15th Vegas Valley Book Festival celebrates written word

Think of it as Burning Man for lovers of words and ideas, complete with witches, rock-solid Western sheriffs and TV characters your kids will recognize in an instant.

It’s the 15th edition of the Vegas Valley Book Festival, which runs Friday and Saturday in downtown Las Vegas and will include a daylong series of workshops, book signings, panel discussions, question-and-answer sessions, author meet-and-greets and activities for kids. Most events take place at the Historic Fifth Street School, 401 S. Fourth St.

All events are free and open to the public.

Scheduled speakers Saturday include Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and biographer Stacy Schiff, whose latest work examines the Salem witch trials, and Craig Johnson, author of the popular mystery series featuring Wyoming sheriff Walt Longmire, which also has been adapted into a popular TV series.

New to the event this year is Vegas Valley Book Festival After Dark! At 7 p.m. Friday, After Dark will feature an evening of poetry with Joanne Kyger, Claudia Keelan, Erica Vital-Lazare and Hanna Andrews at The Writer’s Block, 1020 Fremont St.

On Saturday, After Dark will continue with “reading and conversation” sessions at the Inspire Theater, 107 Las Vegas Blvd. South, featuring essayist and novelist Geoff Dyer, author of “White Sands: Experiences From the Outside World” at 5:30 p.m.; Adam Johnson, who won a 2013 Pulitzer Prize for his novel, “The Orphan Master’s Son,”’ at 6:30 p.m.; and Katherine Boo, an investigative journalist, author of “Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity” and winner of a 2000 Pulitzer Prize for a Washington Post series about group homes for the intellectually disabled, at 7:30 p.m.

Danielle Milam, co-chair of the festival’s steering committee, says the inaugural After Dark events are meant to extend the life of the afternoon festival and take on a more adult tone during the evening at the Inspire Theater.

About 3,500 guests attended last year’s festival, Milam says, “and this year we hope to hit 4,000 or 5,000, maybe more (including) the school visits.”

For children, the event features music, crafts, appearances by favorite book characters such as Clifford the Big Red Dog and authors such as Megan McDonald (“Judy Moody,” “Stink” and “Sisters Club” series).

The festival also offers a variety of workshops for aspiring authors, such as “Why Crime Fiction: The Dark Pleasures, Risks, and Rewards of Writing in this Genre.”

Milam adds that this year’s event also will feature more vendors and exhibitors than any festival before in the main festival area in and around the Historic Fifth Street School.

The festival is a partnership of the city of Las Vegas, Las Vegas-Clark County Library District and Foundation, Nevada Humanities, the Black Mountain Institute at UNLV, the Review-Journal, El Tiempo, Vegas PBS and the Las Vegas Chapter of AIGA.

Read more from John Przybys at reviewjournal.com. Contact him at jprzybys@reviewjournal.com and follow @JJPrzybys on Twitter