On March 4, BookExpo America (BEA) announced the speakers for its special events program at this year's convention to be held at the McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago, from June 3 - June 6. Three Book & Author breakfasts, a lunch, and an audiobook tea are among the events planned, and the hosts include NPR's Terry Gross, Vanity Fair's Graydon Carter, and C-SPAN's Brian Lamb.

"Our goal with our special events program is to supplement the business conducted on the convention floor with programs that both serve the publishers by providing their authors with a public platform, and our attendees by providing entertainment that combines humor with thoughtful commentary," BEA Vice President and Show Director Greg Topalian said in a prepared statement. "The programs this year, and the terrific authors who will be participating in them, certainly meet this criteria. We look forward to hearing what these very different personalities have to say."

On Friday, June 4, actor and children's author Jamie Lee Curtis will speak at the Children's Book & Author Breakfast, presented in cooperation with the Children's Booksellers and Publishers Committee of the American Booksellers Association, Association of Booksellers for Children, and the Children's Book Council. Other featured speakers are Ursula K. LeGuin and Jack Gantos.

Saturday's Book & Author Breakfast will feature talks by authors David Sedaris, Alexandra Fuller, and Alexander McCall Smith, and will be hosted by NPR's Gross. Vanity Fair's Carter will host Jon Stewart, Gish Jen, and Tom Wolfe at the Sunday morning breakfast. Tickets for the Book & Author breakfasts are $25, and the events will be held each morning from 8:00 a.m. - 9:30 a.m. in the Grand Ballroom.

In addition to the breakfast programs, BEA will offer its Saturday Book & Author Luncheon, from noon to 2:00 p.m. in the Grand Ballroom. For election year 2004, the luncheon panel, to be hosted by Lamb, will include Donna Brazile, Janeane Garofalo, P.J. O'Rourke, and Linda Chavez. Tickets for the luncheon are $40.

Also on Saturday, the Audiobook Tea, sponsored by the Audio Publishers Association, will feature Augusten Burroughs, Kinky Friedman, Amy Tan, and Scott Turow. Tickets are $15.

As previously reported, comedian and author George Carlin will perform at this year's BEA benefit for the Book Industry Foundation, which is comprised of the American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression (ABFFE) and the Association of American Publishers "Get Caught Reading" campaign. The event will be held at Chicago's Navy Pier on Saturday evening, June 5 at 9:00 p.m. (To read more about the benefit, click here [4].

For more information and to register for BEA, go to www.bookexpoamerica.com [5] or call (800) 840-5614.

For a look at ABA programming planned for this year's convention, click here [6].

The roster of this year's BEA special events includes:

Friday, June 4

Children's Book & Author Breakfast, 8:00 a.m. - 9:30 a.m., Grand Ballroom, $25
Jamie Lee Curtis, When I Was Little: A Four-Year-Old's Memoir of Her Youth, HarperCollins Children's Books
Ursula K. LeGuin, Gifts, Harcourt Children's Books
Jack Gantos, Hole in My Life, FSG Books for Young Readers
Presented in cooperation with the Children's Booksellers and Publishers Committee of the American Booksellers Association, Association of Booksellers for Children, and the Children's Book Council.

Saturday, June 5

Saturday Book & Author Breakfast, 8:00 a.m. - 9:30 a.m., Grand Ballroom, $25
Alexander McCall Smith, The Sunday Philosophy Club, Pantheon
Alexandra Fuller, Scribbling the Cat: Travels With an African Soldier, Penguin Press
David Sedaris, Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, Little, Brown
Host: Terry Gross, All I Did Was Ask, Hyperion

Saturday Book & Author Luncheon, 12:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m., Grand Ballroom, $40
Donna L. Brazile, Cooking With Grease: Stirring the Pots in American Politics, S&S
Janeane Garofalo, For Those About To Salute, We Will Rock You, S&S
P.J. O'Rourke, Peace Kills: America's Fun New Imperialism, Grove Atlantic
Linda Chavez, Betrayal: How Union Bosses Shake Down Their Members and Corrupt American Politics, Crown Forum
Host: Brian Lamb, On American Character, PublicAffairs

Saturday Audiobook Tea, 4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m., S105B/C, $15
Augusten Burroughs, Magical Thinking, Audio Renaissance
Kinky Friedman, The Great Psychedelic Armadillo Picnic: A Walk in Austin, Random House Audio
Amy Tan, The Opposite of Fate, Brilliance Audio
Scott Turow, Ultimate Punishment: A Lawyer's Reflections On Dealing With the Death Penalty, Audio Renaissance
Sponsored by the Audio Publishers Association

Sunday, June 6

Sunday Book & Author Breakfast, 8:00 a.m. - 9:30 a.m., Grand Ballroom, $25
Tom Wolfe, I Am Charlotte Simmons, FSG
Gish Jen, The Love Wife, Knopf
Jon Stewart, The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Presents… America the Book: A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction, Time Warner
Host: Graydon Carter, What We've Lost, FSG