In 2023, the New Orleans Book Festival at Tulane University made a name for itself. Bill Gates served as a keynote speaker, first lady Jill Biden made a surprise visit and 12,000 people — double the attendance of its inaugural year — came to the campus for three days of discussions about books and ideas.
It’s a high bar to top. But if last year demonstrated the New Orleans festival’s ability to attract star power, 2024 aims to be the year that cements BookFest as an event that the nation’s literary and intellectual elites will be sure to circle in red on their calendars.
Organizers say the goal is less about attracting large crowds and celebrities— though there will be plenty of both during the three-day festival, which kicks off Thursday — and more about creating a first-rate event of A-list authors that gets thought leaders around the country talking about books, ideas, creativity and culture.
“It’s not about getting bigger,” said festival co-chair Cheryl Landrieu. “It’s about trying to make each event impactful, insightful and excellent.”
To that end, this year’s festival has a distinct literary focus and, for the first time, a national media partner — The Atlantic magazine, one of the nation’s most respected and influential publications. The Atlantic Editor-in-Chief Jeffrey Goldberg will open BookFest with a discussion of the magazine’s updated and much-anticipated list of the most important American novels of the past century.
This year’s festival has also added more authors and panel discussions to the schedule, as well as more seating in the venues across the Tulane campus that will host the event. Crowds are expected to meet or exceed 2023 numbers.
And in another new development, BookFest has aligned its schedule to coincide with that of New Orleans Entrepreneur Week, which will hold its finale — the 3rd Coast Venture Summit — on the Tulane campus on Thursday evening, just as BookFest is getting underway. It’s a way to test the waters for a potential partnership between the events in the future that could broaden the appeal of each.
“I think it’s a way to make it a broader festival that has books and creativity and entrepreneurship,” said Walter Isaacson, who co-founded and co-chairs the event with Landrieu. “We already have some crossover with NOEW. Some day we might have multiple events going on across the city at the same time.”
Merging ambitions
The New Orleans Book Festival at Tulane grew out of Landrieu’s New Orleans Children’s Book Festival, which debuted in 2010 and grew over the next decade. The inaugural BookFest was supposed to launch in 2020 but was postponed twice because of COVID. Its kickoff in 2022 exceeded expectations, attracting 6,000 attendees.
The rapid growth and success of the event is a testament to Landrieu’s and Isaacson’s perseverance and passion, according to Goldberg, who said The Atlantic’s decision to sign on as a national media partner was a no-brainer.
“I’m involved with a lot of these things and when you look at the list of authors coming, it is amazing to think in three years this has become one of the nation’s premier book festivals,” he said.
Goldberg credits Landrieu with making the ask last summer at the Aspen Ideas Festival — the annual gathering of thinkers, business leaders and Washington heavyweights — sponsored by the Aspen Institute, which Isaacson headed as President and CEO from 2003-2018. Cheryl and Mitch Landrieu are regulars at the event, as is Goldberg, who said, “It’s always best to do what Cheryl Landrieu tells you to do.”
The timing was fortuitous for the magazine, which has enhanced its focus on fiction in recent years and was in the early stages of working on a project to update its list of the most influential works of American fiction of the past 100 years.
“It’s a great way of merging our ambitions with the festival’s,” he said.
Goldberg will open the festival with Isaacson in a panel discussion about the great novels of the past century, that will also feature Atlantic editors Ellen Cushing, Jane Kim and staff writers, authors and reporters Clint Smith and Jemele Hill.
A second session will follow with a conversation between novelists Jesmyn Ward and Hill.
“The Atlantic is the most influential magazine in the country today,” said Isaacson. “That makes them a wonderful partner.”
Mardi Gras for the mind
Over the two days that follow, the program will be rich and varied. Best-selling authors on the schedule include Stacey Abrams, Kwame Alexander, Douglas Brinkley, Ken Burns, Maureen Dowd, Maggie Haberman, Sal Khan, Michael Lewis and Imam Perry.
It’s not all politics and other serious stuff, of course. Friday will feature a lunchtime culinary symposium by a group of New Orleans’ chefs, including Meg Bickford, Edgar “Dook” Chase IV, Ashley Hansen and E.J. Lagasse, and moderated by Kevin Belton.
In the afternoon, the festival will host its first session in Spanish in collaboration with the Stone Center for Latin American Studies at Tulane. The conversation will feature authors Yuri Herrera and Gabriela Alemán discussing Latin Americans in New Orleans in the 19th and 20th Centuries.
Saturday morning is Family Day and will feature children’s and family programming with 18 local and national authors, a special screening of a new puppet musical and a free book giveaway.
Irma Thomas closes the event Saturday afternoon with a concert on the Berger Family Lawn on the Tulane campus.
“We call this ‘Mardi Gras for the mind’ because it is a book fest and a spectacular book fest, but it has a New Orleans flair and flavor that is distinctive and different,” said Tulane President Michael Fitts. “I love that about it.”
Tulane is preparing for crowds, though festival organizers say there’s no way to predict how attendance might compare to last year. The university is making better use of its largest venues — McAllister Auditorium and Dixon Hall — than it did last year in order to alleviate some of the standing-room-only crowds. Because the festival is free and does not require attendees to buy a ticket, it’s hard to plan.
“Our decision to keep it free and open to the public is not one a lot of other festivals use for good reason,” Landrieu said. “We chose to go down that because we want it to be accessible. We want this to be for the New Orleans community and for students and for people who might not otherwise be able to attend.”
The festival is underwritten by sponsors, who contribute anywhere from $1,000 to more than $100,000. In return, they receive perks that range from passes for reserved seating at the presentations and panel discussions to naming rights for tents and stages and access to patron parties, author events and an opening night reception.
Future plans?
Some of this year’s attendees are expected to come from NOEW, which will be wrapping up two days of seminars and discussions about entrepreneurship and the start-up culture with a Venture Summit pitch competition.
The two festivals agreed to align their schedules this year as a way to explore opportunities for cross-promotion. Though there’s no official partnership or financial arrangement between them, the idea is to bring together people who are focused on culture, innovation, and creativity of all kinds.
One day that could result in a BookFest that has evolved into part of a bigger event with the scale of a SXSW or an Aspen Ideas Fest. For now, Landrieu said, that’s not the focus.
“We plan to continue to grow,” she said. “We just haven’t identified in what direction but we think there is a lot of promise.”