Martha's Vineyard Book Festival

On August 3, authors will speak together in panel discussions on an array of timely issues including cultural turmoil and creativity, immigration, and equality. On August 4, individual author events will be in tents at the festival site.

Confirmed speakers include thriller master John Grisham, 2019 Pulitzer Prize winner David Blight (Frederick Douglass), 2018 National Book Award winner Sigrid Nuñez (The Friend), and 2019 PEN Book of the Year Award winner Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenjah (Friday Black). Not to be missed is Pulitzer Prize winner Richard Russo with his new novel set in Chilmark and released just in time for the festival (Chances Are… ). Admiral William McRaven (Sea Stories) will share stories of his distinguished career in Special Operations, while CNN’s Jim Acosta (The Enemy of the People) will address the complexities of journalism in the current political climate.

Providing historical context to today’s challenges will be Tina Cassidy (Mr. President, How Long Must We Wait?), Richard Gergel (Unexampled Courage) and more. Memoirists include famed Gourmet editor Ruth Reichl (Save Me the Plums), Valerie Jarrett, Senior Advisor to President Obama (Finding My Voice), Dani Shapiro (Inheritance), James Beard award winner Kwame Onwuachi (Notes from a Young Black Chef), Victoria Riskin discussing her parents’ (Fay Wray and Robert Riskin), and Emily Bernard (Black is the Body).