PW: Authors Picked for BEA

Baseball star Sammy Sosa will be the guest of honor at the BookExpo America opening-night reception on Thursday, June 1, BEA executives said last week. The reception will be sponsored by Warner Books, which is publishing Sosa: An Autobiography.

On Friday, June 2, the annual Children's Book and Author Breakfast will feature Philip Pullman (The Amber Spyglass, Knopf), Peter Sis (Madlenka, FSG/Francis Foster) and Julie Andrews Edwards (Dumpy the Dump Truck, Hyperion Books for Children). On Saturday, June 3, the author breakfast will spotlight Ted Koppel (Off Camera, Knopf), Terry Tempest Williams (Leap, Pantheon) and Jerry Stiller (Married to Laughter, S&S).

Participants at the author breakfast on Sunday, June 4, include Katie Couric (The Brand New Kid, Doubleday), Michael Ondaatje (Anil's Ghost, Knopf) and Sister Wendy Beckett (Sister Wendy's Great American Collections, HarperCollins).

Authors who will speak at the weekend literary luncheons include Marianne Williamson, Eric Utne, Thomas Hartmann and Sarah Ban Breathnach (Saturday) and Liz Smith, Bill Bryson, Thomas Lynch, Silvia Molina, Anchee Min and Anna Deavere Smith on Sunday.