SBF RETURNING FOR SIXTEENTH YEAR

In 2023, the Savannah Book Festival (SBF) will celebrate its 16th year as one of the most reknowned invitation-only literary festivals in the country, February 16-19.

The weekend’ main event, Festival Saturday, will take place on February 18, and includes a diverse lineup of authors.

The festival will host three headlining authors: Jack Carr, Preston & Child, and David Maraniss.

They will speak at ticketed events on Thursday, February 16, Friday, February 17, and Sunday, February 19, respectively.

Ticketing information and times can be found on the festival website.

The Festival Saturday lineup is live on the website and includes a number of best-selling authors who have earned such recognition with some of the top-performing books of the past year.

A LOCAL READ: SAVANNAH AUTHOR CAROLYN PRUSA

One of this year’s featured authors is Savannah’s very own Carolyn Prusa, who will be sharing her novel “None of This Would Have Happened If Prince Were Alive” at her author presentation on Saturday.

Born in Durham, NC, Carolyn studied literature and creative writing at Stanford University and Boston University, and has written for Savannah Magazine and the Charlotte Observer, among other publications.

We spoke with Carolyn about her career, her love of Savannah, and what it means to be invited to a distinguished festival in her own hometown.

When did you become interested in writing, and when were you first published?

I have been writing my entire vida loca. When I was in first grade, I started a series about a character named Julie who piles her suitcases to the sky and then climbs them. (Clearly, I struggle with establishing conflict.) I was first published in the Blue Review, my high school literary magazine, and then it only took 30 years after that to sell my first book.

How long have you been in the Savannah area, and what brought you here?

My husband accepted a position with Hugo Boss, which entailed making sure wildly expensive, super-tight suits made it to stores. We’ve been here 10 years! I feel lucky to live in Savannah. Whenever we have friends or relatives visit for the first time, I see the city through their eyes, and I’m reminded of its quirky potpourri of history, beauty, and stories.

How would you describe this book to readers?

It’s a rollicking road trip steered by an overwhelmed mama with guest stars Hurricane Matthew and Prince. There is humor and heart.

Is there anything else you’d like readers to know?

Hmm, let’s see. The book previously included a passage about sand gnats that got cut. My husband is a wonderful man who would probably prefer to stream a Phish concert than start an affair. My top La Croix flavors are pamplemousse, limoncello, and lime. My favorite restaurant in Savannah that’s no longer with us is El Coyote. I love Post Malone. I like buying candles from HomeGoods. There are so many writers on Festival Saturday who I’m excited to see that I might not even have time to be nervous about my presentation or people throwing tomatoes at me.

Perfect for fans of Maria Semple and Jennifer Weiner, the smart and witty debut novel None of This Would Have Happened if Price Were Alive follows Ramona through the 48 hours after her life has been upended by the discovery of her husband’s affair and an approaching category four hurricane. Thoroughly entertaining and completely relatable it’s a hilarious, heartwarming story of a woman up to her elbows in calamities and about to drive off the brink of the rest of her life.

For more information, visit savannahbookfestival.org

Presidents’ Day weekend ushers in the Savannah Book Festival, one of the country’s finest invitation-only literary festivals. The Savannah Book Festival is comprised of four different events – three headliners, and the main festival event, “Festival Saturday”.

The three headliners will speak at ticketed events, for which information can be found on the festival’s website. Tickets are not required for Festival Saturday, and all of the Savannah public is invited.

The weekend begins with an opening address on Thurs., Feb. 16, this year given by New York Times bestselling author and former Navy SEAL Jack Carr.

Carr, who lives in Park City, Utah, is the author of “The Terminal List,” “True Believer,” “Savage Son,” “The Devil’s Hand,” and “In the Blood.”

His debut novel, “The Terminal List,” was adapted into the No. 1 Amazon Prime Video series starring Chris Pratt. He is also the host of the top-rated podcast “Danger Close.”

This year’s keynote address will be on Friday, Feb. 17, by mystery novelists Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child.

Preston has published 36 books of both nonfiction and fiction, of which 29 have been New York Times bestsellers. He is the co-author (with Child) of the “Pendergast” series of thrillers. He writes about archaeology and anthropology for the “The New Yorker,” worked as an editor at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, and taught nonfiction writing at Princeton University.

He currently serves as President of the Authors Guild, the nation’s oldest and largest association of authors and journalists.

Lincoln Child was born in Westport, CT, and attended Carleton College, where he graduated with distinction in English.

Over the next several years, he climbed his way up the editorial ladder, becoming a full editor, working on literally hundreds of titles both fiction and non-fiction, and founding the publishing house’s mass-market horror line. Among the authors he groomed for their first full-length book publication was Douglas Preston.

Child went on to collaborate with Preston on their own jointly written thriller, “Relic,” which went on to become a bestselling book and a No. 1 box office film. This established them as a writing team, and the two have gone on to write some three dozen joint novels, many featuring the enigmatic FBI agent Pendergast, and two of which were named in an NPR poll of readers as among the 100 greatest thrillers of all time.

Most of their novels have become New York Times bestsellers, several of which have reached No. 1.

Festival Saturday, the weekend’s main event, takes place on Saturday, February 18th, and is free and open to the public from 9 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. The full schedule can be found, digitally downloaded, or printed on the festival’s website, under the “Festival Saturday” tab.

The weekend will conclude with a closing address on Sunday, Feb. 19, from David Maraniss.

Maraniss is a New York Times best-selling author, a fellow of the Society of American Historians, and a visiting distinguished professor at Vanderbilt Univ. He has been affiliated with The Washington Post for more than 40 years as an editor and writer.

In 1993, he received the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for his coverage of former president Bill Clinton, and in 2007 he was part of a team that won a Pulitzer for coverage of the Virginia Tech shooting.

He was also a Pulitzer finalist three other times, including for one of his books, “They Marched into Sunlight.”

He has won many other major writing awards, including the George Polk Award, the Robert F. Kennedy Book Prize, the Anthony Lukas Book Prize, and the Frankfurt eBook Award.

“A Good American Family” is his 12th book. He and his wife Linda split time between Washington, D.C., and in their hometown, Madison, WI.

For more information and a full schedule of events, visit savannahbookfestival.org

Friends of Cathedral Music Present

DURUFLÉ REQUIEM & RHEINBERGER ORGAN CONCERTO

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 19 | 5:00 P.M.

Members of the Savannah Philharmonic, Joseph Adam, organist of the Seattle Symphony, and the Cathedral Choir in an unforgettable performance of Duruflé’s Requiem and Rheinberger’s Organ Concerto No. 2

With Thanks to

And please plan to join us for TENEBRAE

Wednesday, April 5 | 8:00 p.m.

SAVANNAHCATHEDRAL.ORG/2022-2023-CONCERT-SERIES

By Beth Logan ART COLUMNIST

Robin Elise Maaya is loquacious, vibrant, intelligent, sharp-as-a-whip, and deeply talented.

I briefly wrote about her “It’s A Thursday” photography show and book release last July, but it was not until November that I had an opportunity to meet her in person at a Cleo The Gallery member dinner.

Just home from a trip to Paris Photo, the largest photography fair in the world, Maaya was passionately and excitedly regaling fellow diners about how that experience had, in turns, enthralled, inspired, exhausted, and over-