From November 13-20, the Miami Book Fair will feature panel discussions, readings, and conversations from Florida authors who’ve devoted their lives to crafting uniquely Floridian stories. From chronicles of the plight facing Florida’s manatees to a deep dive into the aftermath of gun violence in Miami, Florida’s top authors are highlighting their state’s issues at this year’s fair.
Nadege Green
Miami researcher, writer, and archivist Nadege Green has devoted her professional life to telling stories about the lived experience of Black people in South Florida. For her recent anthology, More Than What Happened: the Aftermath of Gun Violence in Miami, Green utilizes history and first-person narrative to demonstrate the resilience and love that perseveres after people’s lives become irrevocably changed by gun violence. During the fair, Green will moderate a panel of other contributors to the anthology, as well as moderate a conversation between Mondiant Dogon, a Bagogwe Tutsi whose family escaped the Rwandan genocide, and Andrea Elliott, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist.
More Than What Happened: the Aftermath of Gun Violence in Miami Panel Discussion. 12:30 p.m. Saturday, November 19, at 300 NE Second Ave., Miami (Building 8, Third Floor, Room 8301).
In Conversation: on Those We Throw Away Are Diamonds: a Refugee’s Search for Home & Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City. 1 p.m. Sunday, November 21, at 300 NE Second Ave., Miami (Building 3, Second Floor, Room 3209). Admission is free with RSVP.
Kathie Klarreich
After a quarter of a century working as a journalist for NPR, ABC, and the New York Times, Kathie Klarreich founded Exchange for Change, a Miami-based nonprofit that facilitates writing workshops in correctional systems. Don’t Shake the Spoon: a Journal of Prison Writing is a literary journal containing the essays, poems, and stories of Florida’s incarcerated individuals, gathered through Exchange for Change programming. Klarreich will discuss her latest publication in a panel including Eyone Williams, an author and violence-prevention specialist who served 17 years in prison during his young adulthood and Darren Tinker, an Exchange for Change program participant who served more than three years in Florida state prisons for a crime he didn’t commit.
Kathie Klarreich on Don’t Shake the Spoon: A Journal of Prison Writing. 11:30 a.m. Saturday, November 21, at 300 NE Second Ave., Miami (Building 8, Third Floor, 8301).
Craig Pittman
In Manatee Insanity: Inside the War Over Florida’s Most Famous Endangered Species, bestselling author and journalist Craig Pittman takes a deep dive into the history of Florida’s efforts to legally protect manatees. This work continues Pittman’s efforts to share the stories of Florida’s most unique wildlife and people with both humor and heart, which he’s achieved for the past three decades for outlets like the Tampa Bay Times and the Florida Phoenix. During the fair, Pittman will share stories from his time reporting on the Floridian environmental beat in conversation with two other Floridian authors: Clay Henderson and Anne McCrary Sullivan.
Craig Pittman, Clay Henderson, and Anne McCrary Sullivan: A Conversation. 2 p.m. Saturday, November 19, at Magic Screening Room, 300 NE Second Ave., Miami (Building 8, First Floor).
Vanessa Garcia
She’s written for Sesame Street, her plays have been produced globally, and now she’s created a children’s picture book. Vanessa Garcia’s What the Bread Says: Baking with Love, History, and Papan tells the story of a girl and her grandfather who embark on a baking adventure that takes them from Spain to France to Cuba and teaches them the power of roots, family, and love. Garcia will appear in…