New Orleans book festival canceled by COVID on for October

NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A New Orleans book festival debut that was canceled by the COVID-19 pandemic has been rescheduled for October.

And most of the authors scheduled for March 2020 will be there, Walter Isaacson, co-chair of the New Orleans Book Festival at Tulane University, told The Times-Picayune / The New Orleans Advocate.

They include journalist Malcolm Gladwell, legal mystery novelist John Grisham and humorist Roy Blount, Jr. They also include Isaacson, a history and ethics professor at Tulane. His most recent book, “The Code Breaker: Jennifer Doudna, Gene Editing, and the Future of the Human Race,” was a New York Times nonfiction No. 1 best-seller when it was released in March.

The festival had scheduled more than 80 authors and was planning for 30,000 attendees when it was canceled weeks before its original date.

Officials say more than 100 national, regional and local writers will participate Oct. 21-23 in the festival, which will include panel discussions, workshops and book fairs.

The festival at Tulane is an expansion of a free event that started in 2010 and was held at other venues. The expanded festival also is free, but tickets will be required for some events.