Featured Authors For 2022 West Virginia Book Festival Announced

A reader’s favorite is returning to the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center this fall. In-person activities have been canceled the last few years because of the pandemic.

The 2020 West Virginia Book Festival will be held on October 21 and 22 and will feature presentations from bestselling national authors, local and regional authors, writing workshops, family activities, a literary marketplace, and the annual Used Book Sale. All events and programs are free and open to the public.

This year’s featured speakers will be:

• New York Times bestselling fantasy author V.E. Schwab; 
• mystery novelist C.J. Box; 
• novelist Elin Hilderbrand; 
• author, columnist, and public speaker Deesha Philyaw; 
• and children’s author and illustrator Marc Brown.

Victoria “V.E.” Schwab is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of more than twenty books, including the acclaimed Shades of Magic series, the Villains series, the Cassidy Blake series and the international bestseller The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue. Her work has received critical acclaim, translated into over two dozen languages, and optioned for television and film. First Kill – a Young Adult vampire series based on Schwab’s short story of the same name – is currently in the works at Netflix.

C. J. Box is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of 30 novels including the Joe Pickett series. He won the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Novel (Blue Heaven, 2009) as well as the Anthony Award, Prix Calibre 38 (France), the Maltese Falcon Award (Japan), the Macavity Award, the Gumshoe Award, two Barry Awards, and the 2010 Mountains & Plains Independent Booksellers Association Award for fiction. Over ten million copies of his books have been sold in the U.S. and abroad and they’ve been translated into 27 languages. Box is a Wyoming native and has worked as a ranch hand, surveyor, fishing guide, a small-town newspaper reporter and editor, and he owned an international tourism marketing firm with his wife Laurie.

Elin Hilderbrand is the author of twenty-eight novels, including the forthcoming The Hotel Nantucket (June 14, 2022). Elin is the proud mother of three, a dedicated Peloton rider, an aspiring book influencer, and an enthusiastic at-home cook (follow her on Instagram @elinhilderbrand to watch her Cringe Cooking Show). She is also a seven-year breast cancer survivor.

Deesha Philyaw’s debut short story collection, The Secret Lives of Church Ladies, won the 2021 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, the 2020/2021 Story Prize, and the 2020 LA Times Book Prize: The Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction and was a finalist for the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction. The Secret Lives of Church Ladies focuses on Black women, sex, and the Black church, and is being adapted for television by HBO Max. Deesha is also a Kimbilio Fiction Fellow and will be the 2022-2023 John and Renée Grisham Writer-in-Residence at the University of Mississippi.

Marc Brown is one of the most prominent names in children’s literature. Author of the bestselling Arthur books, as well as the creator of the six-time Emmy Award–winning animated Arthur series on PBS (with 25 Emmy nominations), Brown is a household name and has been entertaining generations of young readers with his relatable stories featuring Arthur the Aardvark. Over 65 million copies of his Arthur books have been sold, and in recent years, Brown has illustrated such award-winning and critically acclaimed picture books as Wild About Books, Born to Read, ZooZical!, and Wild About You! His latest book, In New York, introduces children to the city he now calls home.

The West Virginia Book Festival is made possible by its charter presenters, The Kanawha County Public Library, The Library Foundation of Kanawha County, Inc., The West Virginia Humanities Council and The Charleston Gazette-Mail. Sponsors for this year’s festival are West Virginia Public Broadcasting, The West Virginia Library Commission, The Center for the Book, The Marshall University Foundation, The Friends of The Library, and TC Energy Foundation.

All activities are free and open to the public. For more information visit www.wvbookfestival.org.