On Saturday (the 26th), the Library of Congress will host the 9th Annual National Book Festival. The festival will take place on the National Mall and is free and open to the public. President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama are honorary co-chairs of the event.
The event will feature a variety of different pavilions showcasing different aspects of reading and writing. There will be six different author pavilions (including teen and children authors, fiction authors, history & biography authors and poetry & prose authors). There will also be a book sales pavilion with Borders Books acting as official festival bookseller. And the Library of Congress Pavilion will offer interactive family activities to entertain even the youngest readers.
The festival will coincide with the launch of Read.gov, a new website designed to combine together all of the Library of Congress’ literary-promotion programs. The LoC will also debut a new collection of podcasts featuring interviews with festival authors. The podcasts will be available on the LoC website or iTunes, free of charge.
More than 70 writers and illustrators will be in attendance at the festival, including: Kate DiCamillo, Sharon Creech, Judy Blume, Rick Riordan, Lois Lowry, James Patterson, John Irving, Jodi Picoult, Nicholas Sparks, Marilynne Robinson, Azar Nafisi and National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature Jon Scieszka.
The National Book Festival will take place on the National Mall between 7th and 14th streets and will run from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. You can stay up-to-date with NBF news by following @librarycongress on Twitter or becoming a fan of the Library on Facebook.
[Photo Credit: Library of Congress]
