Stellar Line-Up of Authors to Appear at the 2020 Nantucket Book Festival

Nantucket, MA — The Nantucket Book Festival celebrates its ninth annual event June 18-21 with an outstanding line-up of award-winning authors as well as local and regional talent.

Diane Rehm, host of “The Diane Rehm Show” on NPR from 1979-2016, now hosts the podcast On My Mind for WAMU. Her most recent book is When My Time Comes: Conversations About Whether Those Who Are Dying Should Have the Right to Determine When Life Should End.

Ocean Vuong is the author of the critically acclaimed poetry collection Night Sky with Exit Wounds and the New York Times bestselling novel On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous. A recipient of the 2019 MacArthur "Genius" Grant, he is also the winner of the Whiting Award and the T.S. Eliot Prize. His writings have been featured in The Atlantic, Harper's Magazine, The Nation, The New Republic, The New Yorker, and The New York Times.

These authors and more will take center stage at the 2020 Nantucket Book Festival on June 18-21, representing genres spanning fiction, poetry, history, journalism, politics, and memoir. This year the Festival will host 14 New York Times Bestselling Authors, three Pulitzer Prize Winners, two National Book Award Winners, two New England Book Award Winners, two Whiting Award Recipients, a "Read with Jenna" Author, an "Oprah Book Club" Author, a PEN/Faulkner Award Winner, an Indie Champion Award, a National Humanities Medal and Personal Peabody Award, a Winner of the T. S. Eliot Prize and 2019 MacArthur "Genius" Grant, a Thom Gunn Award Winner, and a Forward Prize for Best First Collection. The Festival, presented by the Nantucket Book Foundation, brings acclaimed authors from around the world to Nantucket each June; this year those authors include Sarah Broom, Samantha Power, David Rohde, Richard Russo, and Alice Hoffman, as well as local favorites Rob Cocuzzo, Nat Philbrick, Nancy Thayer, Crocker Snow, Skip Finley, and Betsy Tyler.

Book lovers attending the Nantucket Book Festival can enjoy author presentations throughout the day Thursday through Sunday, including a Celebration of Writers at the historic Unitarian Universalist Meeting House. Most events are free and open to the public. Ticketed events include breakfasts and lunches with select authors, Friday dinner at the host hotel White Elephant, and a festive gathering at Cisco Brewers for the authors and their fans.

The Festival is pleased to spotlight the talents of local authors in the Atheneum Garden Tent during the weekend. Also featured in the garden are story times for children.

A list of authors currently scheduled to appear at the 2020 Nantucket Book Festival is available at www.nantucketbookfestival.org.