Singer Meghan Trainor, Oscar-winning actress Laura Dern, California Rep. Katie Porter and former Georgia legislator Stacey Abrams are among the authors appearing at this year’s Los Angeles Times Festival of Books.
On Wednesday, The Times unveiled its lineup for the annual literary celebration, scheduled for April 22-23, which will feature more than 500 writers, musicians and artists spread across USC’s 226-acre campus.
Following last year’s return to a fully in-person festival after the pandemic forced such events to go virtual in 2020, organizer Ann Binney, associate director of events at The Times, said this year’s festival will “strive to bring it even further back to normal and do even better than last year.”
In this sense, the festival will have its typical programming, with a variety of high-profile public figures and famous authors as the headliner, but also with novelties, such as the alliance with Apple TV+, which will present the projection of an episode of its new mystery . thriller series”the last thing he said to me”, starring Jennifer Garner and based on the novel by Laura Dave.
Both Garner and Dave will be available to talk about the series and to book on the festival’s main stage.
As part of The Times’ “Ideas Exchange” series, Dern and her mother, actress Diane Ladd, will discuss their upcoming book, “Honey, Baby, Mine: A Mother and Daughter Talk Life, Death, Love (and Banana Pudding) )”, a collection of their conversations together.
In addition, Grammy Award winner Trainor, who is expecting her second child this summer, will present her debut book, “Dear Future Mama: A TMI Guide to Pregnancy, Birth, and Motherhood from Your Bestie.” After a panel discussion, the “Made You Look” performer will be available to sign copies of the book.
Other notable figures set to take part include folk music icon Joan Baez, Broadway royalty Leslie Odom Jr. and Idina Menzel, singer-songwriter Margo Price and actress Judy Greer. Porter, who is running for a US Senate seat from California, will speak on his memoir, “I swear: politics is more complicated than my minivan.” Abrams will share her new semi-autobiographical children’s book, “Stacey’s Remarkable Books,” a follow-up to her New York Times bestseller “Stacey’s Extraordinary Words.”
“I was a writer before I was a politician, a romance novelist,” Binney said, referring to the romantic suspense fiction Abrams wrote under her pen name, Selena Montgomery. (Most recently, she wrote a legal thriller, “While Justice Sleeps,” under her own name.) “She has been in this world for a long time.”
Headlining the festival’s LA Times Book Club event is Gabrielle Zevin, who will discuss her bestselling novel, “Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow.”
Other celebrated authors on the show include Roxane Gay, Adriana Trigiani, Walter Mosley, Jane Smiley, Anna Todd, Lois Lowry, and Kate DiCamillo. Dozens of panels will also feature Rebecca Makkai, Dave Eggers, Jess Row, Andrew Sean Greer, TC Boyle, Susan Straight, Tess Gunty, Pico Iyer, and Fatima Asghar, among many other literary authors.
Another setting will feature the Times’ ongoing Ask a Reporter series, in which reporters, editors, photographers and podcasters discuss their work and answer readers’ questions. Staff appearing include Times Executive Editor Kevin Mérida, as well as Laurie Ochoa, Samantha Melbourneneweaver and Gustavo Arellano, who will present a live recording of the Times podcast series “Masters of Disasters.”
To kick off the festival, the Times will hold a book award ceremony for a dozen literary works. The Times will also award the Robert Kirsch Award, for work focused on the American West, to James Ellroy, who is best known for his Los Angeles-based crime novels “LA Confidential” and “The Black Dahlia,” both part of his bestseller LA Quartet.
Ellroy has also written an investigative memoir, “My Dark Places,” as well as dozens of novels, many of them adapted for film, graphic novels, and podcast. He will join fellow crime novelist Michael Connelly at the festival to discuss his work.
The Freedom to Read Foundation, winner of the Times Innovator Award, will also be participating in the festival. The nonprofit organization’s work includes protecting the public’s right to access information in libraries and helping provide legal advice to librarians fighting to preserve their First Amendment rights.
A representative from the nonprofit organization will speak with PEN America and several young adult authors whose books have been banned in various states. Book bans in US school districts experienced an unprecedented increase in 2022, according to a recent report by PEN America.
His work “has always been important,” Binney said, “but it’s increasingly important when it comes to books and education.”
Here is an additional sample of the 550 participants:
Amina Ahmad
andres porter
angie cross
anna todd
Annette Chavez Macias
chelsea bieker
Chrissy Metz
dahlia lithwick
dan pfeiffer
Danny Pellegrino
david corn
Father Greg Boyle
holly goldberg sloan
J.Ryan Stradal
Jasmine Guillory
jeffrey yang
Jessica Kim
jonathan lemire
good karen
Katherine Schwarzenegger Pratt
kristin hannah
Lan Samantha Chang
lauren graham
lynn steger strong
maayan eitan
Mary Otis
Maria Amparo Escandon
mauricio umansky
max greenfield
Omar Epps
ottessa moshfegh
patricia smith
Rabbi Naomi Levy
raquel lindsay
Rashid Newson
robin coste lewis
sadeqa johnson
saeed jones
sara kendzior
sarah prisco
shelley read
sona movsesian
Stephen Markley
steve lopez
steven madden
Susanna Hoffs
Tamera Mowry-Housley
the lady gang
Tracey Rose Peyton
V.E. Schwab
victoria chang
