The annual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books will be held on Saturday and Sunday, April 18-19, on the University of Southern California campus, featuring more than 500 authors and celebrities.
Some 150,000 attendees are expected. General admission is free, but tickets are required for special events. For more information, go to: www.latimes.com/events/festival-of-books
Featured authors include:
• Emiko Jean (“Love Me Tomorrow”), Saturday at 10 a.m., “Meet Cute: First Love and Romance in YA Novels” on YA Stage.
Jean is a New York Times bestselling author of young adult and adult fiction, including “Tokyo Ever After.” Her work has been published around the world. She lives in Washington with her family.
In “Love Me Tomorrow,” 17-year-old Emma Nakamura-Thatcher doesn’t believe in love, not after her parents’ bitter divorce. So when she attends the festival of Tanabata, her wish is simple: proof that love is real and can last. Emma thinks little of her wish — until she finds a note from someone claiming to be her greatest love writing to her from the future. It has to be a prank, right?
But as the notes pour in, each revealing secrets only she knows, Emma is forced to accept the impossible: This is really happening. Someone is actually reaching out to her from across time.
• Garrett Hongo (“Ocean of Clouds: Poems”), Saturday at 11 a.m. on Poetry Stage.
Hongo was born in Hawaii and grew up in Los Angeles. His other collections are “Yellow Light,” “The River of Heaven” (a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize), and “Coral Road.” He is also the author of “The Perfect Sound: A Memoir in Stereo,” “The Mirror Diary: Selected Essays,” and “Volcano: A Memoir of Hawaiʻi.”
Honored with fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, Rockefeller Foundation, Fulbright Program, and the NEA, he was the 2022 winner of the Aiken Taylor Award. He lives in Eugene, where he is distinguished professor at the University of Oregon.
• Chris Sasaki (illustrator, “Unbreakable: A Japanese American Family in an American Incarceration Camp” by Minoru Tonai and Jolene Gutiérrez), Saturday from 1 to 2 p.m., hosted by Bel Canto Books, Green Zone, Booth 854.
This powerful and poignant picture book delves into the world of American incarceration camps during WWII through the eyes of the late Min Tonai. As a young boy living in California, Min was forced from his home and sent to Amache, one of 10 camps where more than 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry were incarcerated during the war. Sasaki will be joined by Min’s children, John, Teresa and Susan.
Sasaki, a digital artist living in Los Angeles, is known for work distinguished by a sketchy, rough quality that evokes the feel of concept art — blending bold, solid colors with a thoughtful balance of simplicity and expressive detail. This distinctive style resonates with animation fans as well as art book aficionados.
Sasaki’s illustrations stand out for their focus on diverse characters and culturally meaningful narratives. Recently, they have particularly enjoyed working on projects like “Sakamoto’s Swim Club” and “Unbreakable,” which both celebrate Asian American heroes — stories Sasaki wishes had been available to them in their own childhood. Their earlier illustrations for “Paper Son” by Julie Leung, spotlighting Chinese American animator Tyrus Wong, earned Sasaki the Society of Illustrators’ Dilys Evans Founder’s Award in 2019 as well as the American Library Association’s 2021 Asian/Pacific American Award for Best Picture Book.
• Hayley Kiyoko (“Where There’s Room for Us”), Saturday at 2 p.m., on Los Angeles Times Stage, in conversation with Deborah Vankin.
Kiyoko is an award-winning American singer, director, actress, and author. Described by Rolling Stone as being “at the forefront of an unapologetically queer pop movement,” she is a passionate advocate for LGBTQIA+ rights. She is a New York Times bestselling author for her debut novel, “Girls Like Girls,” based on her hit single and music video of the same name, and is set to make her feature film directing debut with Focus Features in 2026.
• Evelyn Iritani (“Safe Passage: The Untold Story of Diplomatic Intrigue, Betrayal, and the Exchange of American and Japanese Civilians by Sea During WWII”), Sunday at 10 a.m., “Mobsters, Misfits, and Mayhem: Untold Heroic Stories of WWII” at Norris Theatre.
Iritani is also the author of “An Ocean Between Us: The Changing Relationship of Japan and the United States, Told in Four Stories from the Life of an American Town.” She is a former reporter for The Seattle Post-Intelligencer and The Los Angeles Times, where her reporting garnered numerous awards, including the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for a series she coauthored on Walmart.
• Samantha Masunaga (Los Angeles Times), Sunday from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m., “Bringing Stories to Life: The Art of Book-to-Screen Adaptations” at Taper Hall 201; Sunday from 3 to 3:45 p.m., “Aska Reporter: The Future of Hollywood — Inside the Merger Wars” at Mudd Hall 203.
Masunaga is an entertainment business reporter, with a focus on Hollywood studios. Since joining The Los Angeles Times in 2014, she has covered the aerospace industry, workplace culture and Southern California’s Japanese American community. She previously worked for The Oregonian, The Orange County Register and The Rafu Shimpo, among other publications. A Southern California native, she is an alumna of the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism and UCLA.
• Naomi Hirahara, signing “Terminal Island” at Angel City Press booth on Saturday from 10 to 11 a.m.; signing “Crown City” at SoCal Chapter, Mystery Writers of America booth on Sunday from 11 a.m. to 12 p.m.; Kinokuniya booth, Sunday from 12 to 2 p.m.; panelist, “Looking Deeper: The Asian American Experience in Historical Fiction,” Sunday from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. at Hoffman Hall, Edison Auditorium.
Hirahara is the Mary Higgins Clark Award, Edgar Award, and Lefty Award-winning author of “Clark and Division” and “Evergreen”; the Mas Arai mystery series, including “Summer of the Big Bachi,” which was a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year; and the L.A.-based Ellie Rush mysteries. A former editor of The Rafu Shimpo, she has co-written nonfiction books like “Life After Manzanar” and the award-winning “Terminal Island: Lost Communities on America’s Edge.” She and her husband make their home in Pasadena.
• Karen Tei Yamashita (“Question 27, Question 28”), panelist, “Looking Deeper: The Asian American Experience in Historical Fiction,” Sunday from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. at Hoffman Hall, Edison Auditorium.
Yamashita is the author of nine other books, including “I Hotel,” finalist for the National Book Award. A recipient of the National Book Foundation’s Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, she is professor emerita of literature and creative writing at UC Santa Cruz. In 2024 she was inducted as a literature fellow in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
“Question 27, Question 28” is about the so-called loyalty questionnaire that was imposed on Japanese Americans in the camps during WWII. Question 27 asked the inmates — who had been imprisoned without cause — whether they were willing to serve in combat for the U.S. military. Question 28 asked them — including many American citizens who had never visited Japan — to renounce allegiance to the emperor. Answering these questions caused volatile divisions within the camps, tore families and friends apart, and had lasting repercussions in the decades postwar.