Latest News
Take our Survey and Win!
We are always trying to improve our Festival, and one of the best ways for us to do so is to listen to our most important audience: YOU! The five minutes it takes you to fill out one of our surveys can make a big difference for us, so we’re giving out prizes! (It also [...]
Planning Your Day: GBF Author Schedule.. and More
With so many great authors, we know many of you want the opportunity to put together your gameplan in advance. Which is why we’ve created a one-page schedule of author speaking times. This schedule at a glance will allow you to see what authors are speaking during each block of time during the day so [...]
Comedy at the GBF
If you like to laugh (and who doesn’t?) we have two Dyn-O-Mite panels for you on Saturday! – The Stand-Up Comedy Writers panel – 3:15pm – Gertrude Stein Pavilion: This is for those of you who love jokes and enjoy insight into the world of stand-up comedy. Sylvia Traymore Morrison is a master of impressions. John [...]
5 Reasons to Buy a Book at the GBF
The GBF is FREE and fun for all to enjoy. But, if you’re able to buy our Featured Authors’ books at the event, even better! Why? Here are 5 reasons: 1. Helps our ability to continue to attract the world’s best authors. While the purpose of the GBF is to provide a fantastic cultural [...]
Q&A with Sheila Turnage
Sheila Turnage’s first novel for children, “Three Times Lucky,” is a Newbery Honor Award winner. She has written nonfiction for adults, “Haunted Inns of the Southeast” and “Compass American Guides: North Carolina,” and one picture book, “Trout the Magnificent,” illustrated by Janet Stevens. Sheila is from eastern North Carolina. What are the [...]
Q&A with Elizabeth Winder
Elizabeth Winder is the author of the biography “Pain, Parties, Work: Sylvia Plath in New York, Summer 1953″ and one poetry collection. Her work also has appeared in the Chicago Review, the Antioch Review, American Letters, and other publications. She is a graduate of the College of William and Mary and earned an M.F.A. in [...]
Meet the World’s Best Children’s and YA Authors in Gaithersburg
No exaggeration, no hyperbole: This is one of the greatest lineups of children’s and teen authors you’ll ever find in one place on one day! Think about it: Jon Scieszka, legend and former National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature, is actually going to be speaking twice! First, he’ll be joining superstar Mac Barnett in our Picture Book [...]
Q&A with ex-MTV VJ Mark Goodman
Mark Goodman, along with MTV’s other three VJs who helped launch the music network in 1981, has written about his experiences at MTV in the early 1980s in “VJ: The Unplugged Adventures of MTV’s First Wave.” Mark has been in the radio and music business for 35 years, beginning in his hometown of Philadelphia at [...]
Charlie Joe Jackson’s Guide To Mother’s Day
I love my mom so much. She’s the best mom in the whole world. Except when she asks me to do crazy things, like make my bed and empty the dishwasher and do my homework. That can get annoying. But otherwise, she’s a really great person and mom. So, in honor of Claire Jackson, I [...]
Q&A with Caroline Leavitt
Caroline Leavitt is the New York Times best-selling author of “Pictures of You,” a Costco Pennie’s Pick, a San Francisco Chronicle Lit Pick, and on the best books of 2011 lists from the San Francisco Chronicle, The Providence Journal and Kirkus Reviews. Her 10th novel, “Is This Tomorrow,” will be published in early May 2013. [...]
Authors Bring Local History to Life
From stories of the Seneca Quarry and DC’s history told via a comic book to tales Fairfax County’s Civil War civilians and Frederick Douglass, history lovers will have plenty of entertainment at the Gaithersburg Book Festival on May 18. Panel discussions include Civil War Era DC and DC & MoCo History. Included in the day’s [...]
Q&A with ex-MTV VJ Nina Blackwood
Nina Blackwood, along with MTV’s other three original VJs who helped launch the music network in 1981, has written about her five years at MTV in the early 1980s in “VJ: The Unplugged Adventures of MTV’s First Wave.” Today she hosts daily radio shows on SiriusXM’s “80s On 8” channel, plus her own syndicated weekend [...]
Q&A with Jason Mott
Jason Mott is a 2009 Pushcart Prize nominee, the author of two poetry collections and his writing has been published in numerous literary journals. His debut novel, “The Returned,” will be published in September 2013. The book was optioned for a television series pilot by ABC Studios and Brad Pitt’s Plan B Entertainment along with [...]
The Kennedys and the Shrivers
Even after decades as a mainstay of our political and pop culture, including countless best-selling books, America’s fascination with the Kennedy family is as strong as ever. Why? Think about it: you have all of the elements of a great, epic tale: triumph, tragedy, accomplishment, heroism, human flaws, privilege, benevolence, and the idealism to captivate [...]
Q&A with Karen Leggett Abouraya
Karen Leggett Abouraya, author of “Hands Around the Library: Protecting Egypt’s Treasured Books,” is an award-winning journalist and former news program host on WMAL Radio. A past president of the Children’s Book Guild of Washington, D.C., her reviews of children’s books and other articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, International Educator [...]
Q&A with John Dufresne
John Dufresne is the author of two short story collections, “The Way That Water Enters Stone” and “Johnny Too Bad,” two New York Times’ Notable Books of the Year – “Louisiana Power & Light” and “Love Warps the Mind a Little” – as well as the novels “Deep in the Shade of Paradise” and “Requiem, Mass.” [...]
Q&A with John Jenkins
John A. Jenkins, author of ”The Partisan: The Life of William Rehnquist,” has been writing from Washington, D.C., about the law and lawyers since 1971, when, shortly before his graduation from the University of Maryland College of Journalism, he went to work as a reporter covering the Justice Department for the prominent legal publisher BNA [...]
Q&A with Charles Robbins
Charles Robbins is coauthor, with former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, of “The U.S. Senate,” as well as two nonfiction books with Senator Arlen Specter. The mystery/thriller, “The Accomplice,” is his first novel. Charles began his career as a newspaper reporter, then ran press operations for two congressmen, a gubernatorial campaign, a senator, and a [...]
Q&A with Adele Griffin
Adele Griffin is a two-time National Book Award finalist and the author of a number of middle grade and young adult novels, including her latest, “All You Never Wanted.” Her works include “The Julian Game,” “Tighter,” “Picture the Dead,” and coming this fall, “Loud Awake & Lost.” She lives in Brooklyn, N.Y., with her husband [...]
