Miami Book Fair 2017: What To See This Weekend

MIAMI, FL — If you've ever relished a clever turn of a phrase or been inspired by someone's larger than life story, this is the "write" weekend for you. The Miami Book Fair brings many of the country's most influential authors to the Magic City to celebrate the written word in one of the country's largest literary gatherings of its kind. There will be free children's books, political discussions and much more.

See also Al Franken Cancels Miami Book Fair Appearance

Mired in a groping scandal, embattled Democratic Sen. Al Franken has pulled out of a planned weekend appearance at the Miami Book Fair but there are plenty of other authors to see in his place.

Here are some of the weekend highlights:

National Book Foundation’s National Book Awards

For the fourth year in a row, Miami Dade College’s (MDC) acclaimed Miami Book Fair (MBF), in partnership with the National Book Foundation, and with the support of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, welcomes the Finalists and Winners of the National Book Foundation’s National Book Awards.

“Authors tell our stories in unique ways that change perceptions, highlight inequity and create empathy and understanding,” said Victoria Rogers, VP of Arts at Knight Foundation. “They create art that exists at the very core of humanity. At Knight Foundation, we’re delighted to make the very best of today's literature from around-the-world available to all of Miami through the Book Fair.”

The National Book Foundation's mission is to celebrate the best of American literature, expand its audience, and enhance the cultural value of good writing in America. The National Book Award is one of the nation's most prestigious literary prizes and has a stellar record of identifying and rewarding quality writing.

Previous winners of the Award — including William Carlos Williams, Joyce Carol Oates, and William Faulkner—comprise a who’s who of American literature. Following the awards ceremony in New York City on November 15, at which the winners will be announced, all winners and finalists in the categories of Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, and Young People’s Literature will travel to Miami for this remarkable gathering of literary talent.

Here are some of the events the visiting authors will participate in this weekend at the Miami Book Fair:

• Saturday, Nov. 18, 12:30 p.m. — Award-Winning Readings: National Book Award Finalists and Winners in Fiction at MDC’s Wolfson Campus, 300 N.E. Second Ave., Room 3314 (Building 3, Third Floor) Elliot Ackerman’s Dark at the Crossing is a contemporary love story set on the Turkish border with Syria. In Daniel Alarcón’s story collection, The King Is Always Above the People, migration, betrayal, family secrets, doomed love, and uncertain futures are transformed into deeply human stories with high stakes. Lisa Ko‘s powerful debut, The Leavers, winner of the 2016 PEN/Bellwether Prize for Fiction, follows one young man’s search for his mother, an undocumented Chinese immigrant who disappears when he’s 11 years old. In Min Jin Lee‘s bestselling novel, Pachinko, four generations of a poor Korean immigrant family fight to control their destiny in 20th-century Japan, exiled from a home they never knew. In her collection of short stories, Her Body and Other Parties, Carmen Maria Machado bends genre to shape startling narratives that map the realities of women’s lives and the violence visited upon their bodies. Margaret Wilkerson Sexton’s A Kind of Freedom explores the legacy of racial disparity in the South through a poignant and redemptive family history. Carol Zoref‘s award-winning first novel, Barren Island, is set a forsaken sand bar, but infused with strange beauty and love.
• Saturday, Nov. 18, 1 p.m. Award-Winning Readings: National Book Award Nominees and Finalists in Poetry at MDC’s Wolfson Campus, 300 N.E. Second Ave., Room 6100 (Building 6, First Floor). Frank Bidart’s latest collection, Half-light: Collected Poems 1965–2016, encompasses all of Bidart’s previous books, and also includes a new collection, Thirst. Mai Der Vang’s Afterland recounts with devastating detail the Hmong exodus from Laos and the fate of thousands of refugees seeking asylum. Chen Chen’s When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities investigates inherited forms of love and family—all from Asian American, immigrant, and queer perspectives. Leslie Harrison’s The Book of Endings try to make sense of, or at least come to some kind of reckoning with, absence. In Magdalene, Marie Howe imagines the biblical figure of Mary Magdalene as spiritual, sensual, and searching for meaning in a contemporary landscape. In Shane McCrae’s In the Language of My Captor historical persona poems and a prose memoir address the illusory freedom of both black and white Americans. Danez Smith’s Don’t Call Us Dead confronts America— where every day is too often a funeral and not often enough a miracle. Layli Long Soldier’s Whereas confronts the coercive language of the United States government in its responses, treaties, and apologies to Native American peoples and tribes.
• Saturday, Nov. 18, 2:30 p.m. Award-Winning Readings: National Book Award Nominees and Finalists in Nonfiction at MDC’s Wolfson Campus, 300 N.E. Second Ave., Room 3314 (Building 3, Third Floor). Erica Armstrong Dunbar‘s Never Caught: The Washington’s Relentless Pursuit of Their Runaway Slave, Ona Judge is the powerful and surprising narrative of George and Martha Washington’s runaway slave. In Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America, James Forman, Jr. explains why the war on crime that began in the 1970s was supported by many African American leaders in the nation’s urban centers. David Grann’s Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI is a twisting, haunting true-life murder mystery about one of the most monstrous crimes in American history. Nancy MacLean’s Democracy in Chains: The Deep History of the Radical Right’s Stealth Plan for America delves the operation designed over six decades to alter every branch of government to disempower the majority. In Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News, Kevin Young traces our country’s long history of “hoaxing”—from P.T. Barnum to Donald Trump.
• Saturday, Nov. 18, 4:30 p.m. Award-Winning Readings: National Book Award Nominees and Finalists in Young People’s Literature at MDC’s Wolfson Campus, 300 N.E. Second Ave., Room 3314 (Building 3, Third Floor). In Robin Benway’s Far From the Tree, being the middle child has its ups and downs, but for Grace, an only child who was adopted at birth, discovering that she is a middle child is a different ride altogether. In Samantha Mabry’s All the Wind in the World, a couple on the run may have to pay a frighteningly high price for their love. Charmaine Craig’s Miss Burma, based on the lives of the author’s mother and grandparents, tells the story of modern-day Burma through the eyes of one family struggling to find love, justice, and meaning during a time of war and political repression. In Erika L. Sanchez’s I am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter, a young girl struggles to reassemble the shattered pieces of her family following the death of her sister. In Ibi Zoboi’sAmerican Street, a young Haitian immigrant adjusting to Detroit must confront a dangerous proposition.

Children’s Alley at the Street Fair

Attendees will be able to pick up a free children’s book as part of their experience. The Early Learning Coalition of Miami-Dade/Monroe, a nonprofit that manages and funds early literacy and education programs, will have a tent at the fair all weekend to provide free children’s books to all visitors. The coalition will also share information about access to quality early education. The ELC is hosting interactive children’s activities and readings at the Tot Lot.

ELC officials stress the importance of reading to small children before age five, when about 90 percent of the brain has developed.

C-SPAN2 BookTV Live From Miami Book Fair

For the 20th straight year, CSPAN2's BookTV will be live from the Miami Book Fair.

"Our LIVE coverage, this Saturday and Sunday, Nov. 18 and 19, will include author discussions, interviews, and viewer call-in segments," according to the network.

Here is a partial rundown of the segments:

• MSNBC's Chris Matthews on the political life of Bobby Kennedy
• Bestselling biographer Walter Isaacson on Leonardo da Vinci
• Gold Star father Khizr Khan on his immigration to the United States
• NBC News' Katy Tur on covering the Trump campaign
• Journalist Sharyl Attkisson on how smear tactics are used to influence public opinion
• Political commentator Charles Sykes offers his thoughts on the conservative movement
• CNN's Van Jones weighs in on partisan politics
• President emerita of Spelman College Beverly Daniel Tatum looks at race relations in the United States

"In addition to bringing the Miami Book Fair to our national TV audience, the all-new, 45-foot C-SPAN Bus will be at the Fair and open to the public on Saturday and Sunday," network officials said. "The bus will be parked at 2nd and 4th streets, in front of Chapman Hall."

Queer Perspectives

• Saturday, Nov. 18, 10:30 a.m. at MDC Wolfson Campus, 300 N.E. Second Ave., Room 8302 (Building 8, 3rd Floor). James Allen Hall‘s collection of essays, I Liked You Better Before I Knew You So Well, recounts his journey to queerness, which persisted despite a youth marred by violence, addiction, and homophobia.
• Saturday, Nov. 18, 2:30 p.m. Reading Queer Presents: Four Groundbreaking Queer Poets at MDC Wolfson Campus, 300 N.E. Second Ave., Room 6100 (Building 6, 1st Floor). Chen Chen’s poetry collection, When I Grow Up I Want to Be a List of Further Possibilities, winner of the 2016 A. Poulin, Jr. Poetry Prize, investigates inherited forms of love and family—all from Asian American, immigrant, and queer perspectives. Danez Smith’s Don’t Call Us Dead is an astonishing collection of poetry, one that confronts America— where every day is too often a funeral and not often enough a miracle. Harvard English professor Stephen Burt (who also goes by Steph and Stephanie) presents a brilliant and candid exploration of gender and identity in his latest poetry collection, Advice from the Lights. t’ai freedom ford’s debut collection, how to get over, is part instruction manual, part prayer, and part testimony.
• Sunday, Nov. 19, 1:30 p.m. Eileen Myles on the Pleasure and Pain of Pets at MDC Wolfson Campus, 300 N.E. Second Ave., Room 2106 (Building 2, 1st Floor). Following the death of Eileen Myles’s beloved pit-bull Rosie, Myles launches a heartfelt and fabulist investigation into the true nature of the bond between pet and pet-owner, in Afterglow (a dog memoir).

For more information, visit www.miamibookfair.com, call 305-237-3528, or email wbookfair@mdc.edu.

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Visit MiamiReads.com for complete schedule and more information. #MiamiReads

Photo Courtesy C-SPAN