Nantucket Book Festival Returns On Wednesday For 15th Annual Event

The Nantucket Book Festival is returning for its 15th year this week, featuring best-selling authors including Booker Prize winner Marlon James and Ann Patchett, who Time Magazine listed as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2012.

Patchett, a Pulitzer Prize finalist who won the PEN/Faulkner award for her 2002 novel Bel Canto, is one of the festival’s biggest draws this year.

“Ann Patchett is one of my favourite novelists. I've been trying to get her here for years,” Nantucket Book Foundation board president Tim Ehrenberg said. “You say her name to people, and they just smile.”

Other notable authors include Today co-host Jenna Bush Hager, who recently appeared on an N Magazine cover; MIT professor, author, and spoken-word writer Dr. Joshua Bennett; New York Times bestseller Isaac Fitzgerald; and journalist and Mary Todd Lincoln biographer Lois Romano.

“I'm so excited,” Ehrenberg said. “Every year, I think our literary committee says: ‘How are we going to top it?’ and then somehow we do.”

But Ehrenberg hopes people go to see authors they may not have heard of as well.

“Yes, come for the people you know, and you're excited about,” he said. “But spend some time to come to one you don't know, and I guarantee you'll leave inspired by a new voice.”

The full list of authors and the event schedule are available on the Book Festival’s website here.

Fifteen years in, co-founder Wendy Hudson said that one element of the festival that is important to her that has remained unchanged is the price—or lack thereof. Nearly all of the events are free and open to the public.

“It feels pretty incredible. We are really, really proud,” Hudson said of the festival reaching its 15th year.

Ehrenberg agreed.

“One of the greatest aspects of the festival is how it hasn't changed. It's still free and open to everyone,” he said. “It's still such an intimate festival. We have grown in so many ways, but we really try to keep it a curated list and smaller.”

Ehrenberg hopes that, in a world ever-more consumed by screens, the Book Festival can remain an oasis of in-person connection and face-to-face conversation.

“What I hope is that people put their phone down this weekend and just listen to a real-life conversation happening before their eyes. So much of what we see is on a screen, and even voracious readers like myself struggle,” he said. “There's less and less real conversations happening that you can listen to…it's something that I think we're losing a little bit.”

Hudson said she is most looking forward to seeing returning Book Festival regulars and new attendees.

“I always look forward to just seeing the familiar faces coming back. We have so many regulars,” she said. “I just can't wait to see everyone return and to meet the new people.”

Events this year include a new Nantucket-centred opening night on Wednesday, a paid dinner at the White Elephant on Saturday, and the long-running Young Writer Award scholarship event for local high school students on Sunday.