2023 Festival Schedule

The 2023 Festival Schedule is here! The schedule on the following page is categorized by audience and day with book genre filters available to help narrow your search.

Below are some tips to help you begin planning your visit to the 28th annual Festival:

  • Are you a Festival Friend? Search the term “Festival Friends Pass Session” to view the sessions your Festival Friends Pass grants you priority seating and signing line access to.
  • Search the term “American Sign Language Interpretation” to view sessions where an interpreter will be present. Email bookfest@texasbookfestival.org to request sign language interpretation at additional sessions that have not already been indicated, and we will do our best to accommodate given interpreter availability.

We look forward to seeing you this November 11-12. Thank you for supporting the Texas Book Festival!

 

Q&A With Greg Marshall


We asked 2023 Texas Book Festival Author Greg Marshall a few questions about himself and his featured Festival title Leg: The Story of a Limb and the Boy Who Grew From It.


TBF: Why did you write your featured book? (What was your inspiration? Where did the idea start?)

GM: “I graduated from UT’s Michener Center for Writers in 2013 with a degree in fiction. I’d had a stellar time and worked with teachers and fellows I adore to this day, but I was feeling burned out. I needed a little elbow room, a way to make my writing feel like mine again. After three years of reading and studying with literary heavyweights, I wanted to be silly and have fun. I mean, it was summertime in Austin! How do you not want that?

For me, coming-of-age stories have always had an intoxicating, sun-drenched energy. There’s nostalgia in these tales of woe, sure, but there’s also sexual awakening and a hint of foreboding and body hair. It’s a time when you swim more than shower, when sunscreen is your main deodorant, when you hang out with your best friend for three days straight and only separate because of sleep deprivation. And yet, in this time-honored genre, it seemed to me that there weren’t all that many gay kids, and there were almost no disabled kids and I was both. I was missing from my favorite genre! This was an extremely exciting moment because I knew, in my own small way, I could be my own genre.

I’d had a bunch of colorful experiences as a kid that I wanted to capture on the page, so that’s where I started. I wrote about being on Accutane for my zits and about using my mom’s Brookstone back massage to discover my body, about taking a middle-school trip to France with my dad where I worried the entire time that he’d out me, and about meeting Margaret Pellegrini, the actor who played a Sleepyhead munchkin in the 1939 Wizard of Oz film.

I walk with a limp because of cerebral palsy and I found that the more I wrote about my early years, the more I kept returning to my leg. And once I had my leg, the one I recognized from my life, the rest of me started showing up on the page, too. My stories grew up with me until I wasn’t a kid in them anymore. I was a teenager and then a twenty- and thirty something working as a journalist and taking care of my terminally ill parents and falling for the wrong men and I was still figuring life out, still coming of age, still in a swimsuit any chance I got.”

TBF: What is the last book you read, loved, and can’t stop recommending? What did you love about it?

GM: “Parini Shroff’s The Bandit Queens is a comedic tour-de-force that took me to a part of the world I’d never visited, rural India, and delivered an up-all-night, laugh-out-loud, good old-fashioned page-turner. I give the book five murderous widows out of five.”

TBF: What’s the first book you remember reading and who gave it to you? What inspired your love of reading / writing?

GM: “The Wartville Wizard by Don Madden is a picture book about an anti-litter crusader who develops the ability to make trash stick to whomever tossed it in the first place. I could tell you that I was a precocious little environmentalist but the truth is the book had me at wizard. I was a sucker for any Merlin-esque daddy with magical powers. I even loved Merlin’s vacation look at the end of The Sword in the Stone. Once I was a little older, third and fourth grade, I gave up older men for superheroes and primarily read X-Men and Superman comics. If I had any ability to draw, I’d probably have tried to do that. The verdict from an adult drawing class at Laguna Gloria pre-pandemic was merciless and conclusive. I’m sticking with words.”


Greg Marshall was raised in Salt Lake City, Utah. A National Endowment for the Arts Fellow in Prose, Marshall is a graduate of the Michener Center for Writers. His work has appeared in The Best American Essays and has been supported by MacDowell and the Corporation of Yaddo. Leg is his first book. You can see Marshall at the 2023 Texas Book Festival this November 11–12!

Festival Friends Pass Session Times

Announcing the 2023 Festival Friends Pass sessions! Festival Friends Pass holders enjoy priority seating and signing access to these sessions. Become a Festival Friend by donating $100 or more, and we’ll say thank you with a Festival Friends Pass. Your support helps us keep arts and culture accessible for readers statewide.


The 2023 Festival Friends Pass Sessions are:

 

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 11

 

Ann Patchett in Conversation about Tom Lake
with Elizabeth McCracken
Saturday, November 11, 11:15 am – 12:00 pm
First Baptist Church

Steve Inskeep in Conversation about Differ We Must
with Dan Goodgame
Saturday, November 11, 12:00 pm – 12:45 pm
Capitol House Chamber

Ooh La La! Dork Diaries in Paris with Rachel Renée Russell & Nikki Russell
with Anne Wynter
Saturday, November 11, 12:45 pm – 1:30 pm
Central Presbyterian Church

Abraham Verghese in Conversation about The Covenant of Water
with Megan Labrise

Saturday, November 11, 1:30 pm – 2:15 pm
First Baptist Church

Walter Isaacson in Conversation about Elon Musk
with Evan Smith

Saturday, November 11, 2:15 pm – 3:00 pm
First United Methodist Church

An Exploration of the “Latinx” Identity in Family, Community & Culture with Héctor Tobar & Ingrid Rojas Contreras with Ruben Degollado
Saturday, November 11, 4:15 pm – 5:00 pm
Capitol Auditorium (E1.004)

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 12

 

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah in Conversation about Chain Gang All Stars
with Roger Reeves

Sunday, November 12, 12:15 pm – 1:00 pm
Stateside Theatre

Curtis Sittenfeld in Conversation about Romantic Comedy
with Maya Perez

Sunday, November 12, 1:45 pm – 2:30 pm
Stateside Theatre

Andrew Sean Greer & Steven Rowley in Conversation about Less is Lost and The Celebrants
with Clay Smith

Sunday, November 12, 4:00 pm – 4:45 pm
Central Presbyterian Church

Ali Hazelwood and Aaron H. Aceves on Teenage Love, Angst, and Coming-of-Age
with Kailey Hunt
Sunday, November 12, 4:15 pm – 5:00 pm
First United Methodist Church


 

Lit Crawl 2023

Join the Texas Book Festival for it’s 13th year hosting unconventional literary programming and games in a crawl through your favorite Austin bars! Lit Crawl will take place Saturday, November 11 from 7-10 pm in four East Austin bars: Daydreamer, Ginbar, Saddle Up and Vintage Bookstore & Wine Bar.

Vintage Bookstore & Wine Bar

(1101 E 11th Street, Austin, TX)

5:30 p.m.  Lit Crawl Happy Hour. Start your Crawl right with a bookish happy hour to kick off festivities! Recharge from a day at the Fest while you catch up with friends and fellow readers.

7:00 p.m.  TORCH Showcase presented by TORCH Literary Arts. TORCH featured authors and friends will read new works across poetry and memoir. Hosted by TORCH founder Amanda Johnston, this session will feature celebrated authors Cynthia Manick, Airea D. Matthews, Deborah D.E.E.P. Mouton, Anastacia-Renee, and Safiya Sinclair. Torch Literary Arts is a 501(c)3 nonprofit dedicated to supporting Black women writers across the diaspora.

8:00 p.m. Noir at the Bar. A round of hip, hard-boiled, nitty-gritty noir readings by crime fiction authors. Participants will include Chandler Baker, David McCloskey, Mike McCrary, Amanda Moore, James Wade, and Ashley Winstead.

 

Gin Bar

(1813 E 6th St Austin, TX)

7:00 p.m.  Literary Death Match. Four authors. Three judges. Two finalists. One champion. All kinds of hilarity in between. Hosted by Adrian Todd Zuniga, Literary Death Match participants will include Elise Hu, Ling Ling Huang, Kari Lavelle, Simon Sebag Montefiore, and Tori Pool.

8:30 p.m.  Story Studio Chicago Presents Battle of the Genres. Hosted by Rebecca Makkai and featuring Andrew Sean Greer, Angie Kim, Andrew Porter, Héctor Tobar, and Laura Villareal.

 

Daydreamer

(1708 East 6th Street, Austin, TX)

7:00 p.m. American Short Fiction Presents Dear Buffalo. Receive answers to your greatest questions about life and love, straight from the pages of bold and fresh literary works. In this program, authors will offer advice to questions from ASF editorial staff and the audience by selecting (at random) quotations from their new or forthcoming books. Participating authors include Oksana Lutsyshyna, Greg Marshall, Chaitali Sen, Tyriek White, and Ada Zhang.

8:00 p.m.  WLT Presents: Build a Story. For this one-of-a-kind event, join the Writers’ League of Texas and some of your favorite authors to build a story – sentence by sentence. Authors will respond to audience prompts (however serious, silly, or ridiculous) and craft a three act story in real time. What could go wrong? You won’t want to miss it! Hosted by Becka Oliver, special author guests include Jennifer duBois, Tonia Ransom, Dan Solomon, Stacey Swann, Jonny Garza Villa, and more!

 

Saddle Up

(1309 Rosewood Avenue, Austin, TX)

7:30 p.m.  Austin Bat Cave Presents: Story Department. At this event inspired by The Moth, talented storytellers riff on a theme. Join us to hear Texas Book Festival authors tell true stories (no more than 10 minutes long) on the theme “Freedom to Read.” Hosted by Richard Z. Santos, featured authors include KB Brookins, Nick Flynn, Roger Reeves, Rachel Louise Snyder, and Luis Alberto Urrea.

8:30 p.m.  Librotraficantes Presents: Banned Book Bash. Librotraficantes and allies flagrantly flout contraband prose from formerly banned books, currently banned books, or books so freakin’ good they are bound for banning in the future. This session will also feature words liberated from imaginations inspired by banned books. Hosted by Tony Diaz of El Librotraficante, participating Texas Book Festival authors include Jennifer de Leon, Alma García, Esmeralda Santiago, Diamond Braxton, Leticia Urieta and more!

As always, Lit Crawl Austin is free and open to the public! We keep on keepin’ on through the generosity of our community. Want to support the Texas Book Festival, Lit Crawl Austin, and our incredible authors?

Donate Today!

Other ways to help:

Buy Festival books through the official online TBF storefront at BookPeople! All titles featured at this year’s Texas Book Festival are available for sale on the TBF storefront. BookPeople donates a portion of all sales through this page and from our in-store display back to TBF. Hurray for independent bookstores!

Share the Festival with your community via social media and connect with us on InstagramFacebook, and Twitter!


Lit Crawl Austin is a project of the Texas Book Festival and the Litquake Foundation.

Q&A With Melania Luisa Marte


We asked 2023 Texas Book Festival Author Melania Luisa Marte a few questions about herself and her featured Festival title Plantains and Our Becoming.


TBF: Why did you write your featured book? (What was your inspiration? Where did the idea start?)

MM: “I wrote Plantains and Our Becoming because I wanted to explore my family’s history as well as the history of the Island most of my family calls home. Most of my elders on the island have spent their life doing some sort of manual trade as farmers, gardeners, cacao pickers, and cooks. When I spent time on the island of the Dominican Republic, I began exploring how the connection to the soil was an intrinsic part of my family’s everyday life in the countryside. I devoted time to farming vegetables and growing my own plantains and through this process fell in love with the magnificence of how this plant stays rooted through so much external chaos and change. I wanted to inspire other folks to return to the soil and find joy, rest, and some sort of enlightenment they can harness to heal.”

TBF: What is the last book you read, loved, and can’t stop recommending? What did you love about it?

MM: “Neruda On The Park by Cleyvis Natera is absolutely so inspiring and takes on some heavy topics with light and grace. What I love most about this novel is the richness of Natera’s storytelling. As someone who grew up in New York City and spent many years in the Dominican Republic, I always look for works that translate onto the page the feelings of both island life and city life. I think Natera nailed it so flawlessly and so carefully that when you read this novel, your senses are transported seamlessly into this world and you don’t want to leave.” 

TBF: What’s the first book you remember reading and who gave it to you? What inspired your love of reading / writing?

MM: “One of the first books I remember reading was by Barbara Parks from her Junie B. Jones series. My mother bought it for me at my school’s Scholastic book fair and I remember becoming obsessed with how funny and dramatic Junie’s character was. It inspired me to be an opinionated, daring, and creative little girl too!”


Melania Luisa Marte is a writer, poet, and musician from New York living between the Dominican Republic and Texas. Her viral poem “Afro-Latina” was featured by Instagram on their IG TV for National Poetry Month and has garnered over nine million views. Her work has also been featured by Ain’t I Latina, AfroPunk, The Root, Teen Vogue, Telemundo, Remezcla, PopSugar, and elsewhere. You can see Marte at the 2023 Texas Book Festival this November 11–12!

Accessibility

ASL interpretation is available at sessions indicated in the schedule. To find sessions with ASL interpreters, click on the magnifying glass in the top right corner of the 2023 Festival Schedule. In the search bar that pops up, enter the term American Sign Language Interpretation. Additional sessions may be requested at the Info Tent; we will do our best to accommodate your request based on interpreter availability.

Accessible parking is available at the Capitol Visitors Parking Garage at 1201 San Jacinto Blvd. and accessibility seating will be saved in venues up to 15 minutes prior to the session start. If you require special accommodations, please contact the Texas Book Festival prior to your visit at 512-477-4055 or bookfest@texasbookfestival.org.

Stay tuned for accessible way-finding videos soon!

 

Book Signing Schedules

Authors presenting at First United Methodist ChurchCentral Presbyterian Church, Stateside Theater, and First Baptist Church will do book signings on-site at their respective venues following their sessions.

Download the Signing Schedules for book signing tents Festival weekend:
Main Book Signing Tent | Children’s Book Signing Tent

Book Sales Tent Hours:

Saturday: 11 A.M. to 5 P.M. | Sunday: 9 A.M. to 5 P.M.

Main (Adult) Signing Tent Schedule 

Children’s Signing Tent Schedule

How To Attend the 2023 Texas Book Festival

No registration is required to attend. Events are FREE and open for all to enjoy! There are three ticketed sessions for authors Michael Cunningham, Roxane Gay, and Stacey Abrams. Ticket holders receive session and signing line access as well as a copy of the featured author’s book at their ticketed session. View our 2023 Festival Map here!

Parking

Free parking is available in State Lot parking garages on San Jacinto and 15th Streets

  • ’23 TBF PUBLIC, BUS & BIKE PARKING MAP
  • Accessible parking is available at the Capitol Visitors Parking Garage at 1201 San Jacinto Blvd. If you require special accommodations, please contact the Texas Book Festival prior to your visit at 512-477-4055 or bookfest@texasbookfestival.org.
  • Cap Metro is providing Festival attendees with free day passes!
    • Request your pass using this form
    • Quantities are limited. Request your pass before November 8. Riders under the age of 18 and UT students ride free! Simply present a valid ID.

 

Book Sales and Signing

BookPeople is the Texas Book Festival’s official bookseller. BookPeople will be on-site selling books for all featured Festival authors in the Main Book Sales Tent and Children’s Book Sales/Signing Tent, both on Congress Avenue. You can also buy Festival books year-round at the BookPeople TBF online store.

 

Book Sales Tent Hours:

Saturday: 11 A.M. to 5 P.M. | Sunday: 9 A.M. to 5 P.M.

 

Festival Friends

Festival Friends are donors who support our mission and programs with an annual donation of $100 or more. We thank Festival Friends with priority seating and signing at Festival Friends Pass-designated sessions. Festival Friends help us keep the Festival free for all, put books on library shelves across Texas, and fund literacy programming for students across the state of Texas.  Become a Festival Friend today! It is best to donate in advance, but you can also make your donation and pick up your Friends Pass at the Festival at the TBF Store.

 

Volunteers

Want to help support literacy in Austin and Texas and love giving back to your community? Join our volunteer army who make the Festival happen. Volunteer for two hours, or all day, or all weekend! Check out our Volunteer Shifts to volunteer for the 2023 Festival Weekend.

 

TBF Store

The official 2023 Texas Book Festival Poster and poster t-shirts will be on sale in the TBF Store on 11th Street. This year’s poster features artwork by Jon Flaming.

 

 

Venues, Tents, & Exhibitors

Venues 

View our 2023 Festival Map here!

Each year the Texas Book Festival hosts programming in the Capitol of Texas, as well as in tents set up along Congress and 11th streets. Below are all additional venues that programming will take place:

 

Program Tents, Food Trucks, and Exhibitor Tents

Stroll through our Exhibitor Tents set up along Congress and at the corner of 11th and Colorado, featuring dozens of vendors. Get your holiday shopping early while supporting small business owners, small presses, and nonprofit organizations. Check out our 2023 Exhibitor Map to see where your favorite vendors will be!

The Festival Food Court will be along Congress between 8th and 9th Street featuring 8 food trucks:

 

2023 Texas Book Festival Exhibitors

Ahmadiyya Muslim Community Austin
Austin Community College Creative Writing Department
Author Solutions
AVA Fest / VSP Channel / Words Unite Bookstore
B.K. Greenwood
Black Rose Writing
Bookish Love Co.
Bookmarc Alliance
Books on Yoga and Meditatation
BookWoman
Cajun Kids Adventures
Carpe Librum
Cosworth Publishing
Deep Vellum
Catherine Chagra
Divine Canines
Douglas Bell
E.R. Bills
Eckankar
Host Publications
International Dyslexia Association – Austin Branch
Jack Ampon
Joan E. Murray
Krisha Life
Literal Publishing
Little Kitchen Academy
Logosophical Foundation
Lufi & Friends/Spark Collection Bilingual Books
Motina Books
Natalie Wright, Fantasy & Sci-Fi Author
PaperPie
Patricia Stahl, LCSW
Premium Book Prints
Raj Lowenstein
School of Information University of Texas at Austin
Shop Escritoras
Sisters in Crime: Heart of Texas Chapter
Society of Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators – Austin
Southern USA Falun Dafa Association
Steamy Lit
Peace Corps
Street Books ATX
Sulit Press
Taiwan Academy of TECO in Houston
TCU Press
Tesoros Trading Company
Texas A&M University Press and the Texas Book Consortium
Texas Folklore Society
Texas Library Association
Texas Tech University Press
The Bible’s Hidden Treasure – James, the Precious Pearl
The Book Burrow
The Santa Book: A True Story
The UNIVERSITY of GENETIC TRASH PRESS TOM SEABOLT / JACK HARARY
Treaty Oak Publishers
Trinity University Press
Unity Cakes and Plates LLC
University of Texas Press
Vignette Books
W. Brand Publishing
Waterloo Press / Austin History Center Association
Women’s Storybook Project
Writers’ League of Texas

 

 

Special Event Notification

What: 2023 Texas Book Festival
When: Sat. Nov. 11, & Sun., Nov. 12, 2023
Event Time: Sat. 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. & Sun. 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

The 2023 Texas Book Festival will take place November 11-12, from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Congress Ave. and Eleventh St. near the State Capitol building. An estimated 20,000 visitors will attend the free Festival over the two days. The Festival will temporarily close city streets near your business, residence, religious center, or neighborhood.

Festival street closures begin at 9:00 a.m. on 11/9 for Congress Ave. between 9th & 11th streets. Numbered streets from 9th to 11th crossing Congress Ave. to remain open until 6:00 a.m. on 11/10. All streets reopen by 11:59 p.m. on 11/12. For more detailed info and timeline of closures visit the Public Notice page. Please plan alternate routes around road closures in your area prior to festival weekend.

If you have any comments, questions or concerns regarding road closures, alternate access
points or festival map, visit texasbookfestival.org, e-mail bookfest@texasbookfestival.org or call TBF (512) 477-4055. Contact City of Austin at www.austintexas.gov/citystage or call (512) 974-1000.