Confession Tuesday...

Dear Reader,

This is take two on my confessions-- I'll explain shortly.

To the Confessional--

I confess I started to do today's confessions then decide to delete it and redo it because it pointed out some people a little too openly.

I think sometimes this is the challenge of the blog, to be honest, but not to mean or hurtful.  I have heard Google's motto is "Don't be evil" - Many times misquoted as "do no evil."  Either way, I think that's sound advice.


~  


I confess in writing my first post I found this funny article about 6 New Personality Disorders Caused by the Internet -- (I confess, I have self-diagnosed myself with #3 and I still text in full words and sentences and not abbreviations).

BTW, this was from Cracked Magazine and I was surprised (and happy) to see Cracked still existed.

~


I confess I spent the weekend at the NW Bookfest, but was very surprised to find that all the exhibitors were outside Farmer's Market style.  We live in the Northwest and the theme of the Bookfest was "It's raining books..." well, it rained day one and our Crab Creek Review table didn't have a tent.  (I confess I didn't order a tent as I somehow missed that the Bookfest was outside.)  


Maybe I read it but it didn't register because 1) I have never been to a Bookfest that's been outside and 2) we're in the Northwest and in October, why would it be outside?


We became creative as soon as the rain began.

Annette, my co-editor and I moved our table to under an eave of a building.  Annette said, "We're going rogue" and we parked our table right by a giant sign that said, "Going Bovine." (Good enough.)

By the way, Going Bovine is a book about a boy who has mad cow disease and goes on a roadtrip (possibly with a dwarf).  Because of his mad cow disease, it's apparently hard to tell what is really happening in the book and what is in his mind.  I know this because a woman yelled, "That's my favorite book!" so I had her tell me what it was about.

This is what I love about writers, I had so many incredible conversations about books and so many other literary things that most people never talk about.  How often do I get to hear someone yell out, "That's my favorite book!"?  I love it when people are passionate about books. Warms my heart.

~

I confess that while the attendance at Bookfest was down, the people I did meet were incredible.

One of my very favorite people I met was Ed Lincoln, who wrote the memoir, Life Through the Rear-View Mirror.  If you're from Seattle you'll know exactly who is if I say that he was the man who built the pink Lincoln "Toe Truck."

He stopped by the Crab Creek Review table and even gave my daughter a pink "Toe Truck" keychain from Seattle's golden days (I have been hugely impressed by this token and showing it to everyone).  


His book has received a lot of good reviews and he said when Howie Mandel came to town he borrowed the Toe Truck and drove it around Seattle.  Ed was an incredibly nice man and with a great story and history.

I hope he sold a lot of books.  His story is unique and well, he's just a really nice guy.

~

I confess one of my favorite part of Bookfest was reading with Susan Rich, Jeannine Hall Gailey, & Elizabeth Austen.

They are INCREDIBLE poets and readers, so hearing them was a treat for me and because we went in alphabetical order, I was first (which I LOVE) because I was able to read then enjoy the rest of the hour listening to their words.

~

I confess my concern with the Bookfest is how many people didn't know about it and the major publishers and bookstores who weren't there this year.  No Open Books, no Copper Canyon Press, no Elliott Bay Books, no Floating Bridge Press.  These are some of my favorite organizations and I missed that they weren't there.

What is also odd in Seattle is that we have so many writers and book lovers and yet, because the Northwest Bookfest has been tossed around from location to location for a number of years, no one can find it and people bow out because they don't know what to expect.

Even Bumbershoot, which was our arts festival, has become mostly a musical festival with literary arts getting smaller and smaller.

If I had a wish (and I do), it would be that Seattle would take care of its writers and its literary organizations and give them a decent place to connect.  There are so many in this town who are in love with books and words, who love their fiction writers and their poets, this shouldn't be a grass and tents production, it should be huge (and inside).

I hope the Bookfest finds a home and an organizer who is willing to bring it back to its glory.

Here it is in 2002 in at a hangar in Sand Point (they estimated 20,000 people came through)--

I confess I miss these days of Northwest Bookfest-- at Sand Point and on Pier 48-- and I hope one day we can remind ourselves what a literary city we are.

Amen.