Award-winning novelist Daniel Woodrell joins festival lineup

What does the Missouri Literary Festival have in common with Oscar-winning director Ang Lee?

Great taste in authors, for one.

The Missouri Literary Festival, slated for Oct. 2, 3 and 4 in Springfield, Mo., is proud to announce award-winning novelist Daniel Woodrell as part of the festival lineup.

Woodrell, author of "Winter's Bone" and "Tomato Red," also wrote "Woe to Live On,: which Ang Lee made into the film "Ride With the Devil" in 1999.

Woodrell's five most recent novels were selected as New York Times Notable Books of the Year, and "Tomato Red" won the PEN West Award for the Novel in 1999. "Winter's Bone," his latest novel, won the Prix de la Mystere Critique in France and was one of five finalists for the 2007 Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Fiction.

Woodrell's short stories have been widely published in various anthologies, and his work has appeared in "Esquire," "Gentleman's Quarterly," "Missouri Review," "New Letters," "Granta" online, "The Washington Post" and "The New York Times."

While "Woe to Live On" was the first of Woodrell's novels to be adapted for the screen, it was not the last. "Winter's Bone" was filmed in Forsyth, Mo., by director Debra Granik in winter 2009. Ride With the Devil also was shot in Missouri.

Author Brad Gooch, who penned "City Poet," the acclaimed biography of Frank O'Hara, joins a selection of renowned novelists, poets, business writers, children's writers and other authors for the event.

The Missouri Literary Festival, a Celebration of Arts, Literature and Literacy, is a nonprofit event focused on raising funds to benefit arts programming and literacy organizations.

The festival will feature public readings, book signings, live music, live arts performances, film, food and more.

General admission will be $5 for ages 11 and up; children 10 and under get in free. Festival beneficiaries are Springfield Regional Arts Council, Ozarks Literacy Council, Family Literacy Centers of Springfield, the R-12 Title I Schools and the Writers Hall of Fame scholarship program.

In conjunction with the festival, submissions will be accepted through July 31 for the festival's short fiction contest.

For more information about the Missouri Literary Festival, the contest or entry forms, visit www.missouriliteraryfestival.org.