At Miami Book Fair International this week. FIU’s Creative Writing program will be well-represented, with faculty, students, and alumni among the more than 500 authors who’ll be presenting at the Festival of Authors. Below is a quick listing of those from FIU, the books they’ll be speaking about or the special presentations they’re involved in, with the day and time. For rooms and other details, please see the complete Book Fair Schedule online. (And at the Fair, pick up a printed copy which will be updated with any changes.)
This year, the Book Fair is introducing The Swamp, a pop-up lounge in a big tent at the southeast corner of N.E. 3rd Street and 2nd Ave, that showcases Florida stories, music, dance, film, history, and art. “All week long, Swamp events will explore the beauty, contradictions, uniqueness, and downright ‘weirdness’ of life in Florida.” Swamp events are listed separately in the Street Fair part of the schedule. MFA alumna Emma Trelles is interviewed in this Cultist blog piece in the Miami New Times about one of the Swamp events that includes a number of FIU writers, The Sweat II Broadsheet project.
The O, Miami Poetry Festival, directed by MFA alumnus Scott Cunningham, has produced a special Poetry Guide to the Book Fair, highlighting poetry-related events, including special micro-workshops in poetry at the Jai-Alai books booth.
To find out what goes on at the sessions you miss, you can read The Florida Book Review’s annual Book Fair Blog, reported this year by two dozen FIU MFA alumni and graduate students, led by faculty member and FBR Editor Lynne Barrett.
Sunday Nov. 16:
7:30 PM O Miami Poetry Karaoke Lounge, Scott Cunningham, O Miami Founder/Director, The Swamp
Wednesday, Nov. 19:
7 PM Launch of Badass—Lip Service True Stories, The Double Album, with Nicholas Garnett and Esther Martinez-Keniff, The Swamp
Thursday, Nov. 20:
5 PM Poem Depot: Poetry on Demand, with Ashley M. Jones and Laura McDermott Matheric, The Swamp
6 PM Fifteen Views of Miami launch, Battle of Literary Short Stories: Miami vs. Orlando, with JJ Colagrande, The Swamp
Saturday, Nov. 22:
10 AM, Elisa Albo, Each Day More
11 AM: James W. Hall, The Big Finish
12:30 Sweat Broadside Project II: Readings and Limited Edition Broadside Giveaway, with Annik Adey-Babinski, Lynne Barrett, Marci Calabretta Cancio-Bello, Cathleen Chambless, John Dufresne,Yaddyra Peralta, Emma Trelles, and Nick Vagnoni, The Swamp
4:30 PM Denise Duhamel, Blowout
5:30 PM: John Dufresne, No Regrets, Coyote
6 PM: Julie Marie Wade, When I Was Straight
Sunday, Nov. 23
10 AM: John W. Evans, Young Widower: A Memoir
11 AM: Cecilia M. Fernandez, Leaving Little Havana
11 AM: Parker Phillips, Reading Queer presents This Is For the Ladies Who Brunch, The Swamp
12 PM: Ran Henry, Spurrier: How the Ball Coach Taught the South to Play Football
1 PM: Anjanette Delgado, The Clairvoyant of Calle Ocho
2 PM: Richard Blanco, The Prince of Los Cocuyos, a Miami Childhood
2:30 PM: Joe Clifford, Lamentation
5:30 PM: Anjanette Delgado, The Clairvoyant of Calle Ocho, in Spanish.
6 PM: Dave Landsberger, Suicide by Jaguar
