Former Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, author of Unflinching Courage: Pioneering Women Who Shaped Texas, will headline the thirteenth annual West Texas Book Festival in Abilene September 24-28, 2013.
New York Times best-selling novelist Jodi Thomas of Amarillo, writer-in-residence at West Texas A&M University, will receive the A. C. Greene Literary Award, presented each year by Friends of the Abilene Public Library to a distinguished Texas author.
Hutchison and Thomas will be featured at the festival’s Boots & Books Luncheon at noon Saturday, September 28, at the Abilene Civic Center.
The book festival, founded in 2001 by the Friends of the Abilene Public Library and co-sponsored by the Abilene Reporter-News, will feature programs throughout the week intended to promote reading and writing, community literacy, library usage, and cultural tourism.
Other speakers include:
Hardin-Simmons University graduate Julie Kibler, author of Calling Me Home, will speak at noon Tuesday at the Abilene Public Library to kick off the week. Her acclaimed first novel has been optioned for movie rights by Warner Brothers.
Dean Smith, whose autobiography Cowboy Stuntman tells his story “from Olympic gold to the silver screen,” speaks at noon Wednesday at the library. Actor James Garner says Smith’s life “is one of incredible achievement and tells us that indeed dreams can come true.”
Jeff Guinn of Fort Worth, author of a new biography of notorious criminal Charles Manson, will be part of the lineup on Saturday at the Civic Center. Guinn also has written books about Bonnie and Clyde Barrow as well as The Autobiography of Santa Claus.
Children’s author Marci Peshke, a school librarian who has written the Kylie Jean series of books for young girls, will visit several schools on Friday and speak on Saturday about writing for children.
A new collection of West Texas Christmas Stories will be officially released at noon Friday at the library, with several Abilene writers telling or reading their stories from the book.
Local authors who have had a book published in the past year will be honored at a reception at the downtown library on Tuesday evening.
Two highlights of the week are the Texas Cookbook Gala on Thursday evening featuring Texas cookbook chefs/authors Tim Byres, Cindy Burch, Sharon Riley and Robb Walsh and Texas wineries Becker, Brennan and Llano. The cookbook authors will talk about their books at the second annual Culinary Cuisine Luncheon at noon Thursday at the Texas State Technical College Culinary Institute. For more information on those events, visit www.abilenetx.com/apl.
The West Texas Book Festival is supported by a grant from the Abilene Cultural Affairs Council, the City of Abilene and the Texas Commission on the Arts.
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