The AJC Decatur Book Festival. Opens 8 p.m. Aug. 29 with the keynote speech by novelist Joyce Carol Oates and ends 6 p.m. Aug. 31. It takes place at more than 20 locations throughout downtown Decatur, both indoors and outdoors. Free. For information: 404-471-5769, decaturbookfestival.com.
With her pale skin, dark curls and delicate pre-Raphaelite aura, Joyce Carol Oates seems the wrong person to write with such gusto about the blood sport of boxing.
But the ethereal Oates, a very substantial presence on the literary scene since 1963, has detailed every extreme of the human condition in more than 70 books, fiction and nonfiction, including the 1987 essay collection, “On Boxing,” considered a landmark of the genre.
Oates, 76, is the keynote speaker at the 2014 AJC Decatur Book Festival, a yearly Labor Day weekend event that continues to gather steam. More than 600 authors will speak or appear on panels at this year’s festival and plenty of new elements have been added to the mix, including an outdoor kitchen for cooking demonstrations and a Global Voices “track” that salts the conversation with tales from Iran, India and Mexico.
“Every year we’ve seen growth,” said program director Philip Rafshoon. “Every year we’ve seen new additions come to the festival, new ideas, new activities.”
Along with books and authors, you can find art, music, food, dance, theater and all sorts of entertainments. But let us focus on literary delights. A few highlights:
Joyce Carol Oates
The eminent novelist will speak at the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts. The event is sold out, but you never know.
Oates will be interviewed onstage by her biographer, Emory alumnus Greg Johnson, and will speak about her newest work, a short story collection called “Lovely, Dark, Deep.” 8-9:30 p.m. Aug. 29 at Emory University’s Schwartz Center for Performing Arts.
Pat Conroy Selects
For the first time this year the festival gives one of its authors a chance to discuss (and introduce) writers that he loves. Conroy will ride herd on a selection of novelists in a format that the festival intends to repeat, with a new author in charge each year.
It so happens that, as the editor of Story River Books (an imprint that is part of the University of South Carolina Press), Conroy already has a gaggle of fledgling scriveners to shepherd into the publishing world, including John Lang, Mark Powell and John Warley.
He also will participate in a panel about writers marrying other writers, accompanied by wife and novelist Cassandra King. (In the South that sort of thing is still OK.) His panels will take place from 10 a.m. until 6:15 p.m. Aug. 30 at various locations.
Beth Macy
After cheap Chinese imports gained access to U.S. markets, the American-made furniture industry disappeared with what Ross Perot might call a “giant sucking sound.” Factory workers in the mountains of Virginia and North Carolina watched their jobs hoovered overseas. Entire communities died.
One man stood against that tide, a colorful Virginian and third-generation furniture maker named John Bassett III. “Factory Man: How One Furniture Maker Battled Offshoring, Stayed Local — and Helped Save an American Town” by Macy wraps a profile of Bassett with the story of the cost of globalization, a price paid by the struggling families in the hollows and hills of the Appalachians. 11:15-noon Aug. 30, Marriott Conference Center Ballroom A.
Jon Scieszka
The author of the wry children’s classic “The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales” is booked into the rather spacious Presser Hall on the nearby Agnes Scott campus to deliver the “Kidnote” address. His new book is “Frank Einstein and the Antimatter Motor,” which is targeted at a demographic called “middle-grade.”
Scieszka (rhymes with “Fresca”) is ridiculous, but also ridiculously funny, which is why he’ll be holding forth in such a sizable venue. (First come, first seated). 5 p.m Aug. 29, Agnes Scott College’s Presser Hall.
William Wegman
Weimaraners are known for their glossy gray coats, doleful expressions and blue eyes, but not for being uncomfortably burdened with extra intelligence. On the other hand, photographer Wegman’s Weimaraners were smart enough to don blond wigs and roller skates and sit patiently in his studio and become famous.
Wegman has parlayed his dognition into children’s books, including this year’s “Flo and Wendell Explore,” featuring sibling puppies out for adventure. He appears with Chris Gall 1:30-2:15 Aug. 31 at the Children’s Stage.
Dr. Louis Sullivan
The former secretary of Health and Human Services and founder of Morehouse School of Medicine, Sullivan has been a major force in the struggle to bring health care to a demographic that needs it most.
He has written his own story, “Breaking Ground,” which details his remarkable rise from Jim Crow-era Blakely to eminence in American medicine. 10-10:45 a.m. Aug. 30, First Baptist Decatur Sanctuary Stage.
Karen Abbott
In “Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy,” New York Times best-selling author Abbott tells the nonfiction tale of four women — a socialite, a farm girl, an abolitionist and a widow — all of whom were spies during the Civil War. Her narrative reportage has been called “sizzle history,” and the festival claims she “illuminates the saucier secrets of the Civil War.”
Abbott is part of the Civil War track, timed to coincide with the sesquicentennial of the war. 3:45-4:30 p.m. Aug. 31, Decatur Recreation Center Gym.
Allan Gurganus
Gurganus made his mark with his 1989 debut novel, “Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All.”
His newest book, “Local Souls,” examines the 21st century South by revisiting the Falls, N.C., setting of the first novel. It has been described as “Winesburg, Ohio with high-speed Internet.” It is his first book in 12 years. 2:30-3:15 p.m. Aug. 31, Old Courthouse Stage.
Richard Rodriguez
NPR commentator Rodriguez is part of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender track, and will talk about his essay collection “Darling,” a “spiritual autobiography” that touches on religion, homosexuality and the post 9/11 world. 3:45-4:30 p.m. Aug. 31, Old Courthouse Stage.
Karin Slaughter
Local favorite Slaughter’s newest is “Cop Town,” about a cop killer in 1970s Atlanta. She will be paired with fellow thriller writer Chelsea Cain. 4:15-5 p.m. Aug. 30, First Baptist Decatur Sanctuary Stage.
Gail Sheehy
Sheehy caught the zeitgeist of an age with the 1976 work “Passages: Predictable Crises of Adult Life,” which spoke to many women (and men) about the challenges of growing up and growing old. She went on to paint indelible portraits of President George W. Bush, Margaret Thatcher, Hillary Clinton and others among the famous and powerful in magazine stories for Vanity Fair, New York magazine and the New Yorker magazine.
She will introduce her sweeping memoir, “Daring: My Passages.” 1:15-2 p.m. Aug. 31 at the Decatur Presbyterian Sanctuary stage.
Ted Rall
Best book title of the festival probably goes to journalist and cartoonist Rall, well known for his acidulous multi-panel political cartoons printed in Rolling Stone, the Village Voice, the Los Angeles Times and elsewhere. Rall used a Kickstarter campaign to send himself to Afghanistan to document the impact of 10 years of war (he’d already been once, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11) and the result is “After We Kill You, We Will Welcome You Back as Honored Guests: Unembedded in Afghanistan,” a nightmare travelogue. 2:30-3:15 p.m. Aug. 31 at the Decatur Recreation Center gymnasium.
