by Bruce Guthrie
A bit delayed but here are some of my pictures and thoughts from
the National Book Festival which was held on September 6 at the Walter
E. Washington Convention Center.
During the 2024 event, I
photographed way too many sessions (50?) -- taking pictures for at most 5
minutes and then moving on to the next one. (If you're ADHD, this is a
perfect hobby!) but that didn't work out this time because I lost a lot
of time traipsing off to the first floor sessions in the north
building. The trip from the ballrooms to those rooms involved walking
the equivalent of three blocks and taking multiple escalators. The
signing lines and bookstore had been moved to the basement this time --
another 10-minute trip so I only made it there only once.
Unlike in 2024, I actually sat through two complete sessions -- “Insectopolis”: Interactive Coloring Workshop with Peter Kuper and, my very last session, Rick Atkinson on the Latest in His American Revolution Trilogy. I have to admit I was so exhausted by the last one (15,000 steps with some heavy equipment) that I fell asleep during it.
Peter Kuper's
talk (despite the billing, I can't say it was a workshop although they
provided drawing sheets that folks could color if they wanted to) was
fun. He talked about working on his Insectopolis book at The New
York Public Library as one of fifteen Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman
Center Fellows. Part of the idea of the fellowship is to put you in
close physical contact with library experts but his fellowship started
in 2020 just as COVID-19 was hitting. So he spent much of his time
totally alone in the building. He said there was an advantage in that
because he had time to appreciate the architecture of the building and
heavily incorporated that into his work, as you can see by the cover of
the book.
He said he was always fascinated by bugs so this was a
major love of his. He talked about his career. The interviewer, Debra
Alfarone, was enthusiastic although her question about how he created
the Spy vs. Spy series for MAD Magazine was a little embarrassing.
(Peter said he was 3 years old when Antonio Prohías created the comic
in 1961.)
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| Kuper and Guthrie |
Mariko Tamaki had an earlier session in the same room which was closer to a workshop, involving the audience more.
Of the more standard author sessions, I enjoyed the "J vs. K" session with Kwame Alexander and Jerry Craft.
Their friendship was obvious and their repartee and jibes at each other
were great. The audience for their book was very enthusiastic and it
was clear that they knew and loved these authors.
Partway
through their talk, Kwame talked about all of the side ventures he had
set up and stared briefly at Jerry before asking if he was wearing one
of Kwame's branded eyeglass frames. Yep. They have quotemarks in the
corners.
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| Megan Halsband, Craft, and Alexander |
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| Jerry Craft |
I saw Raúl the Third at two talks that I visited. He happily posed for photos which I appreciated. He was the moderator for discussion between Leigh Bardugo and John Picacio
about their new picture book "The Invisible Parade" . John has done
some amazing artwork, specializing in science fiction, fantasy and
horror. He's got lots of awards -- Spectrum Award, International
Horror Guild Award for Best Artist, Artist Guest of Honor at the 2003
ArmadilloCon, World Fantasy Award for Best Artist, two Chesley Awards,
the Locus Award, the Hugo Award, and SDCC's Inkpot Award. Frankly, a
slide show of his work would have been appreciated.
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| Raul the Third |
Actress Geena Davis
was there promoting her new picture book "The Girl Who Was Too Big for
the Page". She said she had been considered too tall in school and
attended a school where kids were arranged by, of all things, height.
Her interviewer was Mac Barnett, the LOC's National Ambassador
for Young People's Literature. I loved how he actually took notes when
his subjects were speaking. He moved around the festival all day as did
the introducer of the event -- Robert Newlen, Acting Librarian of Congress.
The "big name" of the event was Supreme Court justice Amy Comey Barrett who
Trump considered a worthy replacement to Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
(Similarities are that she has three names and is female. She calls
herself an "originalist" because obviously the signers of the
Constitution really wanted a dictator to rule the country.) She was
interviewed by David Rubenstein -- another figure who, as
co-chair of the NBF, was all over the place that day -- who worked for
Jimmy Carter before founding The Carlyle Group which earned him billions
before Elon Musk made that just be chump change.
You know that
Rubenstein would have loved to ask her biting questions but he was the
perfect gentleman. (Someone mentioned that his later interview
Unleashing the Bomb: An Oral History, with Garrett M. Graff,
which I didn't visit, included a mention of Nobel prizes for some of
the participants including David asking if these folks had actively
pursued getting the prize.) Unlike Barnett, Rubenstein never seems to
need notes but his questions are well structured and direct.
Unlike
with other sessions, we were only allowed to photograph for the first
two minutes of her session. Given that I don't have any respect for
her, I was fine with that so I left on time. As I went out, I passed
someone coming in wearing a Handmaid's Tale outfit. We quietly
high-fived. I had accidentally left my bag at my seat -- I wondered why
I was in less pain than I had been earlier in the morning -- and when I
returned to collect the bag, the woman was being held outside of the
room. Obviously she had been tossed out.
I enjoyed seeing Colleen Shogan,
the Archivist of the United States who was fired since she didn't
believe in stealing government documents, moderating one of the panels.
I didn't spend long in most of the panels but I was in the talk "The Missing: Liz Moore and Chris Whitaker in Conversation About Their Blockbuster Novels"
when Chris, who I was unfamiliar with, described how he got into
writing. He said he had never planned on becoming a writer but when he
was 19, someone tried to mug him to steal his smartphone. He figured
the guy was smaller than him and resisted. The guy pulled out a knife
and started stabbing him. He mentioned the blade had gone completely
through his abdomen at one point. He survived but had PTSD. As a rehab
project, he was told to start writing and... voila! That was
fascinating as hell!
There
were a number of things I disliked about the festival this time.
Moving the signing lines and the Politics and Prose bookstore in the
basement vs the main hall (Hall D) meant that Hall D had a lot of empty
space.
One
thing I really liked was that, since this was the 25th Festival, they
had a display with all of the posters from the previous festivals. It
turns out that year 2 was the only one with a horizontal poster. The
first couple had a logo with the word "Book" in huge letters. If you
remember, some years ago they changed the LOC logo to repeat the word
"Library" in bold large letters -- "LIBRARY Library of Congress". They
said they did this to remind people that it's an approachable library.
After they did that, I joked that the logo for the NBF would be
"National Book BOOK Festival". It was bizarre seeing that the first NBF
ones used were pretty close to that.
The
original posters were drawn by artists. Roz Chast, for example, did the
one for 2017. Posters starting in 2019 seem to be mostly graphic
designers. Personally, I liked the earlier ones better.
The
original National Book Festival was one of the projects of Laura Bush
and "Hosted by First Lady Laura Bush" appears on the posters from
2001-2008. Barack and/or Michelle Obama are mentioned on the posters
for 2010-2015. Target was the primary sponsor shown on the first poster
but disappeared by 2014, at which point it's usually the Washington
Post and Wells Fargo. The 2010 poster is the first to say that David M.
Rubenstein is co-chair. The festival was a one-day event from
2001-2010. It was a two-day event from 2011-2013. In 2014, it went
back to being a one-day event when it was moved to the DC convention
center. People still bitch about the location change but, personally, I
really appreciate bathrooms, air conditioning, and no mud.
In addition to the pictures interspersed above, there are lots more on my website. Try this link:
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Photo credit: Bruce Guthrie
Photo credit: Ellen B. Wright
Photo credit: Jenn Florence
