Authors from across Texas will be featured Saturday when the Boerne Book Festival goes double digits with its 10th year offering an opportunity to get up-close and personal with top writers and illustrators.
The Book Fest runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. with a full slate of activities and speakers’ panels in its second year on the Patrick Heath Public Library grounds, 451 N. Main St., after several years on Main Plaza.
Caren Creech, the library’s adult/young adult services assistant director, said guest authors are assembled in several panels, addressing a wide range of topics.
“We feel as if we have a really great lineup of authors again,” Creech said. “We’re going to have a special baseball panel featuring ‘Hill Country Ball’ by Richard Butler Jr. He used a lot of our library archives to do an article about Depression-era baseball in the Boerne area.”
She added, “He sent it off to Texas Tech (University) Press and they liked it enough to put it into print.” The book contains a foreword by Jeremy Affeldt, a 14-year Major League Baseball pitcher, a threetime World Champion with the San Francisco Giants, and the owner of Free Roam Brewing Co. in Boerne.
Joining Butler on the baseball panel, set for 3 p.m. in the library’s community room, will be Rick Brooks and Boerne Independent School District Athletic Director Stan Leech.
Author Tim Christ, who coached the 2024 Boerne Little League team to the Little League World Series semifinals, will join the panel remotely.
Renowned Western author Elmer Kelton would have turned 100 years old this year, and the Book Fest took the opportunity to form a panel, “Elmer Kelton Centennial,” featuring authors John Bradshaw, Kathyrn Jones and James Wade.
Moderated by James R. Dennis, the Kelton Centennial panel is set for 10 a.m. in the community room just inside the library’s front doors.
Creech said Mari Mancusi, who has just released her third book in a post-apocalyptic adventure series, is the Book Fest’s featured children’s author.
Creech said the books — “Dawn of the Dragons”; “New Dragon City”; and “War of the Wings” — were recently on the Texas Bluebonnet Award Reading List.
Mancusi will speak at 1 p.m. in the library community room.
The Writers League of Texas will host the “Obsessed with Texas” panel featuring authors Drew Buxton, Jess Cannon and Lucas Schaefer, at 2 p.m. in the community room.
Games and activities are on the library grounds. The various university press organizations and other vendors will be set up around the area, offering a full day of reading for those who like hardbacks.
A complete list of writers, panels and events can be found at Boernebookfest. com.
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