The Decatur Book Festival sent out this announcement this morning…

July 15, 2014 (Atlanta) — The 2014 Atlanta Journal-Constitution Decatur Book Festival Presented by DeKalb Medical (AJC DBF) will release the 2014 Keynote Address tickets for sale at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 5. Famed American literary icon Joyce Carol Oates will deliver the Keynote Address at 8 p.m. on Friday, Aug. 29 at Emory University’s Schwartz Center for Performing Arts (1700 N. Decatur Road, Suite 251).

Tickets for the Keynote Address are required, free, and limited to two per person. They can be collected by visiting the Schwartz Center for Performing Arts; by calling the Arts at Emory Box Office ); or by visiting www.Tickets.Arts.Emory.edu. Phone and online orders will incur a four dollar processing fee. A limited number of tickets are also available at A Cappella Books, Charis Books & More, Eagle Eye Books, and Little Shop of Stories.

At the Keynote Address, Joyce Carol Oates will launch her new short story collection, Lovely, Dark, Deep: Stories. The new collection has been described as “insightful, disturbing, and breathtaking in its lyrical precision,” and is said to display Oates’ “magnificent ability to make visceral the terror, hurt, and uncertainty that lurks at the edges of ordinary lives.”

Best known for her works of fiction, Oates’ novels include Blonde, a bold reimagining of the inner life of Marilyn Monroe, and We Were the Mulvaneys, which follows the disintegration of an American family in the late 20th Century. Since 1963, 40 of Oates’ works have been included in the New York Times annual list of notable books. Among her many honors are two O. Henry Prizes, two Bram Stoker Awards, the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in the Short Story, the Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award by the National Book Critics Circle, the Mailer Prize for Lifetime Achievement, the PEN Center USA Award for Lifetime Achievement, and The Poets & Writers Distinguished Lifetime Award. In 2010, reflecting the widespread esteem in which her work is held, she was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Barack Obama.

More information about the Keynote Address can be found here:

www.DecaturBookFestival.com/2014/activities/keynote.php.

Photo courtesy of Decatur Book Festival website

Breaking…

Decatur Book Festival Program Director Tom Bell just announced at the DBF launch party at Eddie’s Attic, that celebrated author, Jonathan Franzen, will give the keynote address at this year’s Decatur Book Festival over the Labor Day Weekend (9/3-9/5).

Franzen, who’s wildly successful third novel, “The Corrections” won the National Book Award in 2001, will release his fourth book, “Freedom”, on August 31st.

Franzen’s appearance at the Decatur Book Festival will be just his second public event after the release of “Freedom”.