2017 Williamsburg Book Festival

Saturday, October 7 @ The Stryker Center (412 N. Boundary Street)

10:15 - 10:45
Book Club Support from the Williamsburg Regional Library
Presenter: Andrew Smith

11:00 – 1:00
Poetry Society of Virginia presents Poet Laureates of Virginia
Moderated by Edward Lull
Featuring readings by:
Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda (2006-2008)
Sofia Starnes (2012 - 2014)
Ron Smith (2014 - 2016)
Tim Seibles (2016 - 2018)

1:30 – 2:30
Publishers Panel - Regional & Boutique Publishers
Presenters: John Conlee, Greg Lilly, David Kane, Narielle Living, Dawn Brotherton
Looking for Manuscripts
• Pale Horse Books
• Cherokee McGhee
• American History Press
• High Tide Publications
• Blue Dragon

2:45 – 3:30
Discovering Ancestral Roots & Transplanting Them for Future Generations
Maureen Wlodarczyk
How to get started with genealogy research and how to turn those discovered names, dates and other facts into a family history memoir.

5:30 - 6:30
An Evening with Kathryn Aalto
Kathryn Aalto
@ William & Mary’s Tucker Hall

Your Free Community Event

Our 5th year!

40+ nationally & regionally renowned authors

From children’s books to sports, from romance to self-help, from poetry to historical and contemporary novels, the Williamsburg Book Festival has exceptional offerings from cover to cover.

Workshops & Presentations

Workshops, panels, and presentations take place throughout the day in Stryker Center Room 127. Focused on both readers and writers, the workshops and presentations illuminate library resources for book clubs, the craft of writing, the music of poetry, and the mechanics of the book industry.

Poets Laureate of Virginia

A special presentation from the Poetry Society of Virginia presents our current Poet Laureate, Tim Seibles, along with three past Poets Laureate, Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda, Sofia Starnes, and Ron Smith, to the Festival for a lunchtime reading.

Publishers’ Alley

New this year: five independent Virginia publishing companies display their books and host their authors, editors, and publishers. For the aspiring author, submission guidelines will be at available for each publishing house. A panel discussion in the Workshop Room presents the road to publication through an independent publisher - what to submit, how to catch the editor’s interest, and what to expect in the process.

The 2017 festival headliner is Bestselling author Kathryn Aalto

She will sign and discuss her book: The Natural World of Winnie-the- Pooh: A Walk through the Forest that Inspired the Hundred Acre Wood. The acclaimed book was a New York Times Best Seller and featured on NPR and was a People magazine “Best New Book Pick.”

5:30 – 6:30 p.m. “An Evening with Kathryn Aalto – Exploring Creativity, Writing, Gardening and the Inspiration for Pooh’s Hundred Acre Wood” at William & Mary’s Tucker Hall.

The Natural World of Winnie-the- Pooh: In this vivid keynote lecture, Kathryn Aalto takes us on an illuminating adventure through the most beloved setting in literature. Along the way, we learn the backstory of A. A. Milne’s classic books, re-think the changing nature of childhood, and discover the rare Ashdown Forest (a.k.a. Hundred Acre Wood) where A. A. Milne walked with Christopher Robin.

Part travelogue and natural history, the lecture weaves humor with birdsong and booklore as we learn how the masterful Winnie-the- Pooh books are field guides for 21st-century Christopher Robins — hymns to those days of doing nothing yet learning everything.

Literary Art