Los Angeles Times Festival of Books Celebrates 10th Anniversary April 23-24, 2005 at UCLA

NOTE TO EDITORS: Advance registration is required for working media planning to cover the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. Registration deadline is April 15. The registration form and directions are posted online at https://www.latimes.com/extras/festivalofbooks/media.html.

LOS ANGELES, March 31, 2005--The 10th annual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books takes place Saturday, April 23, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Sunday, April 24, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., on UCLA’s campus.

The two-day celebration of the written word features a mix of panel discussions, book signings, poetry readings, cooking demonstrations and music. The Festival affords book lovers the chance to meet best-selling authors, publishers and celebrities. The hundreds of exhibitor booths, stage events and popular children’s characters offer a cornucopia of choices for all ages.

General event information about the Festival, including a list of authors, is available at www.latimes.com/events. Information is also available by calling 1-800-LA TIMES, ext. 7BOOK.

Admission is free, but tickets are required to attend author/panel discussions and lectures because of limited seating. Free tickets will be available at all Ticketmaster locations in Southern California starting Sunday, April 17, at noon until Thursday, April 21, at 5 p.m., or until all tickets have been distributed. A limited number of tickets will also be available on-site during the Festival.

Festival Highlights

• Some 380 authors participating in 96 panels, readings and book signings
• Six stages showcasing book and poetry readings, cooking demonstrations, children’s storytelling and cartoon characters, and music, drama and dance performances
• 25th annual Los Angeles Times Book Prize awards ceremony on April 22
• More than 400 exhibitor booths representing specialty booksellers and major book publishers

Literary “Who’s Who”

Authors scheduled to appear include Madeleine Albright, Jason Alexander, Tariq Ali, Ray Bradbury, Stephen Cannell, Mary Higgins Clark, Eoin Colfer, John W. Dean, Frank Deford, Jared Diamond, Sir Harold Evans, Carrie Fisher, Sue Grafton, Tony Hillerman, Arianna Huffington, Eric Idle, Pico Iyer, Ron Kovic, Sanoe Lake, Phil Lesh, Sandra Tsing Loh, Richard Matheson, James McCourt, Walter Mosley, Carol Muske-Dukes, Lynda Obst, P.J. O’Rourke, T. Jefferson Parker, Anne Perry, Sally Ride, Carl Reiner, Maria Shriver, Jane Smiley, Alexander McCall Smith, Hector Tobar, Jack Welch, Rosemary Wells and Amy Wilentz.

Panel Sessions

Panel sessions focusing on current affairs include “Brave New World: Monopoly, Media & the Right to Know,” “On the Front Lines: Covering War,” “Scheherazade’s Daughters: Women in the Middle East,” “Discovering California,” “Islam Now” and “Talkin’ Baseball with Frank Deford and Bill Plaschke.”

Other sessions will focus on:

• Hollywood – “Hollywood and the Reds,” “Witness to a Persecution: The Blacklist Revisited,” “Fiction: Hollywood Confidential,” “The Movie Biz: Making Deals and Cutting Throats,” “Hollywood: Behind the Camera,” and “From Page to Screen”
• Politics – “America Looks Forward: Tapping the Politics of Fear,” “Searching for a Civil Society: America’s Contemporary Political Culture,” “The Politics of Science,” “Outsourcing Democracy: Can It Work?” and “1600 Pennsylvania Avenue”
• Mystery – “Mystery: Spies Among Us,” “Celebrating Sherlock Holmes,” and “Mystery, Mayhem and Murder,” and “Mystery: Urban Grit”

Among the authors who will be featured in “In Conversation with …” or “in solo” sessions are Madeleine Albright, Ray Bradbury, Mary Higgins Clark and Carol Higgins Clark, Carrie Fisher, Sue Grafton, Tony Hillerman, Eric Idle, Phil Lesh, Walter Mosley, James Patterson, Sally Ride, Liz Smith, Gay Talese and Jack Welch.

Six Stages Featuring Celebrities, Discussions, Readings, Family Entertainment

The Target Children’s Stage, designed for the entire family, will feature Jason Alexander, Angelina Ballerina and Katharine Holabird, Bob the Builder, Sasha Cohen, Al Jardine, Junie B. Jones, the Justin Roberts Band, David Kirk, Jarrett Krosoczka, Sanoe Lake, Carl Reiner and Rosemary Wells, among others.

Canada Presents the Culinary Stage will proffer the insights of such luminaries as Tyler Florence, Giada de Laurentiis, and Mary Sue Milliken & Susan Feniger.

The ETC. Stage will feature a variety of speakers and performers including Boondocks author Aaron McGruder, KPCC’s Kitty Felde & the Book Club for Young Adults, Melvin Eddy Blues Band, WriteGirl and Kishin Daiko Japanese music & dance.

The Los Angeles Times Stage in partnership with Barnes & Noble will feature Robert Crais, Alice Hoffman, Eric Idle, Anne Lamott, Maria Shriver and Liz Smith, among others.

Among the authors gracing the Poetry Stage will be Sophie Cabot Black, Diane di Prima, Dana Goodyear, Richard Howard, Joshua Mehigan and Carol Muske-Dukes.

The Reading by 9 Storytelling Stage will include Derek Anderson, Beethoven’s Wig, Children’s Museum of L.A. Readers Theatre Project, the East-West Players, Jay-Jay the Jet Plane, Jose-Luis Orozco, Rachel Payne Native American Storytelling, June Foray, Greathall Productions, Stacia Deutsch, Barney Saltzberg and readings by Sally Ride, Quincy Troupe, Kadir Nelson and Barbara Saltzman.

Festival of Books Sponsors

Target is the presenting sponsor of the 2005 Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. Barnes & Noble, Borders and the Canadian Tourism Commission are major sponsors, and C-SPAN, HBO and Geffen Playhouse are contributing sponsors. KCBS-2/KCAL-9 is the official television sponsor of the 2005 Festival of Books. Other media sponsors are Distinction Southern California magazine, ESPN Radio, Hoy, KABC-AM, KCRW-FM, KFWB-AM, KKJZ-FM, KPCC-FM, KPFK-FM and Radio Disney. The official ticket provider is Ticketmaster.

Los Angeles Times Book Prize Awards Ceremony

The 25th annual presentation of the Los Angeles Times Book Prizes is set for Friday, April 22, at 8 p.m., in UCLA’s Royce Hall. Best-selling mystery writer Tony Hillerman will receive the 25th annual Los Angeles Times Book Prizes’ Robert Kirsch Award for lifetime achievement. Author/journalist Sir Harold Evans will emcee the event.

Tickets are required and are on sale at UCLA’s Central Ticket Office (310-825-2101) and online at www.tickets.ucla.edu. (NOTE: Additional $2 handling fee for online ticket purchases.) Tickets are $14 for a reserved seat only and $60 for a buffet dinner (6-7:45 p.m.) with authors at the UCLA Faculty Center, prime reserved seat at Book Prizes event and convenient parking at Royce Hall.

The Los Angeles Times Book Prizes, established in 1980, recognize outstanding literary achievements in biography, current interest, fiction, first fiction, history, mystery/thriller, poetry, science and technology, and young adult fiction. More information is available at www.latimes.com/bookprizes.

The Los Angeles Times Festival of Books--one of the nation’s premier public literary festivals and the largest of its kind on the West Coast--was created in 1996 by The Times to promote literacy and to bring together those who create books with the people who love to read them. It is presented in association with UCLA.

The Los Angeles Times, a Tribune Publishing company, is the largest metropolitan daily newspaper in the country and the winner of 35 Pulitzer Prizes. The Times publishes five daily regional editions including the Los Angeles metropolitan area, Orange and Ventura counties, the San Fernando Valley, and an Inland Empire edition covering Riverside and San Bernardino counties. Additional information about The Times is available at www.latimes.com/mediacenter.

Contact:
Mike Lange
213-237-3848
mike.lange@latimes.com