For the Love of the Book

“Where Words and Imagination Come to Life” is the theme of the 10th annual Tucson Festival of Books, which will be held Saturday and Sunday, March 10-11, 2018, at the University of Arizona.

The event attracts more than 135,000 attendees each year and has has quickly grown into one of the nation’s most important and well-attended book fairs.

The University Mall is transformed into a vast fairground of vendor booths, entertainment tents, bookstores and author-signing areas, while the festival’s well-organized volunteers manage hundreds of publisher and author sessions for the public. Many of the sessions are free to the public, but the most popular author events are ticketed-only seminars and sell out quickly.

True West’s very own Bob Boze Bell, Leo W. Banks, Johnny D. Boggs, Candy Moulton and Stuart Rosebrook will be at the festival and eager to meet fans of the magazine.

Western writers who have committed to attending at press time include:  Shannon Blake, Julia Bricklin, H. Alan Day, Kirk Ellis, Chris Enss, Jim Fergus, William Groneman, Melody Groves, Ron Hansen, Mike Hayes, Doug Hocking, Mark C. Jackson, J.A. Jance, Craig Johnson, William Krueger, Gregory MacNamee, Keith McCaffery, Bill Markley, Rod Miller, Phil Mills, Jr., Nancy Plain,  Lynn Wiese Sneyd, Rod Timinus, Lowell F. Volk, Michael Wallis and Betty Webb. Western book publishers attending include Rio Nuevo Press, University of Arizona Press and the University of New Mexico Press.

True West’s Executive Editor Bell will also be meeting fans and signing his new book, The Illustrated Life and Times of Wild Bill Hickok, both days at the WWA-True West booth.

At 10 a.m. on Sunday, March 11, Stuart Rosebrook will be moderating the Tucson Book Festival Panel “Mommas, Sons & Cowboys,” with Bell, H. Alan Day and Rod Miller. A book-signing in the author’s pavilion  will follow the panel discussion.

—Stuart Rosebrook