Heads up to the literati, consumers of words, lovers of both poetry and prose! It’s the cusp of the turn from winter to spring in Savannah, which brings fresh green buds and the annual Savannah Book Festival, a celebration of the written word and its role in improving the human experience! Since 2008, this festival of literature has brought thousands of authors and fans through both ticketed headline events and free presentations.
From February 15 to 18, which is Presidents’ Day weekend and a lovely time to visit one of the South’s most lovely cities, more than 30 authors will be present to celebrate love of words, beginning with an opening address by international number one bestselling author Ruth Ware at the SCAD Trustees’ Theater on Thursday, February 15. On Friday the 16, the opening address will be given by Jeannette Walls, author of instant New York Times bestsellers The Silver Star and Half Broke Horses, which was named one of the ten best books of 2009 by the New York Times Book Review.
Free Festival Saturday is a jam-packed day with panel discussions, book sales and signings, author presentations from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. across downtown. Click here to see the schedule and learn more about each presenting author. Food available on Festival Saturday includes local favorite Leopold’s Ice Cream, as well as food trucks providing an array of cuisines, parked around Telfair Square. Books will be for sale in the tent also on Telfair Square beginning at noon on Friday and continuing through the day on Saturday. 20% of sales from the tent support the festival, which helps keep the Festival Saturday events free and open to the public year-to-year.
Finally on Sunday, the festival will close with an address by David Grann, author of the New York Times bestsellers The Lost City of Z and Killers of the Flower Moon (recently made into a star-packed feature film by Martin Scorsese). Tickets to all three headliner events may sell out fast, so grab yours up as soon as you can.
Learn more about the Savannah Book Festival and its four days of events at SavannahBookFestival.org. Enjoy Savannah, and tell them your TravelHost sent you!