More Authors Announced for Literary Festival

Posted on Aug. 4, 2009

More than 100 authors will appear at this year’s N.C. Literary Festival, which will be held on the Carolina campus Sept. 10-13.

Two dozen authors already had been named to be part of the free public festival, and in late July another 78 writers were announced, bringing the total for the event to 102.

A schedule for the festival will be announced in August.

The featured writers just announced include John Grisham, Elizabeth Edwards ’71 and Pulitzer Prize winners Douglas Blackmon, Rick Bragg and Elizabeth Strout. Other writers who will be attending include Will Blythe ’79, 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 novelists Doris Betts ’54 and Clyde Edgerton ’66.

The festival’s theme is “A Celebration of Reading and Writing” and will include author readings, talks across the campus, exhibits, performances, book signings, sales and children’s activities.

“With this lineup of authors, the festival will offer something for everyone,” said festival director Amy Baldwin. “With poets to novelists and genres ranging from thrillers and memoirs to romance and award-winning literature, the festival will be a landmark event for the Triangle that no one will want to miss.”

The libraries of UNC and Duke and NCSU universities, with additional support from N.C. Central University, organize and sponsor the festival; the location rotates biennially among the Carolina, Duke and NCSU campuses. Since the festival began, it has been held in 1998 and 2002 at Carolina, 2004 at NCSU and 2006 at Duke. The festival is supported by private gifts and grants.

Previously named festival participants include musicians Matraca Berg and Marshall Chapman and authors Jill McCorkle ’80; Lee Smith, who received an honorary degree last spring from Carolina; and Anna Deveare Smith. Also announced earlier were 13 children’s authors, storytellers and illustrators, including John Claude Bemis ’95, Clay Carmichael ’79, Barbara Duncan, Alan Gratz, Kathi Littlejohn, Brian Pinkney, Carrie Ryan, Judy Schachner and R.L. Stine.

Authors conducting readings across the state in the festival’s Authors on the Road program are P.T. Deutermann; Allan Gurganus; Randall Kenan ’85, who is an associate professor in UNC’s English department; Joan Medlicott; Charles Price; and Daniel Wallace ’08, who is a professor of creative writing at UNC. All but Medlicott and Price also will participate in the festival at UNC.

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Related coverage is available online:

• First Author, Theme Set for 2009 Literary Festival
  News report from February 2009
• Chancellor Rescues Literary Festival, Now Set for ’09
  News report from December 2007
• A Storied Celebration: North Carolina’s first major literary festival is coming to campus.
  From the January/February 1998 issue of the Carolina Alumni Review, available online to Carolina Alumni members.
• A Child of the Literary Festival Returns: Writer and poet Stephanos Papadopoulos ’98.
  From the March/April 2002 issue of the Carolina Alumni Review, available online to Carolina Alumni members.

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