The 21st annual Annapolis Book Festival will return to the Key School this month, showcasing some of the most renowned authors in contemporary literature.
The free festival is open to the public from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on April 27 on the campus of Key School at 534 Hillsmere Drive in Annapolis.
Highlighting the event this year is best-selling author Alice McDermott, a National Book Award and American Book Award winner for 1998’s “Charming Billy.” McDermott, a Maryland resident, is a three-time Pulitzer Prize finalist.
In all, 50 authors are expected to attend.
Other speakers include Michele Noris, a Peabody and Emmy Award-winning former co-host of NPR’s “All Things Considered;” Douglas Brinkley, presidential historian and author; Ali Vitali, an NBC News Capitol correspondent, Wesley Lowery, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and Liv Constantine, a best-selling thriller writer.
Authors will give talks on topics including race, gender, the COVID-19 pandemic, and gun violence. Others will explore the past: a women’s gang in 1920s London, the first Black generals in the United States, and environmental activism in the 1960s.
At least one author will have direct ties to Anne Arundel County. Antonia Hylton, an NBC and MSNBC reporter, is the author of “Madness: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum,” which explores the history of Crownsville Hospital and the treatment of mentally ill Black Marylanders in the early 20th century.
Each year, the festival attracts more than 3,000 people to attend author talks, panel discussions, book signings and other activities.
In the early 2000s, a group of parents sought to bring the Key School’s discussion-based curriculum to the community through reading. More than two decades later the festival has grown into a premier community event. It has something for book lovers of all ages, said Mary Macleod, director of family communication at The Key School, in a news release.
“We have an amazing group of authors and a day filled with family entertainment and activities–including seven local food trucks,” she said.
Key School is an independent private school in Annapolis founded in 1958.
A full list of authors and their recent work:
Raymond Arsenault – “John Lewis: In Search of the Beloved Community”
E. A. Aymar – “When She Left”
Schuyler Bailar – “He/She/They: How We Talk About Gender and Why It Matters”
Douglas Brinkley – “Silent Spring Revolution: John F. Kennedy, Rachel Carson, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and the Great Environmental Awakening”
Jack Campbell – “Rendezvous with Corsair: A Lost Fleet Collection”
Liv Constantine – “The Senator’s Wife”
Jane Delury – “Hedge”
Stephanie Dray – “Becoming Madam Secretary”
Steve Drummond – “The Watchdog: How the Truman Committee Battled Corruption and Helped Win World War Two”
John Eisenberg – “Rocket Men: The Black Quarterbacks Who Revolutionized Pro Football”
Peter J. Emanuel Jr. – “Course Change: The Whaleship Stonington in the Mexican-American War”
Natalie Franke – “Gutsy: Learning to Live with Bold, Brave, and Boundless Courage”
John W. Frece – “Self-Destruction: The Rise, Fall, and Redemption of U.S. Senator Daniel B. Brewster”
Tracy C. Gold – “Call Your Mother”
Terah Shelton Harris – “One Summer in Savannah”
Mary Haverstick – “A Woman I Know: Female Spies, Double Identities, and a New Story of the Kennedy Assassination”
Mark Hendricks – “The Central Appalachians: Mountains of the Chesapeake”
Antonia Hylton – “Madness: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum”
Meghan Riordan Jarvis – “End of the Hour: A Therapist’s Memoir”
Victoria Kelly – “Homefront: Stories (Battle Born)”
Claudia Kousoulas – “Private Gardens of the Potomac & Chesapeake: Washington, DC, Maryland, Northern Virginia”
Meg Eden Kuyatt – “Good Different”
Leah Lax – “Not From Here: The Song of America”
Johannes Lichtman – “Calling Ukraine: A Novel”
Wesley Lowery – “American Whitelash: A Changing Nation and the Cost of Progress”
Alice McDermott – “Absolution”
Bethany McLean – “The Big Fail: What the Pandemic Revealed About Who America Protects and Who It Leaves Behind”
Doug Melville – “Invisible Generals: Rediscovering Family Legacy, and a Quest to Honor America’s First Black Generals”
Jonathan M. Metzl – “What We’ve Become: Living and Dying in a Country of Arms”
Stewart Moss – “Arrivals and Departures”
Liza Mundy – “The Sisterhood: The Secret History of Women at the CIA”
Kate Myers – “Excavations”
Amanda Newell – “Postmortem Say”
Michele Norris – “Our Hidden Conversations: What Americans Really Think About Race and Identity”
Alex Prud’homme – “Dinner with the President: Food, Politics, and a History of Breaking Bread at the White House”
Charlie S. Redden – “Necessary Goodness: Delicious Cuisine for Gathering and Entertaining”
James Risen and Thomas Risen – “The Last Honest Man: The CIA, the FBI, the Mafia, and the Kennedys―and One Senator’s Fight to Save Democracy”
Jonathan Roth – “Rover and Speck: Splash Down!”
Pamela Ryckman – “Candace Pert: Genius, Greed, and Madness in the World of Science”
Jennifer A Sutherland – “Bullet Points”
Deborah Jackson Taffa – “Whiskey Tender: A Memoir”
Evan Thomas – “Road to Surrender: Three Men and the Countdown to the End of World War II”
Ali Vitali – “Electable: Why America Hasn’t Put a Woman in the White House…Yet”
Stephen Vladick – “The Shadow Docket: How the Supreme Court Uses Stealth Rulings to Amass Power and Undermine the Republic”
Michael Waldman – “The Supermajority: How the Supreme Court Divided America”
Heather Webb – “Queens of London”
Alden Wicker – “To Dye For: How Toxic Fashion Is Making Us Sick–and How We Can Fight Back”
Timothy Young – “Mac and the Millstone of Time”
