Bestsellers, award winners and crowd pleasers: with more than 50 authors in six tracks, the confirmed lineup for the 2013 South Dakota Festival of Books offers something for everyone.

Please be sure to visit our Presenters page for the full lineup!

Headlining the poetry track will be former U.S. Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner Ted Kooser (Lights on a Ground of Darkness). He will appear with noted Palestinian-American poet Naomi Shihab Nye (Transfer), a four-time Pushcart Prize winner and the author of Ted Kooser Is My President. Other participating poets include Festival veteran Freya Manfred (Swimming with a Hundred Year Old Snapping Turtle) and newcomer Todd Boss (Pitch).

In the fiction track, first-time Festival authors include two novelists who have had tremendous national success this year: Peter Heller (The Dog Stars) and B.A. Shapiro (The Art Forger). Festival favorites C.J. Box (Breaking Point) and Craig Johnson (A Serpent’s Tooth) are back, joining several fellow mystery writers for a Western Crime Wave lunch.

Authors in the non-fiction track range from those who examine the serious issues facing our country, like Canadian journalist Andrew Nikiforuk (Empire of the Beetle), to those who entertain with their misadventures, like Field and Stream contributor Bill Heavey (It’s Only Slow Food Until You Try to Eat It). NPR contributor Bob Garfield, host of “On the Media,” will offer his perspective on the rapidly changing worlds of media and marketing.

History/Tribal writers will include some well-known authors with ties to Western South Dakota, such as Elizabeth Cook-Lynn (From the River’s Edge), Bill Markley (Dakota Epic) and Steven T. Mitchell (Nuggets to Neutrinos). Appearing at the Festival for the first time will be David Treuer (Rez Life), an Ojibwe who grew up on the Leech Lake Reservation in Minnesota, and Richard Van Camp (Godless but Loyal to Heaven), a Dogrib from Canada’s Northwest Territories.

Leading the children’s/YA track will be the prolific and much-admired Walter Dean Myers (Monster), currently serving as National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature through the Library of Congress. Other writers in this track include Neal Shusterman (Unwholly), Margaret Peterson Haddix (The Always War) and Mary Casanova (American Girl novel McKenna).

In writers’ support, several well-known book critics will offer their insights into the publishing industry, including Pulitzer Prize winner Michael Dirda of the Washington Post and Craig Wilson and Bob Minzesheimer of USA Today. Writing workshops will focus on topics ranging from poetry (Heid Erdrich, Cell Traffic) to political playwriting (Susan Dworkin, The Farm Bill).

Please continue to check back with our website for more Festival details!