Tickets Now Available for Book Fest Keynote Address

Free tickets − limited to two per person— are available for U.S. Poet Laureate at the 2012 AJC Decatur Book Festival.

She will speak at 8 p.m. Friday, Aug. 31, at Emory University’s Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts.

This is her first public reading The address will launch her newest collection of poems, “Thrall.”

A Decatur resident, Trethewey is the first Southerner since Robert Penn Warren to be named Poet Laureate and the first local author to deliver the book festival's keynote remarks. She received the Pulitzer Prize in 2007 for her collection, "Native Guard."

Trethewey is the Charles Candler Professor of English and Creative Writing at Emory and incoming director of Emory's Creative Writing Program.

The event is free and open to the public, but tickets are required for admission and should be picked up in advance.

This year, Emory is a major sponsor of the weekend event, which is the largest community-based independent book festival in the country, offering lectures and book signings from more than 300 authors.

Tickets are available now at the following locations:

• Emory University’s Schwartz Center for the Performing Arts box office, 1700 N. Decatur Rd., Atlanta.

• , 2076 N. Decatur Rd., Decatur.

• , 515 N. McDonough St., Decatur.

• , 189 Euclid Avenue N.E., Atlanta.

-Kimber Williams contributed to this report