Faculty who'll be representing their latest books: Lynne Barrett (Magpies), Debra Dean (The Mirrored World), Campbell McGrath (In the Kingdom of the Sea Monkeys), and Les Standiford (Desperate Sons: Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, John Hancock, and the Secret Bands of Radicals Who Led the Colonies to War). In addition, our long-time writer-in-residence Dan Wakefield returns to Miami with Kurt Vonnegut: Letters. And James W. Hall (retired, but teaching this Spring) discusses Hit Lit: Cracking the Code of the Twentieth Century's Biggest Bestsellers.
Alumni authors you can hear at the Fair: Richard Blanco Looking for the Gulf Motel, J.J. Colagrande (Decò), M.J. Fievre So Spoke the Earth: A Haiti Anthology, Yousi Mazpule (Jinetera: Story of a Cuban Prostitute), Jesse Millner (Dispatches from the Department of Supernatural Explanation), Melanie Neale (Boat Girl: A Memoir of Youth, Love, & Fiberglass), and Neil Plakcy (Dog Helps Those).
Perhaps the best opportunity of seeing lots of MFA people together will be the Sweat Broadside Collaboration reading and panel in Centre Gallery, Sat. at 2:30. Lynne Barrett, John Dufresne, Denise Duhamel, Campbell McGrath, Yaddyra Peralta and Nick Vagnoni will be among those reading from their contributions to this artist-writer collaborative project. Others who participated are David Beaty, Pete Borrebach, David Gonzalez who may be in the audience and joining in the discussion, and the show of 50+ broadsheets is up in the gallery now through early December.
Behind the scenes at the Book Fair, making this huge event happen, MFA alumna Lissette Mendez is Program Coordinator at the Center @ MDC (the organization that runs the Fair as well as workshops all year and the Miami Writers Institute), and alumnus Nick Garnett is Copywriter and Editor. Current MFA student Jennifer McCauley is an intern with the Fair this fall. All week, MFA students and alumni will be participating in The Florida Book Review annual live-blog of the Book Fair, led by FBR Editor Lynne Barrett. Those far from Miami can keep up with the Fair by reading the coverage which has already begun.