Texas Book Festival announces 2024 Texas Writer Award winner

AUSTIN (KXAN)- The Texas Book Festival announced Tuesday that Naomi Shihab Nye, a Palestinian-American poet, editor, and educator, is the 2024 recipient of the Texas Writer Award, according to a news release from the Texas Book Festival.

The Texas Book Festival (TBF) is an annual literary event celebrating books and authors from a wide range of genres. Each year, TBF presents the prestigious Texas Writer Award to a writer from the Lone Star State who has profoundly impacted Texas literature, the release said.

Nye, a resident of San Antonio, is known for her diverse body of work which varies from poetry, fiction and children’s literature. Her celebrated books include: “Everything Comes Next,” “The Tiny Journalist,” “Voices in the Air,” “Sitti’s Secrets,” “Habibi,” “This Same Sky,” “The Tree is Older than You Are: Poems and Paintings from Mexico,” “19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East,” “The Turtle of Oman” and “The Turtle of Michigan,” according to TBF.

Nye will be honored with a pair of custom handmade boots from El Paso-based bootmaker Rocketbuster during a ceremony at the festival this weekend, the release said. She will also be at sessions for her two 2024 releases: “ I Know About a Thousand Things: The Writings of Ann Alejandro of Uvalde, Texas ” (edited by Naomi Shihab Nye and Marion Winik) and “ Grace Notes ,” her poetry collection for young adults, according to TBF.

Nye boasts various other literary achievements including Lifetime Achievement Awards from the Texas Institute of Letters, the National Book Critics Circle and the Arab American Museum. Nye also served as the Young People’s Poet Laureate for the U.S. Poetry Foundation and was the poetry editor for The New York Times magazine and The Texas Observer and is currently a writer-in-residence for Texas State University.

This year’s festival begins at 10 a.m., Nov. 16, and 11 a.m., Nov. 17, in and around the State Capitol. Admission is free with the exception of two ticketed programs for headlining authors Matthew McConaughey and Malcolm Gladwell, according to TBF.

Festival goers can participate in author readings, panel discussions and signings as part of the weekend’s events. There will be exhibitor booths, food vendors, and an array of family activities. Public transportation is strongly encouraged, the release said.

For more information about the Texas Book Festival, including Nye and the 2024 author lineup, visit www.texasbookfestival.org .

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