File photo: April Dammann and Bill Boyarsky at the Festival of Books.
Hey, I'll be signing books and chit-chatting on Saturday at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books at USC. Come by the Angel City Press booth (near the Tommy Trojan statue) between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. and say hello. I'll only be around on the first day this year.
With the festival starting tomorrow, the Times gave out its book prizes tonight at USC's Bovard Auditorium. The winners, per the paper's Jacket Copy blog:
- Biography: “Bolivar: American Liberator” by Marie Arana
- Current Interest: “Five Days at Memorial” by Sheri Fink
- Fiction: “A Tale for the Time Being” by Ruth Ozeki
- Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction: “We Need New Names” by NoViolet Bulawayo
- Graphic Novel/Comics: “Today is the Last Day of the Rest of Your Life” by Ulli Lust
- History: “The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914” by Christopher Clark
- Mystery/Thriller: “The Cuckoo’s Calling” by J.K. Rowling writing as Robert Galbraith
- Poetry: “Collected Poems” by Ron Padgett
- Science and Technology: “Countdown: Our Last, Best Hope for a Future on Earth?” by Alan Weisman
- Young Adult Literature: “Boxers & Saints” by Gene Luen Yang
Also, Susan Straight was given the Robert Kirsch Award and John Green, a young adult author, activist and video blogger, receive the Innovator’s Award.