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Hooked On Books: Saturday's the day for everybody
Photo Courtesy of Bookmarks
Among the authors who will be speaking at Bookmarks are (clockwise from top) Chris Crutcher, Nikki Giovanni, Scott Nelson, Carmen Deedy and Marisa de los Santos.
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Published: September 7, 2008
Updated: 09/06/2008 10:45 pm
There's a college professor who wanted to tell Civil War history through the lives of everyday people, and a Cuban-born storyteller who retells a folk story that she heard from her mother. There's a famous poet who delves into children's books, and a former child therapist who writes about a high-school student who has one year to live.
This year's Bookmarks festival, the fourth, will include readings and talks by more than 40 authors -- children's picture-book authors, novelists, historians and more. The festival will also kick off "The Big Read," a monthlong series of activities tied to a community-reading project. This year's activities will focus on Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.
I spoke to five of the authors coming to Bookmarks, and if there is any common thread among them, it's that they (this is not exactly breaking news) love books and picking the brains of the people who dream them up. Call them the ultimate bookworms.
"This is book crack," said storyteller and author Carmen Deedy of book festivals.
"It's a carnival without the big tent," said poet Nikki Giovanni. Last year about 7,500 people attended Bookmarks, which is, in fact, held in tents. The full schedule is online at www.bookmarksfestival.org.
The book "carnival" gets started at 9:30 a.m. Saturday at Bethabara Park and runs until 5 p.m.
Admission is free.
Carmen Agra Deedy, storyteller and children's book author:
Deedy was born in Havana, but was just 3 when her family moved to the United States. She is the author of eight books and lives in the Atlanta area. Her newest is Martina the Beautiful Cockroach, the retelling of a Cuban folk tale about a cockroach that is looking for a husband.
Why she writes: "I grew up hearing amazing stories … between Cubans who have an innate love of stories and Southerners who share the affection for the word. I don't feel like there are any parameters on the kind of the stories I can tell, oral or fairytale, original work or retelling. My interests are broad and I just like stories period.
"I love the solitary aspect of writing, I love the reflective aspect of writing … writing lets my mind work on a very human pace on a story. It's such a craft."
On her book: "I first heard Martina from my mother. She used to tell it to me in Spanish. It's as familiar to Cubans as, say, ‘Cinderella' is to American children."
Where you can find her at Bookmarks: Storytelling on the main stage at 11:45 a.m. Reading Martina in the children's authors tent at 2:30 p.m.
Marisa de los Santos, novelist: De los Santos is half-Filipino, but she grew up in suburban Washington and Virginia, and her books tend to reflect that. Belong to Me picks up storylines from her first novel, Love Walked In, tracing the path of passionate urbanite Cornelia Brown who surprises everyone, including herself, when she and her husband willingly move to the ‘burbs.
Why she writes: "I was a poet … I had never written fiction much. It was one of the things that happened when I had my first child … it was really hard to write poetry. About the time I was really, really struggling, I started to have this voice in my head. She would just kind of comment on things … this character came to me … I just decided to sit down and try to see what this is. I didn't have a story to tell, and then suddenly I did."
On her book: "We moved to Wilmington, Del., from Center City, Pa., with two young kids at the time. The feel of it is … very suburban, in a neighborhoody way.
"(Cornelia's) running toward what she remembers from her childhood. A community of women who are friends, supporting each other … and that's really what she wants. There's no single girl in the city. It's really about parenting and family and female relationships."
Where you can find her at Bookmarks: In the "Novel Ideas" tent at 1 p.m.
Nikki Giovanni, poet and children's book author: Giovanni has been a poet, author, activist and professor for more than 40 years, but recently she's perhaps best known for the powerful poem she wrote last year for the Virginia Tech shooting memorial service. Giovanni has branched into children's books lately, too.
Acolytes is her newest book of poetry; The Grasshopper's Song: an Aesop's Fable Revisited, and Lincoln and Douglass: An American Friendship are her two of her new children's books. She will discuss all of them at Bookmarks.
Why she writes: "People may think ‘I can write a kid's book, that's easy,' and I don't think it's easy at all because you have to write for the parents, too.
"I'm a storyteller even though I write poetry, and this is just another way of sharing a story.
"I think I'm lucky because I started early. I'm not an athlete -- the older we get the better we get. We're like wine. There is so much to share."
On one of her books: Lincoln and Douglass is about the friendship between the 16th president and a black abolitionist. "It is such a good, solid story," Giovanni said, "and I think people will enjoy reading it. It took great people to steer this good ship America. We are a heroic people, and I think that we've been less than ourselves recently. Life could be so much better if we were back in step with being honorable."
Where you can find her at Bookmarks: In the children's tent at 11 a.m. and on the main stage at 2:30 p.m.
Chris Crutcher, young-adult novelist: Crutcher is a former child therapist who started writing novels for young adults before he really even knew that it was a genre. His books often tackle controversial topics and some have been banned from classrooms and libraries. Two were on the American Library Association's list of 100 most frequently challenged books between 1990 and 2000.
Crutcher's new book, Deadline, is about Ben Wolf, a high-school senior who learns that he has a blood disease at the beginning of the school year. He has about a year to live.
Why he writes: "When I started writing books I was director of an alternative school for kids in California. I wrote the first book and then started working on the center. When you work child abuse and neglect … you're kind of working with every age -- you're working with the adults doing the abuse, and the kids who are getting abused. I always looked at it (adolescence) as a hugely important time in terms of decision making.
"You have a temper as an adolescent and you don't deal with it, and then you come back as an adult and beat up your wife. Everything about adolescence and everything about good storytelling fit together because everything is so intense."
On his book: "It's a book about life rather than death. It's just a concentration of time. Here's a kid with a year to live. And to some degree that's a gimmick. What I did with him is really turn up the heat of adolescence on him."
Where you can find him at Bookmarks: In the teen and young-adult tent at noon, kicking off "The Big Read."
Scott Nelson, historian: Nelson is a history professor at the College in William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va. He has written about the Southern railway and John Henry, a 19th-century American folklore hero and railroad worker. His most recent book is A People at War: Civilians and Soldiers in America's Civil War: 1854-1877.
Why he writes: Nelson was born in New York and moved to North Florida when he was 6. "For the first little bit I couldn't understand what anyone was saying. There were clearly really serious divisions between folks -- partly racial, partly religious. I became fascinated with the South, with what makes this place so different from New York, where I was from. It was partly survival, and eventually it just consumed me."
On his book: "Another book on the Civil War?" goes the first line of A People at War. There are plenty of books about the history of the Civil War, but none that captured the answer to such questions as: "What is it like to be a Southern in the midst of an invasion," Nelson said.
"How is daily life changed by the war? There are books that do little snapshots in places … (this book is) from a national and international standpoint. It tells a whole history of the war from prisoners of war and soldiers and mothers and children.... At the same time plug it into international changes."
Where you can find him at Bookmarks: In the "Heroes and Icons" tent at 9:30 a.m.
■ Laura Giovanelli can be reached at 336-727-7302 or at lgiovanelli@wsjournal.com.
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