Please join us for the 2023 History Book Festival Closing Address featuring James McBride, author of The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store (Riverhead Books, 2023). He is the author of the New York Times–bestselling Oprah’s Book Club selection Deacon King Kong, the National Book Award–winning The Good Lord Bird, and the American classic The Color of Water, among others. The recipient of a National Humanities Medal and an accomplished musician, McBride is also a distinguished writer in residence at New York University.
McBride will be in conversation with Marie Arana, an award-winning author and journalist who served as editor-in-chief of The Washington Post's Book World, co-founded the National Book Festival, and served as the inaugural Literary Director of the Library of Congress.
A reservation is required to attend this event. Each reservation includes one general admission seat and a signed, hardback copy of The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store. Please note that reservations are limited.
The Closing Address is funded through the generous support of Dogfish Head Beer and Benevolence.
This event is presented in partnership with Seaside Jewish Community and Southern Delaware Alliance for Racial Justice (SDARJ).
Named a Must Read for the Summer by:
The New York Times • The Washington Post • The Boston Globe • Time • AARP • Town & Country • St. Louis Post-Dispatch
“The interlocking destinies of [McBride’s] characters make for tense, absorbing drama and, at times, warm, humane comedy. … If it’s possible for America to have a poet laureate, why can’t James McBride be its storyteller-in-chief?” — Kirkus Reviews (STARRED REVIEW)
“Funny, tender, knockabout, gritty, and suspenseful, McBride’s microcosmic, socially critiquing, and empathic novel dynamically celebrates difference, kindness, ingenuity, and the force that compels us to move heaven and earth to help each other.” — Booklist (STARRED REVIEW)
About the Festival
With the help of our presenting funding partners—Delaware Humanities and The Lee Ann Wilkinson Group, Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices I PenFed Realty—as well as our program and community partners, volunteers, and donors, the 2023 History Book Festival will be full of great discussions with authors of newly published narrative nonfiction and historical fiction. Our Keynote Address is presented by Sally Mott Freeman and John K. Freeman, and our Closing Address is presented by Dogfish Head Beer & Benevolence.
Special thanks to our program partners for their continuing support: the Lewes Public Library for event promotion and venue; Browseabout Books in Rehoboth Beach, official bookseller of the History Book Festival; Lewes Chamber of Commerce for event promotion, and the Cape Gazette and Delmarva Public Media, our media partners.
