Carmel Authors and Ideas Festival
The Carmel Authors and Ideas Festival takes place the last weekend of September in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. Held annually since 2007, it attracts many of the world's top authors and thinkers, including Pulitzer Prize winners. Presenters have included Frank McCourt, Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, Greg Mortenson, Khaled Hosseini, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Elizabeth Edwards, Seymour Hersh, Michael Pollan, Douglas Brinkley, Elizabeth Gilbert, Carl Hiaasen, and P. J. O'Rourke.
The three-day event combines main stage presentations, smaller breakout sessions, and a social atmosphere that encourages attendees to have one-on-one conversations with presenters. Founders Cynthia and James McGillen were inspired to create the event after attending the Sun Valley Writers' Conference, according to Publishers Weekly magazine.
Scheduled 2010 speakers include former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and New York Times columnist David Brooks.
Carmel Authors and Ideas Festival Speakers
Some of the speakers who have presented at the festival to date:
In alphabetical order
- Trip Adler, founder and CEO of Scribd
- Tamim Ansary, author of West of Kabul, East of New York, The Other Side of the Sky: A Memoir, Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes, The Widow's Husband
- Reza Aslan, author of No God but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam
- Ann Louise Bardach, journalist, author of Without Fidel
- Cara Black, mystery writer best known for her Aimée Léduc mystery novels set in Paris
- Douglas Brinkley, historian, editor of The Reagan Diaries
- Frances Dinkelspiel, author of Towers of Gold: How One Jewish Immigrant Named Isaias Hellman Created California
- Elizabeth Edwards, author of Saving Graces: Finding Solace and Strength from Friends and Strangers
- Doris Kearns Goodwin, Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer and historian, author of biographies of several U.S. Presidents, including Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream; The Fitzgeralds and the Kennedys: An American Saga; No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt; Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln.
- John Grogan, author of Marley & Me
- Carl Hiaasen, journalist, columnist and novelist
- Seymour Hersh, Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist, regular contributor to The New Yorker magazine
- Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner, A Thousand Splendid Suns
- Fred Luskin, author of Forgive to Love
- Shana Mahaffey, author of Sounds Like Crazy
- Irshad Manji, author of The Trouble with Islam Today
- Frank McCourt, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Angela's Ashes
- Greg Mortenson, activist, Nobel Peace Prize finalist, and author of Three Cups of Tea
- Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor
- P. J. O'Rourke, journalist, author, satirist, regular correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, The American Spectator, and The Weekly Standard, and frequent panelist on National Public Radio's game show Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!
- Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma
- Frank Portman, author of King Dork
- Michael Pritchard
- Joe Quirk, author of The Ultimate Rush, It's Not You, It's Biology, Exult
- Kemble Scott, (novelist pen name of Scott James, columnist for The New York Times) author of SoMa, The Sower
- Robert Scheer, syndicated columnist
- Julia Flynn Siler, author of The House of Mondavi: The Rise and Fall of an American Wine Dynasty
- Abraham Verghese, author of Cutting for Stone
- Jan Yanehiro, co-author of This Is Not the Life I Ordered
- Jeffrey Zaslow, co-author of The Last Lecture
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