Marilynne Robinson in Conversation with Susan Straight (2009): Los Angeles Times Festival of Books

The
Los Angeles Times Festival of Books began in 1996 with a simple goal: to bring together the people who create books with the people who love to read them. The festival was an immediate success and has become the largest and most prestigious book festival in the country, attracting more than 130,000 book lovers each year.

Susan Straight's book A Million Nightingales was nominated for a Los Angeles Times 2007 Book Prize in Fiction. Her short story in the anthology, "Los Angeles Noir", was the winner of a 2008 Edgar Award. Highwire Moon was a National Book Award finalist.

Marilynne Robinson is the author of three novels, including Gilead, which won a Pulitzer Prize, as well as two books of nonfiction. She teaches at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. Robinson's most recent novel, Home, is a 2008 Los Angeles Times Book Prize Finalist in Fiction.