http://www.globaltimes.cn/www/english/metro-beijing/update/culture/2010-...

Journalists Graham Earnshaw, Jonathan Fenby, Peter Hessler, Zoe Heller and Evan Osnos as well as novelists Yan Lianke, Amit Chaudhuri and Junot Diaz are among the 70 authors giving talks at this year's Bookworm International Literary Festival.

The series of lectures, workshops, dinners and performances will take place over two weeks starting March 5, mostly at The Bookworm café in Sanlitun. A series of intimate meals for 20 will be held at Yishu 8 with The Glass Palace author Amitav Ghosh from India, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao author Junot Diaz, Intimate Grammar author David Grossman from Israel, Negative Space author Zoe Strachan from Scotland, Louise Welsh from Scotland and children's book writer Lauren Child.

"These moments of magic where you have this sort of intimacy with writers only ever happen at festivals," said Festival director Jenny Niven, because on book tours the authors simply do not have time.

Niven said authors are picked who are comfortable in these settings and who won't let one or two guests dominate their time during the meal or the cocktails that precede it. She advised that this is not the right time to slip a manuscript to your favorite writer.

Tickets are 260 yuan ($38). Niven advises people working on manuscripts to attend one of the workshops. Subjects include travel, stage, short story and children's writing, poetry, and getting published.

Performances include screenings of Zoe Heller's Notes on a Scandal and literary short films, an Indian classical music concert, and various configurations of poetry recitals with and without music. There will be a spoken word music festival at 2 Kolegas. This year the festival has undergone a carbon audit and will donate money to a hydroelectric project in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, to offset its emissions.

Niven said she knows this approach to sustainability is controversial, but hopes it will serve as a launching pad for discussions on the issue.

Danwei blogger Jeremy Goldkorn will lead a debate on the proposition: The book is dead.

And The Guardian's Jonathan Watts, the New Yorker's Evan Osnos, NPR's Louisa Lim and The Times' Jane MacArtney, at one time "the most hated woman in China," will talk about practicing journalism in China today.

Other highlights include Steve Connell, Ian Johnson, Ludmilla Petrushkevskaya, Zoe Strachan and Jonathan Tel, as well as Chinese authors Li Er and Murong Xuecun.

Tickets become available on January 26 at the official launch of the festival featuring Colum McCann, author of the National Book Award winning Let the Great World Spin.