 | | | Fifth Annual Festival of Books To be Held April 29-30 | LOS ANGELES, April 7, 2000 -- Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Clive Barker, A. Scott Berg, Ray Bradbury, Sandra Cisneros, Michael Crichton, Frances FitzGerald, Jane Goodall, Ha Jin, Joyce Carol Oates and Susan Sontag are some of the more than 250 best-selling authors scheduled to appear at the fifth annual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books which will be held April 29-30 on the UCLA campus.
The festival will be held from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. on Saturday, April 29, and from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. on Sunday, April 30. It is sponsored by Barnes & Noble and Target, and presented in association with UCLA.
The Festival of Books -- one of the nation's premier public literary festivals -- was created in 1996 by The Times to promote literacy, celebrate the written word, and bring together those who create books with the people who love to read them.
Admission is free to the public. However, tickets will be required to attend author panel discussions and lectures. Tickets will be available free of charge at all Ticketmaster locations throughout Southern California beginning April 16. A limited number of tickets will also be available on-site. On-campus parking is available for $5.
This year's Festival of Books will feature:
• more than 85 author panels, readings and discussion sessions;
• book signings and cooking demonstrations;
• six stages showcasing poetry readings, children's storytelling and cartoon characters, and music, drama and dance performances;
• the 20th annual Los Angeles Times Book Prize awards ceremony;
• and more than 250 exhibitors including specialty booksellers from throughout Southern California and major book publishers.
The official Festival of Books event program, which will be published in the April 16 edition of The Times, will provide detailed speaker, event and activity information.
Other authors and celebrities scheduled to participate include:
Sherman Alexie
David Haward Bain
Aimee Bender
David Brancaccio
Jared Diamond
Chitra Divakaruni
Kirk Douglas
Kevin Fagan
Goose Gossage
Tony Hillerman
David Horowitz
Arianna Huffington
Jonathan Kirsch
Stan Lee
Leonard Maltin
David Morrell
T. Jefferson Parker
George Plimpton
Barry Sears
Cybill Shepherd
Festival Highlights
More than 85 author panels will be held in UCLA lecture halls and classrooms during the two-day festival. Sessions topics include: Havana Dreams; Hyperlink: The New Digital Age; Family Troubles: Dysfunctional Families, Functional Fiction; Historical Fiction: Mists of Time; Women's Healthcare: the Mind-Body Connection; and Glitterati: The Movie Business.
At the Barnes & Noble Stage, discussion sessions will feature authors Sherman Alexie ("The Toughest Indian in the World"), Chitra Divakaruni ("Sister of My Heart"), Ha Jin ("Waiting"), Chang Rae-Lee ("A Gesture Life"), Michael Palin ("Hemingway's Chair"), and Nicholas Sparks ("Message in a Bottle").
The Cooking Stage will host live demonstrations by celebrity chefs Susan Feniger and Mary Sue Milliken (known as Too Hot Tamales), Dennis Overstreet, Hans Rockenwagner, Susanna Foo, and Tommy Tang. Culinary presentations will focus on Mexican Cooking for Dummies, A Mediterranean Feast, Off the Eaten Path, and Celebrating the New Wave in Winemaking. The ETC. Stage will feature "Pokeman and Beyond," a session on current trends in Japanese and other animation, and an expressive writing workshop conducted by Rose Offner, author of "Journal of the Soul for Teens." The Long Beach Shakespeare Company will perform scenes from "A Midsummer Night's Dream," and Olympic athlete A.D. Emerson ("Olympians Against the Wind") and John Corcoran ("The Teacher Who Couldn't Read") will conduct on-stage readings. Musical entertainment will include Marmalade Skies, whose music has been featured on the hit television series, "Felicity."
Reading by 9 Storytelling Stage activities will include a 20th anniversary celebration by Spot, the popular children's canine character, and celebrity readings by actor/author Dom DeLuise, Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, television weather anchor Christopher Nance, and actress Marilu Henner. Authors reading their works include Barbara Salzman ("The Jester Lost His Jingle") and recent Caldecott Medal winner Simms Taback ("Joseph had a Little Overcoat"). Renowned author, singer and songwriter Jose Luis Orozco will present "De Colores," a bilingual children's storytelling and sing-along show.
Designed for the entire family, the Target Stage will feature the popular children's characters Barney, Thomas the Tank, and Bear from the popular Disney Channel children's series, Bear in the Big Blue House. The stage will be emceed and feature performances by the cast of the hit musical comedy, Forever Plaid.
Conducting readings of their latest works at the Poetry Stage will be Rosanna Warren ("Satura"), Tom Sleigh ("The Dreamhouse"), C.K. Williams ("Repair: Poems"), Sonya Sones ("Stop Pretending: What Happened When My Big Sister Went Crazy"), Ed Hirsch ("How to Read a Poem and Fall in Love with Poetry"), Sandra Cisneros ("Days and Nights of Love and War"), and John Ashbery ("Girls on the Run").
Los Angeles Times Book Prizes
The 20th annual Los Angeles Times Book Prize awards ceremony will be held at 7 p.m. Saturday, April 29, at UCLA's Royce Hall. A. Scott Berg, author of "Lindbergh," will emcee the public event. Berg is a Pulitzer Prize, National Book Award and Los Angeles Times Book Prize winner.
The Los Angeles Times Book Prizes, established in 1980, recognize outstanding literary achievements in eight categories: biography, current interest, history, poetry, science and technology, fiction, first fiction, and young adult fiction. Each prize includes a $1,000 cash award.
Tickets to the event are $10 per person for the ceremony only and $50 per person for both the ceremony and a post-event reception. Tickets may be purchased through the UCLA Box Office at 310/825-2101 or Ticketmaster at 213/365-3500. | |