Beloved best-selling children’s author Kate DiCamillo ; Emmy Award-winning journalist Sharyl Attkisson ; Pen/Faulkner Award-winning novelist Ann Patchett ; writer and activist Wes Moore ; best-selling mystery writer Charles Finch ; advocate and recipient of the Helen Keller Achievement Award Haben Girma ; award-winning investigative journalist Ben Westhoff ; best-selling memoirist, speaker and media producer Austin Channing Brown ; chair of Color of Change Heather McGhee ; best-selling author, journalist and historian Garrett M. Graff ; award-winning short story writer Sergio Troncoso ; satirist and Thurber Prize finalist Annabelle Gurwitch ; senior fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations Gayle Tzemach Lemmon ; and historical fiction writer and novelist Erika Robuck are among the many distinguished speakers scheduled to join the virtual Annapolis Book Festival on Saturday, April 24 and Sunday, April 25 .
Now in its eighteenth year, the Annapolis Book Festival is an interactive, multi-generational event that has something for book lovers of all ages. Evolving into a two-day virtual Festival in 2021, this free community event attracts nationally and internationally renowned authors who discuss their books and the craft of writing. This year, t he Festival will partner with Anne Arundel County Public Libraries to provide these virtual programs for children: School Readiness Skills, Tree Songs Puppet Show, and a Take and Make Activity . Combining entertainment with compelling author panels and educational opportunities, the Festival appeals to a wide audience and has historically attracted more than 3,000 attendees annually in addition to coverage on C-SPAN BookTV.
The virtual Annapolis Book Festival will be held on Saturday, April 24 and Sunday, April 25, 2021 , from 10:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Designed to promote and celebrate reading among all ages and interests, the event is free and open to all.
2021 Annapolis Book Festival Authors
- Sharyl Attkisson – Slanted: How the News Media Taught Us to Love Censorship and Hate Journalism
- Sophie Blackall – If You Come to Earth
- Austin Channing Brown – I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness
- Oliver Bullough – Moneyland: The Inside Story of the Crooks and Kleptocrats Who Run the World
- Tom Burgis – Kleptopia: How Dirty Money Is Conquering the World
- Israel Centeno – Writing with an Accent
- Sarah Chayes – On Corruption in America: And What Is at Stake
- Kate DiCamillo – Stella Endicott and the Anything-is-Possible Poem (illustrated by Chris Van Dusen)
- April Falcon Doss – Cyber Privacy: Who Has Your Data and Why You Should Care
- Jessie Dunleavy – Cover My Dreams in Ink: A Son’s Unbearable Solitude, A Mother’s Unending Quest
- Charles Finch – An Extravagant Death: A Charles Lenox Mystery
- David Gendell – Thomas Point Shoal Lighthouse: A Chesapeake Bay Icon
- Haben Girma – Haben: The Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law
- Garrett M. Graff – The Only Plane in the Sky: An Oral History of 9/11
- Annabelle Gurwitch – You’re Leaving When?: Adventures in Downward Mobility
- Sara Harberson – Soundbite: The Admissions Secret that Gets You into College and Beyond
- Luke Harding – Shadow State: Murder, Mayhem, and Russia’s Remaking of the West
- Mary Dell Harrington & Lisa Heffernan – Grown & Flown: How to Support Your Teen, Stay Close as a Family, and Raise Independent Adults
- Harold Holzer – The Presidents vs. the Press: The Endless Battle Between the White House and the Media
- Deborah Hopkinson – We Must Not Forget: Holocaust Stories of Survival and Resistance
- Martha S. Jones – Vanguard: How Black Women Broke Barriers, Won the Vote, and Insisted on Equality for All
- Gayle Tzemach Lemmon – The Daughters of Kobani: A Story of Rebellion, Courage, and Justice
- Heather McGhee – The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together
- Bill McKibben – Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?
- Wes Moore – Five Days: The Fiery Reckoning of an American City (co-author Erica L. Green)
- Kate Murphy – You’re Not Listening: What You’re Missing and Why It Matters
- Ahmed Naji – And Tigers to My Room
- Ann Pachett (author) & Robin Preiss Glasser (illustrator)- Escape Goat
- Tia Powell – Dementia Reimagined: Building a Life of Joy and Dignity from Beginning to End
- Erika Robuck – The Invisible Woman
- Rudy Ruiz – The Resurrection of Fulgencio Ramirez: A Novel
- ire’ne lara silva – Cuicacalli/House of Song
- Sue Stuart-Smith – The Well-Gardened Mind: The Restorative Power of Nature
- Karin Tanabe – A Hundred Suns: A Novel
- Sergio Troncoso – A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant’s Son
- Ben Westhoff – Fentanyl, Inc.: How Rogue Chemists Are Creating the Deadliest Wave of the Opioid Epidemic
- Kelly Yang – Parachutes
