This year’s San Antonio Book Festival features a lineup of 100 local, regional and national authors.
The full day of author presentations, panel discussions, book sales and signings, and activities for children and teens will take place April 15 at the Central Library and neighboring University of Texas at San Antonio Southwest Campus (formerly the Southwest School of Art) from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The festival is free and open to the public.
In addition to award-winning authors Geraldine Brooks, Melissa de la Cruz, Matthew Desmond and Adam Silvera, San Antonio favorite Sandra Cisneros will be in town promoting Woman Without Shame, her first book of poetry in 28 years.
Also representing San Antonio will be Lewis F. Fisher with his book about one of the city’s beloved natural areas, Brackenridge: San Antonio’s Acclaimed Urban Park; Carmen Tafolla with Arte del Pueblo: The Outdoor Public Art of San Antonio; and young adult author Marcia Argueta Mickelson with her novel, The Weight of Everything, a story about reconnecting with one’s roots following the death of a loved one.
This will be the festival’s first year offering a romance panel, said Anna Dobben, SABF’s literary director, who credits the recent success of romance books to “the rise of BookTok.”
Dobben has also noticed “a trend towards thriller and horror lately, with authors using the genre to discuss trauma and mental health, likely because the past few years have been so anxiety-provoking.”
On April 14, before the family-friendly main event, the festival will host Lit Happens, an event for the 18-and-over crowd. The night starts with an outdoor poetry activation with Jose Olivarez and San Antonio Poet Laureate Andrea “Vocab” Sanderson at 6 p.m., followed by “Worth Repeating,” a live storytelling event starring Rafael Agustin, Mahogany L. Browne, Rebecca Makkai and Stephen Graham Jones at Texas Public Radio at 7 p.m. A game of Literary Death Match at 8 p.m. between Texas authors V. Castro, Rubén Degollado, Bobby Finger and Jonny Garza Villa at Legacy Park will end the night.
For more information about featured authors and a schedule of events, visit the San Antonio Book Festival website.
2023 San Antonio Book Festival Lineup
- Aaron H. Aceves (This Is Why They Hate Us)
- Rafael Agustin (Illegally Yours)
- Roxanna Asgarian (We Were Once a Family: A Story of Love, Death, and Child Removal in America)
- Reza Aslan (An American Martyr in Persia: The Epic Life and Tragic Death of Howard Baskerville)
- Danielle Belleny (This Is a Book for People Who Love Birds)
- David Bowles (They Call Her Fregona: A Border Kid’s Poems) (Ancient Night)
- H. W. Brands (The Last Campaign: Sherman, Geronimo and the War for America)
- George Bristol (Texas State Parks: The First 100 Years, 1923-2023)
- Geraldine Brooks (Horse)
- Mahogany L. Browne (Chrome Valley)
- Joshua Burton (Grace Engine)
- Ada Calhoun (Also A Poet: Frank O’Hara, My Father, and Me)
- Edward Carey (Plagues & Pencils: A Year of Pandemic Sketches)
- Lakiesha Carr (An Autobiography of Skin)
- Joy Castro (One Brilliant Flame)
- V. Castro (The Haunting of Alejandra)
- Jared Chapman (Vegetables in Pajamas)
- Hayan Charara (These Trees, Those Leaves, This Flower, That Fruit)
- Henry Cisneros, co-author (San Antonio – City on a Mission)
- Sandra Cisneros (Woman Without Shame)
- Tom Clavin (Follow Me to Hell: McNelly’s Texas Rangers and the Rise of Frontier Justice)
- Johnny Compton (The Spite House)
- Catherine Nixon Cooke, co-author (San Antonio – City on a Mission)
- Armando Lucas Correa (The Night Travelers)
- Robbie Couch (If I See You Again Tomorrow)
- Angie Cruz (How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water)
- Adrianna Cuevas (The Ghosts of Rancho Espanto)
- Brad Davidson (Pocket Full of Sads)
- Rachel Más Davidson (Pocket Full of Sads)
- Melissa de la Cruz (Snow & Poison)
- Rubén Degollado (The Family Izquierdo)
- Matthew Desmond (Poverty, By America)
- Alda P. Dobbs (The Other Side of the River)
- Renee Dudley, co-author (The Ransomware Hunting Team: A Band of Misfits’ Improbable Crusade to Save the World from Cybercrime)
- Saadia Faruqi (Marya Khan and the Fabulous Jasmine Garden)
- Bobby Finger (The Old Place)
- Lewis F. Fisher (Brackenridge: San Antonio’s Acclaimed Urban Park)
- Guadalupe Garcia McCall (Echoes of Grace)
- Kimberly Garza (The Last Karankawas)
- Jonny Garza Villa (Ander & Santi Were Here)
- Reyna Grande (A Ballad of Love and Glory) (Somewhere We Are Human: Authentic Voices on Migration, Survival, and New Beginnings)
- Jeff Guinn (Waco: David Koresh, the Branch Davidians, and a Legacy of Rage)
- Shannon Hale (Party Hearty Kitty-Corn)
- Jennifer Michael Hecht (The Wonder Paradox: Embracing the Weirdness of Existence and the Poetry of Our Lives)
- Rachel Heng (The Great Reclamation)
- Tim Z. Hernandez (Some of the Light: New and Selected Poems)
- David Hillis (Armadillos to Ziziphus: A Naturalist in the Texas Hill Country)
- Brandon Hobson (The Storyteller)
- Gabino Iglesias (The Devil Takes You Home)
- Claire Jiménez (What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez)
- Stephen Graham Jones (Don’t Fear the Reaper)
- Laekan Zea Kemp (An Appetite for Miracles) (A Crown for Corina)
- John C. Kerr (Always Faithful)
- Dean King (Guardians of the Valley: John Muir and the Friendship that Saved Yosemite)
- Priyanka Kumar (Conversations With Birds)
- Annie Montgomery Labatt (Art History 101. . . Without the Exams: Looking Closely at Objects from the History of Art)
- Kiese Laymon (Heavy: An American Memoir)
- Cynthia Leitich Smith (Harvest House)
- Chloe Liese (Two Wrongs Make a Right)
- Jeffrey Dale Lofton (Red Clay Suzie)
- Rebecca Makkai (I Have Some Questions for You)
- Mari Mancusi (New Dragon City)
- Louise Marburg (You Have Reached Your Destination)
- Claudia Guadalupe Martínez (Still Dreaming / Seguimos soñando)
- Elizabeth McCracken (The Hero of This Book)
- Marcia Argueta Mickelson (The Weight of Everything)
- Char Miller (Natural Consequences: Intimate Essays for a Planet in Peril)
- Kayla Miller (Crunch: A Click Graphic Novel)
- Szilvia Molnar (The Nursery)
- Deborah D.E.E.P. Mouton (Black Chameleon: Memory, Womanhood, and Myth)
- Manuel Muñoz (The Consequences: Stories)
- Cleyvis Natera (Neruda on the Park)
- Ricardo Nuila (The People’s Hospital: Hope and Peril in American Medicine)
- Jenny Odell (Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock)
- José Olivarez (Promises of Gold)
- Priscilla Oliveras (Kiss Me, Catalina)
- Mark Oshiro (Into the Light)
- Betsy Gerhardt Pasley (From the Sidelines to the Headlines: The Legacy of Women’s Sports at Trinity University)
- LeUyen Pham (Party Hearty Kitty-Corn)
- Andrew Porter (The Disappeared: Stories)
- Frederick Preston (Arte Del Pueblo: The Outdoor Art of San Antonio)
- Jarrett Pumphrey (Link and Hud: Heroes by a Hair) (It’s a Sign (Elephant & Piggie Like Reading))
- Jerome Pumphrey (Link and Hud: Heroes by a Hair) (It’s a Sign (Elephant & Piggie Like Reading))
- Dick J. Reavis (Texas Reporter, Texas Radical: The Writings of Journalist Dick J. Reavis)
- Ana Reyes (The House in the Pines)
- Mary Beth Rogers (Hope and Hard Truth: A Life in Texas Politics)
- Tracey Rose Peyton (Night Wherever We Go)
- Marytza Rubio (Maria, Maria: And Other Stories)
- Gerardo Sámano Córdova (Monstrilio)
- Andrew Sansom (The Art of Texas State Parks: A Centennial Celebration, 1923–2023)
- Adam Silvera (The First to Die at the End)
- Jane Smiley (A Dangerous Business)
- Christina Soontornvat (The Guardian Test: Legends of Lotus Island)
- Joan E. Strassmann (Slow Birding: The Art and Science of Enjoying Birds in Your Own Backyard)
- Christine Suggs (¡Ay, Mija!: My Bilingual Summer in Mexico)
- Carmen Tafolla (Arte del Pueblo:The Outdoor Public Art of San Antonio)
- Peter Turchi ((Don’t) Stop Me if You’ve Heard This Before: & Other Essays on Writing Fiction)
- Alejandro Varela (The People Who Report More Stress: Stories) (The Town of Babylon)
- Reggie Scott Young (Yardbirds Squawking at the Moon: New and Vintage Poems)
