A year-round book festival dedicated to great conversations with today's best writers.

Roy Blount Jr.

Roy Blount Jr. wears many hats: Humorist. Sportswriter. Reporter. Musician. Author. The witty writer, renowned for his role as panelist on NPR’s “Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me!”, has penned twenty-two books on topics ranging from the Marx Brothers to the inner thoughts of barnyard animals. Norman Mailer called Blount “as funny as anyone I’ve read” and Time magazine puts him “in the tradition of great curmudgeons like H.L. Mencken and W.C. Fields.” Ex-president of the Authors Guild, Blount is a member of esteemed literary groups PEN and the Fellowship of Southern Authors and was the 2009 recipient of the Thomas Wolfe Award from the University of North Carolina. He is also a usage consultant to the American Heritage Dictionary.

In addition to his illustrious book career, Blount has contributed essays, stories and even drawings to over 168 periodicals, including The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, Rolling Stone, National Geographic, Men’s Journal, Esquire and The New York Times.

Blount’s exploits aren’t limited solely to the page, however. A consummate renaissance man, the writer has jumped out of a plane, graduated from race-car driving school, scuba-dived with sharks, sung on stage with Bruce Springsteen and Stephen King  (as a member of the authors’ rock band Rock Bottom Remainders), hit a game-winning Texas Leaguer in Venezuela, and earned a Master’s degree from Harvard. A gifted story-teller, Blount is a perennial crowd favorite and entertainer wherever he appears on stage.

Blount appeared with the National Writers Series on May 11, 2011.