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Joyce Carol Oates will keynote Decatur Book Festival

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Joyce Carol Oates will keynote Decatur Book Festival

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Joyce Carol Oates. Source: Wikimedia commons.

Joyce Carol Oates. Source: Wikimedia commons.

This story has been updated.

The Decatur Book Festival announced its guest list for 2014, and the keynote speaker for this year will be Joyce Carol Oates.

Oates has won numerous awards including two O. Henry Prizes and a National Humanities Medal awarded by President Barack Obama. She’s notoriously prolific and her most famous works include “Blonde” and “We Were the Mulvaneys.”

The DBF announced its lineup during a June 17 launch party at Eddie’s Attic in Decatur. Oates will be speaking on the first day of the festival, Aug. 29, at the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts at Emory University. She’s promoting a new short story collection, “Lovely, Dark, Deep: Stories.” Her biographer, Atlanta resident Greg Johnson, also will speak during the event.

Here are the featured authors for this year’s Book Festival, which runs Aug. 29 through 31.

– Fiction writer Wiley Cash, author of “A Land More Kind Than Home.” He will be promoting his new book, “This Dark Road to Mercy.”

– Ann Hood, promoting her newest book “An Italian Wife.” Her other bestselling works include “The Red Thread”, “The Knitting Circle” and “Somewhere Off the Coast of Maine.”

– Science fiction writer John Scalzi, author of “Old Man’s War”and winner of the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer.

– Karen Abbott will speak during the festival’s Civil War Track. Abbott is promoting her new book, “Liar, Temptress, Soldier, Spy.”

– Natasha Trethewey was the DBF keynote speaker in 2012.  She was recently named Poet Laureate, both of the United States and of the state of Mississippi.

– Philip Lymbery, CEO of Compassion in World Farming, will talk about his new book, “Farmageddon: The True Cost of Cheap Meat.”

–  Ted Rall, author and illustrator of numerous graphic novels, books of political criticism, and travel writings, will be discussing his latest graphic novel, “After We Kill You, We Will Welcome You Back as Honored Guests.”

– Dr. Louis Sullivan served as Secretary of Health and Human Services during former President George H. W. Bush’s administration. He will be promoting his memoirs, “In Breaking Ground: My Life in Medicine.”

– Allan Gurganus, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, a Guggenheim Fellow, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, will be discussing “Local Souls,” his first book in 12 years.

– Retired Gen. Anthony Zinni served as commander-in-chief of the U.S. Central Command and U.S. Peace Envoy to the Middle East before retiring as a four-star general. His new book, “Before the First Shots Are Fired: How America Can Win or Lose Off the Battlefield,” calls for “widespread change to how the U.S. decides to go to war, pinpointing ways to approach the process with clearer vision and focus that, ultimately, lead to better military strategies.”

– Young adult novelist Maggie Stiefvater will introduce Sinner, a spinoff to from her Shiver Trilogy.

– Author and illustrator Tony DiTerlizzi will discuss his latest work, “The Battle for WondLa.” According to DBF, “In late Fall 2014, he will team with Lucasfilm to retell the story of Luke Skywalker in a picture book featuring the original concept art of Ralph McQuarrie.”

– Artist William Wegman, famous for his photographs of his family Weimaraners.

Source: AJC Decatur Book Festival

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