Over the last 13 years, the Twin Cities Book Festival has become an energy-filled autumn tradition for many. Billed as Minnesota's largest book event, it attracts thousands of attendees (and hundreds of hopeful vendors, from publishers to publicists to authors) and moved last year to the State Fairgrounds, where there is plenty of room to grow.
And grow it has, from one building in 2012 to two this year. Can the cowbarns and horse pavilion be far behind?
The festival itself is free and will take place from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 12, in the Progress Center and the Fine Arts Center, but there will also be a ticketed event on Friday night, where you can hang out with writers and others. (If you're lucky, editors!)
Here's the lineup of the more notable speakers for Oct. 12:
Nicholson Baker, fiction writer and essayist, back for a repeat performance (he was at the festival in 2009, as well).
Mircea Cartarescu, not a household name in the United States, perhaps, but a very notable name in his native Romania, where he has won the Romanian Writers' Prize and the Romanian Academy's Prize.
Rae Armantrout, winner of both a National Book Critics Circle award and the Pulitzer Prize for poetry.
David Wojahn, poet and essayist, originally from St. Paul, winner of a Guggenheim fellowship and a Natinoal Endowment for the Arts fellowship.
