This is a guest post by Literary Initiatives intern Jacob Sharp.
The Library of Congress National Book Festival will celebrate its 25th year on September 6, 2025. For this year’s festival information, visit the 2025 National Book Festival website.
To honor the occasion, we are taking the 24 weeks leading up to this year’s festival at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center to highlight two videos each week from past National Book Festivals, from the festival’s first year in 2001 to 2024. Each week, we’ll highlight a past festival year with a video from an adult writer and one from a children’s writer. We hope you enjoy scrolling through the past with us! Check out videos from the first 2001 festival here.
Alice McDermott is the author of eight novels, including “Charming Billy,” which was the winner of the National Book Award and the American Book Award; “That Night,” a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award and the Pulitzer Prize; and “The Ninth Hour,” named one of the top 10 novels of 2017 by The Wall Street Journal and Time magazine. Her latest book is “Absolution,” a historical novel that centers women’s lives during the Vietnam War. Throughout her career, McDermott has received numerous honors, such as a Carington Award for Literary Excellence, a Whiting Award and an F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for American Literature. For more than two decades, she was the Richard A. Macksey Professor of the Humanities at Johns Hopkins University.
Drawing from a storied literary career marked by critical acclaim and numerous accolades, Alice McDermott offers a candid and insightful look into the writer’s journey in this video.
Alice McDermott begins speaking at 0:01, and the video proceeds as follows:
- 1:20: McDermott shares an anecdotal story about making it as a fiction writer; after many rejections, finally getting published in the New Yorker
- 2:38: McDermott reads her story published in the New Yorker, “Enough”
- 21:42: Q&A period beings; McDermott begins by discussing her writing process
- 23:15: McDermott contemplates the subjects of her next novel(s)
Mo Willems is a six-time Emmy Award-winning writer and former animator for “Sesame Street.” He is the winner of three Caldecott Honors, awarded for his debut children’s book “Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus” as well as for “Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale ”and “Knuffle Bunny Too: A Case of Mistaken Identity.” He has also been awarded an Eisner Award for his picture books, two Theodor Seuss Geisel Medals and five Geisel Honors for his “Elephant and Piggie” early readers series. His most recent book is “Will the Pigeon Graduate?” Willems is the cofounder of Hidden Pigeon Company, established in 2023 to extend the reach of his characters and stories across multiple platforms.
Beloved for his humor, heart and ability to connect with young readers, Mo Willems brings his trademark energy and creativity to this presentation.
Mo Willems begins speaking at 1:36, and the video proceeds as follows:
- 2:28: Willems speaks to children in the audience on being a writer and an illustrator; inspires audience to write
- 4:18: Willems discusses his book “Edwina, the Dinosaur Who Didn’t Know She Was Extinct”
- 6:54: Willems discusses and reads from his latest book at the time, “Don’t Let the Pigeons Stay Up Late!”
- 13:40: Willems demonstrates how to draw one of his characters
- 20:00: Willems asks the kids in the audience for book title suggestions
- 21:55: Q&A period begins
Come back next week for highlights from 2007!