Here’s Your Full Boston Book Festival 2015 Speaker Lineup

More than 150 authors will host sessions at the October event.

boston book festival 2015 lineup

Photo by Mike Ritter/Ritterbin Photography

Boston Book Festival organizers have announced the full lineup for its 2015 edition, featuring more than 150 authors who will appear in various sessions and discuss a wide variety of topics at the October event.

“Our 2015 lineup is filled with such a full spectrum of authors across fiction, nonfiction, memoir, and other genres, we think there is sure to be something to appeal to all types of readers,” says founder and executive director Deborah Z. Porter in a press release.

A few notable local names from the lineup include Ben Mezrich (his 2013 book Bringing Down the House inspired the movie 21), Sacha Pfeiffer (a member of the Boston Globe Spotlight team that investigated sexual abuse within the Catholic Church), Bill Littlefield (sports poet and host of NPR’s Only A Game), Juliette Kayyem (an expert in national and homeland security who teaches at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and ran for governor in 2014), and Stephen Kurkjian (a Pulitzer-winning journalist who recently released a new book about the Gardner heist).

Last month, organizers revealed the speakers for the festival’s eight keynote sessions, including Margaret Atwood and locals Atul Gawande and Amanda Palmer. They also announced “Home Movie” by Boston Public School teacher Jennifer De Leon as this year’s “One City One Story” selection.

The 2015 Boston Book Festival will take place October 23-24 at Copley Square. Exact festival sessions—topics, locations, and times—will be announced in late September. All of the sessions will be free and open to the public, with the exception of the keynote events featuring Margaret Atwood and Amanda Palmer.

See the full lineup below, which is subject to change. Brief biographies of each presenter can be found at bostonbookfestival.org.

Lauren Acampora
M. T. Anderson
Alicia Anstead
Tom Ashbrook
Jabari Asim
Margaret Atwood
Molly Bang
Judge David Barron
Nancy Bauer
Deborah Becker
Matt Bell
Megan Mayhew Bergman
Charles Blackstone
Gabriella Blum
Libba Bray
Robin Brenner
Anthony Brooks
Irin Carmon
Antonio Casilli
Christopher Castellani
Meghna Chakrabarti
Robin Chase
Bill Clegg
Ann Collette
Josh Cook
Harvey Cox
Callie Crossley
Edwidge Danticat
Peter Davis
Camille DeAngelis
Matt de la Peña
Elena Delbanco
Alan Dershowitz
Rachel DeWoskin
Bryan Doerries
Nilma Dominique
Juan Enriquez
Sorche Fairbank
Sukey Forbes
François Furstenberg
Chris Fussell
Neil Gaiman
Atul Gawande
Amanda Gefter
Luisa Geisler
Patricia Reilly Giff
Matthew Gilbert
Ethan Gilsdorf
Carey Goldberg
Sarah Goldhagen
Charlotte Gordon
Vivian Gornick
Chris Grimley
Lani Guinier
Deborah Halber
Wil Haygood
Rachel Hills
Walter Holland
Lauren Holmes
Jonathan Horn
Michael Horn
Gregory Howard
Tasneem Zehra Husain
Peniel Joseph
Heidi Julavits
Charles Kaiser
Rosabeth Moss Kanter
Kirun Kapur
Sarah Kay
Juliette Kayyem
Louise Kennedy
Chip Kidd
Brendan Kiely
Joe Klein
Shana Knizhnik
Laura Koenig
George Krupp
Stephen Kurkjian
Dylan Landis
Henriette Lazaridis
Holly LeCraw
Lynn Levin
Alan Light
Kelly Link
Adriana Lisboa
Bill Littlefield
Kenji López-Alt
Joseph Luzzi
Christopher Lydon
Bonnie MacBird
Carolyn Mackler
Nina MacLaughlin
Emily St. John Mandel
Bob Mankoff
Sonia Manzano
John Markoff
Anastacia Marx de Salcedo
Courtney Maum
Simon Mawer
Colum McCann
General Stanley McChrystal
Cammie McGovern
Kim McLarin
Jennifer McMahon
Cathryn Mercier
Claire Messud
Ben Mezrich
Leigh Montville
Meg Mitchell Moore
Bob Morris, Mullins
Sandra Newman
Matthew Neill Null
Megan O’Grady
Chinelo Okparanta
Amaryah Orenstein
Erik Owens
Amanda Palmer
Jonathan Papernick
Mark Pasnik
Amy Pattee
Sacha Pfeiffer
Charles Pierce
Heidi Pitlor
Karyn Polewaczyk
Alexandre Vidal Porto
Steven Pressman
Laurence Ralph
Lisa Randall
Jason Reynolds
Cindy Rodriguez
Vanessa Rodriguez
Lisa Rourke
Louis Sachar
Moshe Safdie
Stephen Savage
Bruce Schneier
John Seabrook
Laura Vaccaro Seeger
Stefany Shaheen
B. A. Shapiro
Steve Sheinkin
Jim Shepard
Adam Silvera
Andrew Smith
Tamara Ellis Smith
Jason Sokol
John Spooner
Erin Stead
Philip Stead
Rebecca Stead
Jessica Stern
Katherine Stewart
Andrew McConnell Stott
Nancy Rubin Stuart
Roger Sutton
Laura Tavares
Chris Taylor
Julia Tejblum
Rupert Thomson
Anthony Tjan
Jessica Treadway
Dawn Tripp
Lily Tuck
Lou Ureneck
Laura van den Berg
Linda K. Wertheimer
Michael Witwer
James Wood
Robin Young
Paul Zelinsky