West Virginia Book Festival Announces Featured Authors for 2024

The 2024 West Virginia Book Festival will be held at the Charleston Coliseum and Convention Center on Saturday, October 19. It will feature presentations from bestselling national authors, local and regional authors, writing workshops, family activities, a literary marketplace, and the annual Used Book Sale. All events and programs are free and open to the public.

This year’s featured speakers will be New York Times bestselling author Gregg Hurwitz, novelist Sadeqa Johnson, cartoonist and graphic novelist Gene Luen Yang, author of historical fiction Joy Callaway, and award-winning writer Mia Manansala.

Gregg Hurwitz is the New York Times #1 bestselling author of 24 thrillers including the Orphan X series. Critically acclaimed, his novels have been international bestsellers, graced top ten lists, and have been published in thirty-two languages. Additionally, he’s sold scripts to many of the major studios, and written, developed, and produced television for various networks. He’s also written comics for AWA, DC, and Marvel. Hurwitz lives in Los Angeles.

Sadeqa Johnson is a New York Times bestselling author of five novels. Her most recent novel, The House of Eve, was an instant New York Times Best Seller, Target book club pick, Reese’s Book Club selection and nominated for a NAACP Image Award. Her previous novel, Yellow Wife, was named by Oprah Magazine as “27 of 2021 Most Anticipated Winter Historical Fiction books.” Sadeqa’s novels have received starred reviews from Kirkus and Library Journal and have been featured in top reads lists by Good Housekeeping, Christian Science Monitor, Reader’s Digest and many others.

Gene Luen Yang writes, and sometimes draws, comic books and graphic novels. He was named a National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature by the Library of Congress in 2016, and advocates for the importance of reading, especially reading diversely. His graphic novel American Born Chinese, a National Book Award finalist and Printz Award winner, has been adapted into an original series on Disney+. His two-volume graphic novel Boxers & Saints won the LA Times Book Prize and was a National Book Award Finalist. His nonfiction graphic novel, Dragon Hoops, received an Eisner award.

Joy Callaway is an international bestselling author of six works of historical fiction, including The Grand Design, set at The Greenbrier in 1908 and 1946, and the recently released, What The Mountains Remember, set during the building of Grove Park Inn in 1913. Her work has been translated into several languages and featured in The Wall Street Journal, Country Living, Travel + Leisure, Town & Country, West Virginia Living, and others. She holds a B.A. in Public Relations from Marshall University and an M.M.C in Mass Communication from the University of South Carolina.

Mia Manansala is a writer and book coach from Chicago who loves books, baking, and bad-ass women. She uses humor (and murder) to explore aspects of the Filipino diaspora, queerness, and her millennial love for pop culture. She is the winner of the 2022 Anthony Award for Best First Novel, 2022 Macavity Award for Best First Novel, 2022 RUSA Reading List for Mystery, 2021 Agatha Award for Best First Novel, and the 2018 Hugh Holton Award.

Preceding the Book Festival on Thursday, October 17, the West Virginia Humanities Council will present the 41st annual McCreight Lecture in the Humanities. As part of its year-long celebration of fifty years serving West Virginians through the humanities, the Council is proud to announce novelist and poet Percival Everett as this year’s McCreight speaker. Everett is the author of more than thirty books of fiction and poetry. He is a Pulitzer Prize finalist—among many other awards—and his novel Erasure was recently adapted into the Oscar-winning film American Fiction. His latest novel, James, is a reimagining of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of Huck’s enslaved friend Jim.

The West Virginia Book Festival is made possible by its charter presenters, The Kanawha County Public Library, The Library Foundation of Kanawha County, Inc., The West Virginia Humanities Council and The Charleston Gazette-Mail. Sponsors for this year’s festival include West Virginia Public Broadcasting, The West Virginia Library Commission, The West Virginia Center for the Book, The Marshall University Foundation, The Friends of The Library, Truist West Virginia Foundation, H.B. Wehrle Foundation, and the Nelle Ratrie Chilton Charitable Trust.

For more information visit www.wvbookfestival.org.