David Sheff, author of Beautiful Boy: A Father’s Journey Through His Son’s Addiction and the follow-up, Clean: Overcoming Addiction and Ending America’s Greatest Tragedy, will join the lineup at the Lewisburg Literary Festival. Sheff will take the stage at Carnegie Hall on Saturday, Aug. 4, at 7 p.m.
Prior to the publication of Beautiful Boy, Sheff was a journalist whose in-depth interviews appeared in The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Playboy, among other respected publications. He has interviewed the most iconic personalities of the past fifty years including Carl Sagan, Tom Hanks, Keith Haring, Steve Jobs, Ansel Adams, and Frank Gehry. Most notably, Sheff conducted the last comprehensive interview with John Lennon before his murder in 1980. That interview would become the basis of Sheff’s 2000 book, All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono.
With Beautiful Boy, Sheff became more widely known for his vocal and compassionate position on the addiction epidemic. In 2009, he was selected as one of Time Magazine’s World’s Most Influential People, and Entertainment Weekly named Beautiful Boy the best nonfiction book of the year. Several other awards followed. Now the memoir is a film staring Steve Carell, Timothee Chalamet, Maura Tierney, and Amy Ryan, scheduled for release on October 12, 2018.
Sheff’s subsequent book, Clean, published in 2013, is, according to The New York Times’ Sunday Book Review, “an objective, if still impassioned, examination of the research on prevention and treatment – a guide for those affected by addiction but also a manifesto aimed at clinical professionals and policy makers.”
The Lewisburg Literary Festival, August 3 – 4, is a vibrant two-day event featuring visiting authors, literary workshops, outdoor art installations, musical entertainment, and performance art. The annual event takes place the first Friday and Saturday in August and is free to all guests. Due to seating capacity, guests must call 888-716-5082 to reserve tickets to specific speaker and workshop events.
Other visiting authors include Nikki Giovanni and Anna Sale. To learn more, visit LewisburgLiteraryFestival.com.