The National Book Festival returns Saturday to the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Northwest D.C. with more than 80 speakers, and this year the stage is wider than books alone. Cynthia Erivo, Martin Scorsese, Kate McKinnon, NPR’s Kitchen Sisters and Max Brooks are among the names set to appear at the daylong event.
That mix is what will pull many people in. The festival begins at 9 a.m. Saturday and brings together dozens of authors discussing their work, along with family-friendly activities, interactive programs and workshops. For people who cannot make it in person, the main-stage events will be livestreamed.
Clay Smith said the goal is to help people understand “the magic and the vastness of the collections at the Library of Congress,” and the festival is being used to do exactly that. It is presented as a Library of Congress event, but it is also reaching beyond the usual book fair formula by giving room to artists, filmmakers and radio makers who do not fit neatly into one category.
Erivo will talk about her life as an artist and musician and present her new memoir, while Scorsese will focus on the importance of film preservation. Brooks will present a radio play of The Harlem Hellfighters, his graphic novel about a unit of African American soldiers in World War I, bringing a historical story into a format built for sound. That range is the point: the festival is still centered on books, but it is plainly casting a wider net.
Tickets are required, and the main-stage livestream means the event is not limited to the people who can get through the doors Saturday morning. The unanswered question is whether the mix of authors, entertainers and other voices will draw a larger audience than the festival’s literary core has traditionally reached — and the first test comes when the doors open at 9 a.m.
