Renowned authors and poets Margaret Atwood, Marie Arana, Taylor Branch, Don DeLillo, Khaled Hosseini, Barbara Kingsolver, Brad Meltzer, Joyce Carol Oates, Katherine Paterson and U.S. Poet Laureate Natasha Trethewey will be among more than 100 writers speaking at the 13th annual Library of Congress National Book Festival, on Saturday, Sept. 21 and Sunday, Sept. 22, 2013, between 9th and 14th streets on the National Mall. The event, free and open to the public, will run from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. on Saturday and from noon to 5:30 p.m. on Sunday, rain or shine.

Festival Poster by Suzy Lee

Other poets and authors slated to appear at the festival include Katherine Applegate, Rick Atkinson, Paolo Bacigalupi, Nicholson Baker, Bonnie Benwick, A. Scott Berg, Holly Black, Monica Brown, Steve Coll, Susan Cooper, Justin Cronin, Kathryn Erskine, Richard Paul Evans, Brian Floca, Eric Gansworth, Albert Goldbarth, Mark Helprin, Gilbert Hernandez, Jaime Hernandez, Juan Felipe Herrera, Jennifer and Matthew Holm, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Pati Jinich, Adam Johnson, William P. Jones, Cynthia Kadohata, Jamaica Kincaid, Matthew J. Kirby, Jon Klassen, Kirby Larson, Grace Lin, Mario Livio, Rafael López, Kenneth W. Mack, William Martin, Ayana Mathis, James McBride, D.J. MacHale, Heather McHugh, Lisa McMann, Terry McMillan, Elizabeth Moon, Christopher Myers, Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, Kadir Nelson, Patrick Ness, Katherine Paterson, Matt de la Peña, Daniel Pink, Andrea and Brian Pinkney, Matthew Quick, Lesa Cline-Ransome and James Ransome, Vaddey Ratner, Christel Schmidt, Jon and Casey Scieszka, Chad "Corntassel" Smith, Andrew Solomon, Sonya Sones, Walter Stahr, Manil Suri, James L. Swanson, Mark Teague, Evan Thomas, Charles Whelan, Henry Wiencek, Steve Vogel and Dean Young, .

The 2013 Library of Congress National Book Festival will feature authors, poets and illustrators in several pavilions, including two Sunday-only pavilions: Graphic Novels/Science Fiction and Special Presentations. Festival-goers can meet and hear firsthand from their favorite poets and authors, get books signed, have photos taken with PBS storybook characters and participate in a variety of activities. An estimated 210,000 people attended in 2012. Details about the Library of Congress National Book Festival can be found on its website.

• Margaret Atwood, a native of Canada, has authored more than 50 works of fiction, nonfiction, poetry and children’s literature. She is best known for her novels including The Handmaid’s Tale,  The Blind Assassin, which won the Booker Prize in 2000; Oryx and Crake, The Year of the Flood and her latest book,  MaddAddam.
• Marie Arana is an author, literary critic, former books editor at The Washington Post, and former executive vice president at Simon & Schuster Publishers and Harcourt Brace & Co. Her memoir American Chica, about her childhood in Peru, was a finalist for the National Book Award and the PEN-Memoir Award. Her novels, Cellophane and Lima Nights were named among the best books of the year. Her current book is Bolívar: American Liberator.
• Taylor Branch is the author of Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63; Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years, 1963-65; At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-1968; and The Clinton Tapes. He has won the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award.
• Don DeLillo has written 15 novels, including Underworld, Falling Man, White Noise, and Libra. He has won the National Book Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the Jerusalem Prize for his overall body of work, and the William Dean Howells Medal from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In 2010, he was awarded the PEN/Saul Bellow Prize. Last year he received the Carl Sandburg Literary Award for his body of work.

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