news-record.com

The 2009 North Carolina Literary Festival, which is free and open to the public, will be held from Sept. 10 to Sept. 13 at UNC-Chapel Hill. More than 100 authors, including John Grisham, Elizabeth Edwards and Pulitzer Prize winners Douglas Blackmon, Rick Bragg and Elizabeth Strout, will read, answer questions and sign books.

In the same weekend, Bookmarks, the free annual book festival in Winston-Salem, will be held from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sept. 12. It will be held downtown in the Arts District, centering on Trade and Sixth streets. Readings and book signings will be held in tents, studios, galleries, and businesses.

In Chapel Hill, the readings will be held at campus locations within a two to ten minute walk of each other. Each reading is scheduled for 55 minutes, and a session usually will include several authors. No pets, repeat, no pets will be allowed at the festival.

The schedule of who reads where and at what time at UNC is in flux. It will be posted sometime in August here: http://www.ncliteraryfestival.org/

Novelists and poets with a North Carolina connection will be in abundance at UNC. The list includes James Applewhite, Doris Betts, Nic Brown, Kathryn Stripling Byer, Fred Chappell, Michael Chitwood, Pamela Duncan, Pam Durban, Clyde Edgerton, Marianne Gingher, Jacki Shelton Green, Allan Gurganus, John Hart, Randall Kenan, Michael Malone, Jill McCorkle, Robert Morgan, Barbara Presnell, Ron Rash, Warren Rochelle, Lee Smith, Elizabeth Spencer, Wells Tower, Matthew Vollmer, and Daniel Wallace.

The children’s stage and tent with authors, storytellers, and illustrators will be for kids 12 years old and younger.

In Winston-Salem, the festival will present a mix of local, regional, and nationally known authors. The lineup includes nonfiction writers Allen Barra, John Berendt, Jim Dodson, William Ferris, Daniel Walker Howe, and Laura Shapiro. The fiction list includes Martin Clark, Marianne Gingher, Cassandra King, Reif Larsen, David Payne, and Ed Southern. Young readers will have their own area. Authors scheduled include Frances O’Roark Dowell, Kim Underwood, Ursula Vernon, and Carole Boston Weatherford.

More about Bookmarks is here: http://www.bookmarksbookfestival.org/

Both are good festivals and deserve to be supported with your presence. Good luck on getting to both places that Saturday.
The location of the N.C. Literary Festival rotates among universities in the Triangle. It has been put on four times since 1998. This will be the fifth year for Bookmarks in Winston-Salem.