Books in Bloom Festival Set for Saturday, May 11 at Color Burst Park

Award-winning novelist Julie Otsuka, author of “When the Emperor was Divine,” The Buddha in the Attic” and, most recently, “The Swimmers,” is a featured attraction at the 8th annual Books in Bloom festival on Saturday, May 11, 11:30 a.m.-5 p.m., Color Burst Park, Merriweather District, in Downtown Columbia.

The multigenerational, multicultural event, presented by Downtown Columbia Partnership and Howard Hughes Holdings, is free and open to the public.

Otsuka’s early work featured the incarceration of a Japanese-American family during World War II, followed by the story of Japanese ‘picture brides’ who came to America in the early 1900s to marry men they had never met and knew only by their photographs. Her most recent novel is about a group of swimmers and what happens to them when a crack appears at the bottom of their local pool.

During her program at Books in Bloom, Otsuka will be interviewed by popular literature professor George Clack who teaches at Howard Community College and Johns Hopkins/Osher program.

In addition to Otsuka, other Books in Bloom attractions include book club favorite Helen Simonson, linguist and author Amanda Montell, playwright and essayist R. Eric Thomas, journalist and memoirist Natasha S. Alford, wunderkind scientist and innovator Gitanjali Rao, middle grade novelist Emily Barth Isler, and children’s book author Sue Fliess.

See the entire schedule and other activities here, including a poetry reading to celebrate the Howard County Poetry and Literature Society’s (HoCoPoLitSo) 50th anniversary.