The Louisiana Book Festival Returns in November

Save the date! The Louisiana Book Festival is returning to Baton Rouge on Saturday, November 2, 2024, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the Louisiana State Capitol, the State Library of Louisiana, the Capitol Park Museum and the surrounding Capitol Park area. This year will mark the festival’s 20th anniversary, and there is a stellar lineup of guest authors and free activities to help celebrate.

Featured Authors

Over 200 authors and presenters are slated to partake in this year’s festivities, including our very own Editor Erin Z. Bass, who will be interviewing writer Valerie Martin.

Author Ashley Elston will be returning to the festival with her New York Times bestselling adult debut novel First Lie Wins. Author and illustrator William Joyce will also return with Rocket Puppies, his first book in eight years.

Other featured authors include Jess Armstrong, Kimberly Brock, James Lee Burke, David Kirby, Rosey Lee, Valerie Martin, Kent Wascom, Ashley Winstead and Snowden Wright.

Festivities

WordShops, the popular workshop series with instructors that include authors and publishing professionals, will return November 1 at the State Library of Louisiana. Recently announced instructors include Johnette Downing, Andre Dubus III, Barbara Hammy, David Kirby, Chad Luibl and Maurice Carlos Ruffin. The workshops include two sessions where participants can learn about writing processes and publication. And the best part is no experience is required. Registration starts at $50 and closes on October 25.

Poet and long-time Florida State University professor David Kirby will accept the 25th Louisiana Writer Award. Additionally, the fifteenth One Book One Festival program will feature Eudora Welty’s The Optimist’s Daughter with a reader discussion group led by Dr. Gary Richard.

Beyond books, the festival will also host the premiere of Book Across America, filmmaker Mason Engel’s documentary in which he travels to 50 states, reads 50 books and interviews 50 authors in 50 days, including 2023 Louisiana Writer Award winner Maurice Carlos Ruffin.

About the Artwork

“In the image, a writer sits quietly working at a window at dusk, while the surrounding cypress swamp comes to life,” artist Kelly A. Mueller explains. She recently began to teach at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette after two decades teaching in New Orleans. Excerpts from some of Kirby’s poems with a Louisiana connection are found throughout the piece, including “come to find out,” as are numbers that celebrate the 20th book festival, the 25th Louisiana Writer Award and the 40 years of Kirby’s poems featured in his new collection The Winter Dance Party.

For more information about the 2024 Louisiana Book Festival, visit the official site or follow the festival’s Facebook page.

Deep South is a media sponsor for the Louisiana Book Festival.