A Literary Finale of Musical Proportions

Last year, we finished off the festival with a fun and energetic concert for all ages by folk musician and children's book author Barry Louis Polisar (he recently gained more mainstream recognition with his contribution to the soundtrack for the movie Juno). After a few discussions, I think our planning for this year is leaning toward a similar sort of finale performance, but one of a more collaborative nature.

In 2009, our favorite quirky author/artist/bookmaker duo Idiots'Books teamed up with fun, whimsical, experimental, independent-label band Bombadil for a different sort of book project. For Bombadil's newest album Tarpits and Canyonlands, Robbi Behr and Matthew Swanson (of Idiots'Books) created the album art and a strange but fitting sort of story that is soundtracked by Bombadil's music. Yes, this album art/story is a real book--another example of the vast and under-appreciated realm of book arts. This album was also released as Volume 22 from Idiots'Books subscription service.

Again I will indulge our hopes for the ideal finale performance for this year: a collaborative musical multimedia performance with Bombadil and Idiots'Books. We would arm storytellers Matthew and Robbi with a projector (possibly their own) and projector screen, and Bombadil could play a soundtrack to the Idiots' interpretation of Tarpits and Canyonlands. I would like to add as a disclaimer, that (again) none of these plans have been confirmed with any of the artists. This is just what we would really, really, really like to happen. We were, in fact, saddened to learn of an illness in the band that has caused them to take a bit of a hiatus from touring to regain their strength. We hope that you will get better soon.

Beginning with a Bang

During last night's monthly meeting of the Chestertown Book Festival Committee, much discussion was devoted to the planning of the 2010 festival's kick-off event. Last year, Friday night's kick-off was a reading given by poet Michael Collier, former Maryland Poet Laureate, at the Bookplate with a delicious wine-and-cheese reception. We would like to have a similar start to the festival weekend this year, as well. And this is the list of potential Friday-night names (Disclaimer: none of these people have actually agreed or been contacted about this event yet!):


1. Michael Dirda: Pulitzer prize-winning book critic and author of many books about books, including An Odyssey in Print: Adventures in the Smithsonian Libraries and, most recently, Classics for Pleasure (2008).

2. Richard Ben Cramer: Local author of multiple New York Times Bestselling nonfiction sports titles, including Joe DiMaggio: A Hero's Life and an upcoming book about baseball player Alex Rodriguez (known as A-Rod).

3. John Barth: Local experimental fiction writer and winner of the National Book Award. Author of many novels and short-story collections, including Lost in the Funhouse, The Book of Ten Nights and a Day and, most recently, The Development (2008).

4. Christopher Tilghman: Celebrated writer of novels and short-story collections set in the Eastern Shore and Chesapeake Bay region, including In a Father's Place, Roads of the Heart and, most recently, Mason's Retreat (2006).

5. John S.D. Eisenhower: Celebrated Eastern Shore writer of nonfiction history titles, including The Bitter Woods (a definitive study of the Battle of the Bulge) and, most recently, a biography of American president Zachary Taylor (2008).

6. William Blatty: Maryland author of the original story of The Exorcist (upon which the famous horror movie was based). Blatty is also due to have a new book out this year.

So, this is our wishlist. We are hoping that we'll be able to snag one of these amazing authors to kick-off our festival with a reading followed by a cozy wine-and-cheese reception where everyone can mingle and plan their itinerary for the next day. Although it may be a pretty long shot, we also thought it would be absolutely wonderful if we could manage to get the new U.S. Poet Laureate Kay Ryan to grace us with a reading. We're certainly not counting on it, but wouldn't that be something?

Official Call for Authors

ATTENTION LOCAL AUTHORS!


The Chestertown Book Festival Committee is planning the 2010 festival for the evening of Friday, October 8 and all day Saturday, October 9. Participating authors will be hosted at various venues in the downtown Chestertown area for readings, book discussions and signings. We welcome local Eastern Shore authors who were unable to participate in the 2009 festival and those authors that did participate but have published a new book this year. Official author selections will be juried by the Chestertown Book Festival Committee. Interested authors should contact Committee Secretary, Lindsay Lusby at 410-778-3636 or chesbookfest@gmail.com.

Celebrating Book Arts

At last night's meeting, we had two new members join our ranks. The wonderful Carol Schroeder and Lucy Maddox will be helping us plan our 2010 festival. We have quite a few new ideas (and a bit more time to plan and organize it). We are thinking of having a theme beyond books in the general sense--this year we would like to celebrate book arts.

Now if you are unfamiliar with the term "book arts," let me explain. What we mean by book arts is the making and printing of books, not just writing and reading them, books as physical objects. We would have a special focus on antique letterpress printing, bookbinding, illuminated manuscripts, and other specialty areas like that. Books as art, not simply a means to an end.

This theme comes in direct contrast with the current wave of technology in digitizing books. Digital books and e-readers are admirable in their efficiency, of getting words and information to the reader as quickly as the digital package can be downloaded. We hope to touch upon this area during the festival as well, maybe with a sort of demonstration of this new technology. But it will be a small part of the festival and will serve mostly as a point of contrast with our main theme.

So, in our highlighting of book arts, we are now hashing out an idea for setting up a sort of publishers fair in which regional small press, limited edition publishers can bring their wares and expertise for sharing (and selling, as well). It is an idea we have borrowed from such events as Small Press Expo in Bethesda, Maryland and Oak Knoll Festival in New Castle, Delaware. Although we hope this will be a major feature of the 2010 Chestertown Book Festival, we still plan to have a variety of readings and talks in multiple downtown venues, like last year. Our next monthly meeting will be March 16 and I will have more updates then. Any ideas for us? Let us know at chesbookfest@gmail.com.

Here we go again

The Chestertown Book Festival Committee is beginning the planning for the second annual festival (coming to you October 8 and 9, 2010). We have been evaluating the good points of last year's craziness (for repetition, of course) and the bad points (to be avoided, if at all possible), and from this we will sketch a sustainable festival format. For an experimental event, the first annual ChesBookFest was extremely successful, so the good points definitely outweigh the bad ones.


Between now and the next meeting of the ChesBookFest Committee (February 23), we hope to:

1. Firmly knot-up all financial strings left untied from last year.

2. Finish sending out official Thank-Yous to all of our wonderful 2009 participants.

3. Amend our previous "Call for Authors" press release to be ready for advertising.

4. Invite new members to be a part of the ChesBookFest Committee, either in an "Advisory" or "Planning" capacity. If you are interested, please contact us at chesbookfest@gmail.com.

We couldn't have done it without you

I can't say enough about how well everything went this past weekend at the first annual Chestertown Book Festival. I guess we were all planning for the worst-case-scenario, but it felt as though everything just fell into place. Here are a few fun numbers to provide proof of this declaration:

After totaling the number of people in attendance at each of our 38 events, we had a turnout of just under 1,000 (non-unique visitors, of course--that's web-speak for repeat attendees).

And when I emptied out the two donation boxes that we had carried around with us on Friday evening and all day Saturday, I tell you, it was like Christmas morning. All together, people donated $420 for the funding of next year's Festival!

If you'd like more visual gratification, there are pictures from the Festival on The Chestertown Spy and on volunteer photographer Nick Smerker's Flickr page.

Our participants were fabulous, our volunteers were wonderful, our venue hosts were fantastic, and our visitors were, well, the perfect audience. Thank you to everyone who helped us to make this possible! You did such a great job that I think we now have no choice but give a repeat performance next year and the year after and as long as we can, I think.

P.S. we're not done yet

Here are two more events that didn't make it to the official Schedule of Events (only because they were added after our ideal cut-off date). Take a look:

Local author Terwana Brown will give a reading and signing for her upcoming book Living My Life in Reverse.

Saturday, November 14th
Bookplate, 112 S. Cross St.
10:00-11:00 a.m.

Poet Robert Earl Price will give a poetry reading and book signing. He is the author of poetry collections Blues Blood and Wise Blood.

Saturday, November 14th
Christ United Methodist Church, 401 High St.
2:00-3:00 p.m.