UCSB AUTHORS DISCUSS THEIR WORKS AT BOOK FESTIVAL

University of California, Santa Barbara writing talent will be on display Saturday at De La Guerra Plaza at the Santa Barbara News-Press Book and Author Festival.

Included among the 140 or more authors will be six from UCSB's faculty and staff.

The university is also sponsoring six hours of poetry reading at Casa de la Guerra.

The reading runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.

Appearing at a UCSB-sponsored booth inside De La Guerra Plaza will be history professor Mario Garcia, writing program lecturer Valerie Hobbs, and Spanish and Portuguese professor Giorgio Perissinotto.

Garcia, who specializes in Chicano history, is the author of several books in that field, including "Migrant Daughter: Coming of Age as a Mexican-American Woman."

He also will be part of a 3 p.m. panel at Santa Barbara City Hall charged with discussing the topic, "Getting the News Story."

Also on that panel will be John Nathan, UCSB's Takashima professor of Japanese cultural studies.

Hobbs is the award-winning author of three successful young adult novels.

Her latest, "Carolina Crow Girl," was winner of the PEN Norma Klein award which honors an emerging voice of literary merit among American writers of children's fiction.

Hobbs will be part of a 10 a.m. panel discussion of children's literature at City Hall.

Perissinotto is a specialist in Hispanic linguistics who recently published a translation of ship's manifests reflective of early commerce in Santa Barbara.

The book, "Documenting Everyday Life in Early SpanishCalifornia: The Santa Barbara Presidio Memorias y Facturas 1779-1810,"

depicts in rich and detailed terms life in the early colonial period of Santa Barbara.

Leonard Tourney, a lecturer in UCSB's Writing Program and author of eight mystery novels,

will take part in the festival's program of panel discussions, moderating a 2 p.m. session called "Keeping Us in Suspense" at City Hall.

Vic Cox, editor of the UCSB campus employee newspaper "93106" and

an author will share a booth outside De La Guerra Plaza.

Cox is author of two nonfiction books, "Guns, Violence and Teens," and "The Challenge of Immigration."

The festival will run from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday in and around De La Guerra Plaza, which is bordered by De La Guerra, Ortega, State and Anacapa streets.

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