At long last, Janelle Monae — the inimitable, award-winning, songwriter, performer, producer, CoverGirl and avant-garde funkstress — is back again, ready to release her another full-length “emotion picture” to the masses. But as always, Janelle is not ready to talk about music just yet. She’d rather talk about her past and how those fertile powerful experiences forced her to create her coming album ”

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The Los Angeles Times today announced the lineup for the Festival of Books, the nation’s largest literary festival, to be held the weekend of April 23-24 at the University of Southern California. More than 500 writers, musicians, artists and chefs, hundreds of exhibitors and an expected 150,000 attendees will transform the 226-acre campus into a vibrant cultural festival in the heart of the Downtown Arts and Education Corridor.

Amanda Gorman, Valerie Bertinelli, Meena Harris, Ziggy Marley, Terry Crews, David Duchovny, Justine Bateman, Megan Abbott, Kelly Rowland, Adam Schiff, Rachel Lindsay, T.C. Boyle, Billy Porter, Michael Connelly, Veronica Roth, Attica Locke, Josh Peck, Chrishell Stause, Father Greg Boyle, Rumaan Alam, Tony Alva, Amelia Brodka, Alton Brown, Janelle Brown, Mark Harris, DJ Envy, Jean Chen Ho, S.A. Cosby, Eric Dickerson, Akwaeke Emezi, Jonathan Franzen, Roxane Gay, Sharon Gless, Max Greenfield, Jasmine Guillory, Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez, Ali Hazelwood, Craig Johnson, Laila Lalami, Jonathan Lethem, Casey McQuiston, Nnedi Okorafor, Imani Perry, John Scalzi, Gina Schock, Michael Schur, Lisa See, Clint Smith, Hector Tobar, Amor Towles, Kenneth Turan, Marcela Valladolid, Claire Vaye Watkins, Joy Williams, Ibi Zoboi and Don Winslow are scheduled to appear, along with others to be announced in the coming weeks.