Tracy Kidder, Simon Winchester, Wally Lamb, Meghan O’Rourke, Dani Shapiro, and Kids’ Author Chris Grabenstein Among the Featured Authors
 
Saratoga Springs, NY — The third annual Friends’ Saratoga Book Festival will take place October 10-15, 2023, bringing together more than 60 talented authors from near and far for a celebration of reading.
 
The multi-day festival features big-stage presentations, intimate conversations, engaging workshops, Literary Marketplace, Local Author Showcase, KidZone, in-school performance and  in more than seven venues in historic downtown Saratoga Springs, New York, including the Saratoga City Center, Universal Preservation Hall, Caffè Lena, Saratoga Springs Public Library, Saratoga Arts, the Spa Little Theatre at SPAC, and Skidmore College. The main festival day is Saturday, October 14. All events are free except when noted. 
 
Home to Yaddo, two colleges, three bookstores and a vibrant community of passionate book readers and writers, Saratoga Springs is the perfect setting to celebrate the power of books to inform, delight, inspire, and challenge. During this moment, when community ties are strained, intolerance is on the rise, and book reading on the decline, the Saratoga Book Festival gathers authors and readers together for engaging panel discussions, readings, one-on-one interviews, writers’ workshops, and children’s programs.
 
Highlights 

• Wally Lamb, the award-winning author of six New York Times bestselling novels will read from his soon-to-be published new book The River is Waiting on Thursday, October 12 at 7 pm at the Spa Little Theatre at SPAC. Tickets go on sale in mid-September at saratogabookfestival.org and benefit the FSSPL.
• Tracy Kidder, a Pulitzer Prize winning author whose nonfiction books include Soul of the New Machine and Mountains Beyond Mountains, will talk about his latest book Rough-Sleepers; Dr Jim O'Connell’s Urgent Mission to Bring Healing to Homeless People. Sunday, October 15 at 4 pm in the Gannett Auditorium at Skidmore College.
• Simon Winchester, the New York Times best-selling author of The Professor and the Madman, will speak about his new book Knowing What We Know: The Transmission of Knowledge from Ancient Wisdom to Modern Magic on Friday, October 13 at 7 pm at the Universal Preservation Hall.
• Dani Shapiro, author of eleven books, and the host and creator of the popular podcast Family Secrets will speak about her most recent book, the bestselling novel Signal Fires in a literary conversation with author Jonathan Santlofer. She’s currently developing Signal Fires for its television adaptation. Saturday, October 14, 5:30 pm in the Saratoga City Center.
• Meghan O’Rourke, The Invisible Kingdom: Reimagining Chronic Illness. A landmark exploration of one of the most consequential and mysterious issues of our time: the rise of chronic illness and autoimmune diseases. Named one of the BEST BOOKS OF 2022 by NPR, The New Yorker, Time, and Vogue. Saturday, October 14, 10:30 am at the Saratoga Springs Public Library.
• Paul Tremblay (whose latest book A Cabin At the End of the World was the basis for the movie A Knock at the Cabin by M.Night Shyamalan), will talk about his latest The Beast You Are. Saturday, October 14 at 2:30 pm in the Saratoga Springs Public Library.
• Upstate New York authors include Elisa Albert, Robert Boyers, Joseph Bruchac, Jennifer Dugan, Chris Grabenstein, Steve Sheinkin,Karin Lin-Greenberg, Ira Marcks, Richard Mirabella, Ed Mitzen, Molly Prentiss, Ed Schwartzchild, Steve Stern, and Kim van Alkemade.
• The Literary Marketplace features a Local Author Showcase, KidZone and more than 80 writers, publishers, and other exhibitors, including a Popup Cafe by 9 Miles East on Saturday, October 14 from 10 am to 2 pm in the Saratoga City Center Main Hall.

 
About Saratoga Book Festival
The Saratoga Book Festival is the marquee community event of the Friends of the Saratoga Springs Public Library, a 501(c)(3) whose mission is to raise funds and provide support for library programs and services. The goal of the festival is to encourage a lifelong love of reading.