The North Carolina Literary Festival announced today another 78 writers for its Sept. 10-13 schedule — including some big, big names that promise to make this a not-to-be-missed weekend for book lovers across North Carolina and even beyond the state’s borders. From this afternoon’s press release:
John Grisham, Elizabeth Edwards and Pulitzer Prize winners Douglas Blackmon, Rick Bragg and Elizabeth Strout are among authors to be featured at the North Carolina Literary Festival Sept. 10-13.
Others among the 102 authors appearing at the free public festival, to be held at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, include Will Blythe, author of the Carolina-Duke basketball rivalry tome To Hate Like This Is to Be Happy Forever, former North Carolina Poet Laureate Fred Chappell, forensic anthropologist Kathy Reichs and favorite North Carolina novelists Doris Betts and Clyde Edgerton.
The rest of the line-up is equally compelling, with some of my own favorites (and some folks I’ve interviewed/reviewed recently) including Dorothy Allison, James Applewhite, Michael Chitwood, William Conescu (interviewed here), Sarah Dessen, Pamela Duncan, Bill Ferris, Marianne Gingher, John Hart (reviewed here), John Kessel, Michael Malone (interviewed here), Lydia Millet, Robert Morgan, Ron Rash, Jaki Shelton Greene, Kathryn Stripling Byer, Wells Tower, and Matthew Vollmer (interviewed here). A full list of participants is here, and a full schedule of these authors’ appearances will be announced next month.