| Industry | Literature and Publishing |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2009 |
| Founder(s) | Deborah Z. Porter |
| Headquarters | Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States of America |
| Area served | Greater Boston area |
| Website | bostonbookfest.org |
The Boston Book Festival is an independent non-profit group based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the name of its main event. The non-profit was founded in 2009 by Deborah Z. Porter, and aims to "celebrate the power of words to stimulate, unite, delight, and inspire by holding an annual event that highlights the importance of literacy, literature, and ideas in our culture."
The annual book festival is a free one-day event, combining a street festival with an array of authors and other literary presenters from around the world. In 2010 some 25,000 people participated in the 12-hour event.
Throughout the year, the Boston Book Festival hosts talks and presentations that cover a range of programming similar to that of the event itself. On April 28, 2011 the BBF hosted a "Science (non) Fiction" event and dinner at the MIT Media Lab, with talks by scientists Hugh Herr and Cynthia Breazeal moderated by Steven Pinker. [1]
Contents |
The Festival is held in mid-October in Boston's Back Bay. Speaker presentations take place in the Boston Public Library, Old South Church, Trinity Church, and Back Bay Events Center.
The street festival is hosted on Copley Square, and usually includes a live music stage, dozens of exhibitors and vendors, and many free participatory activities for attendees and their families – programming and activities for children, writing workshops and contests, and open mic opportunities.
The inaugural festival in 2009 included authors such as Ken Burns, Anita Diamant, Andre Dubus III, Tom Perrotta, Alicia Silverstone, and John Hodgman.[2] Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk delivered the keynote address in the sanctuary of Old South Church to over 1000 festival-goers.
In 2010, the festival included 130 authors and over 40 sessions, with presenters including Bill Bryson, Food Network star Tyler Florence, Boston novelist Dennis Lehane, Nobel Prize winners Joseph Stiglitz and Amartya Sen, Diary of a Wimpy Kid creator Jeff Kinney, and Atul Gawande. Joyce Carol Oates closed the festival with a standing-room-only keynote address in the Trinity Church sanctuary.[3] Attendance at BBF 2010 was 24,000, doubling the size of the crowd from the first year. [4]
This year's festival also celebrated the start of a new literary outreach program in 2010: One City One Story. This initiative encouraged the greater Boston community to read and discuss a piece of literary fiction by making it readily available.
The 2011 Festival took place on Saturday, October 15, similar in size to that in 2010. Its discussions extended beyond printed works to include one about the television series The Wire.[5]
Speakers included Robert Chew, Jamie Hector, Mo Willems, and Michael Ondaatje.
This is an annual "One City" reading program started in 2010. The short story chosen the first year was Tom Perrotta's "The Smile on Happy Chang's Face". 30,000 copies were bound, printed, and distributed for free throughout the city's libraries, subway stops, coffee shops, and bookstores. Translations of the story were published on the Festival's website in Spanish, Haitian Creole, Chinese and Portuguese.[6]
In 2011 the story was "The Whore's Child" by Richard Russo, translated into Chinese, Portuguese, and Spanish.[7] Discussion groups were held in all branches of the Boston Public Library.
Elizabeth Alexander- poet, essayist, playwright, and teacher; composed and delivered "Praise Song for the Day" at President Obama's inauguration
Steve Almond- short story writer and novelist, book reviewer for The Boston Globe and L.A. Times; author of Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life
Brunonia Barry- author of The Lace Reader and The Map of True Places
Kate Bernheimer- founder and editor of Fairy Tale Review, novelist and short story writer; editor of My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me
Lisa Birnbach- author of the 1980 bestseller The Official Preppy Handbook and, most recently, True Prep: It's a Whole New World
Bill Bryson- author of A Short History of Nearly Everything, I'm a Stranger Here Myself, and At Home: A Short History of Private Life, among others
Nicholas G. Carr- writes of the impact of technology on everyday lives; titles include The Big Switch and The Shallows: What the Internet is Doing to Our Brains
Justin Cronin- author of The Summer Guest, Mary and O'Neil, and The Passage; winner of the PEN/Hemingway Award and the Stephen Crane Prize
Alan Dershowitz- professor at Harvard Law School, author of The Case for Israel and Rights From Wrongs: A Secular Theory of the Origins of Rights
Hallie Ephron- book reviewer, journalist, and novelist; author of Never Tell a Lie and 1001 Books for Every Mood
Haleh Esfandiari- expert on Middle Eastern women's issues and author of My Prison, My Home: One Woman’s Story of Captivity in Iran
Noah Feldman- author of Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR's Great Supreme Court Justices and The Fall and Rise of the Islamic State
Joshua Ferris- short story writer and novelist, author of Then We Came to the End, winner of the 2007 PEN/Hemingway Award, and The Unnamed
Tyler Florence- Food Network star and host of "Tyler's Ultimate"; author of five bestselling cookbooks including Stirring the Pot and Family Meals
Nick Flynn- poet, playwright, and memoirist of The Ticking is the Bomb and Another Bullshit Night in Suck City
Atul Gawande- physician and journalist; author of the New York Times Bestseller The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right
Myla Goldberg- musician and novelist, author of Bee Season, Wickett's Remedy, and The False Friend
Christina Gonzalez- news reporter and author of a debut novel The Red Umbrella
Allegra Goodman- author of Kaaterskill Falls, a National Book Award finalist, Intuition, and most recently The Cookbook Collector
Andrew Gross- best known for his six collaborations with thriller author James Patterson, also a solo author of Don't Look Twice and Reckless
Jennifer Haigh- novelist and short story writer, winner of a PEN/L.L. Winship award for her novel Baker Towers and a PEN/Hemingway Award for Mrs. Kimble
James Hirsch- author of Hurricane: The Miraculous Journey of Rubin Carter and Willie Mays: The Life, The Legend
Tony Hiss- staff writer at The New Yorker; author of The Experience of Place and In Motion: The Experience of Travel
A. M. Homes- short story writer and novelist; author of The End of Alice, This Book Will Save Your Life, and The Mistress's Daughter
Ann Hood- author of thirteen books including the novels The Red Thread, The Knitting Circle, and the memoir Comfort: A Journey Through Grief
Gish Jen- novelist and short story writer; author of Typical American, Mona in the Promised Land, The Love Wife, and World and Town
Steven Berlin Johnson- contributing editor at Wired and popular science author of The Invention of Air and Where Good Ideas Come From
Kevin Kelly- founding executive editor of Wired and author of Out of Control: The New Biology of Machines, Social Systems and the Economic World and What Technology Wants
Jeff Kinney- game designer, cartoonist, and author of the children's Diary of a Wimpy Kid series
David Kirkpatrick- former senior editor for Internet and Technology at Fortune magazine and author of The Facebook Effect
Kathryn Lasky- Newbury Medal-winning author of more than 100 children's books including installments in The Royal Diaries series and the bestselling Guardians of Ga'Hoole series
Dennis Lehane- bestselling Boston native author of A Drink Before the War, Shutter Island, The Given Day, and Moonlight Mile
Marianne Leone Cooper- film and television actress most popular for her role on The Sopranos; author of the memoir Knowing Jesse: A Mother's Story of Grief, Grace, and Everyday Bliss
Kelly Link- author of short story collections Stranger Things Happen, Magic for Beginners, and Pretty Monsters; co-manager for Small Beer Press with husband Gavin Grant
Simon Mawer- author of Swimming to Ithaca, The Gospel of Judas, The Fall, and The Glass Room- a finalist for the 2009 Man Booker Prize
Mark Moffett- regular contributor to National Geographic and author of Adventures Among Ants
Dambisa Moyo- economist and New York Times bestselling author of Dead Aid: Why Aid is Not Working and How There is a Better Way For Africa
Joyce Carol Oates- author of Them, winner of the National Book Award in 1970, and Pulitzer Prize-nominated works Black Water, What I Loved For, and Blonde; her latest book is Sourland
Jane O'Connor- author of more than thirty children's books including the New York Times bestselling Fancy Nancy series
Jay Parini- poet, novelist, and critic who has written or edited over forty books; author of The Last Station, now a major motion picture
Tom Perrotta- bestselling author of multiple novels and the short story "The Smile on Happy Chang's Face," the selected story for the inaugural One City, One Story program
David Rakoff- contributor to NPR's "This American Life," writer-at-large for GQ and author of Half Empty and Don't Get Too Comfortable, among others
Nir Rosen- freelance journalist focusing on the relationship between the US and Iraq; written articles for The New Yorker, Time Magazine, and Atlantic Monthly
Moshe Safdie- architect and urban designer of buildings such as the Marina Bay Sands in Singapore and Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion International Airport
Michael Sandel- Professor at Harvard University and author of Justice: What's the Right Thing to Do?
Stacy Schiff- biographer and author of Vera (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov), winner of the 2000 Pulitzer Prize, and most recently Cleopatra: A Life
Kathryn Schulz- author of Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error and blogger for "The Wrong Stuff" through Slate
Amartya Sen- awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his contributions to welfare economics; author of numerous books, most recently The Idea of Justice
David Shields- author of The Thing About Life Is That One Day You'll Be Dead and Reality Hunger: A Manifesto
Brando Skyhorse- author of The Madonnas of Echo Park, winner of the 2011 PEN/Hemingway Award
Joseph Stiglitz- winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics; author of Making Globalization Work and Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy
Ellen Doré Watson- poet, translator, and teacher; collections of poetry include This Sharpening, Ladder Music, and Dogged Hearts
Kevin Young- award-winning author of six books of poetry including Dear Darkness and Jelly Roll: A Blues which was a finalist for the National Book Award
Kurt Andersen- writer, columnist, radio host, and novelist; author of Turn of the Century and Heyday
Tom Ashbrook- journalist and broadcaster, host of NPR's On Point
Jack Beatty- senior editor of The Atlantic and analyst for NPR's On Point
Ken Burns- documentary director and producer of such films as National Parks, The War, Baseball, and The Civil War
Dana Cameron- archaeologist and crime novelist; author of Ashes and Bones
Stephen L. Carter- professor of law, columnist, and bestselling novelist; author of The Emperor of Ocean Park
Harvey Cox- theologian and author of The Future of Faith and When Jesus Came to Harvard
Anita Diamant- New York Times bestselling author of The Red Tent and The Last Days of Dogtown
Andre Dubus III- author of House of Sand and Fog, winner the National Book Award and an Oprah Book Club pick
Joseph Finder- author of thrillers such as High Crimes and Killer Instinct
Ethan Gilsdorf- poet, editor, critic, and journalist; author of Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks
Mary Gordon- novelist and memoirist; author of Circling My Mother, Pearl, and Reading Jesus
Lani Guinier- lawyer, scholar, and civil rights activist; author of The Miner's Canary: Rethinking Race and Power
Jennifer Haigh- short story writer and author of Mrs. Kimble, Baker Towers, and The Condition
John Hodgman- actor, humorist, and author of The Areas of My Expertise and More Information Than You Require
Walter Isaacson- former managing editor of TIME and former CEO of CNN; biographer and author of Benjamin Franklin: An American Life
Calestous Juma- expert in science and technology, particularly pertaining to sustainable development
Tim Kring- television producer and screenwriter; creator of Heroes and Crossing Jordan
Corby Kummer- senior editor at The Atlantic and food critic for Boston Magazine; author of The Pleasures of Slow Food
Dennis Lehane- award-winning author of novels such as Mystic River, Gone Baby, Gone, Shutter Island, and The Given Day
Jill Lepore- history professor, contributor to The New Yorker, and novelist of Blindspot with Jane Kamensky
Brian Lies- author and illustrator of children's books such as Bats at the Beach and Bats at the Library
Elinor Lipman- short story author and novelist of The Family Man and Then She Found Me
Michael Patrick MacDonald- anti-violence activist and memoirist of All Souls: A Family Story From Southie
Jackie MacMullan- sportswriter for ESPN.com; former senior writer for Sports Illustrated and columnist for The Boston Globe
Megan Marshall- scholar and Pulitzer Prize-finalist for The Peabody Sisters: Three Women Who Ignited American Romanticism
Kim McLarin- author of the novels Jump at the Sun, Meeting of the Waters, and Taming it Down
Ben Mezrich- bestselling author of Bringing Down the House and The Accidental Billionaires
Nicholas Negroponte- architect and founder of MIT's Media Lab and One Laptop per Child
Orhan Pamuk- winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature; author of Istanbul: Memories of a City, Snow, and The Museum of Innocence
Tom Perrotta- screenwriter and novelist of Election, Little Children, and The Abstinence Teacher
Robert Pinsky- Former U.S. Poet Laureate; poetry editor for Slate; poet of Gulf Music: Poems, Samurai Song, and Jersey Rain
David Pogue- technology writer and commentator, columnist for The New York Times; author of The World According to Twitter
Richard Russo- screenwriter and author of That Old Cape Magic, Bridge of Sighs, and Empire Falls
Hank Phillippi Ryan- investigative reporter and author of crime novels Prime Time, Face Time, and Air Time
Anita Shreve- author of novels such as Changes in Altitude, The Weight of Water, and The Pilot's Wife (Oprah Book Club pick)
Alicia Silverstone- actress, fashion model, and author of The Kind Diet
Jessica Stern- policy consultant on terrorism, author of Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill, The Ultimate Terrorists, and the new memoir, Denial
Scout Tufankjian- photojournalist of Yes We Can: Barack Obama's History-Making Presidential Campaign
Larry Tye- journalist and non-fiction author of Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend
Chris Van Allsburg- Caldecott Award-winning author and illustrator of the children's books Jumanji and The Polar Express
Cornel West- philosopher, activist, actor, and author of Race Matters and Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud