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Here are the public radio journalists at the 2024 Texas Book Festival, Nov 16-17

The 29th Annual Texas Book Festival takes place in and around the Texas Capitol, Nov. 16-17, 2024.
The Texas Book Festival
The 29th Annual Texas Book Festival takes place in and around the Texas Capitol, Nov. 16-17, 2024.

NPR's Michele Norris to discuss her newest book Our Hidden Conversations, a collection of thoughtful, sometimes humorous and unflinchingly honest stories

The Texas Book Festival – one of the country’s largest and longest-running book festivals – takes place in and around the Texas Capitol and downtown Austin Nov. 16-17. The event features headlining authors Malcolm Gladwell and Matthew McConaughey, Pulitzer Prize winners Jane Smiley and Cristina Rivera Garza, acclaimed Texas authors like Attica Locke, Sarah Bird, Ernest Cline, and Naomi Shihab Nye, and debut novelists including Kat Tang, Alejandro Puyana and Hannah Brown.

This year, more than 275 acclaimed authors — including NPR's Michele Norris — will connect with attendees through panel discussions, readings, cooking demos, book signings and children's activities including crafts and story time sessions by some of today’s leading children’s authors. Always a free event, the complete schedule is available at www.texasbookfestival.org.

If you plan to attend this year’s event, we encourage you to check out these author sessions hosted by local public radio journalists, including Ben Philpott, Sarah Asch and Sergio Martínez-Beltrán.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2024

11:15 a.m.–noon in the Capitol Extension Room: E2.010 (1100 Congress Ave.)
“Texas Standard’s” Sarah Asch moderates the discussion Secrets and Sacrifice: Daring Debut Novels Centering Women & WWII Japan featuring Vanessa Chan, author of The Storm We Made and Amanda Churchill, author of The Turtle House.

 
4:15-5 p.m. in the C-Span2 Tent (Congress Ave. & 11th St.)
NPR's Sergio Martínez-Beltrán moderates the discussion Understanding the Origins & the Humanity of the Border Crisis featuring Javier Auyero and Jonathan Blitzer – authors of Portraits of Persistence and Everyone Who is Gone is Here respectively – who offer a humanizing look at the U.S.-Mexico border crisis and the broader sociopolitical forces behind it.

 
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2024

1:30-2:15 p.m. at the State Theatre (719 Congress Ave.)
NPR’s Michele Norris in Discussion about Our Hidden Conversations
“Race. Your Thoughts. Six Words. Please Send.” Over half a million Americans answered this six-word prompt on award-winning journalist Michele Norris’ The Race Card Project website. These responses inspired Norris’ newest book Our Hidden Conversations, a collection of thoughtful, sometimes humorous and unflinchingly honest stories. Join her in conversation with Dr. Peniel Joseph, a UT Austin professor and founding director of the LBJ School’s Center for the Study of Race and Democracy, for an unflinching discussion about how Americans truly view race and identity.

 
2-2:45 pm in the Central Market Cooking tent
The Texas Newsroom’s Corrie MacLaggan moderates the cooking demonstration featuring Marisel Salazar, author of Latin-ish: More Than 100 Recipes Celebrating American Latino Cuisines.

Salazar's dazzling debut cookbook explores a mouthwatering collection of recipes shaped by diaspora and migration. Salazar’s recipes are easy to follow and easier to enjoy, from savory flavors to sweet, comforting desserts that span the U.S.

11:15 a.m.-noon in the C-Span2 tent
KUT News’ Health Care Reporter Olivia Aldridge moderates the discussion Land of the Free? The Fight for Reproductive Rights in a Divided Nation, featuring Elizabeth Dias and Lisa Lerer, authors of The Fall of Roe, and Shefali Luthra, author of Undue Burden.

Through investigative reporting and powerful human stories, these authors reveal the forces that dismantled decades of legal precedent and the lasting impact on women’s lives, healthcare, and the nation.

 
3:15-4 p.m. in the C-Span2 tent
KUT News Managing Editor Ben Philpott moderates the discussion How Infrastructure Supports & Separates Us, with Frank Andre Guridy and Megan Kimble, authors of The Stadium and City Limits respectively.

The discussion will explore how our built environment has shaped – and fractured – American communities and what we can do to rethink infrastructure to create more just and connected communities.