Looking for something to do over Labor Day weekend?
Consider checking out the AJC Decatur Book Festival. Featuring readings, lectures and signings from more than 300 national and local authors — including several from Emory — the event has become the nation's largest community-based independent book festival.
As a major festival sponsor, the University will have a presence as never before, from hosting the keynote address on campus to an expanded booth at the corner of Clairemont Avenue and East Ponce de Leon and appearances by featured Emory authors and poets.
U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey will open the festival with the keynote address at 8 p.m., Friday, Aug. 31, at Emory University's Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts, sharing excerpts from her newest poetry collection, “Thrall.” Tickets for the event are sold out.
The appearance will mark her first public reading since being named 19th U.S. Poet Laureate in June. Trethewey, a Decatur resident and Pulitzer Prize winning poet, is the Charles Candler Professor of English and Creative Writing and incoming director of Emory's Creative Writing Program.
The festival continues Saturday, Sept. 1, with a children's parade on Decatur Square. Events, which include a book market, street fair, youth activities, and special talks and performances, will run in downtown Decatur throughout Saturday and into Sunday afternoon, Sept. 2.
Featured Emory authors include:
- Alan Abramowitz, Alben W. Barkley Professor of Political Science
- Stacia Brown, director of development for clinical programs.
- Joseph Crespino, associate professor of history
- Dana Greene, dean and faculty emerita of Emory's Oxford College
- Lawrence Jackson, professor of English and African American studies
- Michael Moon, professor of American studies
- Susan Rebecca White, lecturer in fiction
- Kevin Young, Atticus Haygood Professor of Creative Writing and English and
For a complete schedule of authors, programs and events, check www.decaturbookfestival.com.