2018. Sponsored by the Plymouth Rock Foundation and Cathy and Jim Stone. 
Moderators
avatar for Samantha Power

Samantha Power

Samantha Power has played a significant role in shaping the global politics of the last decade. From 2013 to 2017, Power was the US permanent representative to the United Nations.  In this capacity, she also served as a member of President Obama’s cabinet. She took part in negotiating... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Doris Kearns Goodwin

Doris Kearns Goodwin

Doris Kearns Goodwin is a world-renowned presidential historian, public speaker, and Pulitzer Prize-winning author. She is the author of six critically acclaimed and New York Times-bestselling books, including The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden... Read More →
avatar for John Kerry

John Kerry

A statesman, senator, lawyer, and veteran, John Kerry has served his country in myriad ways for the last fifty years. He served as secretary of state under Barack Obama, from 2013 to 2017. He also served as a senator for Massachusetts from 1985 to 2013, during which he continually... Read More →

Sponsors
avatar for Plymouth Rock Assurance

Saturday October 13, 2018 3:15pm - 4:15pm EDT
Old South Sanctuary 645 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Ticketed Events, On Leadership |   Nonfiction, On Leadership

3:30pm EDT

Appearance by Madeline
Ooh la la, it's everyone's favorite Parisienne, Madeline! Stop by and say "Bonjour!" 
Saturday October 13, 2018 3:30pm - 4:00pm EDT
Brainstorm Tent, Copley Square 560 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Kids

3:30pm EDT

Fiction Keynote
Tayari Jones first graced the BBF stage back in 2012 for her previous novel, Silver Sparrow. Since then, the continued ascent of her writing career has been nothing short of meteoric, and her 2018 novel An American Marriage has been a New York Times bestseller, an Oprah’s Book Club selection, and longlisted for the National Book Award in fiction. An American Marriage offers a stunningly intimate and emotionally raw portrait of a young couple in crisis. Young black couple Roy and Celestial have only been married a year when Roy is wrongfully accused of sexual assault and subsequently imprisoned. Jones examines how this catastrophe wreaks havoc with the dynamics of the couple’s nascent marriage, and the emotional stakes are unbelievably high as Celestial and Roy’s story plays out through shifting perspectives and generous, empathetic storytelling. An American Marriage touches on themes of friendship, love, trust, and, of course, the injustice that disrupts and destroys far too many real lives and love stories, particularly for people of color. We are honored to welcome Tayari Jones back to the BBF for this year’s fiction keynote session, during which she will be interviewed by Christopher Castellani, artistic director of GrubStreet and author of, among other works, the forthcoming novel Leading Men. Sponsored by BOOKFORUM.
Moderators
avatar for Christopher Castellani

Christopher Castellani

Christopher Castellani's fourth novel, Leading Men, for which he received a Guggenheim Fellowship, will be published by Viking in February 2019. He is also the author of the novels All This Talk of Love, The Saint of Lost Things, and A Kiss from Maddalena, which received a Massachusetts... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Tayari Jones

Tayari Jones

Tayari Jones is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels Leaving Atlanta, The Untelling, Silver Sparrow, and An American Marriage. Her writing has appeared in Tin House, The Believer,  the New York Times, and Callaloo.  A member of the Fellowship of Southern Writers... Read More →

Sponsors
avatar for Bookforum

Saturday October 13, 2018 3:30pm - 4:30pm EDT
Church of the Covenant 67 Newbury St, Boston, MA 02116, USA
  Fiction

3:30pm EDT

Readings: Secrets and Suspense
The four authors who will read from their latest work during this session use literary techniques to ratchet up suspense and keep readers guessing. Karen Day, whose prior work was mostly for young readers, crafts a decidedly adult story in I’ll Stay, which uses a three-part structure to explore episodes of loyalty and guilt over the course of one woman’s life. In Andrea Kleine’s Eden, a woman embarks on a quest to uncover her own lost memories and limited understanding of a failed kidnapping attempt two decades earlier. Debra Jo Immergut, in The Captives, alternates the backstories of a psychologist and his patient to illustrate the dark and twisted pasts that unite them both. And, in Meg Little Reilly’s Everything that Follows, the truth is as murky as the water that swallows one friend during a night of partying that goes horribly awry. Dark nights are coming, and you won’t want to miss this opportunity to hear from a quartet of authors whose suspenseful literary fiction makes perfect fireside reading. Our host is novelist Marjan Kamali, author of Together Tea and one of the curators of the Arlington Author Salon. Sponsored by BookBub.
Moderators
avatar for Marjan Kamali

Marjan Kamali

Marjan Kamali is a fiction writer who has lived around the world. Born in Turkey to Iranian parents, her childhood took her to five countries, while her adult life has been spent in three. She earned her MBA from Columbia University and an MFA in creative writing from New York University... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Karen Day

Karen Day

Karen Day is an author of books for young readers and has recently turned to writing for adults. Her titles for young readers are Tall Tales (2007), No Cream Puffs (2010), and A Million Miles from Boston (2011). Her newest book is her adult fiction debut, I’ll Stay, a portrait of... Read More →
avatar for Debra Jo Immergut

Debra Jo Immergut

Debra Jo Immergut is an experienced writer, journalist, and educator whose debut novel is astonishing critics. Katherine Coldiron said her in her Los Angeles Review of Books review of Immergut’s The Captives that “not a word is out of place in The Captives. What a rare gift... Read More →
avatar for Andrea Kleine

Andrea Kleine

Andrea Kleine is a novelist, essayist, performance artist, and choreographer. Her debut novel, Calf, was named a Best Fiction Book of 2015 by Kirkus. Her writing has also been published in Paris Review, BOMB, LitHub, and the Los Angeles Review of Books, among others. She is a five-time... Read More →
avatar for Meg Little Reilly

Meg Little Reilly

Meg Little Reilly is the author of the novels Everything That Follows, We Are Unprepared, and the forthcoming The Brights on Vacation. She's a writer at Bennington College, public radio commentator, and essayist. Her work has appeared in McSweeney's, Literary Hub, Politico, and more... Read More →

Sponsors
avatar for BookBub

Saturday October 13, 2018 3:30pm - 4:30pm EDT
BPL Newsfeed Cafe 700 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Fiction

3:30pm EDT

Charlie Numbers and the Man in the Moon
New York Times bestselling author Ben Mezrich and co-author Tonya Mezrich will meet with kids ages 8-14 to discuss paper airplanes, the science of flight and the importance of STEM in children’s books as it relates to their newest book: Charlie Numbers and the Man in the Moon. Kids will be invited to participate in the discussion as well as in their very own paper airplane building contest to simulate the contest that takes place in the book. The book was chosen as the required summer reading for all 6th graders in Boston Public Schools and is on its way to becoming a TV series with Ellen Pompeo.  
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 →
avatar for Tonya Mezrich

Tonya Mezrich

Tonya Mezrich is coauthor, with her husband Ben Mezrich, of Charlie Numbers and the Man in the Moon, about a boy who uses his mathematical skills to solve the case of valuable moon rocks stolen from NASA. Charlie Numbers is the second in the middle-grade series that began with Bringing... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 3:30pm - 4:30pm EDT
BPL Rey Room 700 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Kids   Interactive Events

3:30pm EDT

Public Affairs Keynote
Anand Giridharadas has a controversial thesis in his new book, Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World. It is that the philanthropists who claim to be saving the world with their largesse are in fact preserving the status quo. They claim to fight for equality and justice, as long as their positions on top of the social order remain unthreatened. Giridharadas calls out the hypocritical and self-congratulatory behavior of elites and asks why our gravest problems should be solved by unelected philanthropists instead of by the public institutions they erode by lobbying and dodging taxes. His call to action involves building more robust, egalitarian institutions and truly changing the world. Publishers Weekly, in its starred review, called Winners Take All “provocative and passionate… a must-read for anyone interested in ‘changing the world.’” Come discuss this scathing critique of philanthrocapitalism, moderated by Christopher Lydon, host of Open Source on 90.9 WBUR.
Moderators
avatar for Christopher Lydon

Christopher Lydon

Christopher Lydon is an author and media personality, best known as the original host of WBUR’s The Connection and creator and host of Open Source.

Presenters
avatar for Anand Giridharadas

Anand Giridharadas

Anand Giridharadas’s parents left India to make a life in America, and Giridharadas has spent much of his career looking back at India. He began his journalism career in 2005 as an international reporter for the International Herald Tribune and The Times from Mumbai. His 2011 memoir... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 3:30pm - 4:30pm EDT
BPL Rabb Hall 700 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Nonfiction

3:30pm EDT

Crossing Languages: A Journey of Poetry and Translation
In this international and multilingual poetry event, three Boston-area literary translators--Catherine Ciepiela, Jim Kates, and Elizabeth Oehlkers--will read and discuss the work of major contemporary poets from Russia, Germany, France, Kazakhstan, and elsewhere. The translators will illuminate how the process of translation bridges multiple divides: language first, but also culture, ethnicity, nationality, gender, and more. The readers will also discuss the craft, challenges, and pleasures of literary translation. Poets to be discussed will include Polina Barskova and Mikhail Aizenberg from Russia, the Turkish-German poets Zafer Şenocak and Zehra Çirak, Kazakhstani poet Aigerim Tazhi, Jean-Pierre Rosnay from France, and others. All three translator-presenters have published with Zephyr Press, a leading poetry translation press based in Brookline that is sponsoring the event.
Presenters
avatar for Catherine Ciepiela

Catherine Ciepiela

Catherine Ciepiela is a scholar and translator of Russian poetry who teaches at Amherst College. She is the author of The Same Solitude, a study of the letters and poems exchanged by Marina Tsvetaeva and Boris Pasternak, coeditor with Honor Moore of The Stray Dog Cabaret, and editor of Relocations, an anthology... Read More →
avatar for J. Kates

J. Kates

J.  Kates is a poet, literary translator, and codirector of Zephyr Press. The author of several collections of his own poetry, he is also the translator of more than a dozen books by Russian and French poets, including Tatiana Shcherbina, Mikhail Aizenberg, Mikhail Yeryomin, Aleksey... Read More →
avatar for Elizabeth Oehlkers Wright

Elizabeth Oehlkers Wright

Elizabeth Oehlkers Wright has translated the work of Turkish-German poets Zehra Çirak and Zafer Şenocak and cotranslated (with Franz Wright) a book by Valzhyna Mort from the Belorussian. Her translations have appeared widely in numerous literary publications, including Agni, Slope... Read More →

Sponsors
avatar for Zephyr Press

Saturday October 13, 2018 3:30pm - 4:30pm EDT
BPL Commonwealth Salon Dartmouth St, Boston, MA 02116, USA
  Poetry   Sessions for Writers

4:00pm EDT

Story Time with Andrea Beaty
Bestselling author Andrea Beaty launches a new series of chapter books based on her beloved characters. Hear her read from Rosie Revere and the Raucous Riveters (ages 6–9)
Presenters
avatar for Andrea Beaty

Andrea Beaty

Andrea Beaty is an author of STEM-focused books for children. After earning a degree in biology and computer science, Beaty began her career at a computer software company where she worked in technical writing and IT. She says that her technical writing transferred well to writing... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 4:00pm - 4:30pm EDT
BPL Children's Library 700 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Kids

4:00pm EDT

Boston By Foot Tour
The Boston Book Festival and Boston By Foot were meant to be together! These two BBFs are teaming up to offer a free walking tour of Copley Square’s literary neighborhood. This mini-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! Also check out our kids’ listings for a special Boston By Foot walking tour for kids and families!
Saturday October 13, 2018 4:00pm - 4:45pm EDT
BPL Civic Table (outside BPL entrance) 700 Boylston St., Boston, MA 02116
  Interactive Events

4:00pm EDT

The Shakespeare Time-Traveling Speakeasy
During 2016/17 Shakespeare to Hiphop (literary performers and TEDxBoston alumni Regie Gibson and Marlon Carey) partnered with the Boston Public Library to celebrate William Shakespeare. The result is The Shakespeare Time-Traveling Speakeasy: an all-new presentation combining American jazz-funk-country-pop and hip-hop with poetry, song, storytelling, rap, and Shakespeare’s own words. The Shakespeare Time-Traveling Speakeasy is a hip literary trip that explores the life, influence and mysteries surrounding the man reverently known as “The Bard.”
Presenters
avatar for Marlon Carey

Marlon Carey

Marlon Carey is a self-styled “poet educator actor communicator entertainer,” and he’s built a career that is as varied as his title suggests. Carey is an award-winning slam poet. He has been named Best Hip Hop Poet at the Cambridge Poetry Awards twice and has also won the title... Read More →
avatar for Regie Gibson

Regie Gibson

Regie Gibson is a Renaissance man of whom the Bard would be proud. He is a poet, performer, and educator who has been published widely, appeared on stage and in film, and has performed around the world. He worked with Kurt Vonnegut, Mos Def, John Legend, the Chicago Mask Ensemble... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 4:00pm - 4:50pm EDT
Berklee Stage, Copley Square 560 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Berklee Stage   Music   Poetry

4:00pm EDT

Fiction: The Personal Is Political
As the best fiction writers do, the three authors in this session use their craft to illuminate the human stories behind profound issues that play out on the world stage. In a twist on the traditional bildungsroman, debut novelist Lisa Locascio’s Open Me intimately portrays a young woman’s sexual awakening even as she grows increasingly wary of her lover’s stifling isolation and his anti-refugee sentiments. Malaysia is the backdrop for many of the fourteen loosely connected stories in YZ Chin’s Though I Get Home, whose themes include patriotism, political dissidence, corruption, state violence, and national identity. And, in Whiting Award-winning author John Wray’s harrowing novel Godsend, a young American woman who travels with her boyfriend to Pakistan in 2001 in a quest to deepen her Islamic faith finds herself caught up in Taliban fighting. Moderator Catherine Parnell, coeditor of Consequence Magazine, will lead a wide-ranging discussion about how fiction can capture the personal stories behind political realities.
Moderators
avatar for Catherine Parnell

Catherine Parnell

Catherine Parnell is an independent consultant as well as an instructor at GrubStreet in Boston. She’s the senior associate editor for Consequence Magazine. Her nonfiction chapbook, The Kingdom of His Will, explores the culture of war, and recent publications include interviews... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for YZ Chin

YZ Chin

Y. Z. Chin is a synthesizer—she synthesizes words and culture and poetry and code into beautiful and useful things. By day, Chin is a software engineer. On the off hours, she is a poet and author. Her first book, Though I Get Home, is a heartfelt and harrowing collection of stories... Read More →
avatar for Lisa Locascio

Lisa Locascio

Lisa Locascio is the copublisher of Joyland and editor of 7x7LA and of the anthology Golden State 2017. Her work has been published in The Believer, Tin House, n+1, Bookforum, and elsewhere. She teaches at Mendocino College and is the director of the Mendocino Coast Writers Conference... Read More →
avatar for John Wray

John Wray

Novelist John Wray's debut novel, The Right Hand of Sleep, was the recipient of the Whiting Award. He has since published four additional novels, including Lowboy, The Lost Time Accidents, and his most recent novel, Godsend, about a young American woman drawn to religious extremism... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 4:00pm - 5:00pm EDT
Old South Guild Room 645 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Fiction

4:00pm EDT

The Mind's Eye: Art and Reading
This session explores the mind and how it relates to art and reading. Boston College professor Ellen Winner, in How Art Works, called “ambitious” and “exhilarating” by the New Yorker, delves into the psychology of art. It looks at how we distinguish art from other things, decide that some works of art are good and others not, or determine why the original work is valued and the forgery not. Our taste in art, according to Winner, is determined by many things, some of them unconscious. Cognitive scientist Maryanne Wolf looks at how our brains are changing to adapt to digital media and what it means for our intellectual capacity. Her book, Reader Come Home, is a series of letters written to her readers and is deemed by Shelf Awareness a “joy to read and reread, a love letter to literature, literacy, and progress.” Their conversation will be moderated by professor of psychology Aniruddh Patel, who is working on a book on the evolution of music cognition.
Moderators
avatar for Aniruddh D. Patel

Aniruddh D. Patel

Aniruddh (Ani) Patel is a cognitive neuroscientist at Tufts University, where he conducts research on music and the brain in the Department of Psychology. His primary work is with humans, and more recently he has also been studying how other animals process music as a window into... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Ellen Winner

Ellen Winner

Ellen Winner is a psychologist, researcher, and educator who studies the intersection of the arts and psychology. She is a professor and chair of the psychology department at Boston College. She is also a senior research associate at Harvard’s Project Zero, where she works in the... Read More →
avatar for Maryanne Wolf

Maryanne Wolf

Maryanne Wolf is an award-winning cognitive neuroscientist and child development expert who has devoted her career to studying how humans read and think. The author of more than 150 scientific publications, Wolf also writes compellingly for a general audience; her 2007 book Proust... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 4:00pm - 5:00pm EDT
Boston Architectural College Cascieri Hall 320 Newbury St, Boston, MA 02115, USA
  Nonfiction

4:15pm EDT

Memoir: Identity
Self-identity is defined by an ever-evolving set of factors, including family, culture, affiliation, our experiences, and our choices. The three riveting memoirs considered here look deeply at personal identity formed in the context of history, biology, and culture. In Growing Up with the Country, described in a Library Journal starred review as a “masterpiece in the areas of personal narration, family genealogy, and African American historiography,” Kendra Field interweaves stories of her own family’s westward migration after emancipation with black, white, and Native histories. Sisonke Msimang was born in exile in Zambia to parents fighting for a free South Africa, then moved to Kenya and Canada, to Kenya again, and ultimately settled in Australia, each move bringing a new sense of otherness. Her memoir, Always Another Country, called “eloquent and affecting” by Kirkus, explores her struggle to create a viable self-identity. Catherine Guthrie discusses a different kind of journey to the unknown. As a young, queer woman, she had unique challenges when it came to feeling secure in her identity. When she was diagnosed with breast cancer she thought that as a women’s health journalist with knowledge of her specific cancer, she could handle it. In Flat, Guthrie describes just how wrong she was. Join this fascinating trio’s conversation about identity, led by Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich, author of the Lambda Literary Award-winning memoir The Fact of a Body.
Moderators
avatar for Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich

Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich

Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich is the author of The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir, receipient of the 2018 Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Memoir and the 2018 Chautauqua Prize. Named one of the best books of the year by Entertainment Weekly, Audible.com, Bustle, Book Riot... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Kendra Taira Field

Kendra Taira Field

Kendra Taira Field is a historian, educator, and writer who studies United States history. Field holds a master’s degree in public policy from the Kennedy School at Harvard and a PhD in American history from New York University, where she also taught. She was an assistant professor... Read More →
avatar for Catherine Guthrie

Catherine Guthrie

Catherine Guthrie is a women’s health journalist with twenty years of writing under her belt. Her work has appeared everywhere, from Slate and Time to O, Self, and Out. In her 2018 memoir, Flat, Guthrie tells the story of her harrowing battle with breast cancer. As a young queer... Read More →
avatar for Sisonke Msimang

Sisonke Msimang

Sisonke Msimang is a South African writer whose work is focussed on race, gender, and democracy. She has written for a range of international publications including the New York Times, the Washington Post, The Guardian, Newsweek, and Al Jazeera. Msimang is the author of Always Another... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 4:15pm - 5:15pm EDT
Emmanuel Parish Hall 15 Newbury St, Boston, MA 02116, USA
  Memoir

4:30pm EDT

Intelligent Designs
David Edwards, inventor, scientist, professor of biomedical engineering at Harvard, and founder of Le Laboratoire, believes that the key to creating things that last is to combine science and art, rather than keep them siloed. In Creating Things That Matter: The Art and Science of Innovations That Last, he describes his method of invention that incorporates the principles of aesthetics and introduces us to artists, architects, physicists, mathematicians, and others who share a similar three-step process in creating lasting things. Thomas Malone, director of the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence, envisions a different kind of collaboration in Superminds: The Surprising Power of People and Computers Thinking Together. Starting from the premise that most human achievements are the result of people working together in groups, or what he calls superminds, he argues that the power of computing to connect people in new ways will amplify the intelligence of superminds and vastly increase their creativity and problem-solving capacity. This fascinating session on intelligent designs will be moderated by Nathan Felde, professor of design at Northeastern University.
Moderators
avatar for Nathan Felde

Nathan Felde

Nathan Felde is a professor of design at Northeastern University. He holds a master's of science from MIT’s Department of Architecture, helped found Lightspeed Computers, and acted as executive director of broadband media research laboratories for NYNEX (now Verizon). His design... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for David Edwards

David Edwards

David Edwards is a veritable idea machine. He invented edible packaging, now produced by Incredible Food. He writes fiction and nonfiction in both French and English. He created porous particles for inhaled drug and vaccine delivery. Edwards is currently the Gordon McKay Professor... Read More →
avatar for Thomas W. Malone

Thomas W. Malone

Thomas W. Malone is the Patrick J. McGovern Professor of Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management and the founding director of the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence.  At MIT, he is also a professor of information technology and a professor of work and organizational... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 4:30pm - 5:30pm EDT
Boston Architectural College The Beehive 951 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Nonfiction

4:45pm EDT

National Book Foundation Presents: Why Do Awards Matter?
What does the diversification of award-winners in the United States and beyond this mean for the literary landscape and for writers themselves? How far have we come, how far do we have left to go, and how will this change writing and reading in the future? Featured in this conversation will be 2017 National Book Award–honored authors Danez Smith (Poetry Finalist, Don't Call Us Dead), Carmen Maria Machado (Fiction Finalist, Her Body and Other Parties), and 2017 5 Under 35 honoree Lesley Nneka Arimah (What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky) as they discuss their work, achievements, and what awards and accolades mean for authors and readers. Moderated by Shuchi Saraswat, curator of the Transnational Literature Series at Brookline Booksmith, an events series focused on migration, exile and displacement and works in translation. Sponsored by the National Book Foundation.
Moderators
avatar for Shuchi Saraswat

Shuchi Saraswat

Shuchi Saraswat's photographs and prose have appeared in Ecotone, Tin House online, Women’s Review of Books, and Quick Fiction. Her essay "The Journey Home" received a special mention in Pushcart XLII 2018 and will be anthologized in Trespass: Ecotone Essayists Beyond the Boundaries... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Lesley Nneka Arimah

Lesley Nneka Arimah

Lesley Nneka Arimah was born in the UK and grew up in Nigeria and the United States. Her work has received grants and awards from Commonwealth Writers, the Elizabeth George Foundation, The MacDowell Colony, Breadloaf, and others. She was selected for the National Book Foundation’s... Read More →
avatar for Carmen Maria Machado

Carmen Maria Machado

Carmen Maria Machado's debut short story collection, Her Body and Other Parties, was a finalist for the National Book Award, the Kirkus Prize, the LA Times Book Prize Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, the World Fantasy Award, the Dylan Thomas Prize, and the PEN/Robert W. Bingham... Read More →
avatar for Danez Smith

Danez Smith

Danez Smith is a Black, Queer, Poz writer and performer from St. Paul, Minnesota. Smith is the author of Don’t Call Us Dead, winner of the Midwest Booksellers Choice Award and a finalist for the National Book Award, and [insert] boy, winner of the Kate Tufts Discovery Award and... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 4:45pm - 5:45pm EDT
Old South Mary Norton 645 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Fiction   Poetry

5:00pm EDT

Humanities Keynote
Some people think we are living through the worst of times, but Steven Pinker, cognitive scientist at Harvard University, believes we are living in the best of times and he has the statistics to prove it. In his NYT bestseller Enlightenment Now, which Bill Gates has called his “new favorite book of all time,” Pinker shows that life is better for the majority of humans on earth by almost any measure: health, prosperity, safety, even happiness. He credits this remarkable progress to the Enlightenment belief that science and reason can help us think our way out of most things. But, he cautions, the values of the Enlightenment are under threat from the darker side of human nature: authoritarianism, tribalism, religious zealotry, and magical thinking. Join us as Steven Pinker presents his vigorous defense of the Enlightenment values of science, humanism, and reason. After his talk, Pinker will be interviewed by the enlightened and enlightening Robin Young, host of WBUR’s Here & Now.
Moderators
avatar for Robin Young

Robin Young

Robin Young brings more than twenty-five years of broadcast experience to her role as co-host of Here & Now, a WBUR-produced daily newsmagazine that airs on NPR stations nationwide. She is a Peabody Award-winning documentary filmmaker who has also reported for NBC, CBS and ABC television... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker

Steven Pinker has built a world-renowned, decades-long career of figuring out how the human mind works. He is currently the Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard, where he conducts research on psycholinguistics and visual cognition. He has also taught... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 5:00pm - 6:00pm EDT
Emmanuel Sanctuary 15 Newbury St, Boston, MA 02116, USA
  Nonfiction

5:00pm EDT

The Edge of Fame
Gossip rags, celebrity sighting blogs, verified social accounts, specialized TV shows--why are we so obsessed with famous folks? How does our obsession make celebrities feel? Does it matter? In her new book Fame, writer, director, producer, and actress Justine Bateman says, viscerally, yes. She talks with Geoff Edgers, Washington Post national arts reporter and host of WBUR podcast The Edge of Fame, about the internal reality-shift of the famous, theories on the public's behavior at each stage of a famous person's career, and the experiences of other famous performers.
Presenters
avatar for Justine Bateman

Justine Bateman

Justine Bateman is no stranger to show business. She is an actor, director, producer, and writer. She began her acting career in 1982 when she portrayed Mallory Keaton on the popular sitcom Family Ties (1982–1989). After the end of the show, she continued to appear in a  number... Read More →
avatar for Geoff Edgers

Geoff Edgers

Geoff Edgers is the national arts reporter for the Washington Post, which he joined in 2014. He previously worked for the Boston Globe. Along with his writing, Edgers is the host of Edge of Fame, a podcast produced by the Washington Post and WBUR. The podcast profiles figures such... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 5:00pm - 6:00pm EDT
Old South Sanctuary 645 Boylston Street, Boston, MA, USA
  Nonfiction

5:00pm EDT

YA Keynote
YA superstars Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera have both attracted critical praise and devoted fandoms alike for their thoughtful, inclusive approach to writing about the messy but rich realities of young readers’ lives. When two young writers of this caliber combine their talents to jointly write a novel, the result is kind of a Big Deal. That’s why we’re thrilled to welcome Albertalli and Silvera as this year’s YA Keynote, to celebrate the publication of their collaborative novel What If It’s Us. In a starred review, Kirkus praises What If It’s Us as a “joyful romance” that’s both “sweet and substantial.” Readers will adore this big-hearted novel about a couple of boys who meet cute at the post office and then come to terms with the complexities that ensue after the initial spark of attraction. Collaborative writing projects have become a big part of the YA publishing scene, so we’re curious to ask these co-authors about what the experience was like for them. What were the ground rules? What did they disagree about? What surprised them about the process? Moderator Kim Parker will certainly have some questions of her own, but you’ll also have a chance to bring up those burning questions you’ve been dying to ask Becky, Adam, or both!
Presenters
avatar for Becky Albertalli

Becky Albertalli

Becky Albertalli is the author of the young adult novel Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda, which was made into the successful 2018 film Love, Simon. Simon was Albertalli’s debut novel and won her the 2015 William C. Morris Award for the year’s best debut novel for teen readers... Read More →
avatar for Kim Parker

Kim Parker

Kim Parker is the assistant director of the Teacher Training Course (TTC) at Shady Hill School in Cambridge. She is a literacy activist and cofounder of #DisruptTexts, a grassroots efforts for teachers to challenge the traditional literary canon and create a more inclusive, representative... Read More →
avatar for Adam Silvera

Adam Silvera

Adam Silvera wasn’t always a bestselling young adult author, but he has always worked with literature for young people. Initially a children’s bookseller and book reviewer, Silvera later worked for a creative literary company and a website that mentored teenage writers. When he... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 5:00pm - 6:00pm EDT
Church of the Covenant 67 Newbury St, Boston, MA 02116, USA
  Young Adult

6:00pm EDT

Poems and Pints
Our annual toast to the art of poetry is back and bigger than ever, with a new venue (and plenty of room to stretch out!) at the Room & Board furniture store. Join fellow poetry fans to sample seasonal beers and pretzels and hear new work by five terrific poets: Shauna Barbosa (Cape Verdean Blues), P. Scott Cunningham (Ya Te Veo), Erica Funkhouser (Post and Rail), Emily O’Neill (A Falling Knife Has No Handle), and Austin Smith (Flyover Country). Triple threat singer-songwriter-novelist Robin MacArthur (Heart Spring Mountain) will also join us to play a few songs, making for the perfect capstone to another wonderful BBF day. Room & Board is sponsoring a book drive in connection with this event, so please consider bringing a used book or two to donate to the avid readers at the Women’s Lunch Place. This laid-back evening of poetry for ages 21+ is sponsored by Mass Poetry and hosted by Mass Poetry’s program director, Sara Siegel.
Moderators
avatar for Sara Siegel

Sara Siegel

Sara Siegel is the program director for Mass Poetry. After graduating from Washington University in St. Louis and working at women's health organizations in New York City, she moved to Burlington, Vermont to earn a Masters in Public Administration at UVM. While there she worked at... Read More →

Presenters
avatar for Shauna Barbosa

Shauna Barbosa

Shauna Barbosa is an up-and-coming poet whose first published collection is titled Cape Verdean Blues. Barbosa, who can name Kendrick Lamar as a fan, has had poems published in Tupelo Quarterly, The Southeast Review, Boulevard, Lit Hub, Lenny Letter, The Awl, Colorado Review, Virginia... Read More →
avatar for P. Scott Cunningham

P. Scott Cunningham

Scott Cunningham is an award-nominated poet and editor. His poetry collection, Ya Te Veo, was a finalist for the 2018 Miller Williams Poetry Prize. The name “Ya Te Veo” comes from the name of a mythical tree that eats people. His work has appeared in the Harvard Review, POETRY... Read More →
avatar for Erica Funkhouser

Erica Funkhouser

Erica Funkhouser is an award-winning poet and educator. Educated at Vassar and Stanford, Funkhouser published her first poetry collection, Natural Affinities, in 1983. She has also published Sure Shot and Other Poems (1992), Pursuit (2002), Earthly (2008). Her work has appeared in... Read More →
avatar for Robin MacArthur

Robin MacArthur

Robin MacArthur is a writer, educator, and musician. She is the editor of Contemporary Vermont Fiction: An Anthology and is half of the folk-music duo Red Heart the Ticker. MacArthur has received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and two Creation Grants. Her debut... Read More →
avatar for Emily O'Neill

Emily O'Neill

Emily O'Neill writes and tends bar in Boston. Her debut poetry collection, Pelican, was the inaugural winner of YesYes Books' Pamet River Prize for first and second collections by women and nonbinary authors, as well as the winner of the 2016 Devil's Kitchen Reading Series in  poetry... Read More →
avatar for Austin Smith

Austin Smith

Austin Smith is an award-winning poet and professor. He has published three chapbooks: In the Silence of the Migrated Birds, Wheat and Distance, and Instructions for How to Put an Old Horse Down. His first collection, Almanac, was chosen by Paul Muldoon for the Princeton Series of... Read More →

Saturday October 13, 2018 6:00pm - 7:30pm EDT
Room & Board 375 Newbury St, Boston, MA 02115, USA
  Poetry   Music
 
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