The 4th Annual Albany Book Festival, presented by the NYS Writers Institute at the University at Albany, will be held Saturday, September 25, on the University's Uptown Campus, 1400 Washington Avenue.
The annual event will be held in-person for the first time since 2019. Events will begin at 10:30 a.m. and conclude at 5 p.m. All events are free and open to the public.
“We are proud to announce that we are returning to a live, in-person and on-campus event for our 4th annual Albany Book Festival. We’ve worked hard to restore all those things we missed, which make a live and in-person Albany Book Festival so magical,” said Writers Institute Director Paul Grondahl. "After the coronavirus pandemic caused us to pivot to a virtual book festival last year, we are grateful to bring together a community of readers, writers, editors, publishers and booksellers once again in a celebration of literature."
Award ceremonies
The festival will kick off with an awards ceremony honoring the New York State Author and the New York State Poet at 7:30 p.m. Friday, Sept. 24. The names of the laureates will be announced later this month.
In addition, the winner of the inaugural Bruce Piasecki and Andrea Masters Award on Business and Society Writing will also be announced on Friday, Sept. 24.
Safety protocols
The book festival will comply with all COVID-19 protocols and follow the guidance of health
officials. Up-to-date information will be posted at albanybookfestival.com. While the September 25 book festival is planned to be an in-person event, some festival features are going online.
The list of Albany Book Festival guests includes (subject to change):
Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah (Friday Black: Stories),
Ayad Akhtar (Homeland Elegies),
Robert Boyers (The Tyranny of Virtue: Identity, The Academy, and the Hunt for Political Heresies),
Elizabeth Brundage (The Vanishing Point),
Mary Gaitskill (This is Pleasure),
Garth Greenwell (Cleanness),
Farah Jasmine Griffin (Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature),
Janell Hobson (When God Lost Her Tongue: Historical Consciousness and the Black Feminist Imagination),
Quiara Alegría Hudes (My Broken Language: A Memoir, co-wrote the Tony Award-winning stage musical "In the Heights" with Lin-Manuel Miranda.),
Amitava Kumar (A Time Outside This Time),
Reif Larsen (Uma Wimple Charts her House),
Emily Layden (All Girls),
Ed Lin (David Tung Can’t Have a Girlfriend Until He Gets Into an Ivy League College),
George Makari (Of Fear and Strangers: A History of Xenophobia),
Bethany C. Morrow (So Many Beginnings: A Little Women Remix),
Peter Osnos (An Especially Good View: Watching History Happen),
Jay Parini (Borges and Me: An Encounter),
David Pietrusza (Too Long Ago: A Childhood Memoir. A Vanished World.),
Nathaniel Philbrick (Travels with George: In Search of Washington and His Legacy),
David Rohde (In Deep: The FBI, the CIA, and the Truth about America’s “Deep State”),
Ed Schwarzschild (In Security),
Dana Spiotta (Wayward),
Simon Winchester (LAND: How the Hunger for Ownership Shaped the Modern World).
The book festival will also include a Local Authors Marketplace, readings by young local writers published in Skribblers magazine; and readings from banned books to help kick off Banned Books Week beginning September 26 with the theme, “Books Unite Us. Censorship Divides Us.” The festival’s children’s programming is organized by Skribblers and the Albany Public Library.
More information at albanybookfestival.com. Book lovers are encouraged to sign up for the Writers Institute email list to receive updates.
Our Sponsors
The NYS Writers Institute is grateful for the following individuals and businesses whose donations help fund this year's Albany Book Festival.
Premier
Bruce Piasecki & The Creative Force Fund
Presenting
Pernille Ægidius Dake / George and Kathleen McNamee / Renaissance Corporation of Albany
Charles Touhey and Alice Green / University Auxiliary Services
Supporting
Times Union / Ellen Jabbur / Stuyvesant Plaza
Friend
Laurie Bank and Stuart Freyer / A. Andrew Casano, MD & Bella Pipas / Bernard F. Conners Foundation / The Book House of Stuyvesant Plaza / Susan Novotny / CDPHP / Fenimore Asset Management / FAM Funds / Doris Fischer Malesardi / The Foy Fund / Henry Greenberg / Paul and Mary Grondahl / Heslin Rothenberg Farley & Mesiti P.C. / William and Dana Kennedy / William & Mary Jean Krackeler / Betsy Lopez / Mackin & Casey / Modern Press / Jeffrey Pollard / Janney Montgomery Scott, LLC / Roberta and Bob Redmond / Mary Scanlan / Herb and Cynthia Shultz / Jim and Teresa Stellar / Steve McKee Foundation / UAlbany William L. Reese Emeritus Center Three Voices Grant Program
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