Welcome!
Dates for the Arkansas Literary Festival 2012, the premier gathering of readers and writers in Arkansas, have been set. Authors and events will be announced in the coming months. In the meantime, take a look at the authors and events that made the 2011 Festival such a success.
We hope you had a chance to attend the 2011 Festival and thank you for helping to make it the best Literary Festival yet. As always, we couldn't do any of it without the involvement of scores of volunteers, the staff at the Central Arkansas Library System, and the many businesses and organizations from around Little Rock and Arkansas who contribute time and resources. Thank you all very much and we look forward to seeing you in 2012.
Highlights of the 2011 Literary Festival
A must! The Festival closed with the incomparable humorist in a return visit to central Arkansas. The author signed books for five hours after his first visit.
Ree Drummond, the well-known blogger whose new memoir Black Heels To Tractor Wheels has been optioned for film, lit up the Festival with her down-home charm, passion, and warmth. Her blog, www.thepioneerwoman.com, receives two million hits a month.
Photo credit: Bill Nyard
If you like romance, science fiction, mystery, or the supernatural, you enjoyed this conversation with Harris. She is best known for her Sookie Stackhouse series, which is the basis of HBO's True Blood series.
Isabel Wilkerson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist whose book, The Warmth of Other Suns, was on practically every 2010 best books list. She spoke about the treks of three southern African Americans to the north and the west. Her book has been called "a massive and masterly account…immensely readable" in a cover review by the New York Times Book Review and "a brilliant and stirring epic" by the Wall Street Journal.
Yummy! Festival goers indulged in some sticky and scrumptious new desserts from the cheeky and imaginative Brooklyn bakers Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito. The duo whipped up some sinfully delicious treats from their second cookbook, Baked Explorations: Classic American Desserts Reinvented.
We hope you had the good sense and sensibility to make an appointment for this bold collision of Robin Becker, Brains, and Joan Ray, Jane Austen for Dummies. This waltz of decorum and the undead resulted in eyes pried and prejudice rebuffed, as etiquette and gore each receive their due. Thankfully, both authors remained bloody well behaved!
This party for kids introduced the 2011 Lit Fest children's authors in an interactive way. Children won prizes, including a piñata, and enjoyed books about sports, heroes, Arkansas, science, and more. Authors included Matt de la Peña, Darcy Pattison, Carla McClafferty, Tom Paradise, and Linda Williams.
Some might have expected horns or Eric the Red. Elizabeth Heiskell, lead culinary instructor at the Viking School, was paired with her friend Lee Richardson, executive chef at the Capital Hotel, whose professional kitchen uses Viking products. Participants enjoyed some tantalizing Southern dishes that are both simple and spectacular.
