Nantucket Book Festival Announces Summer Line-Up

Now in its sixth year, the Nantucket Book Festival has established itself as a major summer destination for booklovers of all stripes with impressive and varied line-ups of award-winning authors. The three-day Festival, June 16-18, will offer author readings, panel discussions and social events that provide an informal atmosphere that encourages conversations between writers and readers. Most of the Festival events are free and held within walking distance of the Ferry.

Some highlights of the presenters include legendary broadcaster Diane Rehm who will be talking about her latest book, On My Own, a personal memoir of how she reconstructed her life after the death of her life-long husband and partner; Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Isabel Wilkerson, author of the The Warmth of Other Suns, which chronicles the Great Migration of African Americans from the South; US Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky, author of nineteen books, most of them collections of his own poetry; and Ruth Reichl, former editor in chief of Gourmet Magazine whose latest book, My Kitchen Year: 136 Recipes that Saved My Life, extols the power of cooking to cure many of life's ills. Nathaniel Philbrick, the island's favorite literary son, will be presenting his new YA book, Ben's Revolution: Benjamin Russell and the Battle of Bunker Hill, and crowd favorites Alice Hoffman and Jodi Picoult will be returning.

Other authors who will be participating represent a variety of genres and subjects including mystery/spy, science, young adult, memoir, poetry, biography, books about writing, and children's books. A complete listing of authors is at www.nantucketbookfestival.org.

To highlight the active literary community on the island, the Festival will host an outdoor tent in the Nantucket Atheneum garden of local authors selling and signing their books during the day on Saturday. There will be storytimes for children, and poetry on demand from The Typewriter Rodeo, the group of Austin-based poets who will write free poems on any subject for patrons.

Other events include the Friday evening Author's Dinner at the White Elephant Inn which is a fundraiser for the Festival (tickets will be available beginning mid-April), and the annual Cisco Brewers Send Off event on Sunday afternoon replete with authors, food and entertainment.

About the Nantucket Book Festival: The Nantucket Book Festival operates under the Nantucket Book Foundation, a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization founded to celebrate and promote the joys and rewards of reading, writing, and literacy. The organization seeks to present an annual quality program that honors national, regional, and local authors and the rich culture of the written word, ideas, and the imagination.

The Nantucket Book Foundation also administers an education program in the Nantucket schools which includes the PEN/Faulkner Writers in Schools program, the Nantucket Book Festival Young Writers Award, and the Visiting Authors program. PEN/Faulkner author Benjamin Alire Saenz will be coming to Nantucket in April under these auspices.

For more information visit www.nantucketbookfestival.org.

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