The 2024 Lewisburg Literary Festival will be held on Aug. 3 and 4 with a variety of authors and writers making appearances across the two-day event. Each year, the Festival consists of presentations and appearances by a selection of noteworthy figures in literature, as well as writing workshops, poetry readings, and more. On the roster this year are bestselling author David Baldacci, Appalachian food and culture writer Ronni Lundy, novelist Victoria Christopher Murray, and Patrick Bringley, author of All the Beauty in the World.
All ticketed events for the Lewisburg Literary Festival are free to the public. However, all events do require a ticket and some events may sell out. Please fill out the ticket form online at www.lewisburgliteraryfestival.com to have your tickets available for pick up at the Greenbrier Valley Visitor’s Center in downtown Lewisburg. Ticket requests are capped at six tickets per request. Upon confirmation, tickets can be picked up anytime between now and the day before the event. (If you cannot use your tickets, please contact the Literary Festival via the “Contact Us” tab on the website, or the CVB so that others may use your seats.)
The first presentation of the weekend is on Aug. 2 at 7:30 p.m. at the Lewis Theatre by Ronni Lundy, however, tickets are already sold out. Lundy is the double James Beard Award-winning author of Victuals: An Appalachian Journey, with Recipes, 2016’s Best American Cookbook and Cookbook of the Year. Beginning with her groundbreaking Shuck Beans, Stack Cakes and Honest Fried Chicken in 1991, Lundy has established a reputation as both a perceptive and engaging authority on the foodways and culture of the Mountain South. Born in Corbin, Kentucky and raised in Louisville with strong ties to the Appalachian Mountains, she often writes from the perspective and about the experience of the Appalachian diaspora, but her 35 year career as a professional writer has also included thoughtful work on popular music, literature, and personalities throughout the South and beyond. Lundy is a warm, wise and witty speaker who has presented at events and in academia ranging from Berea College to Boston Cooks!, from Tallahassee’s Word of South to the Aspen Institute’s Winter Words, from Dumplin’s and Dancing to the Smithsonian. In addition to the Beard’s, her many honors include the Southern Foodway’s Alliance’s Craig Craig Claiborne Lifetime Achievement Award recognizing her work as a writer covering both food and music. Lundy is a founder of that organization as well as a founder of the Appalachian Food Summit. Lundy is the author of 10 books, and currently is the owner and chief bookseller at Plott Hound Books in Burnsville, NC, where she is living happily ever after in a tiny house in a tiny holler.
Up next on Aug. 3 at 1 p.m. at Carnegie Hall is Patrick Bringley, author of All the Beauty in the World, a memoir about his decade working as a guard at Metropolitan Museum of Art. The book has been praised by outlets including the New York Times, Washington Post, Guardian, and Associated Press, and has been named a best book of the year by the New York Public Library, NPR, the Financial Times, Audible, and the Sunday Times (London), which selected it as the outstanding art book of 2023. Patrick leads public and private tours of the Met and lectures at museums and other venues around the country. Past and upcoming appearances include at the Met, National Gallery, Museum of Fine Art Boston, Peabody-Essex Museum, Saint Louis Art Museum, Chrysler Museum, University of Virginia, and Emirates Airlines Festival of Literature in Dubai. He is also adapting his book into a one man play that will premiere at the Charleston Literary Festival in the fall. All the Beauty in the World is being published in translated editions around the world and is a national bestseller in South Korea. Patrick lives with his wife and children in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. All the Beauty in the World is his first book.
Next is an appearance by novelist Victoria Christopher Murray on Aug. 3 at Carnegie Hall, at 3 p.m. Murray is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of more than 30 novels, including the New York Times Instant Best Sellers, The Personal Librarian and The First Ladies. Both novels, Victoria co-wrote with Marie Benedict. A native New Yorker, Murray attended Hampton University where she majored in Communication Disorders. After graduating, Victoria attended New York University’s Stern Business School where she received her MBA in Marketing. Victoria spent ten years in Corporate America before she tested her entrepreneurial spirit. She opened a Financial Services Agency for Aegon, USA where she managed the number one division for nine consecutive years. However, Victoria always dreamed of writing and in 1997, she pursued her dream.
New York Times Bestselling author David Baldacci will close out the festival on Saturday, Aug. 3 at 7 p.m. at Carnegie Hall. Tickets have already sold out for this presentation, but waitlist spots are available. Visit www.lewisburgliteraryfestival.com for more information.
Baldacci has been writing since childhood, and published his first novel, Absolute Power, in 1996. The feature film adaptation followed, with Clint Eastwood as its director and star. To date, David has published 50 novels for adults; all have been national and international bestsellers, and several have been adapted for film and television. His novels are published in over 45 languages and in more than 80 countries, with 150 million copies sold worldwide. David has also published seven novels for young readers. Born in Richmond, David received his Bachelor’s degree from Virginia Commonwealth University and his law degree from the University of Virginia School of Law, after which he practiced law in Washington, DC. In addition to being a prolific writer, David is a devoted philanthropist, and his greatest efforts are dedicated to his family’s Wish You Well Foundation®. Established by David and his wife, Michelle, the Wish You Well Foundation supports literacy programs in the United States.
Writing workshops for the 2024 Lewisburg Literary Festival are as follows:
- Memior with Diane Tarantini and Renee Nicholson, Aug. 2 at 5 p.m., Visitor’s Center. “Memoir” will lead this journey into writing about one’s past through the method of memoir. How do memoirs differ from autobiography? What are the common tools used in the process? How can using the techniques common to fiction benefit the telling of one’s own story?
- Some Assembly Required with Sherell Runnion Wigal, Aug. 3 at 9:30 a.m., Visitor’s Center. “Some Assembly Required” – In the words of Terry Tempest Williams, from her book, When Women Were Birds, “We all have our secrets. I hold mine. To withhold words is power. But to share our words with others, openly and honestly, is also power.” (Quote used with permission from Terry Tempest Williams.) Discussions will center around Tools of the Trade: 1) Word collection; 2) Reading poems; 3) Writing Poems; 4) Editing your poems; and 5) the hesitation of using poetic license in our own work (being true to the story verses being true to the poem). Through brief discussions and hand-outs, followed by timed, hand-on writing exercises, participants will begin to create their own poems and will be given the opportunity to share their drafts within the safety of this writing workshop. (Sherrell is also a member of the Porch Poets, who will be giving a reading on Friday, Aug. 2, at 6 p.m., also at the Greenbrier County Convention and Visitors’ Bureau.)
- Creating Cozy Mysteries with Heather Day Gilbert, Aug. 3 at 11 a.m., Visitor’s Center. Should you write cozy mysteries? In this session, we’ll discuss what cozies are and how to develop a series that will please this hungry readership. Heather will also discuss aspects of how she came to set one of her own cozy mystery series in Lewisburg itself.
Other Festival events include The Porch Poets on Aug. 2 at 6 p.m. at the Visitor’s Center. The four porch poets are friends Sherrell Wigal, Cheryl Denise, Susanna Connelly Holstein, and Kirk Judd. The Lewisburg Literary Festival will present a one hour reading by these four Porch Poets, featuring not only a few of the poems they wrote for their 2023 clapbook Porch Poems, but a sampling of some they have penned together since that book’s publication.
The complete schedule of events is as follows:
Friday, August 2:
- Workshop: Memior with Diane Tarantini and Renee Nicholson, 5 p.m., Visitor’s Center.
- Porch Poems reading: 6 p.m., Greenbrier County Visitor’s Center
- Ronni Lundy (SOLD OUT, waitlist available), 7:30 p.m., Lewis Theatre
Saturday, August 3:
- Workshop: Some Assembly Required with Sherrell Runnion Wigal, 9:30 a.m., Visitor’s Center
- Workshop: Creating Cozy Mysteries with Heather Day Gilbert, 11 a.m., Visitor’s Center
- Patrick Bringley, 1 p.m., Carnegie Hall
- Victoria Christopher Murray, 3 p.m., Carnegie Hall
- David Baldacci (SOLD OUT, waitlist available), 7 p.m., Carnegie Hall
