Description
The Miami Book Fair (MBF) is celebrating its 35 th Anniversary this year. The inaugural Fair began as a two-day event in November of 1984, founded by a small group of dedicated community members including educators, independent booksellers, and librarians.
MBF is now an eight-day festival featuring more than 500 author presentations, 200,000 attendees, 200 plus exhibitors, and approximately 600 individual events supported by 1,200+ community volunteers. The Miami Book Fair is widely recognized as a forerunner and a model, setting the standard for book events around the world. Delegations from other cities travel to Miami to study the Fair for future emulation. Book Fair leadership has provided information and assistance to book fair organizations from Denver, Nashville, Los Angeles, Seattle, San Francisco, San Antonio, Dallas, Baltimore, Cincinnati, Kansas City, Boston, Brooklyn, Edinburgh, and Prague.
Hundreds of authors participate each year in the Miami Book Fair, ranging from Nobel Prize and Pulitzer Prize winners, biographers and journalists, to novelists and poets. Past attendees have included: Isabel Allende, Maya Angelou, Dave Barry, Stephen King, Amy Tan, Toni Morrison, Ray Bradbury, Elie Wiesel, Barack Obama, Toni Morrison, Madeleine Albright, David Brooks, Esmeralda Santiago, Jonathan Safran Foer, Art Spiegelman, Garrison Keillor, Al Franken, Frank McCourt, Jorge Edwards, Mario Vargas Llosa, Nikki Giovanni, Gore Vidal, Salman Rushdie, Pat Conroy and many more.
