Boston Book Festival 2021
Please register for this free event on Eventbrite. Registered attendees will receive a link to join the Zoom webinar hosted by Simon & Schuster. Registration will close at 3pm ET on October 14. We’re excited to participate in Simon & Schuster’s inaugural AuthorFest, a seasonal author series in partnership with book festivals and literary series. Join # 1 internationally bestselling author Bob Woodward and acclaimed reporter Robert Costa as they discuss Peril, the extraordinary story of the end of one presidency and the beginning of another. Mindy Marqués, vice president and executive editor at Simon & Schuster and the former executive editor of The Miami Herald, will moderate. Our opening session spotlights the profound effects of the pandemic and what we must do to shore up the very foundation of our society to avoid a similar catastrophe in the future. In the highly lauded Apollo’s Arrow, bestselling author, physician, sociologist, and public health expert Nicholas A. Christakis discusses what it means to live with plague. In The Contagion Next Time, physician, epidemiologist and bestselling author Sandro Galea argues that poor public health, economic inequalities, and racism are largely to blame for our inadequate preparation and response to the crisis. Our host for this timely session is Vanessa Kerry, director of the Program in Global Public Policy and Social Change in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. When Pulitzer Prize winner Tracy K. Smith was appointed as the 22nd Poet Laureate of the United States in 2017, Librarian of Congress Dr. Carla Hayden praised the breadth and generosity of her work, writing: “With directness and deftness, she contends with the heavens or plumbs our inner depths—all to better understand what makes us most human.” Smith’s work as Poet Laureate inspired her to take poetry to rural communities across the country and to launch a daily podcast encouraging listeners to slow down and make space for poetry, all while building on her own remarkable body of work. Smith’s new book, Such Color, is the first career-spanning volume from this tremendously talented poet, pulling together selections from her prior collections as well as eighteen new poems. In a starred review, Publishers Weekly writes that Such Color “serves as a humbling and invigorating reawakening from sorrow and apathy.” Smith will be in conversation with another former Poet Laureate, Danielle Legros Georges, former Poet Laureate of the City of Boston. For this opening keynote session, slow down and make space for a vital and thoughtful conversation about the place of poetry in our lives and about the role of poetry in recovery and resistance. Sponsored by Mass Poetry, with media sponsorship by TLS. Sometimes, the more you try to ignore or deny something, the more it asserts itself in your psyche. In the collective American psyche, that buried issue is slavery. Poet, scholar, and Atlantic Monthly staff writer Clint Smith, in his revelatory book, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America, investigates how nine Civil War historic sites memorialize or distort their subject. Smith’s interviews, scholarship, and personal anecdotes about these sites poignantly and, at times, shockingly reveal the scars on the American psyche. Harvard historian Annette Gordon-Reed, whose works include the Pulitzer Prize–winning The Hemingses of Monticello, blends a fascinating memoir of growing up in Texas with a history of slavery in that state in her latest, On Juneteenth. It turns out that slaveholding was central to the economy of the state best known for cowboys and BBQ. Join us for a rare opportunity to see these two stellar scholars together for an exploration of what has been buried for far too long. Moderated by WBUR’s Meghna Chakrabarti. Sponsored by the Krupp Family Foundation. This session takes a wide-ranging look at women and work. Danielle Dreilinger’s The Secret History of Home Economics traces the history of this misunderstood field and its surprising role in creating opportunities for women in careers like chemistry, engineering, psychology, and business. Colleen Ammerman, in Glass Half-Broken, asks why women, who make up the majority of college educated workers in the United States, are still underrepresented in positions of power and status. As an exception that proves the rule, Dominique Mielle, in Damsel in Distressed, brings humor to her description of life as a very successful woman in the mostly male world of hedge funds. Minda Harts, professor of public service at NYU Wagner and founder of The Memo, offers actionable advice for women of color to cope with everything from the wage gap to microaggressions in Right Within. Our host is Morra Aarons-Mele, founder of the social impact agency, Women Online, host of the HBR podcast The Anxious Achiever, and author of Hiding in the Bathroom. Join this group of kick-ass, powerful women for an eye-opening and provocative session about work. Sponsored by Western Governors University. Have you considered liquid soap lately? You know, the kind in a plastic bottle with a pump? Laurie David, documentary filmmaker, activist, and author of Imagine It: A Handbook for a Happier Planet, explains that liquid soap was a solution in search of a problem, and if we all switched back to bar soap, the world would be a better place. Turns out that ubiquitous plastic bottle is depositing microplastic in our bodies, the ocean, and everywhere else. This, and many other ideas on how we can all become environmental activists, will be the topic of the conversation between Laurie and Tatiana Schlossberg, whose book Inconspicuous Consumption: The Environmental Impact You Don’t Know You Have won first place in the Society of Environmental Journalists’ Rachel Carson Environmental Book Award. The time for personal and collective action is now, so tune in and join these engaging and engaged women for a lively discussion of what you can do, sponsored by Cambridge Trust. Join Nate Powell and Andrew Aydin, two masters of the art of visual storytelling, for a discussion of their powerful recent work. Both Aydin, as co-writer, and Powell, as artist, produced the landmark trilogy, March, about the early days in the movement of civil rights icon and congressman John Lewis. The story continues in Run, about the years following the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. The stories of police brutality, voter suppression, and segregationist rhetoric in this critically lauded volume resonate today. Nate Powell will also share Save It for Later: Promises, Protest, and Parenthood, his poignant memoir in graphic essays of living and parenting in the Trump era, which Booklist called a “virtuoso work of artistry” in its starred review. Boston Public Library’s President, David Leonard, will lead the conversation. Sponsored by the Boston Public Library. We are pleased to present, as our first Lifelong Learning Keynote, National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize winner Tamara Payne, co-author with her late father, Les Payne, of The Dead Are Arising: The Life of Malcolm X. We hope that young adults and their parents tune in together to hear from the author as she is interviewed by Wellesley College history professor Kellie Carter Jackson and Fenway High School senior Jurianny Guerrero. Malcolm X lived for many years in the Nubian Square neighborhood in Roxbury, so his life and times have special resonance for our city. As Kerri Greenridge writes in the Atlantic, “The Dead Are Arising is a meticulously researched, compassionately rendered, and fiercely analytical examination of the radical revolutionary as a human being.” We look forward to a multi-generational audience for this multi-generational session. Sponsored by the Eric and Jane Nord Family Fund. Join Boston in 100 Words at Trident Booksellers and Café as they announce the winners of the 2021 Boston in 100 Words flash fiction writing contest! All thirteen winning authors will read their stories and see, for the first time, the original illustrations produced for each of them. Food and drink will be available for purchase at this celebratory event. Boston in 100 Words is an annual flash fiction writing contest co-produced by Inspired Masses, the Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture, and the Boston Public Library. Anyone living, working or going to school in the city and some surrounding towns can submit 100-word stories about everyday life in Boston. Winning stories are displayed as large, illustrated posters in public spaces throughout the city. Boston is the first city in the United States to host this transnational urban writing project, founded in Santiago, Chile. Please abide by city and venue regulations with regard to mask wearing and social distancing for this in-person event. Can't make it to Trident in person? Never fear! You can catch the livestream here. Have you ever dreamed of getting your MFA in creative writing? Here’s your chance to ask all your burning questions about what’s involved. During this informal discussion session, Lesley faculty will engage participants and offer their experiences in and viewpoints on the low-residency MFA program model for those curious about or interested in applying to a creative writing master’s degree. Topics will include: how to choose the best writing program for you, the difference between low-residency and customary programs, the format of a low-residency program, profiles of students who choose low-residency programs, diversity in writing culture and writing programs, and faculty mentorship. Come with your questions for program director Danielle Legros Georges, associate director Janet Pocorobba, and MFA alum Heather Hughes during this informative and practical session. Maybe you’ve toyed with the idea of launching a book club but don’t know where to start. Or perhaps your long-time book club has grown a bit stale . . . or downright dysfunctional. In this session, veteran book club members and facilitators Callie Crossley, Cynthia Haynes, and Woods Seney will offer their tips for book club success, share ideas for getting your book club back on the same page (as it were), and perhaps let us know what their book groups have been reading (and snacking on) lately. Bring your questions, cautionary tales, and success stories for this lively conversation, moderated by Akunna Eneh of the Boston Public Library’s Roxbury branch. Crafting suspense novels doesn’t have to be a mystery! In this session sponsored by Mystery Writers of America–New England, mystery authors Dale T. Phillips, Joanna Schaffhausen, and Sarah Smith will break down the elements of compelling fiction and creative nonfiction, including the lure of the unknown, the urge to find solutions, and the craving for answers. They’ll share their techniques for hiding and revealing secrets, creating suspense, using plot reversals and twists, and misleading through point-of-view characters. Bring your notebook (detective or otherwise) and your questions for this panel of experienced mystery writers, led by host Steve Rogers. Three authors, themselves leaders, put out a call to their friends, neighbors, and countrymen and women: it’s time to wake up and DO something. Tracy Swinton Bailey, in Forever Free: A True Story of Hope in the Fight for Child Literacy, makes an impassioned plea for literacy as the scaffolding on which success is built and describes how she started Freedom Readers, a nonprofit whose one-to-one tutoring model has succeeded in the rural South and has the potential to succeed across the United States. Drawing on thirty years of coaching Fortune 500 executives, Priscilla H. Douglas gleans inspiring stories of those who lead with consciousness and compassion in Woke Leadership: Profits, Prophets and Purpose. Former Harvard Business School professor Steven S. Rogers, in A Letter to My White Friends and Colleagues, uses historical research, case studies, and personal anecdotes to illustrate the causes of racial wealth disparity in the United States and presents practical solutions. You won’t want to miss this inspiring and important discussion, moderated by Steve Grossman, CEO of the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City. Sponsored by Other Press. Registration for this session is now full. Thank you for your interest! Pretty soon all fiction will be climate fiction. There is no escaping what’s happening to our big beautiful world and the fact that we are the cause of the climate emergency. But how do we as writers deal with this? Have you found the climate emergency—dark as it is—inspiring or hindering or in some ways both? Has your relationship with nature changed over the time you’ve been an active writer? How will that relationship affect your storytelling going forward? Join authors Julie Carrick Dalton and Erica Ferencik at the ICA Boston’s outdoor Grandstand, overlooking the Boston waterfront, to discuss the evolving role of nature and climate in literature. Attendees will leave with a diverse climate fiction reading list and some take-home writing prompts inspired by the outdoor setting of this timely conversation. After the session, please visit Porter Square Books’ brand-new Seaport location to shop for our presenters’ books, and get a free tour of GrubStreet’s new home at the Center for Creative Writing! Presented in partnership with GrubStreet and ICA Boston. Please abide by city and venue regulations with regard to mask wearing and social distancing for this in-person event. Recently named a Boston Globe–Horn Book honor book, Watercress, written by Andrea Wang and illustrated by Jason Chin, tells an understated but deeply moving story about a seemingly simple family meal that’s laden with significance for its Chinese American family. In this story time, artist Jason Chin and author Andrea Wang will introduce viewers to this aptly bittersweet story and Chin’s exquisitely detailed watercolor illustrations, which mirror the theme by utilizing both Chinese and Western brushwork techniques. Don’t miss your opportunity to explore Boston’s Chinatown while enjoying a StoryWalk based on Watercress! See our website for details. Sponsored by Simmons University. Donations made during registration or during the session itself will go to support the Boston Globe's Globe Santa program, gifting new books and toys to children in need this holiday season! Are you a cat person or a dog person? This fun and interactive session is open to both! Artist Michelle Mee Nutter, illustrator of Allergic, a graphic novel about a girl whose desire for a dog is foiled by her allergies, will square off against author Colleen AF Venable and artist Stephanie Yue, whose graphic novel series opener Katie the Catsitter is about a girl who winds up sitting for 217 cats! The perfect impartial host for this session is, of course, Jef Czekaj, author and illustrator of Cat Secrets and Dog Rules, not to mention his latest picture book, Little Ghoul Goes to School. Bring the family dog or your 217 cats to learn more about these funny graphic novels during this fast-paced session that will include draw-offs, audience voting, and a surprise or two! Sponsored by Simmons University. Donations made during registration or during the session will go to support the Boston Book Festival's Shelf Help Partnership, providing brand-new books and an author/illustrator visit to Boston-area public schools. This year's recipient schools are Josiah Quincy Elementary School in Chinatown and Chelsea High School in Chelsea. Thank you for your support! This fall, Macmillan launched an exciting new YA project, lining up some of the most talented authors for teens to “remix” works of classic literature and reinterpret them through their own cultural lenses, creating culturally relevant YA novels that make those dusty tomes feel brand-new. The first two books in the series have just been released this fall, and we’re pleased to host a conversation with C.B. Lee and Bethany C. Morrow, hosted by Laura Berestecki of the Boston Public Library. Lee’s book, A Clash of Steel, offers a queer re-visioning of Treasure Island centered on two young women and inspired by the legend of Chinese pirate queen Ching Shih. Morrow takes on New England classic Little Women in So Many Beginnings, setting her version in a community of newly freed Black people during the Civil War. Future volumes in the series will take on Wuthering Heights and Robin Hood—what classic works of literature would you want to remix? Sponsored by Simmons University. Donations made during registration or during the session will go to support the Boston Book Festival's Shelf Help Partnership, providing brand-new books and an author/illustrator visit to Boston-area public schools. This year's recipient schools are Josiah Quincy Elementary School in Chinatown and Chelsea High School in Chelsea. Thank you for your support! Ada is not one, but many women: She revolves in orbits between Ghana and London before eventually landing in Berlin. But she is also all women—because these loops transport her from one century to the next. Consequently, she experiences the misery but also the joy of womanhood: she is a victim, she offers resistance, and she fights for her independence. With vivid language and infinite imagination, with empathy and humor, Sharon Dodua Otoo’s novel Ada's Realm paints an astonishing picture of what it means to be a woman. During this session hosted and sponsored by Goethe-Institut Boston in partnership with the BBF, translator Jon Cho-Polizzi will interview Otoo about her prize-winning fiction. In roughly five decades, between 1848 and 1899, more gold was removed from the earth than had been mined in the three thousand preceding years, bringing untold wealth to individuals and nations. But friction between Chinese and white settlers on the goldfields of California, Australia, and South Africa catalyzed a global battle over “The Chinese Question”: would the United States and the British Empire outlaw Chinese immigration? Join us for a discussion of these definitive cultural and political movements which impact us to this day, featuring two remarkable authors and experts—Mae Ngai (The Chinese Question) and Jia Lynn Yang (One Mighty and Irresistible Tide)—on the topics of Chinese American history and immigration. This session is hosted by our partners at New England Historic Genealogical Society and presented in partnership with the State Library of Massachusetts, the Boston Public Library, and GBH Forum Network. Award-winning German writer Ulla Lenze makes her American debut with The Radio Operator, a taut and engrossing historical novel that draws on a forgotten, but contemporarily relevant, chapter from the past: pro-fascist activity among German immigrants in the United States during the years leading up to World War II. Based largely on the true story of Lenze’s great-uncle, the deft narrative—translated by Marshall Yarbrough, who will interview Lenze during this session—bookends the war years as Josef Klein, a German immigrant who arrived in New York in the 1920s, is reluctantly conscripted as an operative for a spy ring of American Nazi sympathizers. Ulla Lenze has written a highly personal and meditative novel that unfolds against a seemingly familiar backdrop while offering a fresh point-of-view. The Radio Operator is a keenly observed work of fiction that introduces an accomplished literary voice to American readers. This session is hosted and sponsored by Goethe-Institut Boston in partnership with the BBF. We ♥ the t-shirts Raúl the Third designed for BBF 2020, and we’re thrilled to welcome him back as a presenter for BBF 2021! In this Story Time session, Raul will introduce viewers to Little Lobo and his friends, who, in ¡Vamos! Let’s Cross the Bridge, are delivering party supplies, only to get stuck in an epic traffic jam turned fiesta on the Mexico–United States border. Like Richard Scarry with a Mexican American spin, Raul’s latest book takes readers on a road trip to remember! Don’t miss our East Boston Story Walk featuring ¡Vamos! Let’s Cross the Bridge, too! Sponsored by Simmons University. Donations made during registration or during the session itself will go to support the Boston Globe's Globe Santa program, gifting new books and toys to children in need this holiday season! Whether you identify as a city kid or an avid naturalist, fascinating birds can be found everywhere! In this session, we’ll hear from Rosemary Mosco, who’s been connecting people to the natural world with her funny (but scientifically accurate!) cartoons for years. In A Pocket Guide to Pigeon Watching she demystifies these ubiquitous but often misunderstood birds. Ornithologist Stephen W. Kress and photographer Derrick Z. Jackson team up for The Puffin Plan, a beautifully photographed account of reintroducing these gorgeous birds to rocky islands off the coast of Maine. We’ll hear from all these creators and get their ideas for incorporating the natural world into young people’s lives in this session hosted by Jeremy Spool of the Massachusetts Young Birders Club. Donations made during registration or during the session will go to support the Boston Book Festival's Shelf Help Partnership, providing brand-new books and an author/illustrator visit to Boston-area public schools. This year's recipient schools are Josiah Quincy Elementary School in Chinatown and Chelsea High School in Chelsea. Thank you for your support! The romance genre is staggeringly diverse; in this session we’ll take a deep dive into the variety just within the “contemporary romance” subcategory, with four stunningly talented masters of the genre. K. M. Jackson’s How to Marry Keanu Reeves in 90 Days effectively leavens heavy topics with a light rom-com feel, as a grieving Keanu super-fan sets off on a road trip accompanied by her long-time best friend in this friends-to-lovers heartwarmer. In The Dating Playbook, Farrah Rochon’s follow-up to The Boyfriend Project, a personal trainer has to weigh her professional ambitions against her growing attraction to her NFL-player client. Alyssa Cole’s latest installment in her Runaway Royals series recasts the story of Anastasia Romanov in the fictional African monarchy of Ibarania in “an effervescent queer romance,” according to Kirkus. Lana Harper adds a witchy twist to her queer rom-com, Payback’s a Witch, which blends mysticism, revenge, and attraction into what Publishers Weekly calls a “magical joyride” in a starred review. You’ll have plenty to add to your TBR list after this session, hosted by Andrea Martucci of the Shelf Love podcast. Sponsored by Emerson College Graduate Admission. We’re pleased to welcome author, artist, and muralist Katie Yamasaki back to the Boston Book Festival. This year, you can tune online in to watch a short Story Time with Katie about her new picture book Dad Bakes. Then head to Nubian Square in Roxbury, where you and your family can explore the neighborhood while discovering the story of Dad Bakes on our StoryWalk there, developed in partnership with the Boston Public Library! Sponsored by Simmons University. Donations made during registration or during the session will go to support the Boston Book Festival's Shelf Help Partnership, providing brand-new books and an author/illustrator visit to Boston-area public schools. This year's recipient schools are Josiah Quincy Elementary School in Chinatown and Chelsea High School in Chelsea. Thank you for your support! Looking for inspiration and empowerment to get involved in political and social action? Your first stop should be this bold and galvanizing session. Kekla Magoon’s Revolution in Our Time, recently longlisted for the National Book Award, offers meticulously researched historical context for today’s Black activist movements, as the author traces the history of the Black Panther Party in a narrative Kirkus calls a “not-to-be-missed story of America’s history and current reality.” In Rise Up! sociologist Crystal M. Fleming inspires readers to take up the cause of anti-racism in their own lives, thoroughly outlining the ongoing lineage of racial injustice and outlining concrete steps young people can take to work toward justice in their own communities. Jamia Wilson’s This Book Is Feminist offers an intersectional framework for understanding the history of feminist movements and for viewing contemporary feminism as the key to overcoming systemic oppression and injustice. If hearing all these inspiring stories of activism has you ready to hit the streets, artivist De Nichols will inspire your revolutionary creativity in her new book Art of Protest. Whether you’re looking to understand how we got here or you’re ready to take on the world, this dynamic conversation, hosted by interviewer Carissa Romain, will offer you a roadmap for your own activist journey. Sponsored by Candlewick Press. Donations made during registration or during the session will go to support the Boston Book Festival's Shelf Help Partnership, providing brand-new books and an author/illustrator visit to Boston-area public schools. This year's recipient schools are Josiah Quincy Elementary School in Chinatown and Chelsea High School in Chelsea. Thank you for your support! GBH News Arts & Culture reporter James Bennett II speaks with Simeon Marsalis, co-founder of Lampblack, a collective of Black writers with a mission to serve the Black literary community; and with writer and artist Tatiana Johnson-Boria, recipient of both the 2021 MacDowell Fellowship and the 2021 Brother Thomas fellowship. Presented by GBH. Produced by GBH. Sutapa and Shekhar are newlyweds aboard a stuck boat in the Sundarbans, with only their boatman Rehman to help. How will they, their boat, and their relationship last through the night, with the forest's inhabitants so close nearby? "Dumba Chora," this year's One City One Story selection by author Chandreyee Lahiri, tells the story. Find "Dumba Chora" at a location near you, or on the BBF site, then be sure to check out our conversation with the author, facilitated by Alicia Anstead, associate director for programming at Harvard's Office of the Arts. Sponsored by Plymouth Rock Assurance. Is an Olympic dream worth the blood, sweat, and tears? Find out in Alena Dillon’s The Happiest Girl in the World, a story of denial, ambition, and betrayal inspired by real events. Join GBH News reporter Craig LeMoult for a live discussion with the author about her exploration of a beloved sport’s disturbing truth, with an opportunity for Q&A. Presented by GBH. Join us all month long for the virtual Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards. Editor in Chief Roger Sutton interviews winners Jordan Scott and Sydney Smith (Picture Book, I Talk like a River); Paula Yoo (Nonfiction, From a Whisper to a Rallying Cry); and Rita Williams-Garcia (Fiction, A Sitting in St. James). Honorees Derrick Barnes, Gordon C. James, Andrea Wang, Jason Chin, Christina Soontornvat, Carole Boston Weatherford, Kimberly Brubaker Bradley, Ibi Zoboi, Yusef Salaam, and Omar T. Pasha present remarks. And watch a special session on the late Floyd Cooper, with Carole Boston Weatherford and BGHB Judge and Simmons University Lecturer in Children's Literature Nicholl Montgomery. Maybe you’re a grownup who spins bedtime stories so thrilling or hilarious, your kids or grandkids have begged you to turn them into a book. Or maybe you’re a kid who likes to write and draw your own fantasy stories or comic books. This session will help set you on the road toward making those dreams a reality through self-publishing. Joining us for this candid conversation is Candelaria Silva, whose debut picture book is the playful Stacey Became a Frog One Day. We’ll also be joined by two self-publishing veterans. Delanda Coleman is a self-publishing success story; she’s published fifteen books, most recently What’s My Superpower, and her very first self-published book sold more than ten thousand copies! Valerie Foxx is the author of several books for adults but recently published the middle-grade mermaid novel Merissa’s Sea-cret Powers in collaboration with three young cousins, ages eight and nine. Speaking of young people, during this session we’ll also hear from Coleman Luse, who’s following in the family footsteps by self-publishing his own comic book, X•Man and the Big Adventure. This session will be hosted by artist and co-founder of Comics in Color (and Coleman’s dad) Cagen Luse. Show up to learn and get inspired! Menstruation: honored, celebrated, revered, feared, ignored, misunderstood. Anita Diamant (The Red Tent) charts the flow of period history in her new book Period. End of Sentence., including generations of misinformation and silence. But it's not all bad news! A new generation of activists are committed to breaking the cycle of period stigma, and popular culture seems to be following suit. The Boston Globe's Meredith Goldstein moderates. In 1995, writer Earl Shorris launched the first Clemente Course in the Humanities, offering low-income adults the same access to the humanities as Ivy League freshmen. He claimed, “People who know the humanities become good citizens, become active, not acted upon.” White, suburban filmmaker James Rutenbeck went to Dorchester, one of Boston’s most diverse neighborhoods, to document students’ engagement with the Clemente Course in the Humanities. What begins as an academic inquiry becomes a collaborative, interpersonal experience when James realizes he can’t keep himself out of the narrative. His relationship to the story is influenced by two students, Kafi Dixon—a bus driver and urban farmer—and Carl Chandler—a neighborhood elder who combines a talent for storytelling with a profound intellectual curiosity. As James spends time with Kafi and Carl, he’s awakened to the violence, racism, and gentrification that threaten their place in the city. Their documentary film project, A Reckoning in Boston, bears witness to the struggles and injustices playing out across our city, and will compel viewers to grapple with their own complicity in these systems. Join us for a free screening of A Reckoning in Boston, followed by a live Q&A with filmmakers James Rutenbeck and Kafi Dixon, moderated by Rep. Liz Miranda. This screening and discussion are sponsored by Mass Humanities. After screening the documentary film A Reckoning in Boston at 7pm, join us on Crowdcast for a live Q&A with filmmakers James Rutenbeck and Kafi Dixon, moderated by Rep. Liz Miranda. This screening and discussion are sponsored by Mass Humanities. Join three writers as they discuss their different, difficult, and fascinating paths. As one of the few Black women to obtain a PhD in physics in the United States, Chanda Prescod-Weinstein encountered more than a few bumps on the road to becoming a cosmologist. Her book, The Disordered Cosmos: A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred, is described in a starred review in Publishers Weekly as “a resonant paean to the beauties of the cosmos and a persuasive appeal for solutions to injustices in science.” Brian Broome tells a raw coming-of-age story in Punch Me Up to the Gods. Described in numerous glowing reviews as “electrifying,” “staggering,” and “brilliant,” it creatively employs Gwendolyn Brooks’s poem “We Real Cool” as a framing device. Kim McLarin, in James Baldwin’s In Another Country Bookmarked, uses the themes of Baldwin’s novel to mirror her own experiences with life, love, and creativity. As Shelf Awareness writes in its starred review, McLarin “seamlessly traverses the boundaries of literary criticism, personal essay and cultural critique.” Kelley Chunn, principal of cause marketing firm Kelley Chunn & Associates, will lead the conversation. Sponsored by Arbella Insurance Foundation. We’re pleased to present a handful of interactive, family-friendly activities in partnership with the Boston Public Library as part of their celebration of the newly remodeled and reopened Roxbury Branch, which recently won an ALA/AIA Library Building Award. These activities are made possible with the support of the Wagner Foundation. Beginning at 11am, join visual artist and art educator Zahirah Nur Truth for a participatory chalk art activity for the whole family. Help make the new Roxbury Branch even more beautiful! The history of the Black liberation movement has been rooted in the organizing and mobilizing capabilities of Black institutions. This session will examine the legacy, power, and potential of Black institutions and how they have empowered communities, launched social movements, and produced activists who have served on the frontlines of America’s ongoing struggle for social, political, and economic justice. The panel will highlight the work of three scholars who have increased our understanding of the significant local and national impact that institutions have played in advancing the freedom dreams of Black folks in America and how this spirit of agency and “building up our own” has evolved into the present day. Panelists include Martha S. Jones (Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All), Kate Masur (Until Justice Be Done: America's First Civil Rights Movement, from the Revolution to Reconstruction), and Eddie R. Cole (The Campus Color Line: College Presidents and the Struggle for Black Freedom). The moderator for this session, developed in partnership with Boston’s Museum of African American History and sponsored by the James M. and Cathleen D. Stone Foundation, is Jelani M. Favors, author of Shelter in a Time of Storm: How Black Colleges Fostered Generations of Leadership and Activism, winner of the 2020 MAAH Stone Book Award. We’re pleased to present a handful of interactive, family-friendly activities in partnership with the Boston Public Library as part of their celebration of the newly remodeled and reopened Roxbury Branch, which recently won an ALA/AIA Library Building Award. These activities are made possible with the support of the Wagner Foundation. Acting Boston Mayor Kim Janey will preside over a ribbon-cutting ceremony and make some brief remarks about the role of the library in the Roxbury community. We’re pleased to present a handful of interactive, family-friendly activities in partnership with the Boston Public Library as part of their celebration of the newly remodeled and reopened Roxbury Branch, which recently won an ALA/AIA Library Building Award. These activities are made possible with the support of the Wagner Foundation. At 1pm, two Roxbury natives—author Tricia Elam Walker and artist Ekua Holmes—will read their forthcoming picture book Dream Street, a love letter to growing up in this vibrant Boston neighborhood. The first 25 families to attend and sign up will receive a free copy of the book when it publishes next month! We’re pleased to present a handful of interactive, family-friendly activities in partnership with the Boston Public Library as part of their celebration of the newly remodeled and reopened Roxbury Branch, which recently won an ALA/AIA Library Building Award. These activities are made possible with the support of the Wagner Foundation. At 1pm, celebrate the new Nubian Square HQ for Boston’s METCO program by taking a Boston Education Activism Tour (BEAT) of Nubian Square. High school students in METCO—the historic voluntary school desegregation program between Boston and the mostly white suburbs—travel between worlds every day when they ride their buses to school and back. Now they want to take everyone on a journey into Boston’s past to uncover the dynamic history of the Black community in Roxbury. These young people will use Nubian Square’s landmarks, from the Dillaway-Thomas House to Hibernian Hall, to uncover the stories of decades of artistry, activism, and achievement. They will introduce you to the brave organizers who envisioned a better world, like Ruth Batson, Ellen Jackson, Melnea Cass, Mel King and more. The tour will culminate at the brand new Nubian Square headquarters of METCO itself, whose founding story has many lessons for today. 2021 has seen a phenomenon known as “The Great Resignation,” thanks to so many professionals reflecting during the pandemic and recognizing a mismatch between their jobs and their personal priorities. If this sounds familiar, the novelists in this session will speak to you! In Black Buck, Mateo Askaripour blends satire and self-help as he traces one young man’s meteoric rise—and fall—as the only Black salesperson at a hot new startup, in what the Washington Post calls “an irresistible comic novel about the tenacity of racism in corporate America.” Zakiya Dalila Harris, in The Other Black Girl, also confronts racism in the workplace—in this case, the author’s first-hand experiences in the publishing industry—in the guise of a thriller Kirkus calls “slyly brilliant.” The title character of Elizabeth Gonzalez James’s novel Mona at Sea used to be an ambitious go-getter—that is, until the Great Recession of 2008 saw her laid off before she even got onboarded, and now she spends her days fruitlessly applying for meaningless jobs. Variety calls Mona at Sea “a winsome meditation on how to carry on living in the aftermath of disrupted plans”--something we can all relate to these days. And speaking of relating, the plot of Eric Giroux’s Ring on Deli might sound familiar to Massachusetts readers, as a young man must decide where his loyalties lie when the employees of a New England supermarket chain rise up against their corrupt leadership. Kirkus compares Giroux’s writing to Richard Russo’s, and calls Ring on Deli “a well-balanced comic tale that deftly grapples with larger contemporary themes.” All four of these talented writers are debut novelists—perhaps their conversation, moderated by Books on the Rox’s Lanelle Sneed, will inspire you to add “author” to your résumé, too! Sponsored by Greenough Brand Storytellers. Screenwriter and activist George M. Johnson’s 2020 book All Boys Aren’t Blue was a “memoir-manifesto,” offering young people, especially queer Black boys, a testimony of Johnson’s own adolescent experiences blended with reflections on gender identity, consent, toxic masculinity, and Black joy. Their new memoir, We Are Not Broken, is similarly both deeply personal and emphatically universal, as the author explores the close relationships between them, their brother, and their cousins, all growing up under the loving, wise, no-nonsense guidance of their grandmother, known as “Nanny.” Under Nanny’s eye, George and their cousins become aware of racial injustice, George embraces their queer identity . . . and they all grasp on to their abiding, fierce love for one another. In a starred review, Publishers Weekly calls We Are Not Broken “an intensely emotional, stunning read.” In this keynote session sponsored by Simmons University, Johnson will discuss their memoir with Nicholl Montgomery, a lecturer in children’s literature at Simmons. Donations made during registration or during the session will go to support the Boston Book Festival's Shelf Help Partnership, providing brand-new books and an author/illustrator visit to Boston-area public schools. This year's recipient schools are Josiah Quincy Elementary School in Chinatown and Chelsea High School in Chelsea. Thank you for your support! Black authors have been at the vanguard of speculative fiction and fantasy for the past few decades, and today we have three talented practitioners to introduce us to the breadth and scope of the genre. Author and activist Lucinda Roy is perhaps best known for her poetry, essays, and literary fiction, but her new novel The Freedom Race is Roy’s first foray into speculative fiction, imagining a near-future Second Civil War, the reinstitution of slavery, and a high-stakes race where first prize equals freedom. In Shallow Waters, debut novelist Anita Kopacz imagines a mystical antebellum past, one where a powerful Orisha, a deity from Africa’s Yoruba people, travels to America in 1849 and, in the guise of a young Black woman, interacts with figures both historical and imagined. In A Master of Djinn, his first full-length novel following several successful novellas, P. Djèlí Clark also sets up an alternate history, this one set in 1912 in Egypt, whose people have embraced magical beings who both inspired innovation and also drove away the colonial powers. But all is not perfect in Cairo, as an investigation into a mysterious murder makes all too clear. Our guide on this journey through time and space is Quentin Lucas, a storyteller, Emerson MFA candidate, and GrubStreet writing instructor. In All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake, Harvard historian and MacArthur Fellow Tiya Miles tells the unforgettable story of an antique piece of fabric, a sack that was given by an enslaved woman to her young daughter, Ashley, before the child was sold away from her. In 1921, Ashley’s granddaughter told Ashley’s story in 53 powerful words that she embroidered on the sack. Now housed at the Smithsonian, it stands as a unique artifact, a synecdoche, as Miles says, of American slavery. In the absence of written records of the lives of slaves, objects become the bearers of information. Miles brilliantly explores what Ashley’s sack says not only about the inhuman, twisted institution of slavery and the paucity of histories about Black women and families, but also about the meaning of love. Join Tiya Miles and Lee Pelton, President and CEO of the Boston Foundation, for a discussion of this moving and highly readable work of social history. Sponsored by the Wagner Foundation. Our annual Saturday evening celebration of poetry might be BYOB (again) this year, but it still promises to be the literary gathering of the weekend, as we bring together a talented group of poets to share their latest work in a casual, free-flowing setting. Poets Sam Cha (The Yellow Book), Anthony Febo (Becoming an Island), Rebecca Morgan Frank (Oh You Robot Saints!), Danielle Legros Georges (Letters from Congo), and Bianca Stone (The Möbius Strip Club of Grief, What Is Otherwise Infinite) will read from their latest collections. Join us and the co-sponsors of this event, Mass Poetry, to raise a glass or two with other poetry lovers at what’s become a BBF Saturday tradition, this time emceed by Mass Poetry’s new program director, Danielle Jones. Bake it Till You Make it: Live!, inspired by Dayna Altman’s first of its kind mental health cookbook Bake it Till You Make it: Breaking Bread Building Resilience, is a life baking demonstration and storytelling event rolled into one. During this session Dayna will share her mental health story while facilitating a cooking demonstration. Dayna will use the ingredients as metaphors to tell her own story of recovery and living with mental illness. Watch as she teaches you a new recipe and deconstructs stigma. For more information check out bakeittillyoumakeit.co or email Dayna at bakeitcookbook[email protected] Blending BBF’s flash fiction (but going flash real) and Her’tazhe’s Response Theater (RT) (reference Playback Theater) this session involves the viewers in an evocative event that focuses on injustice. Books and plays that have societal inequities as a theme will be referenced and dramatized through theater, poetry, vocals and instruments. Similar to BBF’s past flash fiction sessions, three Boston residents were asked to complete a reflective writing exercise regarding an oppressive, personal experience. Together, we will see these stories and a subset of other and possibly related “drama” that occurs in BIPOC communities, enacted. The overarching message is that the “drama” of inequity must end. This session is related to a second workshop, featuring a more specific discussion of injustice and the need for equity, occurring in person, whenever possible. Besides having day jobs to help support themselves, most writers face additional demands on their time—from parenting to helping aging or ill relatives or friends to coping with global threats such as the recent pandemic. Creativity can languish when relegated to the graveyard shift. How do you manage an intense day job and personal obligations while still getting a book out...or more? Come hear how writers Desmond Hall (Your Corner Dark), Doris Iarovici (Minus One), Daphne Kalotay (Blue Hours), and Rishi Reddi (Passage West) did it during this on-demand panel discussion, and then share your own experiences during the live Q&A starting at 11:30am. Besides having day jobs to help support themselves, most writers face additional demands on their time—from parenting to helping aging or ill relatives or friends to coping with global threats such as the recent pandemic. Creativity can languish when relegated to the graveyard shift. How do you manage an intense day job and personal obligations while still getting a book out...or more? Watch the on-demand discussion to hear how writers Desmond Hall (Your Corner Dark), Doris Iarovici (Minus One), Daphne Kalotay (Blue Hours), and Rishi Reddi (Passage West) did it and then tune in at 11:30am to share your own experiences during this live Q&A. Do you yearn for those moments when words seem to write themselves? Learn to bypass the self-doubt, self-judgment, and perfectionism that cause writers’ block. During the workshop participants will have the opportunity to experience connecting with their deepest writing self and writing from a trance state. Tarot cards, meditation, and ritual will be used to enhance the experience. This one-hour interactive workshop will be led by authors Carolyn Wilkins and Sarah Smith and is open to writers in all genres. No experience is necessary. All are welcome. Our panel of writers, teachers, and activists will discuss the elements environmental writers bring to storytelling: how to tell or teach stories that support political action, reveal or foster a better understanding of past and present environmental crises, and how writing can narrate interconnections of people and places across genres. Each contributor connects Boston-area concerns with larger geographies and histories: Inupiaq poet Joan Naviyuk Kane links her Alaskan homelands with her current home in Cambridge; Kate Brown connects distant nuclear and local plant histories; historian Tony Perry examines the relationship of enslaved peoples in the early United States with their environments; Kerri Arsenault traces pollution in the Northeast; and panel moderator Bathsheba Demuth connects histories of New England and the Arctic. Through guiding questions about genre, audience, and writing across disciplines, the panelists will discuss how the past and present can be linked through storytelling to an environmentally just future. Over the past several years the publishing world (and its readers) have thankfully demanded more diversity within stories. But as welcome as this change is, it can leave many non-marginalized writers with anxiety. How are you supposed to go about it? What if you mess up? Are you allowed to write about marginalized people at all? In this session facilitated by Milo Todd, we'll discuss common worries, some do's and don'ts, engage in self-reflection questions, and more. Writers will leave this session with more insight, awareness, and confidence to produce the most accurate and empathetic work they can.Date
EDT
Schedule
Thursday, October 14, 2021
AuthorFest: Peril
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Friday, October 15, 2021
Kickoff Keynote: Our Pandemic Future
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Saturday, October 16, 2021
Poetry Keynote
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Danielle Legros Georges
Island Heart: The Poems of Ida Faubert, Saturday, October 16 | Sunday, October 17 | Saturday, October 23 | virtual
The Enduring Legacy of Slavery
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Women: Working It
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Environmental Activism: How To Protect the Planet and Yourself
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Graphic Nonfiction: The Political Is Personal
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Lifelong Learning Keynote with Tamara Payne
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Boston in 100 Words Awards Ceremony
Sunday, October 17, 2021
Under the Hood: A Look at What’s in a Low-Residency MFA Program
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Danielle Legros Georges
Island Heart: The Poems of Ida Faubert, Saturday, October 16 | Sunday, October 17 | Saturday, October 23 | virtual
The Care and Feeding of Book Clubs
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Every Story Is a Mystery
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Woke Leadership
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Monday, October 18, 2021
BBF Unbound: A Warming World and Your WIP: Facing Up to the Climate Emergency in Your Fiction
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Story Time: Jason Chin and Andrea Wang
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Middle Grade Graphic Novels: Cats vs. Dogs
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YA: Classics Remixed
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Tuesday, October 19, 2021
Ada's Realm
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The Chinese Question
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Wednesday, October 20, 2021
The Radio Operator
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Story Time: Raúl the Third
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YA: This Session's for the Birds
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Contemporary Romance Roundtable
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Thursday, October 21, 2021
Story Time: Katie Yamasaki
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YA: Revolution and Resistance
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Who We Are Writing For: Black Authors Discuss Craft and Audience
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One City One Story
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Beyond the Page: The Happiest Girl in the World
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Friday, October 22, 2021
Boston Globe–Horn Book Awards Feature
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Self-Publishing Your Children's Book
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Period. End of Sentence
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Anita Diamant
Period. End of Sentence. A New Chapter in the Fight for Menstrual Justice, Friday, October 22 | virtual
A Reckoning in Boston Film Screening
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A Reckoning in Boston post-screening discussion
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Saturday, October 23, 2021
Memoir: Finding Your Way as a Black Person in a White World
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BPL Roxbury Branch Reopening: Chalk Art
Building Up Their Own: The Legacy, Power, and Potential of Black Organizing and Institution Building in America
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Martha S. Jones
Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All, Saturday, October 23 | virtual
BPL Roxbury Branch Reopening: Ribbon-Cutting
BPL Roxbury Branch Reopening: Dream Street Story Time
BPL Roxbury Branch Reopening: BBF Unbound BEAT Tour
Fiction: Work and Identity
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YA: Memoir Keynote
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Speculative Fiction
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History Keynote
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Poems & Pints
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Danielle Legros Georges
Island Heart: The Poems of Ida Faubert, Saturday, October 16 | Sunday, October 17 | Saturday, October 23 | virtual
Sunday, October 24, 2021
BBF Unbound: Bake It Till You Make it . . . Live!
BBF Unbound: No More Drama
BBF Unbound: Writing in the Graveyard Shift Panel
BBF Unbound: Writing in the Graveyard Shift Q&A
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BBF Unbound: Set Your Writing Free: Write from Your Intuition and Heart
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BBF Unbound: After "Nature Writing"
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BBF Unbound: Writing Outside of Your Lane
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