NATIONAL AWARD-WINNING JOURNALISTS DISCUSS ROLE OF JOURNALISM
IN TODAY’S WORLD DURING 2017 AJC DECATUR BOOK FESTIVAL KEYNOTE
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| Daren Wang and Bookzilla 2017 |
ATLANTA, Ga (June 12, 2017) –
The role of journalism in today’s ever-changing world takes center
stage to open the 2017 Atlanta Journal-Constitution Decatur Book
Festival (DBF), Sept. 1-3.
National
Public Radio host Brooke Gladstone headlines a panel of journalists for
the DBF Keynote event, discussing the importance of journalism in a
time of the 24-hour news cycle, social media generated fake news and
society’s perceptions of media today. The panel also will include
Carolyn Ryan, an editor with the New York Times, and Wesley Lowery, a
Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter from The Washington Post.
The conversation kicks off the 2017 festival at 8 p.m. Friday, Sept. 1,
at Emory University’s Schwartz Center for Performing Arts. Distribution
of free tickets will be announced at a later date. Kevin Riley, editor
of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, will moderate.
“Journalism
has played an incredibly important role in our nation’s history, and
continues to do so in this new environment,” said Daren Wang, DBF
founder and executive director. “One of our goals is to celebrate
writing that has an impact, so the topic fits perfectly and sets a tone
for this year’s programming.”
Gladstone
is the co-host of the Peabody Award-winning radio show and podcast “On
the Media” from WNYC Studios, heard weekly by 1.2 million listeners via
more than 420 NPR affiliate stations. Gladstone also will speak in a
separate session about her new book “The Trouble with Reality: A
Rumination on Moral Panic in Our Time.”
Ryan
was named assistant editor in charge of recruitment in early 2017.
Before being moved into her new position, she led The New York Times
political coverage during the 2016 presidential election. Ryan also
served as Washington bureau chief after helping run its Pulitzer
Prize-winning coverage of then governor Eliot Spitzer.
Lowery,
who covers law enforcement and justice for The Washington Post, led the
paper’s coverage of the events in Ferguson, Mo., and the Black Lives
Matter protest movement. As part of the festival, Lowery will discuss
his book “They Can’t Kill Us All: The Story of the Struggle for Black
Lives.” Lowery’s work also has appeared in The Boston Globe, The Los
Angeles Times and The Wall Street Journal.
On Saturday and Sunday
of the festival, stages throughout downtown Decatur will be filled with
some of the biggest names in literature. Highlights of the adult
programming stages include:
Fiction
· Bestselling author Tom Perrotta brings
a penetrating and hilarious new novel about sex, love, and identity
from the frontlines of America’s culture wars in “Mrs. Fletcher.”
· National Book Award winner Charles Frazier returns to the festival to discuss the twentieth anniversary edition of his iconic novel, “Cold Mountain,” and to give us a preview of his forthcoming Civil War novel.
· Award-winning author Daniel Handler (also
known as Lemony Snicket), offers a gutsy, exciting novel that looks
honestly at the erotic impulses of an all-too-typical young man with
“All the Dirty Parts.”
· Thrity Umrigar,
the best-selling, critically acclaimed author, deftly explores issues
of race, class, privilege, and power and asks us to consider
uncomfortable moral questions in “Everybody’s Son.”
· “In I Know a Secret,” favorite author Tess Gerritsen brings
her twelfth gripping novel featuring Jane Rizzoli and Maura Isles, the
crime-solving duo who are faced with a gruesomely staged murder of a
horror film producer.
· The New Yorker staff writer Elif Batuman dramatizes the uncertainty of life on the cusp of adulthood in her debut novel, “The Idiot.”
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| Julie Wilson |
Non-Fiction
· National Magazine Award-winning investigative journalist Luke Dittrich explores
the scientific, ethical, and human dimensions of one of the most
important stories in the history of medicine in “Patient H.M.: A Story
of Memory, Madness, and Family Secrets.”
· Krista Tippett,
host of “On Being”, presents a master class in living, drawn from
stories of extraordinary individuals who possess “spiritual genius” with
“Becoming Wise: An Inquiry into the Mystery and Art of Living.”
· In “We Need to Talk,” celebrated local public radio host Celeste Headlee makes the case that we all have an urgent need to have important and sometimes dreaded conversations.
· Bestselling author Joyce Maynard brings “The Best of Us,” a memoir about discovering strength in the midst of great loss.
· Atlas Obscura co-founder Dylan Thuras celebrates
over 700 of the strangest and most curious places in the world in
“Atlas Obscura: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Hidden Wonders.”
· John T. Edge reveals
how Southerners shaped American culinary identity and how race
relations impacted Southern food culture over six revolutionary decades
in “The Potlikker Papers: A Food History of the Modern South.”
Cooking
· Steve Raichlen, American’s foremost grilling authority, will be demonstrating some of his tasty barbecue sauces and rubs.
· Jerry Slater and Sara Camp Milam demonstrate tasty creations from “The Southern Foodways Guide to Cocktails.”
Science
· In “Caesar's Last Breath,” New York Times bestselling author Sam Kean takes us on a journey through the periodic table, around the globe, and across time to tell the story of the air we breathe.
· New York Times science reporter Gina Kolata follows
a family through genetic illness and one courageous daughter who
decides her fate shall no longer be decided by a genetic flaw in
“Mercies in Disguise: A Story of Hope, a Family’s Genetic Destiny, and
the Science That Rescued Them.”
Poetry
· In her collection “Scald,” Denise Duhamel presents poems that engage feminism in two ways, committing to and battling with various principles and beliefs.
· Rebecca Gayle Howell shares American
Pergatory¸ a story of the working class, a dystopia set in a
near-future United States marked by severe drought, herbicidal warfare
and a totalitarian climate of poverty
· Poet, novelist, and essayist Erika L. Sanchez shares
her powerful debut poetry collection, “Lessons on Expulsion,” which
explores what it means to live on both sides of the border - the border
between countries, languages, despair and possibility, and the living
and the dead.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Decatur Book Festival (DBF) is
the largest independent book festival in the country. Over Labor Day
weekend tens of thousands from metro Atlanta and beyond share the
historic Decatur Square with world-class authors, illustrators, editors,
publishers and booksellers for a weekend filled with literature, music,
food and fun. For more information, visit www.decaturbookfestival.
