my account

Final 2017 Author Line-Up Announced

March 14, 2017 by Nantucket Book Festival

NANTUCKET, MA—Now in its sixth year, the Nantucket Book Festival has established itself as a major summer destination for booklovers 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 in 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 this year’s Festival include presentations by legendary broadcaster Diane Rehm, who will be talking about her latest book On My Own, a memoir of how she reconstructed her life after the death of her husband; Pulitzer Prize winner Isabel Wilkerson, author of The Warmth of Other Suns, which chronicles the Great Migration of African Americans from the South; former 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 together with National Book Award finalist Laurie Halse Anderson (Speak; Seeds of America trilogy). Crowd favorites Alice Hoffman, Jodi Picoult, and Nancy Thayer will be returning to the Festival as well.

Other authors who will be participating represent a variety of genres and subjects including mystery/spy, adventure, science, young adult, memoir, poetry, biography, books about writing, and children’s literature. A complete listing of authors to date 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 weekend. 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 Resort 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.