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A comic artist-author turned serious for the first time with his All the Answers, also the Festival’s first graphic book. It’s a son’s search to understand his father, a child prodigy-turned reserved professor, before dementia robbed the memories. Joel Kupperman was the most celebrated “Quiz Kid,” appearing on the radio and TV series weekly in […]

Two historians and authors whose books focus on remarkable women and their roles in WWII will discuss their works with David Highfill, Festival co-chair. A Woman of No Importance tells of an American heiress, injured in an accident, who broke disability and gender barriers to spy for the British and help lead a core unit […]

Ann Gainer, storyteller and librarian at New Lebanon and Altamont Libraries, will read and discuss with children Peter Sís’s Nicky and Vera: A Quiet Hero of the Holocaust and the Children He Rescued. Nicky was a young Englishman who went to Prague to help refugees from the Nazis; Vera, one of the children he saved. […]

THIS EVENT HAS BEEN CANCELED. Nancy Castaldo turns her own fascination with the natural world into science-themed books that inform and engage children, sometimes calling them to action. Her topics range from saving animals from extinction to the biology of their brains, and from how farms feed us to the vital need to save seeds. […]

Russell Shorto, historian and author of Amsterdam and The Island at the Center of the World, turned his research and writing inward with his latest book. In Smalltime: A Story of My Family and the Mob, the author reveals how his grandfather and great-uncle ran the mob in his hometown in Pennsylvania. It’s a story […]

Ayad Akhtar, Pulitzer Prize-winning author for his play Disgraced, and recently named New Your State Author, blends fact and fiction in his latest work, the story of a Pakistani immigrant and his American-born son in post-Trump America. Homeland Elegies is a deeply personal narrative that explores fault lines that occur in families and countries, and […]

Peter Sís is an internationally acclaimed author-illustrator of books for children and adults. He will discuss his latest title, and how it fits in with his overall work, with Carl Atkins, Festival Committee member. Nicky and Vera is true story of the Holocaust written for children but with a message of decency, action and courage […]

Culinary professional and author Rick Rodgers will conduct a cooking demonstration while being interviewed by Madaline Sparks, Festival Committee member. On the menu will be Almas Pite, or Hungarian Apple Pie, a classic pastry found in most any kaffeehaus and maybe soon your home. Their conversation will range from baking tips to celebrities and famous […]

Two authors will discuss their historical fiction with Daphne Kalotay, prize-winning author of short stories and novels (Russian Winter; Sight Reading; Blue Hours). Passage West tells the story of a Punjabi family, their Mexican in-laws and their Japanese neighbors at the onset of World War I in California. Mary Toft; or, The Rabbit Queen fictionalizes […]