The 23rd Tampa Bay Times Festival of Reading will be held on Saturday, Oct. 24 at USF St. Petersburg.
This week on Florida Matters (Tuesday, Oct. 13 at 6:30 p.m. and Sunday, Oct. 18 at 7:30 a.m.), we meet some of the authors, including:
· Tampa Bay Rays sports broadcaster Dewayne Staats (“Position To Win: A Look At Baseball and Life From the Best Seat in the House”)
· Florida poet laureate Peter Meinke ("The Elf Poem")
· USF graduate Phillippe Diedrich (“Sofrito”)
· USF graduate Kimberly Karalius (“Love Fortunes and Other Disasters”)
· Pulitzer Prize-nominated former reporter Jean Heller (“The Someday File”)
You can see the full schedule for the Festival of Reading here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzBpasT4vPM&feature=youtu.be
"The festival is a way of bringing book authors -- fiction, non-fiction, every genre you can think of -- to the Tampa Bay area to speak to readers, to sign their books, to give readers an opportunity to meet some of the writers that they love and whose books they read,” said Tampa Bay Times book editor Collette Bancroft.
She says the headliner for this year’s festival, Judy Blume, has generations of folks who love her books for young people.
"Of the many authors we've brought to the festival, more than any of them, people have said to me about Judy Blume, her books changed my life, I read this book at this age, and it was like I discovered I wasn't alone. This book made me think other people had the same experience as me,” Bancroft said. “She's a really meaningful author, and her fans are really passionate fans."
It's free to see Judy Blume at the festival, but seating is limited.
