The Free Festival Presents: Kiese Laymon, Geraldine Brooks, Melissa de la Cruz, Matthew Desmond and more

Plus a new event for 2023: Lit Happens

The San Antonio Book Festival is excited to announce its 2023 author lineup, which includes 100 notable local, regional, and national authors who will be participating in the Festival and several related events. This year’s Festival lineup includes nationally renowned authors such as Kiese Laymon, Geraldine Brooks, Melissa de la Cruz, Matthew Desmond, and more. The free Festival will take place Saturday, April 15, 2023 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Central Library and UTSA Southwest Campus in downtown San Antonio.

The 11th annual San Antonio Book Festival will kick off officially, once again, with an opening ceremony at 9:30 a.m., featuring remarks from SABF’s executive director and Mayor Ron Nirenberg. A full schedule of Festival sessions will be released in late March/early April.

Joining the Festival this year are plenty of award-winning authors like Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award finalist Rebecca Makkai, who will be promoting her new book I Have Some Questions for You, a literary mystery set at a boarding school exploring gender, class and race. Matthew Desmond, MacArthur Fellow and Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Evicted, will participate in the festival with his new nonfiction book Poverty, By America, a look at why poverty persists in America and who benefits from it. Marytza Rubio and Alejandro Varela will be promoting their 2023 National Book Award–honored novels.

Popular young adult authors like Adam Silvera, author of the New York Times bestseller They Both Die at the End, will join the Festival to promote The First to Die at the End, the prequel to the aforementioned novel about two strangers who spend a life-changing day together. New York Times-bestselling author Melissa de la Cruz will also be promoting her new Snow White retelling, Snow & Poison.

Additional award-winning authors participating in this year’s festival include Pulitzer Prize–winning Geraldine Brooks promoting her book Horse; 2022 MacArthur Fellow Kiese Laymon and his memoir Heavy; New York Times-bestselling author Stephen Graham Jones with a new thriller Don’t Fear the Reaper; and Pulitzer Prize–winning Jane Smiley with a new novel, A Dangerous Business, to name a few.