| Tucson Festival of Books | |
| Venue: | University of Arizona Mall |
| Location: | Tucson, Arizona |
| Sponsors: | The Arizona Daily Star, The University of Arizona, Tucson Medical Center, Others |
| Founders: | Bill Viner, Frank Farias, John M. Humenik, Bruce Beach, Brenda Viner |
| Frequency: | Annually |
| Status: | In Person |
| Organized: | The Tucson Festival of Books Foundation |
| Filing: | 501(c)3 non-profit organization |
| Attendance: | 135,000 (2017) |
The Tucson Festival of Books is a free annual book fair held in Tucson, Arizona during the second weekend in March. It was established in 2009 by Bill Viner, Frank Farias, John M. Humenik, Bruce Beach, and Brenda Viner.
The first annual festival featured around 450 authors and welcomed over 50,000 regional visitors. For most recent Festival in 2017, attendance reached over 135,000.[1] The event typically includes special programming for children and teens, panels by best-selling and emerging authors, a literary circus, culturally diverse programs, a poetry venue, exhibitor booths and two food courts.[2] [3] The Festival's mission is to improve literacy rates among children and adults in Southern Arizona. Since its creation, the Festival has donated over $1.65 million to agencies that improve literacy in the community such as Reading Seed, Literacy Connects, and University of Arizona Literacy Outreach Programs.[4] [5] In addition to aiding the fight against illiteracy, the festival also helps the local community tremendously. In a study by a students at the Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona, the festival was found to pump an estimated $4 million into Tucson’s economy annually.[6] The festival has also been covered by C-SPAN in the past, with over 120 videos in the C-SPAN Video Library.[7]
The 2020 edition of the event was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[8] The event will be held virtually in 2021.[9]
In 2011, the Festival Founders Award was established to recognize exceptional literary achievement. Below is a list of past winners:[10]
| Year | Author | Note | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | |||
| 2012 | |||
| 2013 | |||
| 2014 | |||
| 2015 | Mitch Albom, Dave Barry, Sam Barry, Greg Isles, Ridley Pearson, Amy Tan & Scott Turow - The Rock Bottom Remainders | ||
| 2016 | |||
| 2017 | |||
| 2018 | |||
| 2019 | |||
| 2020 |