San Antonio Book Festival

With inspiration and support from the Austin-based Texas Book Festival, the San Antonio Public Library Foundation launched the San Antonio Book Festival in 2013 with a mission to “unite readers and writers in a celebration of ideas, books, libraries and literary culture.” Expanding on a format that attracted more than 10,000 visitors and camera crews from C-SPAN last year, SABF’s third outing (10 a.m. – 5 p.m. Saturday, April 11) will showcase 89 local, regional and national authors via free panels and presentations held between Central Library, the Southwest School of Art and the Empire Theatre. For year three, the festival makes its first foray into film with the San Antonio premiere of Joe Nick Patoski’s Doug Sahm documentary Sir Doug and the Genuine Texas Cosmic Groove (1 p.m., Charline McCombs Empire Theatre, 226 N. St. Mary’s St.) and introduces the aspiring author competition Pitchapalooza (1:30 p.m., Coates Chapel, Southwest School of Art, 300 Augusta St.) while also bringing back the 2014 fan favorite “Literary Death Match.” Said to marry “the literary and performative aspects of Def Poetry Jam, rapier-witted quips of American Idol’s judging (without any meanness) and the ridiculousness and hilarity of Double Dare,” LDM tasks authors with performing “their most electric writing” before an audience and panel of judges. The Alamo City’s second stab at the competitive reading series pits Neal Pollack, Isabel Quintero, Lance Rubin and Natalia Sylvester in a literary ruse to be judged by Luis Alberto Urrea, Molly Cox and Wendi Aarons ($10-$50, 7 p.m., Charline McCombs Empire Theatre).