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Historians to participate in National Book Fest in DC

My name is Rachelle Lacroix and I am contacting History News Network on behalf of the National Book Festival. I wanted to get in touch with you because I thought the HNN audience would be interested in learning about an opportunity to meet and interact with many of the nation's most beloved writers, artists and storytellers at the National Book Festival this September in Washington, DC. I've pasted the full, official press release at the bottom of this email for your review which includes a list of attending authors.

I thought your audience might be especially interested in learning about the Festival as the following historians and authors are expected to attend:

Kai Bird & Martin J. Sherwin - 2006 Pulitzer-prize winning co-authors of American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer


Taylor Branch - Pulitzer-prize winning author of Parting Waters: America in the King Years 1954-63, Pillar of Fire: America in the King Years 1963-65 and At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years 1965-68, a three-volume account of the civil rights movement and Martin Luther King Jr.'s role


Douglas Brinkley - Professor of history and director of the Roosevelt Center at Tulane University and author of The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast


Andrew Carroll - Founder of the Legacy Project, a wartime correspondence preservation project and author of the New York Times best-selling book War Letters: Extraordinary Correspondence from American Wars


Bruce Feiler - New York Times best-selling author of seven books including Walking the Bible, Abraham and Where God Was Born: A Journey By Land to the Roots of Religion


John Hope Franklin - Duke University professor of history emeritus and author and editor of 17 books including the best-selling From Slavery to Freedom: A History of African Americans


Robert Remini - Historian of the House of Representatives and author of over 20 books including the three-volume biography The Life of Andrew Jackson
The Book Festival Web site will also provide regularly updated rich media content, such as webcasts and podcasts, for those who can't attend in person: http://www.loc.gov/bookfest/.

Bringing together over 70 award-winning authors with booklovers and fans from around the country, the sixth annual National Book Festival invites individuals of all ages to participate. Organized and sponsored by the Library of Congress and hosted by First Lady Laura Bush, this free cultural event attracts 100,000 book lovers each year.

This year the Festival will take place Saturday, September 30th 2006 from 10:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m on The National Mall (Between 7th and 14th streets) in Washington, DC.

If you could provide HNN readers with a link to the National Book Festival Web page, we would be most appreciative as this is the forum where they can find everything they need to know about this year's event: http://www.loc.gov/bookfest/.


Also, the following link goes directly to the National Book Festival Online Press Room. Here, you will find links that provide digital video clips of First Lady Laura Bush inviting attendees to the 2006 National Book Festival, author comments via audio and video, and a host of information that might be relevant for the Cultural Tourism DC audience...feel free to use any and all of it.

Main National Book Festival Online Press Room Link: http://loc.gov:8081/bookfest/pressroom/video.html

2006 National Book Festival Video Sound Bites from Laura Bush, James H. Billington, Librarian of Congress,
and various attending authors: http://loc.gov:8081/bookfest/pressroom/video.html

Press release, attending author list, and event fact sheet: http://loc.gov:8081/bookfest/pressroom/text.html

2006 attending author photos and past event photos: http://loc.gov:8081/bookfest/pressroom/images.html

In addition to the D.C. festivities, WashingtonPost.com will host a series of text-based, online chat discussions that can be viewed daily, starting Monday, September 25 at www.washingtonpost.com <http://www.washingtonpost.com/>; . Through this opportunity, viewers can not only submit questions in advance or during the live discussion, but can also view authors’ responses while the program is airing live or at a later date on WashingtonPost.com’s online discussion archive. Again, a full list of scheduled chats, as well as participating authors, illustrators and poets can be found on the Festival’s website at www.loc.gov/bookfest <http://www.loc.gov/bookfest.com>; .

I know the HNN audience shares your passion for history and we hope you'll share the included information about the authors attending the National Book Festival with them. If you have any questions or comments, don’t hesitate to get in touch. Please let me know if you decide to feature any of this information on HNN.

Best,

Rachelle Lacroix, on behalf of the National Book Festival