Plan Your Visit to the Gaithersburg Book Festival

The Gaithersburg Book Festival is just a few weeks away so start planning your day. The festival includes author presentations throughout the day. This year, the format differs slightly as the presentations focuses on author pairings and panel discussions about hot topics. The schedules for the presentations, discussions and author signings is available on the Gaithersburg Book Festival website and summarized below. The festival will take place on May 18 from 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. at Gaithersburg City Hall grounds.  View or print the Gaithersburg Book Festival Map, the author program and author signing schedules to plan your visit.

10 a.m.–10:30 a.m.

• “The Ghosts of Montgomery County” – Karen Yaffe Lottes, Dorothy Pugh
• “King Peggy, An American Secretary with Royal Destiny” – Peggilene Bartels
• “The Life of Brigham Young” – John G. Turner
• “The Little Things that Matter in the Big Game” – Kathy and Patrick Boehlert
• Reflections of Life and Death – Yvette Neisser Moreno, Joseph Ross
• “Hands Around the Library” – Karen Leggett Abouraya

10:15 a.m.–11:05 a.m.

• Literary Biographies – Cory MacLaughlin, Elizabeth Winder
• “They Call Me a Hero” – Daniel Hernandez, Jr.
• “Melonhead & Lucy Rose” – Katy Kelly
• “My Summer of Pink and Green” – Lisa Greenwald

10:35 a.m.–11:05 a.m.

• Local Thrillers – Larry Matthews, Grady Smith
• Romance & Suspense – P.J. O’Dwyer
• A Simple Thing – Kathleen McCleary
• National Insecurity – Mel Goodman
• Civil War Era D.C. – Charles V. Mauro, John Muller
• “Pluto’s Secret: An Icy World’s Tale of Discovery” – Diane Kidd, Margaret A. Weitekamp

11:15 a.m.–12:05 p.m.

• “What’s a Witch To Do?” – Jennifer Harlow
• New Voices in Fiction – Emily Jeanne Miller, Abigail Tarttelin
• Cultural Explorations – Vaddey Ratner, Manil Suri
• The Mommy Bloggers – Amber Dusick, Jill Smokler
• Baseball and Society – Tom Dunkel, Tom Oliphant
• “38 Nooses” – Scott Berg
• D.C. and Montgomery County History – Matt Dembicki, Garrett Peck
• Books Boys Love – Fred Bowen, Tommy Greenwald
• “Stripes of All Types” – Susan Stockdale
• Ghosts and Pirates – Mary Quattlebaum
• “The Raven Boys” – Maggie Stiefvater

12:15 p.m.–1:05 p.m.

• Book Maven Bethanne Patrick in Conversation with… Benjamin Percy
• Literary Fiction – Maryanne O’Hara, Frances de Pontes Peebles
• Novelists in Conversation – Jami Attenberg, Jennifer Close
• Psychological Rollercoasters – Susannah Cahalan, David Fitzpatrick, John Schwartz
• “Ike’s Bluff” – Evan Thomas
• Entering World War II – Lynne Olson
• Chocolate City in the ‘80s – Natalie Hopkinson, Dave Ungrady
• “Astronaut Academy” – Dave Roman
• Picture Book Fun – Mac Barnett, Jon Scieszka

1:15 p.m.–2:05 p.m.

• Mystery Master – Phillip Margolin
• Urban Fiction – Candice Dow, Kia Dupree
• Contemporary Fiction – Jane Green
• Triumph Over Adversity – Brian Boyle, Shelby Smoak
• Crossing WWII Battle Lines – Rachel S. Cox, Leslie Maitland
• “Capturing Camelot” – Kitty Kelley
• White House History – Paul Dickinson, Kathleen Kinsolving
• “Three Times Lucky” – Sheila Turnage
• “The Hero’s Guide to Saving Your Kingdom” – Chris Healy
• Books Girls Love – Adele Griffin, Courtney Sheinmel

2:15 p.m.–3:05 p.m.

• Thrillers on the Hill – Allison Leotta, Charles Robbins
• Book Maven Bethanne Patrick in Conversation with… Jon Methven
• Parallel Narratives in Fiction– Tara Conklin, Jeanine Cummins
• Miami Writes – Debra Dean, John Dufresne, Les Standiford
• I Want My MTV – Nina Blackwood, Mark Goodman
• What’s in Our DNA? – Sam Kean
• “Comida Latina” Cooking Demo – Marcella Kriebel
• Double Feature: Twin Authors for Teens and Tweens – Julia DeVillers, Jennifer Roy
• Author & Illustrator – Christopher Myers
• Young Adult Fantasy – Ellen Oh, Jessica Spotswood

3:15 p.m.–4:05 p.m.

• “The Good Cop” – Brad Parks
• The World with a Twist – Jason Mott, Karen Thompson Walker
• Historical Fiction – Therese Anne Fowler, Caroline Leavitt
• Stand-Up Comedy Writers – John DeBellis, Sylvia Traymore Morrison
• “The Life of Sargent Shriver” – Mark Shriver
• “The Alchemists” – Neil Irwin
• Beautiful Washington, D.C. – Judy Colbert, Barbara Glickman
• The Stinky Cheese Man (and more) – John Scieszka
• Songwriting and Success – The Voice’s Erin Willet

4:15 p.m. – 5:15 p.m.

• Washington Post Book World Fiction Editor Ron Charles in Conversation with… Adam Mansbach
• “The Boy from Reactor 4” – Orest Stelmach
• Poetry in the Afternoon – Sarah Arvio, Sally Keith, Eric Pankey
• Humor on the Interwebs – Phil Edwards, Lauren Leto, Sarah Schmelling
• “The Life of William Rehnquist” – John Jenkins
• Industry Panel: Independent Bookselling – Bradley Graham, Mitch Kaplan, Chris Kerr, Lissa Muscatine
• “Pati’s Mexican Table” Cooking Demo – Pati Jinich
• An Hour with the Legendary Children’s Author – Walter Dean Myers
• Look Out Taylor Swift – Courtney Rau

5:15 p.m. – 6 p.m.

• Songwriting Collaboration…What Inspires You? – Pete Looney

Note: Children and young adult presentations are denoted in italics.

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