What To Expect at the Miami Book Fair
Here's the scoop on this year's Miami Book Fair: first-time authors, celebrity appearances, page-turning events and growing literary programs.
The longest-running literary festival in the United States is back for its 42nd year, bringing a swath of novels and all things bookish to downtown Miami. This month, the Miami Book Fair welcomes more than 500 authors and around 200,000 attendees to Miami Dade College, where conversations with writers, book signings, lectures by poet laureates, street book fairs, musical performances and much more unfold over the course of eight days.
“It’s just a big festival, and at the heart are the writers and the authors and the conversations that can only happen here when all of that comes together,” says Lissette Mendez, the executive director of the Miami Book Fair since 2023. Among many notable authors attending the event, such as Carl Hiaasen, Daniel Silva, Karen Russell and even country music star Kenny Chesney, Mendez directs Florida readers to two up-and-coming local writers.
Asha Elias, who recently published her second novel “Pink Glass Houses,” is a Miami Beach-based author known for her Hiaasen-like wit, projecting the 305 through a comedic and at times sarcastic lens, as she did in her debut novel, “The Namaste Club.” Both of her works cover the relatable and mundane of Miami life, the health and wellness scene in “The Namaste Club” and PTA nightmares in “Pink Glass Houses.” “She gently, or maybe not so gently, (pokes) fun at certain conventions of living in the state of Florida, or the South Florida area in particular,” Mendez says.
First-time author Anick Vorbe should also be on every Floridian’s radar, according to Mendez. Vorbe’s memoir, “My Drumbeats,” chronicles her experience as someone from an immigrant family and using the wellness sphere to process grief and overcome life’s challenges. While Elias is a bit cheekier, Vorbe takes similar topics seriously and from an enlightening perspective. “They’re both tackling the same subject matter,” Mendez says. “In Miami, there’s a lot of performative alternative health, but there’s a lot to be gained by taking some of it seriously and finding the right path.”
These two books are an accurate reflection of the diversity, in perspectives and genres, that’s shown across the Miami Book Fair. There are books sold and topics discussed about politics and history, and there’s also appearances from author and columnist Dave Barry, known for his humorous takes. Due to public requests, the Fair’s amount of romance and romantasy novels have increased, and beloved programs are back and bigger, like ReadingEast, which highlights Middle Eastern and South Asian authors and experiences and includes several lectures and panels. A new addition to the Fair is the Jewish Life & Culture program, which shares the stage to more than 20 speakers and offers more novels from Jewish perspectives than ever before.
Mendez’s tip for navigating the eight-day fest without getting overwhelmed? Reading the fairgoer’s guide, which includes a map, program breakdown, list of events and author bios. If you only have one day to visit the literary festival, Mendez recommends the opening day—which she says is all eight days packed into one high-energy, jam-packed block party with live music and food vendors from Smorgasburg Miami.
To Mendez, the Miami Book Fair is about combining different mediums and elevating artists in the community. “Our mission is to elevate different types of artistic output,” she says, “or to create an atmosphere that’s culturally rich enough (to engage) different types of people, with different kinds of interests and at different times of the day.”
The Miami Book Fair takes place Nov. 16–23. For more information, visit miamibookfair.com.
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About the Author
As a born-and-raised Floridian, Emilee loves to write, read and talk about the Sunshine State. She graduated from Florida State University with a degree in editing, writing and media. Now, Emilee uses her skills to edit our print issues and online content, as well as write our weekly e-newsletter, Fresh Squeezed.
