Illustration by Ansley Lewis
Literary Death March pits four authors in competition for rapid-fire performance.
By Manuel Bautista-Macias
sac-ranger@alamo.edu
The San Antonio Public Library Foundation will bring 92 authors downtown for its second San Antonio Book Festival.
The festival will be 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday in six areas of the Central Library, 600 Soledad St. Other portions of the festival will be at Southwest School of Art, 300 Augusta St.; and the Charline McCombs Empire Theater, 224 E. Houston St.
The mission of the festival is to gather readers and writers to celebrate books, libraries and literacy culture, said Kaitlyn Crawford, assistant director of the festival who works for the library foundation.
“I’m a huge proponent of libraries,” English Adjunct Yon Hui Bell said, encouraging students to attend the festival.
Sometimes people tend to forget or take for granted how valuable the public libraries are, Bell said.
Last year, the book fair attracted about 4,000 people and featured 60 authors.
By attending this event, people will be supporting public libraries and literacy, Bell said.
Having the San Antonio Book Festival can help improve the literacy rate in San Antonio, Bell said.
Illustration by Ansley Lewis
This is a great opportunity for students to meet local writers and to support and value literacy, Bell said.
Author Sandra Cisneros, who wrote “The House on Mango Street,” will perform her work and sign books at 1 p.m. on the west terrace on the third floor of the Central Library.
Kevin Powers, who was a finalist in the National Book Award for “The Yellow Birds,” will read from his work at 4:30 p.m. in the auditorium on the first floor of the Central Library.
San Antonio native Nick Kotz, who received a Pulitzer Prize in 1968 for national reporting for the Des Moines Register and Minneapolis Tribune, will also present his new book “The Harness Maker’s Dream: Nathan Kallison and the Rise of South Texas” at noon in the auditorium of the first floor in the Central Library.
Crawford said another author to see is Jane Pauley, who was anchor of “Dateline NBC” for 11 years, at 3:30 p.m. in the Empire Theater.
The festival is for all ages with outdoor actives and a performance stage.
Food trucks will be available, and the festival will offer recipe demonstrations by authors, such as Daniel Vaughan, “The Prophets of Smoke Meat: A Journey Through Texas Barbecue,” 10 a.m.-11 a.m. at Southwest School of Art.
The Literary Death Match will be 6:30 p.m.-8 p.m. in the Empire Theater.
The Literary Death Match consists of four authors performing their writing for less than seven minutes in front of three judges and the audience.
Authors participating in the Literary Death Match will be Malin Alegria, “Border Town: No Second Chances”; Owen Egerton, voted Best Local Author by the Austin Chronicle, “How Best to Avoid Dying”; Roxana Robinson, “Sparta”; and Antonio Sacre, “Mango in the Hand.”
The Literary Death Match has a $10 general admission, and tickets can be purchased at the door.
Free parking is available at Frost Bank, 100 W Houston St., or for $5 in the Central Library parking garage.
For more information and the event schedule, visit saplf.org or call at 210-207-2629.
