1. National Book Festival
#1 Literary & Publishing Event
A capacity crowd of nearly 100,000 again gathered at the National Book Festival, produced by the Library of Congress, on September 2. Spread across 10 stages at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center, the 17th annual edition garnered over one million impressions on Twitter. The main-stage, which was bookended by a pair of literary Davids—McCullough and Baldacci—was livestreamed throughout the festival for the first-time on Facebook and Twitter, bringing in approximately 1.3 million views. Debuts by authors Margot Lee Shetterly, Michael Lewis, and others, as well as book launches by eight writers, also took place. Denis Johnson, who died in May, was honored posthumously with the 2017 Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. Next: September 1, 2018