THE 10TH ANNUAL SAN ANTONIO BOOK FESTIVAL, MAY 21, 2022
The 10th Annual San Antonio Book Festival has announced its official 2022 schedule for this year’s festival, taking place on May 21, 2022, at the Central Library and Southwest School of Art. The festival will feature over 90 national, regional, and local authors and 60 sessions for guests to attend, and is FREE and open to all ages, featuring literary works for the whole family. A full list of all the sessions at the festival is available online. A full list of participating authors can be found here.
2022 HELPFUL LINKS:
2022 NOTEWORTHY SESSIONS:
ASSIMILATION AND BELONGING
Time: 11:15 AM - 12:00 PM
Location: Russell Hill Rogers Tent (session will also live-streamed on San Antonio Book Festival’s YouTube channel)
In You Sound Like a White Girl, bestselling author Julissa Arce questions the myth that assimilation leads to happiness and belonging for immigrants and calls for a celebration of our uniqueness, our origins, our heritage, and the beauty of the differences that make us Americans.
Author: Julissa Arce
Moderator: Cat Cardenas, Texas Monthly
A CONVERSATION WITH JERICHO BROWN AND NATALIE DIAZ
Time: 1:30 PM - 2:30 PM
Location: Russell Hill Rogers Tent (session will also live-streamed on San Antonio Book Festival’s YouTube channel)
Pulitzer Prize-winning poets Jericho Brown (The Tradition) and Natalie Diaz (Postcolonial Love Poem) take center stage at the San Antonio Book Festival. They read from their latest collections, and discuss their transcendent work – both on the page and in their communities – and why engaging with verse is a vital and accessible literary act.
Authors: Jericho Brown and Natalie Diaz
Moderator: Roger Reeves
THIS TIME TOMORROW WITH EMMA STRAUB
Time: 2:45 PM - 3:30 PM
Location: Russell Hill Rogers Tent (session will also live-streamed on San Antonio Book Festival’s YouTube channel)
What if you could take a vacation to your past? With her celebrated humor, insight, and heart, beloved New York Times bestseller Emma Straub offers her own twist on traditional time travel tropes and a different kind of love story in her latest novel, This Time Tomorrow.
Author: Emma Straub
Moderator: Kathy Blackwell, Texas Monthly
THE MAYOR AND THE JUDGE
Time: 10:30 AM - 11:15 AM
Location: Hawn Holt Family Auditorium (this session will be taped and aired at a later date on C-SPAN’s Book-TV)
In The Mayor and The Judge, San Antonio Texas Mayor Ron Nirenberg and Bexar County Judge Nelson W. Wolff fought to keep citizens safe at a time when the country was largely divided by political mayhem and disinformation. Including personal accounts of his family's reaction, the impact of the COVID-19, and the death of his best friend, Wolff writes candidly about how a global pandemic hit too close to home.
Authors: Mayor Ron Nirenberg and Judge Nelson W. Wolff
Moderator: David Martin Davies, Texas Public Radio
AMERICAN REBOOT WITH WILL HURD
Time: 2:30 PM - 3:15 PM
Location: Hawn Holt Family Auditorium (this session will be taped and aired at a later date on C-SPAN’s Book-TV)
Former Republican Congressman and CIA Officer Will Hurd’s American Reboot is a political playbook rooted in the ideals of bipartisanship, inclusivity, and democratic values.
Author: Will Hurd
Moderator: Robert Rivard, San Antonio Report
TRANS LITERATURE & ART
Location: San Antonio Book Festival Virtual Tent
In a culture of attacks on transgender and queer rights, there is a deep need for narratives that embrace queerness and break heteronormative expectations. Authors Alex Marzano-Lesnevich, Eileen Myles, Denne Michele Norris, and Torrey Peters pay homage to the beauty and resiliency of queer and transgender art and discuss the importance of art to their own liberation as both writers and readers. The panel is dedicated to those who seek to see themselves in literature and those fighting back against unjust laws. It will be a celebration of the power of art to create change.
Authors: Alex Marzano-Lesnevich, Eileen Myles, Denne Michele Norris, and Torrey Peters
Moderator: Alex Marzano-Lesnevich
SAN ANTONIO DEBUTS TAKE OVER PURA BELPRÉ
Time: 11:15 AM - 12:15 PM
Location: Coates Chapel
Pura Belpré Honor recipients Jonny Garza Villa and Marcia Mickelson tackle issues of identity, love in its many forms, and heartfelt relationships and their struggles. In Mickelson’s Where I Belong, a Guatemalan American teen fights for her family, her future, and the place she calls home. Garza Villa’s Fifteen Hundred Miles from the Sun is a poignant novel about coming out, first love, and being your best true self.
Authors: Jonny Garza Villa and Marcia Mickelson
Moderator: Anel Flores
Introduced by: students from the Young Women's Leadership Academy
GRAPHIC STORYTELLING: PAST AND PRESENT
Location: Coates Chapel
Time: 1:30 PM - 2:30 PM
In The Witch Owl Parliament, all-star Latinx authors David Bowles and Raúl the Third emerge readers into a steampunk-inspired 19th-century Mesoamerica saga of forbidden alchemy. Laura Gao’s compellingly layered graphic memoir Messy Roots depicts a multidimensional account of growing into queer Asian American identity and nuanced
CASTRO FAMILY TIES
Location: McNutt Middle-Grade Garden
Time: 2:45 PM - 3:15 PM
Monica Brown and Rep. Joaquin Castro read from Small Room, Big Dreams: The Journey of Julián and Joaquin Castro / Pequeña habitación, grandes sueños: El viaje de Julián y Joaquín Castro – a bilingual storytime
Authors: Monica Brown, Joaquin Castro
Introduced by: students from the Young Women's Leadership Academy
ULTIMATE ILLUSTRATOR SKETCH-OFF
Location: McNutt Middle-Grade Garden
Time: 3:30 PM - 4:15 PM
Making its return to the San Antonio Book Festival, renowned illustrators compete in the ultimate sketch-off. Topics are capricious and mercurial based on audience suggestions and ideas. More than a dozen sketches will be signed and given to lucky audience members.
Author: Laura Gao, Adriana Garcia, Xavier Garza, Shawn Harris, Don Tate
Hosted by: Library Chica Zinnia Bayardo
The mission of the San Antonio Book Festival (SABF) is to unite readers and writers in a celebration of ideas, books, libraries, and literary culture. SABF was first presented in April 2013. Founding partners include the San Antonio Public Library, the Southwest School of Art, the San Antonio Public Library Foundation, and Texas Book Festival. This “Fiesta for the mind” is a gift to visitors and the citizens of San Antonio, free and open to all.
To learn more about the Festival, visit sabookfestival.org/.
