Engaging conversations are set to happen under the Nantucket sun during the island’s 13th annual book festival. From June 13-16, the Nantucket Book Festival will host panel discussions, social events, and author readings at various local venues. Featuring 23 authors, including Margaret Atwood, Kwame Alexander, Safiya Sinclair, and Erik Larson, the program invites readers to connect with stories and the writers behind them.
“If you have all of our books from the lineup of the festival this year stacked up, you’d be transported to so many different places,” said Tim Ehrenberg, president of the Nantucket Book Foundation. “You’d go to the Civil War times with Erik Larson’s ‘The Demon of Unrest.’ You’d go to the Golden Age of piracy with Katherine Howe. You’d go to a contemporary jail cell in [Lara Love Hardin’s] ‘The Many Lives of Mama Love.’ You’d go to Jamaica in [Safiya Sinclair’s] ‘How to Say Babylon.’ Through all these stories, you’ve lived these lives and stepped into someone else’s shoes for a second… you’re changed a little bit for the better.”
The majority of events are free and require no preregistration. Discussions are set to flow organically, allowing speakers to guide their direction. “We think that the most authentic and interesting conversations come out of what the author and their interviewers/interlocutors want to speak about,” said Kaley Kokomoor, executive director of the Nantucket Book Foundation.
The programming kicks off on Thursday at 1 p.m. at the Nantucket Atheneum, the island’s public library. Conversations will delve into true crime writing with author Casey Sherman and event co-chair and presenting author Sara DiVello; a chat on pirates, witches, and the experience of being a writer with best-selling author Katherine Howe and Ehrenberg; and more.
Friday events begin at 9 a.m. with a conversation between best-selling author Larson and Boston Globe Media CEO Linda Henry. Larson will discuss his newest book, released in April, “The Demon of Unrest: A Saga of Hubris, Heartbreak, and Heroism at the Dawn of the Civil War,” about the five consequential months after Abraham Lincoln was elected president. Henry will also join New York Times best-selling author Ben Mezrich at 4 p.m., discussing his latest book, “Breaking Twitter: Elon Musk and the Most Controversial Corporate Takeover in History.”
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Expected to be one of the festival’s most popular events this year, a conversation between Atwood; Heather Reisman, founder and CEO of Canadian bookstore chain Indigo; and Louise Dennys, Atwood’s publisher and editor at Penguin Random House Canada, will take place at 7:30 p.m. at First Congressional Church. Atwood has written more than 50 books, including the 1985 classic “The Handmaid’s Tale” and two Booker Prize-winning novels, 2000′s “The Blind Assassin” and 2019′s “The Testaments,” a sequel to “The Handmaid’s Tale.” Her most recent book, the short story collection “Old Babes in the Woods,” came out in March 2023.
Friday programming will end at 7:30 p.m. with a ticketed event — a buffet dinner at the White Elephant Hotel ballroom, allowing guests to talk with visiting authors. The $350 ticket helps fund the week’s free programming, as well as support the foundation’s year-round initiatives, including author visits to local schools, a bookmobile, a new children’s book festival, and an annual award for young writers.
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Saturday’s sessions include an 11 a.m. panel at the Methodist Church, with Alexander, who is also an Emmy-winning producer, discussing his 2023 memoir “Why Fathers Cry at Night.” Alexander serves as a visiting author at local schools for the foundation. At 2 p.m., Boston-based historian and award-winning author Kerri Greenidge discusses her 2022 book, “The Grimkes, A Legacy of Slavery in an American Family.” At the Dreamland Main Theatre Saturday night, Alexander and Sinclair will present the foundation’s Young Writer Award, honoring high school students who participated in an essay competition.
Closing out the weekend, Sunday panels at the Atheneum Great Hall and Dreamland include Sinclair in conversation with Nantucket Book Foundation co-founder and festival co-chair Mary Haft, discussing Sinclair’s book about her upbringing in Jamaica with her Rastafarian father. That night, Cisco Brewers will host a gathering for readers and writers to enjoy food, drinks, and music.
“There are few to almost no free events on Nantucket in the summertime, and so to have such a swath of cultural, intellectual brilliance to the island that’s accessible to anyone who wants to walk in off the street is, I think, really unique and important,” Kokomoor said. “We add something to the Nantucket cultural scene that was missing before this festival.”
Find the full schedule of events at nantucketbookfestival.org.
Maria Jose Gutierrez Chavez can be reached at mariajose.gutierrez@globe.com.
