Politics & Prose Returns as National Book Festival’s Official Bookseller

For the third consecutive year, Washington, D.C.’s iconic Politics & Prose Bookstore and Coffeehouse has been chosen as the official bookseller for the Library of Congress National Book Festival.

The 16th annual event, to be held from 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. on Saturday, September 24, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, will feature 120 authors, poets, and illustrators discussing and signing their books.

In 2014, Politics & Prose became the first independent bookstore to serve as the event’s official bookseller. The Library of Congress had previously worked with Borders and Barnes & Noble to sell titles by the festival’s authors, but each year since, Politics & Prose has submitted successful proposals.

“We had to submit a proposal again and compete — we don’t know with whom —but we understand we were not the only ones interested in being the bookseller this year,” said Bradley Graham, the co-owner of Politics & Prose with his wife, Lissa Muscatine. “What’s always thrilling for us is to see the number of families that come. Kids, parents, grandparents — they just flock to the festival; the crowds number tens of thousands of people each year. As many events and author talks as we do at other times of the year, it is really wonderful to be able to engage with many other customers we don’t normally see.”

The roster of 2016 festival authors includes many big names, a host of public figures, and assorted Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award winners. The authors of two recent hit novels — Colson Whitehead (The Underground Railroad, Doubleday) and Yaa Gyasi (Homegoing, Knopf) — will also be featured along with the likes of Joel Grey, Carl Hiaasen, Eileen Myles, Katherine Paterson, U.S. Representative John Lewis, Kristin Hannah, Ken Burns, and Jeffrey Toobin.

“The list goes on and on,” said Graham.

The authors will appear in more than a dozen different themed pavilions, and for the second consecutive year the festival will include an International Stage. Fiction and nonfiction writers from Italy, Latvia, Mexico, Morocco, Sweden, Spain, Uruguay, and other locales, will be highlighted on the stage, which will open with a special tribute to author Primo Levi, the Italian scientist and Auschwitz survivor who became a voice for human rights following World War II.

A new feature this year is the Main Stage pavilion, where festival goers can grab one of 2,500 seats to view some of the festival’s most popular authors, including Stephen King, Kareem Abdul-Jabar, Salman Rushdie, Raina Telgemeier, Shonda Rhimes, and Bob Woodward.

Politics & Prose is once again partnering with Ingram Content Group to handle logistics for the sales area, where festival goers will be able to buy new and backlist titles from all 120 authors and have them autographed in an area nearby.

“We’ve ordered more than 200 titles because we’re also providing backlist for a number of authors,” Graham said. “Ingram is always an essential part of this for us. They process the orders, gather up all of the books, store them in a warehouse, and then deliver them to the convention center a couple days before the festival. Then they help us put the books out on display and pack up at the end.”

The book sales area will again feature special wallpaper designed by the American Booksellers Association to promote indie bookstores. The walls will list the names of all ABA member stores and their respective cities and states.

“That is more than 2,000 member stores, so people who come to the festival from places outside of the Washington area, if they are interested, can look up their city and get the names of some of the bookstores in their area,” said Graham.

Graham is currently putting together a list of about 70 staff members who will operate the festival’s book sales area, which will include some 20 cash registers. Store staff will be assisted by staff from Ingram and ABA, as well as publisher reps and local volunteers.

ABA member stores will be receiving a copy of the festival’s official poster, illustrated by Yuko Shimizu, in the August Red Box mailing. A limited number of extra posters are available upon request to ABA Development Officer Mark Nichols.

More information about the National Book Festival can be found on the festival blog and the Library of Congress website, where the festival poster is also available for download as a PDF. Those interested in keeping track of festival news can follow the Twitter hashtag, #NatBookFest.