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TITLE: National Book Festival Gala 2005
SPEAKER: Linda Sue Park, Sue Monk Kidd, David McCullough, Tom Wolfe
EVENT DATE: 09/23/2005
RUNNING TIME: 63 minutes
DESCRIPTION:
Prior to the annual Library of Congress National Book Festival, the Library hosts a gala event featuring and honoring authors and storytellers who have come to Washington for the Festival. This year's gala included remarks from Librarian of Congress James Billington, First Lady Laura Bush and Laysha Ward of the Target Foundation.
The following authors read from their works: Linda Sue Park, author of "Bee-bim Bop!" and "Single Shared"; Sue Monk Kidd, author of "The Secret Life of Bees" and "The Mermaid Chair"; David McCullough, author of "John Adams" and "1776"; and Tom Wolfe, author of "The Bonfire of the Vanities" and "I Am Charlotte Simmons."
Speaker Biography: Linda Sue Park, the daughter of Korean immigrants, has been writing poems and stories since she was 4 years old. After earning degrees from universities in California and in Great Britain, Ms. Park worked as a food journalist and taught English as a Second Language until she realized that what she really wanted to do was write books for children. She is the recipient of the 2002 Newbery Medal for her third book, A Single Shard (Houghton Mifflin, 2001). Her most recent book is Bee-bim Bop! (Houghton Mifflin, 2005). She lives in New York.
Speaker Biography: Sue Monk Kidd experienced the desire to write at an early age, even writing a novel when she was 13. She is now the author of two widely acclaimed nonfiction books, The Dance of the Dissident Daughter (1996) and When the Heart Waits (1990). Her first published novel, the best-seller The Secret Life of Bees (Penguin, 2002), was nominated for the Orange Prize in England. She has won a Poets and Writers Award for the short story that began this novel. Two of her short stories, including an excerpt from The Secret Life of Bees, were selected as notable stories in Best American Short Stories. Her most recent novel is the best-seller The Mermaid Chair (Penguin, 2005). Ms. Kidd lives in South Carolina.
Speaker Biography: David McCullough is the award-winning biographer, historian, lecturer and narrator of some of television???s most distinguished historical series. His books have been praised for their exceptional narrative sweep, their scholarship and insight into American life, and for their literary distinction. His John Adams (Simon & Schuster, 2001) was on The New York Times best-seller list for more than a year. His most recent book, 1776 (Simon & Schuster, 2005) is following the same pattern. He is twice winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Biography, the National Book Award and the Francis Parkman Prize, and has been honored with the National Book Foundation Distinguished Contribution to American Letters Award and the National Humanities Medal. He lives in Massachusetts.
Speaker Biography: Tom Wolfe began his writing career as general assignment reporter in Springfield, Mass., followed by jobs with The Washington Post, and later the Herald Tribune in New York. He has written articles -- many of which became books -- for publications such as New York, Esquire, Harper's and Rolling Stone. His books, which have appeared on The New York Times best-seller list for extended periods of time, include "The Right Stuff" (1979), "The Bonfire of Vanities" (1987) and "I Am Charlotte Simmons" (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2004). He is the recipient of the American Book Award for nonfiction, the Columbia Journalism Award and the National Institute of Arts and Letters Harold Vursell Award. Wolfe lives in New York.
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SERIES: National Book Festival 2005