Southern Methodist University will bring about 100 popular authors to Dallas for the return of its literary festival this month.
Dallas Literary Festival headlines Nikole Hannah-Jones, author of The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story. Jones closes the festival at 7 p.m. Tuesday, March 22.
The festival’s theme is “resilience,” and the first events are March 18, featuring David Treuer and DeMaris Hill.
Here’s a description:
Truer’s The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee is a new narrative that demonstrates how Native Americans have maintained their culture and civilization through dark years, while Hill’s Breath Better Spent: Living Black Girlhood is a narrative in verse that takes a personal and historical look at the experience of Black girlhood. Truer and Hill will speak at 7 p.m. at SMU’s McCord Auditorium in Dallas Hall.
The festival also includes this line-up for two days of panel discussions:
March 19 at Dallas Hall
- SMU and NFL football great Eric Dickerson, Watch My Smoke
- Novelist Nathan Harris, The Sweetness of Water, Oprah’s June 2021 Book Club pick
- Joaquin Zihuatenejo, National Poetry Slam finalist, Grand Slam Spoken Word champion
- W. Bruce Cameron, New York Times bestselling triology A Dog’s Purpose, A Dog’s Way Home, A Dog’s Courage
- Longform narrative writer Catherine Prendergast, The Gilded Edge, named by Artnet as one of top 20 books about art in 2021.
March 20 at the African American Museum at Fair Park
- Dawnie Walton, The Final Revival of Opal and Nev, 2021 Good Morning America Buzz Pick, named one of best books of 2021 by Barack Obama, the Washington Post, NPR
- Elisa Dusapin, Winter in Sochko, 2021 National Book Award-winner for translated literature
- Scholar and commentator Jelani Cobb, author of The Matter of Black Lives: Writing from The New Yorker
- Culinary historian Adrian Miller, Black Smoke
- Daniel Black, author of Don’t Cry for Me, February 2022 Book-of-the-Month pick
Find a full schedule of the festival’s events, which are free but require registration, here.
