Boston Book Festival

The nonprofit was founded in 2009 by Deborah Z Porter, and aims to "celebrate the power of words to stimulate, agitate, unite, delight, and inspire by holding year-round events culminating in an annual, free Festival that promotes a culture of reading and ideas and enhances the vibrancy of our city".

[1] The street festival is hosted on Copley Square, and usually includes a live music stage, dozens of exhibitors and vendors, and many free participatory activities for attendees and their families.

The festival kicked off on Friday, October 14, with a special session called "The Art of The Wire", featuring a discussion with actors and writers of the acclaimed HBO television series.

The 2012 kickoff event was called "Page to Screen", which featured authors whose works had been adapted for film and television, including Buzz Bissinger, Rachel Cohn, Andre Dubus III, Nick Flynn, and Daniel Handler.

The festival kicked off on October 17 with an evening session entitled “Writing Terror: An Exploration of Fear”, which featured Wes Craven, Mary Louise Kelly, Jessica Stern, and Valerie Plame Wilson in a discussion moderated by Joe Klein.

[9] The first-ever kids' kickoff event, on the afternoon of October 18, featured Newbery Medalists Kate DiCamillo, Jack Gantos, and Rebecca Stead.

Other notable presenters included Paul Harding, Ty Burr, Chuck Klosterman, Clifford Ross, and kids' keynote speaker Tomie dePaola.

Saturday's festivities began with kids’ keynote speaker Rick Riordan filling Trinity Church to capacity with fans young and old of his Percy Jackson & the Olympians series.

Activities for children included appearances by characters Waldo, Nutbrown Hare, Olivia, Maisy, and the duo Elephant and Piggie.

Lemony Snicket provided a kids’ keynote featuring the new picture book, “The Bad Mood and the Stick”, Waltham-raised author Joanna Schaffhausen presented her case for crime-solving in the “Gumshoes to Cyber Sleuths” session at the Old South Church.

Adam Gopnik, Alan Light, and Rob Sheffield provided a session studying Beatles music and lyrics at the Church of the Covenant.

Another version of home was discussed in “Voices of America: The Immigrant Experience Through a Writer’s Eyes”, featuring award-winning Grace Talusan.

“Reading Like a Writer: Poetry”, featuring Stephanie Burt, Myron Hardy, and Erika L. Sanchez provided attendees with sample exploration.

“BBF Unbound: Writing from Privilege”, featured authors Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich, Shuchi Saraswat, Laura van den Berg, Hasanthika Sirisena, and Kaitlin Solimine.

The overall focus of the event was on societal issues such as environment, gun violence, #MeToo, social media, cultural divides, and diplomacy.

Multi-cultural authors Sam Graham-Felsen, Yang Huang, Blair Hurley, and Fatima Farheen Mirza shared and discussed their work in "Between Cultures".

The program culminates each year with a session at the October Boston Book Festival, at which the story's author participates in a town hall-style discussion with attendees who have read the work.

Other featured presenters included Graham Allison, Lesley Nneka Arimah, Justine Bateman, Stephanie Burt, Eve Ewing, Yang Huang, Laura Koenig, Beth Macy, Monica Munoz Martinez, Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich, Fatima Farheen Mirza, Sy Montgomery, Susan Oleksiw, James Sebenius, Wendy Sherman, Sree Sreenivasan, and Mo Walsh.

Anderson, Stephanie Burt, Meghna Chakrabarti, Sonya Chung, Vicki Croke, Sari Edelstein, Hallie Ephron, Erica Ferencik, Meredith Goldstein, Krysten Hill, Ha Jin, Margot Kahn, Laura Koenig, Dennis Lehane, Marianne Leone, Kekla Magoon, Claire Messud, Celeste Ng, Erika L. Sanchez, Joanna Schaffhausen, Lemony Snicket, Mo Walsh, and Paul Yoon.

Featured presenters included: Greeta Anand, Vikram Chandra, Vikas Swarup, Nicholas Carr, Andrew McAfee, David Rose, Benjamin Barber, Judith Donath, Howard Gardiner, Stanislas Dehaene, Daniel Dennett, Stacey d’Erasmo, Kate Racculia, Wesley Stace, Doug Most, Belinda Rathbone, Jenna Russell, Bob Ryan, Neil Swidey, Holly Black, Soman Chainani, Cassandra Clare, Gregory Maguire, Scott Anderson, Vicki Croke, Carl Hoffman, A.S. King, Scott Westerfeld, Meg Wolitzer, William Giraldi, Ben Mezrich, Lauren Oliver, Jennifer Finney Boylan, Margo Howard, Daniel Jones, Rebecca Mead, Joanna Rakoff, Max Tegmark, Lily King, Joseph O’Neil, and Rupert Thomson.

Featured presenters included: Emily Anthes, Jason Anthony, Nicholson Baker, Mike Barnicle, Madeleine Blais, Ty Burr, Vishaan Chakrabarti, Kevin Cullen, Alan Dershowitz, Erin Dionne, Andre Dubus III, Juan Enriquez, Noah Feldman, Thomas Fleming, Margalit Fox, Amity Gaige, Leigh Gallagher, Moses Gates, Nancy Gertner, Francesca Gino, Charles Graeber, Paul Harding, George Harrar, Harold Holzer, Miriam Karmel, Jessica Keener, Joshua Kendall, Chuck Klosterman, Barbara Krauthamer, Ann Leary, Wendy Mass, Ayana Mathis, Claire Messud, Leigh Montville, Abelardo Morell, Gregory Nagy, Michael Norton, Mirta Ojito, Richard Olivier, Tom Perrotta, Jamie Quatro, James Robinson, Clifford Ross, Nancy Jo Sales, Robert Shea, J. Courtney Sullivan, Anthony Tjan, Anthony Townsend, Craig Venter, Lesley Visser, Brenda Wineapple.

Featured presenters included: Peter Abrahams, M. T. Anderson, Gabrielle Bell, Barbara Berke, Buzz Bissinger, Kevin Bleyer, Charles Burns, Nancy L. Cohen, Rachel Cohn, Robert Darnton, Jacqueline Davies, Junot Díaz, Cory Doctorow, Esther Duflo, Jeffry Frieden, Alex Gilvarry, Edward Glaeser, Paul Grogan, Jennifer Haigh, Anita Hill, Philip Howard, Tayari Jones, Eric Kandel, Randall Kennedy, Chip Kidd, Madeleine Kunin, Ray Kurzweil, Dennis Lehane, Lawrence Lessig, Alan Lightman, Leslie Maitland, Ben Marcus, Andrew McAfee, Vahram Muratyan, Nicholas Negroponte, Edith Pearlman, Tom Perrotta, Michael E. Porter, Ayanna Pressley, Carmen M. Reinhart, Hanna Rosin, Michael Sandel, Alexander McCall Smith, Alexandra Styron, Baratunde Thurston, Lizz Winstead, Alex Witchel, Maryanne Wolf, and Gabrielle Zevin.

Featured presenters included: Jabari Asim, Julia Alvarez, Sarah Bakewell, Sandra Beasley, Kate Beaton, Alison Bechdel, Idit Harel Caperton, Daniel Clowes, Kenneth C. Davis, Lawrence Douglas, Andre Dubus III, Jennifer Egan, Carlos Eire, Drew Gilpin Faust, Joseph Finder, Charles Bracelen Flood, Howard Gardner, Ethan Gilsdorf, Adam Goodheart, Stephen Greenblatt, Sue Hallowell, Chuck Hogan, Tony Horwitz, Maisie Houghton, Ben Ryder Howe, Michael D. Jackson, Chuck Klosterman, Jane Leavy, Gregory Maguire, Tom Matlack, Stephen McCauley, Sugata Mitra, Peter Mountford, Siddhartha Mukherjee, Nicholas Negroponte, Governor Deval Patrick, George Pelecanos, Lisa Randall, Emma Rothschild, Karen Russell, Seth, Glenn Stout, Sherry Turkle, Linda Urban, Thomas Whalen, Michael Willrich, Meg Wolitzer, and Mitchell Zuckoff.

Featured presenters included: Susan Abulhawa, Dan Ariely, Nick Bilton, Lisa Birnbach, Bill Bryson, Noni Carter, Kristin Cashore, Justin Cronin, Jef Czekaj, Alan Dershowitz, David Edwards, Joshua Ferris, Tyler Florence, Atul Gawande, Myla Goldberg, Christina Gonzalez, Allegra Goodman, Jennifer Haigh, Tony Hiss, A.M. Homes, Michelle Hoover, Marlon James, Gish Jen, Steven Johnson, Kevin Kelly, Chip Kidd, David Kirkpatrick, Dennis Lehane, Simon Mawer, Richard Michelson, Mark Moffett, Dambisa Moyo, Nicholas Negroponte, Neri Oxman, Mitali Perkins, Tom Perrotta, Michael E. Porter, David Rakoff, John Rich, Michael Sandel, Juliet Schor, Amartya Sen, Brando Skyhorse, Jessica Stern, Joseph Stiglitz, and Lionel Vital.

Featured presenters included: Jack Beatty, Ken Burns, Carolina de Robertis, Anita Diamant, A. W. Flaherty, David Gergen, Lani Guinier, Steve Haber, John Hodgman, Jennie Israel, Mary Lou Jepsen, Neil Jones, Brewster Kahle, Tim Kring, Reif Larsen, Grace Lin, Elinor Lipman, Scott Magoon, Nicholas Negroponte, Elizabeth Nunez, Jon Orwant, Tom Perrotta, Michael E. Porter, Iqbal Quadir, Richard Russo, Anita Shreve, Alicia Silverstone, Michael Thomas, and Scout Tufankjian.