FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Marquee names Alan Cumming and Oliver Stone will bring Tinseltown shine to the Palm Beach Book Festival on March 12.
They will join a packed-into-one-day slate with two more authors at what will be the eighth annual edition, once again staged at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton.
“My theme this year is ‘Hollywood and History,’ ” explains Lois Cahall, the festival’s founder and creative director. “I asked Oliver at his house last July. I absolutely adored his book, ‘Chasing the Light.’ I couldn’t believe it didn’t get the attention it deserved because it came out right before the pandemic.”
And Cumming is a repeat performance. The actor — perhaps best known for TV’s “The Good Wife” and Broadway’s “Cabaret” — was one of the guests at the inaugural event.
“That was at the Norton Museum [of Art in West Palm Beach],” she recalls. “The lines were ... around the block. The Book Festival was born and I couldn’t bail on it.”
So with Cumming and Stone (screenwriter of ”Midnight Express,” “Scarface” and director of “Platoon,” “Wall Street”), Cahall has the Hollywood part of her theme covered.
For the history, she’s recruited Princeton professor Imani Perry to talk about her work “South to America,” which is highly touted by OprahDaily.com, as well as Garrett Graff, the writer of “Watergate: A New History.”
“I’m blessed with a golden Rolodex. I know book people,” adds Cahall, an author herself with two international bestsellers.
Each writer will have an onstage discussion with a moderator. There will be book signings after each session and books will be for sale both before and after each session.
Here is the schedule.
—10 a.m. — Imani Perry with moderator Leigh Haber, the editor of Oprah’s Book Club
—11:15 a.m. — Alan Cumming with moderator Joseph Papa, publicist and author
—12:15 p.m. — Lunch (optional with ham, turkey and veggie sandwiches available for preorder)
—1:15 p.m. — Garrett Graff with moderator Mark Thompson, former CEO of the New York Times and the BBC.
—2:30 p.m. — Oliver Stone with moderator Allan Loeb, a screenwriter who co-wrote “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps” with Stone.
Behind the scenes
“The day the festival ends, the next day I start planning the next one,” Cahall says.
She also adds that there are people supporting the festival that she doesn’t want to let down.
“James Patterson and I became very close,” she says, speaking of the writer/philanthropist behind the Alex Cross and Women’s Murder Club series. “He taught me the importance of literacy in children. So we would raise money from the adult festival and have a children’s festival. I think it was 2018, or sometime around there, we had our first children’s festival. 150 kids showed up. And then the next year we had 4,000 children. You can’t imagine what it’s like to have these children run up to and give you a hug and tell you why they loved the books.”
The festival is sponsored by the Batmasian Family Foundation and the Cultural Council of Palm Beach County.
“Marta Batmasian works from her heart. I can’t even drag her to a dinner party. She just wants to see literacy recognized in the community and see this partnership really work with FAU. And I really learned a lot from the FAU [dean of the College of Arts and Letters] Michael Horswell, whom I adore. Without them, nothing matters.”
If you go info
The Palm Beach Book Festival will be at the University Theatre at FAU, 777 Glades Road, Boca Raton.
Tickets are $25 for each author presentation; $20 for groups of 10 or more; 10 for faculty and free for students with registration.
There is a lunch option for an additional $15.
To order, call 561-297-6124 or go to FAUevents.com.
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