Texas Book Festival announced today their 2022 schedule, which features nearly 300 national and Texas authors in events spread throughout the grounds of the Texas State Capitol and along Austin’s Congress Avenue on November 5 and 6. The Festival Weekend features acclaimed authors at readings, panel discussions, and signings; exhibitor booths and food vendors; Central Market Cooking, Book TV on C-SPAN2, Texas Monthly, and Kirkus Reviews Tents; and dozens of family activities, including crafts and drawing sessions, and storytimes every half hour by some of the biggest children’s authors publishing today. The complete schedule is available now at www.texasbookfestival.org. 

“We are so excited for the Texas Book Festival to be fully back in person for the first time since 2019,” says Executive Director Lois Kim. “Our schedule has something for everyone, with a great variety of topics for children, teens, and adults to explore. In addition to authors like Jacques Pépin, Janet Evanovich, Anand Giridharadas, and Angie Cruz, we have an incredible lineup of established and emerging writers spanning fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. We can’t wait to spend the weekend with fellow book lovers of all ages!” 

 Schedule highlights on Saturday, November 5 include: 

10:00–10:45 CNN’s Zain E. Asher in Conversation: How a Family Achieved the Unimaginable

Author(s): Zain E. Asher 

In Where the Children Take Us, CNN anchor Zain E. Asher tells the story of her mother, a grief-stricken widow in an unfamiliar country, who through great sacrifice showed that strength, love, and perseverance were possible in even the most difficult circumstances. 

Location: Kirkus Reviews Tent 

10:00–10:45 Graphix Con: Graphic Novels for Young Readers 

Author(s): Amy Kim Kibuishi, Jamar Nicholas, Dan Santat, Christina Soontornvat 

We’re kicking off the Festival Weekend with an epic Graphix Con panel featuring acclaimed middle grade graphic novelists, featuring Amy Kim Kibuishi, Jamar Nicholas, Dan Santat, and Christina Soontornvat. 

They’ll talk about their new books and the art of creating captivating graphic novels young readers can’t put down! 

Location: First United Methodist Church 

10:30–11:15 Nelson DeMille in Conversation About The Maze

Author(s): Nelson DeMille 

New York Times bestselling author Nelson DeMille discusses his newest book The Maze, a thriller featuring his most popular series character, former NYPD homicide detective John Corey, called out of retirement to investigate a string of grisly murders much too close to home. 

Location: Central Presbyterian Church 

11:00–11:45 Washington, DC: City of Secrets

Author(s): James Kirchick, Kathryn J. McGarr 

In City of Newsmen, Kathryn J. McGarr uncovers the ways in which Washington, DC, journalists reined in their skepticism and guided the public toward unquestioning patriotism during the Cold War. James Kirchick’s Secret City explores in large part the pervasive homophobia—sometimes explicit and codified, sometimes implicit and broadly employed—prominent in the US government since FDR’s presidency, peaking during the Cold War and lasting well into Ronald Reagan’s presidency. Join Kirchick and McGarr as they discuss a city filled with secrets and complicity. 

Location: Book TV on C-SPAN2 Tent 

11:00–11:45 Homage: Recipes and Stories from an Amish Soul Food Kitchen with Chris Scott

Author(s): Chris Scott 

From renowned chef Chris Scott comes a one-of-a-kind cookbook celebrating an oft-overlooked cuisine within the African diaspora: Amish soul food. In an homage to seven generations of his family history, Scott shares in his latest book over 100 recipes with a unique blend of Southern, German, and Dutch influences. 

Location: Central Market Cooking Tent 

1:00–2:00 Art, Memory, and Larger-Than-Life Parents

Author(s): Ada Calhoun, Elizabeth McCracken 

In Also a Poet, bestselling author Ada Calhoun explores the fraught relationship with her father and their shared obsession with a great poet, and in the process faces her own past and her father’s. In the novel The Hero of This Story, National Book Award longlister Elizabeth McCracken mines the relationship between a protagonist and a larger-than-life mother. Together, Calhoun and McCracken navigate the connections and histories between subjects and characters and their creative parents. 

Location: House Chamber 

3:15–4:00 Maybe We'll Make It: Margo Price in Conversation

Author(s): Margo Price 

Margo Price dropped out of school at nineteen to become a musician in Nashville, but things weren’t always easy. Price went from busking on the street, playing bad gigs, and having no label, to motherhood and a Grammy nomination. Join Price as she shares her story of making it in the music industry and finding—and maintaining—her own voice. 

Location: Central Presbyterian Church 

 Schedule Highlights on SUNDAY include:

11:00–11:45 American Reboot with US Congressman Will Hurd

Author(s): Will Hurd 

Former US Congressman Will Hurd discusses the five issues he believes are hurting the country the most and, via an approach grounded in what he calls “pragmatic idealism,” outlines a path forward. 

Location: Book TV on C-SPAN2 Tent 

12:00–12:45: Fierce Reads: YA Buzz Books 

Authors: Joan He, Judy I. Lin, Anna-Marie McLemore, Goldy Moldavsky, Aiden Thomas 

Get a first look at these exciting new titles from your new favorite young-adult authors! Whether you’re looking for fantasy, classic story remixes, thrillers, or all of this and more, Joan He, Judy I. Lin, 

Anna-Marie McLemore, Goldy Moldavsky, and Aiden Thomas have you covered. 

Location: YA HQ Tent 

12:30–1:15 Memoir: Finding a New Way of Being: Chloé Cooper Jones and Isaac Fitzgerald in Conversation 

Author(s): Chloé Cooper Jones, Isaac Fitzgerald 

In memoir Easy Beauty, Pulitzer Prize finalist Chloé Cooper Jones explores the notions of beauty that shaped her experience living with a disability and about how becoming a mother set her on a journey to reclaim her place and define her own standards. Today Show contributor and bestselling author Isaac Fitzgerald writes in Dirtbag, Massachusetts about many lives lived while navigating trauma and how those experiences led to a new understanding: an acceptance of and generosity to himself and to others. Join Cooper Jones and Fitzgerald as they discuss finding new ways of being. 

Location: Stateside at the Paramount 

11:30–12:15 Sandra Cisneros Presents: Woman Without Shame

Author(s): Sandra Cisneros, Liliana Valenzuela 

Bestselling author and Texas Writer Award recipient (2005) Sandra Cisneros shares dozens of new poems in Woman Without Shame, a collection of poetry—the first from her in many years— that reflects on her experience with self-awareness, rebirth, and her prerogative as a woman artist. Liliana Valenzuela—translator and longtime Cisneros collaborator—joins the discussion. 

Location: House Chamber 

2:00–2:45 The Trayvon Generation with Elizabeth Alexander

Author(s): Elizabeth Alexander 

Prize-winning author, poet, educator, scholar, and cultural advocate Elizabeth Alexander turned her eyes to her sons’ generation amid the civil unrest following the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Ahmaud Arbery in 2020. Join Alexander as she discusses the tragedies and hopes that Black youth experience and the challenges that those who are leading the movement face. 

Location: Book TV on C-SPAN2 Tent 

2:30–3:15 Dining with the Dead with Ian McEnroe, Mariana Nuño-Ruiz

Author(s): Ian McEnroe, Mariana Nuño-Ruiz 

Join Mariana Nuño Ruiz and Ian McEnroe as they discuss Dining with the Dead, their new cookbook centered on Día de Muertos. From tamales to pozole, sugar skulls to traditional ofrenda decorations, this book has it all. Learn about the origin and history of the holiday via a recipe demonstration and delightful conversation. 

Location: Central Market Cooking Tent 

3:30–4:15 NASA and Space Science Firsts 

Author(s): Bruce McCandless III, Jennifer M. Ross-Nazzal, Eileen M. Collins, Jonathan Ward

Three new books highlight big firsts in space science. In Wonders All Around, Bruce McCandless III writes about his father, Bruce McCandless II, and his groundbreaking space-walking accomplishments throughout two decades as an astronaut during the Apollo and Skylab eras. Jennifer M. Ross-Nazzal in Making Space for Women shares many interviews with the women who have led the evolution of NASA’s gender diversity. In Through the Glass Ceiling to the Stars, Jonathan Ward and aviation pioneer Eileen M. Collins describe Collins’s journey toward receiving many of space science’s “first woman to” designations throughout her career. 

Location: Capitol Auditorium E1.004 

The 2022 Texas Book Festival is co-presented by H-E-B and AT&T. Other major sponsors include Brigid Cockrum and Family, Tocker Foundation, Still Water Foundation, Amplify Credit Union, Buena Vista Foundation, Tapestry Foundation, Kirkus Reviews, Central Market, Texas Monthly, Austin Chronicle, Pentagram, Literary Arts Emergency Fund, Univision, Jordan Foster, and Book TV on C-SPAN2. BookPeople is the official Festival bookseller. 

For more information on the Texas Book Festival, please visit www.texasbookfestival.org and follow along on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram @texasbookfest.