PORTLAND — Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Tony Horwitz, author of “Confederates in the Attic,” will give an illustrated talk Friday, March 30, opening night for this year’s Maine Festival of the Book.

The festival, from March 29 – April 1, features such diverse programs as poetry, fiction, a history panel, a cookbook club, a travel writers’ panel, crime as presented by a former NYPD undercover detective and a biography panel that includes the author of the new Kurt Vonnegut biography. There will also be hands-on activities for children. 

Programs, many of which are audio-visual, focus on such genres as memoir and biography, as well as the craft of writing. Themes include “The Quick and Dead: Writing about Someone You Knew or Admired,” “Illness as an Opportunity in Fiction” and “I Hated These Characters.” 

Novelists, poets, memoir writers, children’s book writers and others will participate in the festival presented by the nonprofit Maine Reads in collaboration with other literacy and literary organizations.

Events, most of which are free and require no tickets, will open at 7 p.m. Thursday, March 29, with a lecture by John Cole, founding director of the Center for the Book. The program at the Glickman Family Library at the University of Southern Maine is presented in conjunction with the Maine Humanities Council and the Kate Cheney Chappell ’83 Center for Book Arts at USM.

On Friday, March 30, at 6 p.m., festival-goers will get to mingle with presenting authors at USM’s Abromson Center. Hors d’ouevres will be served with a cash bar.

Horwitz will read from his newest book, “Midnight Rising,” which tells the story of  abolitionist John Brown, at 7:30 p.m. at the Abromson Center.

This is the festival’s only ticketed event. Tickets are $25 in advance/$35 after March 25 (including author talk). Tickets for the author talk only are $5 in advance/$10 after March 25. Proceeds benefit Maine Reads. For tickets, call 871-9100 or visit www.mainereads.org.

Saturday’s programs, from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. in the Abromson Center, are free. They will feature talks and workshops with nonfiction writers, poets and novelists, along with illustrators as well as children and young adult authors.

Among Saturday’s presenters are Judy Gelman and Vicki Levy Krupp, who at 3 p.m. will discuss their love of cooking, books and book clubs that led to the publication of their three cookbooks (“The Book Club Cookbook,” “The Kids’ Book Club Book” and “Table of Contents”).

At 5 p.m., Michael Maglaras, filmmaker and founder of 217 Films, will debut the company’s new documentary on illustrator and printmaker Lynd Ward, along with the artist’s daughter, Robin Ward Savage.

Saturday collaborations include a program presented in conjunction with Maine Writers & Publishers Alliance. The how-to’s of reading contemporary poetry will be discussed by poets Gibson Fay-LeBlanc, Poetry Editor of Maine magazine and author of the collection “Death of a Ventriloquist,” Arielle Greenberg, editor of The Black Clock and author of “My Kafka Century and Given,” and Steve Lutrell, founding editor of The Cafe Review and author of “Twelve Moons, Twelve Poems.”

MWPA will also collaborate on the book-signing bonanza from noon to 2 p.m. Among Saturday’s children’s programs is a book-making session at 10 a.m., presented by the nonprofit The Telling Room.

Free parking will be available all day Saturday in the Abromson Center garage.

The festival’s annual poetry party, a free event presented by Maine Reads and the nonprofit Port Veritas, will feature poetry slams, Poetry-Out-Loud and libations and music. It will be held at 7 p.m. at Local Sprouts, 469 Congress St.

The Book Arts Bazaar, featuring artists, papermakers, bookbinders, printmakers and writers, will be from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Sunday at USM’s Wishcamper Center. This event is presented by the Kate Cheney Chappell ’83 Center for Book Arts and USM.

At 7 p.m. Sunday, April 1, Portland Stage Affiliate Artists will present a dramatic reading of selections, “Red Ruby Heart in a Cold Blue Sea,” by Morgan Callan Rogers, at the Portland Stage Company, 25A Forest Ave. Rogers will also join novelist Tupelo Hassman in a program titled “Coming of Age on the Wrong Side of the Tracks” at 1:30 p.m. Saturday at the Abromson Center.