The 18th Annual Brattleboro Literary Festival Begins

Past event
Oct 17, 7 PM to 6:30 PM, Oct 20, 2019

The 18th Annual Brattleboro Literary Festival Explores Identity

From October 17th-20th, the 18th annual Festival will host more than 70 authors featured in over 40 events and discussions that explore identity — personal identity, cultural identity and our identity as a country. A diverse array of authors will take the stage, many of whom are exploring some of today's most urgent, complex issues. Join us for a provocative weekend-long discussion as we try to discover who we really are.

The first event will take place at Brooks Memorial Library, 7:00 PM, with Christopher Benfey, author of "If: The Untold Story of Kipling's American Years," an exploration of the life and work of Rudyard Kipling in Gilded Age America. Brent Kendrick, author of "Infant Sphinx: The Collected Letters of Mary E. Wilkins Freeman," will discuss Mary's life in Brattleboro and beyond.

The Festival continues on Friday night right through Sunday, 6:30 PM, at seven venues in downtown Brattleboro.To download a 60 page program, copy and past into your browser: http://bit.ly/BrattLitFest2019.

This year's festival will present well-known historians and biographers in a series of events that look at our nation's past to help us put a context on current events and how we got here. Authors include Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning author Joseph Ellis(American Dialogue:The Founding Fathers and Us), National Humanities Medal recipient Andrew Delbanco(The War Before the War: Fugitive Slaves and the Struggle for America's Soul from the Revolution to the Civil War), Brenda Wineapple (The Impeachers: The Trial of Andrew Johnson and the Dream of a Just Nation), multiple award-winning Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer(Monument Man) and Christopher Klein (When the Irish Invaded Canada: The Incredible True Story of the Civil War Veterans Who Fought for Ireland's Freedom). They will appear on Saturday, October 19 at Centre Church, located at 193 Main Street in Brattleboro. All events are free and open to the public.

Other featured festival authors include New York Times bestselling novelist Madeline Miller(Circe), 2018 Women's Prize winner Kamila Shamsie (Home Fires), New York Times best selling memoirist Dani Shapiro(Inheritance), Obama Inaugural poet Richard Blanco (How to Love a Country), 2019; Ruth Lilly Prize winning poet Marilyn Nelson, New York Times bestselling journalist Casey Cep (Furious Hours), and award-winning essayists Jabari Asim(We Can't Breathe), Emily Bernard(Black is the Body), Jess Row (White Flights), Sergio Troncosio (A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant's Son), and Xu Xi(This Fish is Fowl).

All festival events are free and open to the public. For details and a full list of authors and schedule, copy and past into your browser: http://www.brattleboroliteraryfestival.org.

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