Literary luminaries
Joe Biden is one of the Miami Book Fair’s authors.
The Miami Book Fair International announced its firstwave of 2017 authors onMonday, and you’d be forgiven for thinking the lineup feels like a mini reunion of the Obama administration.
Along with a slate of 600-plus novelists, poets and journalists appearing at the literary festival, marquee authors will include former vice president Joe Biden, author and 2014 Presidential Medal of Freedom winner Isabel Allen de, Obama WhiteHouse photographer Pete Souza and Miami-raised Obama inauguration poet Richard Blanco.
The 34th edition of Miami Book Fair International, returningNov. 12-19 to MiamiDade College’s Wolfson Campus in downtown Miami, will also feature appearances from punk poet Patti Smith, Miami author Edwidge Danticat and Georgetown University professor Michael Eric Dyson. Broadcast journalistDan Rather, meanwhile, will kick off the festival’s “EveningsWith” series onNov. 12, and will discuss his new book “WhatUnitesUs,” a collection of Facebook essays on patriotism and the candidacy and presidency of Donald Trump.
Bid en, currently weighing a presidential run in 2020, will be promoting his new memoir, “PromiseMe, Dad: A Year ofHope, Hardship, and Purpose” (out Nov. 14), which reflects on the 2015 death of his son, Beau, and his perseverance during that turbulent year.
Theweeklong festival will feature other boldfaced names, among them BillMcKibben, Lisa See, Gene Yang, Min Jin Lee, RobertHass, Jorie Graham, Frank Bidart, PaulMuldoon, Charles Simic, Gerard Stern andKevin Young. Along with Rather, Laurence O’Donnell, Smith and Allende will be part of the “EveningsWith” series.
Tickets, locations and times for the author appearances haven’t been announced yet, nor has the fair released its usual programming slate of localband performances, DJ sets and burlesque shows. The weekend street fair, which manages to pack downtown Miami with more literature than a public library, will return 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Nov. 18-20.
Check back to SouthFlorida.com aswe announce the full lineup over the coming months.
TheMiami Book Fair International 2017 will take placeNov. 12-19 at Miami Dade College Wolfson Campus, 300 NESecondAve., inMiami. Call 305-237-3258 or go toMiamiBookFair .com.