San Antonio Express-News (Sunday)
Opening ceremony new this year as event trimmed to one day
Among the big names who will be taking part in the 2022 San Antonio Book Festival are Emma Straub, New York Times bestselling author of “The Vacationers” and “All Adults Here”; Julia Glass, National Book Awardwinning author of “Three Junes” and “I See You Everywhere”; and Stephen Harrigan, the Texas author of “The Gates of the Alamo” and “Big Wonderful Thing.”
In addition, New Yorker writer Susan Orlean, author of such books as “The Orchid Thief ” and “The Library Book,” will headline the Book Appétit luncheon May 19 at the Witte Museum. It is the festival’s sole fundraiser each year and the only ticketed event this year.
The free festival will be held May 21 in and around the Central Library downtown.
Those who go to hear Straub, Glass and/or Harrigan will get the skinny on their latest novels. Straub will be talking about “This Time Tomorrow,” in which a woman wakes up the morning of her 40th birthday to find she has traveled back in time to her 16th. Glass will be talking about “Vigil Harbor,” in which a pair of unexpected visitors destabilize a coastal community. And Harrigan is promoting “The Leopard is Loose,” a novel based on the real-life escape of a leopard from the Oklahoma City Zoo in 1950.
Other authors slated to take part include poet Jericho Brown, whose 2019 collection “The Tradition” received the Pulitzer Prize; children’s author Mac Barnett, who will be promoting “The First Cat in Space Ate Pizza”; and Sandra Cisneros, whose latest book is “Martita, I Remember You.”
A few San Antonio movers and shakers are on the bill as
well. Former Mayor Phil Hardberger will chat about “Phil Hardberger Park: A Story in Photographs”; County Judge Nelson Wolff will discuss “The Mayor and the Judge: The Inside Story of the War Against COVID”; and former Mayor Henry Cisneros will talk about “The Texas Triangle: An Emerging Power in the Global Economy.”
Other San Antonio writers slated to participate are Naomi Shihab Nye, whose latest book is a novel for children, “The Turtle of Michigan”; Ted Flato, who will be talking about “Lake | Flato Houses: Respecting the Land”; and Davis Liss, who will chat about “The Peculiarities.”
One tent will be devoted to prerecorded sessions with critic Margo Jefferson, whose new memoir is “Constructing a Nervous System,” and journalist
Joshua Prager, who will be discussing his book “The Family Roe,” which explores Roe v. Wade.
That tent also will spotlight “Dear Vaccine: Global Voices Speak to the Pandemic,” which lends itself to a video presentation, said Lilly Gonzalez, executive director.
The project began with San Antonio writer Nye writing a poem about the pandemic; others were invited to submit their own poems in response via video. The poems have been collected into a book slated for release in April, and some of the videos will be screened at the festival.
“It’s kind of cool to see the art and projects born from all of us being stuck at home during COVID,” Gonzalez said.
There will be one new event, an opening ceremony
that will include San Antonio Poet Laureate Andrea
“Vocab” Sanderson and Mayor Ron Nirenberg. But ancillary events have been dropped this year. It made planning the festival a little easier in this uncertain time.
“The Book Festival tends to be a whole weekend, but just planning something that many months in advance was hard enough without having to plan multiple events with that many unknown variables, so we and the board decided to focus on the festival,” Gonzalez said.
There is a chance more writers will be added closer to the festival. Pandemic-related uncertainty makes it a challenge to book authors.
“Authors and publicists are a little hesitant to commit to events that are months away,” Gonzalez said. “They’re not saying no, they’re not saying yes. Which is kind of frustrating.”
Because of that, the complete schedule won’t be announced until late April when it’s possible more authors will have committed.
This is the return of inperson programming for the festival, now in its 10th year. Because of the pandemic, it was canceled in 2020 and held virtually in 2021. It was important to festival organizers to get back to an in-person gathering as soon as it was
safe to do so.
“Reading is a very solitary act, and in the past two years, we’ve not had that sense of community,” Gonzalez said. “The book festival provides that.”
The festival was moved from April to May in hopes of more temperate weather. The four festivals before the pandemic were hit by chilly and sometimes damp conditions.
The plan is for readings, panel discussions, signings and other activities to take place both inside and in tents around the library, though that could change, depending on the status of the pandemic. If a new variant emerges or there is a spike in COVID-19 cases, Gonzalez said, she and her team are prepared to move everything outdoors.
Those who haven’t been to the library since the start of the pandemic will find it in a state of flux.
“There are a lot of outdoor and indoor bond projects happening at the library right now,” Gonzalez said. “The first floor and the reference desk and the third floor children’s library are all having a beautiful facelift. It won’t be done in time for our book festival, but we’re embracing it. We’re going to cover it all up with some 10th anniversary display signage.”