The Blog

The 12th annual Louisiana Book Festival, a celebration of readers, writers and their books, returns Saturday, Oct. 31, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., in downtown Baton Rouge’s Capitol Park. The festival will feature presentations by local and national bestselling authors, panel discussions, activities for children and teens, live music, food and a Halloween costume contest.

Architect and author Kevin Harris, FAIA, creator of “The Forever Home: How to work with an architect to design the home of your dreams” will be a featured author at the widely anticipated event. Harris will present a talk on his book at 1:00 pm in the Louisiana State Capitol, House Committee Room 5. His talk will be followed by a book signing at 2:00 pm in the Barnes & Noble Book Selling & Signing Tent. His book may also be purchased at the Barnes & Noble tent. 

Other notable author presentations include Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen by Mary Norris, My Southern Journey by Rick Bragg, Capital Dames: The Civil War and the Women of Washington, 1848-1868 by Cokie Roberts and the children’s book Bayou Magic by Coretta Scott King Honor Book-winning Jewell Parker Rhodes.

Other participating authors and poets include Louisiana Writer Award recipient Tom Piazza, Louisiana Poet Laureate Peter Cooley, Ellen Gilchrist, Ravi Howard, James Grissom, Alice Friman, Kent Wascom, Tom Cooper, Kimberley Griffiths Little, M.O. Walsh, Adam Rothman, Kim Boykin, Yusef Komunyakaa and many others.

The One Book, One Festival discussion group selection is Go Set a Watchman by Harper Lee. The cooking tent includes demonstrations by chefs and cookbook authors such as Cynthia LeJeune Nobles with her A Confederacy of Dunces Cookbook.

A variety of writing WordShops are scheduled for the day before the Festival, including a discussion about telling a story in fiction or memoir by authors Molly Antopol and Skip Horack.  Detailed descriptions of all WordShops and registration information are available at the Festival website.

For more information or to volunteer, visit LouisianaBookFestival.org. Follow Book Festival updates on Facebook and Twitter and download the Louisiana Book Festival mobile app.