Frontlist | 2021 DSM Book Fest planning in-person & virtual programs

on Feb 10, 2021

One of the early annual entries on the Des Moines metro events calendar is set to return this spring after skipping a year because of the coronavirus pandemic: the DSM Book Festival.

The festival, which draws authors and publishers from around the country, was launched in 2019. The 2021 edition, produced by the Greater Des Moines Partnership, will be a hybrid version, with events such as sessions with authors, writing workshops and other learning activities both online and in-person.

It will be held from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on four consecutive Saturdays in March and April. Each Saturday, a top author will give a presentation at 3 p.m. as part of the Prairie Meadows Author Series. Scheduled are:

Tayari Jones, March 27. A New York Times best-seller, Jones' An American Marriage is the latest in the University of Iowa graduate's series of novels that explore aspects of the Black experience in the South. Her appearance also will be part of the Des Moines Public Library's Authors Visiting in Des Moines lecture series.

Chuck Klosterman, April 3. Minnesota-born, North Dakota-raised Klosterman is a quirky pop culture maven and author of But What If We're Wrong? Thinking About the Present As If It Were the Past.

Lara Prescott, April 10. Prescott's 2016 debut book, The Secrets We Keep, was an instant best-seller.

Taylor Jenkins Reid, April 17. With seven books in eight years, Reid hit her stride with 2017's The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo and 2019's Daisy Jones & The Six. She is continuing her prolific ways with an eighth novel, the soon-to-publish Malibu Rising.

Source: Des Moines Register