The Book Fest is here! The Book Fest is here!
Use this post to report goings on and write reviews of your favorite events. And as we’ve done in years past, feel free to send along your book fest pics and I’ll compile them into an album.
Pic courtesy of MikeC
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AJC Attempts to Explain the “e” in Clairemont Avenue
Spent a little time walking the dog at the festival this morning. Oldtimers will not be surprised that I didn’t know a single person there for over an hour until I recognized the mayor, Bill Floyd. On the way out of the vendor area, a nice woman asked me if I needed any help. “I was hoping to meet the author and get an autographed copy of Captain Underpants but could not find his stall” I told her. She failed to see the humor in this. I guess it was the humidity.
I’ve seen many friends and neighbors! Joseph Crespino’s talk on Strom Thurmond was fantastic. Now at Eddie’s Attic about to hear the author of “Arcadia,” Lauren Groff.
I’m an unlettered barbarian…rather than spending time soaking up literature, I spent my morning with the seven year old at the DragonCon parade. Stan Lee, Lou Ferrigno, steam punk, Warhammer, Star Wars, Ghostbusters, Society for Creative Anacronisms, Netherworld, etc. Yeah, the freak flags were flyin’ high, and all was right with the world.
LOVE the location for the children’s stage this year – plenty of space, great shade.
Yes, agreed! I think it was moved for incidental reasons (construction in the usual location) but I really hope they keep it.
+1
Can some one tell me what the hours are for the vendor booths on Sunday? I have looked high and low and near and far on the website and find times for all of the events/speakers, but nothing on when I can browse the booths . . . Thanks!
Noon to 6.
Sat with Shirley Franklin To hear Isabel Wilkerson speak. Not a bad Saturday at all
We heard really wonderful presentations by Mac Barnett, Shannon Hale, and Rebecca Stead at the Children’s Stage. The location this year was so nice! Not at all over crowded feeling, shady, very pleasant. We also heard the panel discussion on the importance of picture books led by Leonard Marcus and with Lauren Snyder, Mac Barnett, and Chris Raschka. We enjoyed the whole discussion, and my son and I agreed that Mr. Barnett was our favorite discovery of the festival. Christmas presents for all nieces and nephews…check!
Thanks, CFS. It’s great to hear that folks get to see their favorite authors, but what we love most is for people to discover someone new to them.
One of the book vendors divided fiction into separate “men’s” and “women’s” racks. A little strange, and somewhat arbitrary.
I attended Natasha Tretheway’s keynote, filled with poems about race. I attended Geronimo Johnson’s talk about “Hold it till it Hurts,” which has much to do with race. I attended Isabel Wilkerson’s talk about “The Warmth of Other Suns,” which also has much to do with race. And finally I attended Chuck Thompson’s talk about his northerner’s case for southern secession–race, race, race.
The audiences at these events mostly looked a lot like me: white. And the audiences’ large numbers and avid attention were impressive. The line to get Wilkerson to sign a copy of “The Warmth of Other Suns” was long and full.
In the years to come, may Tretheway’s service as Poet Laureate broaden and deepen our national conversation about issues of race, which live and breathe as ever.
Baratunde Thurston’s “How to be Black” and Rachel Swarn’s “American Tapestry” were rich sessions too. Thurston was very funny IMHO.
I didn’t make it to the DBF yesterday, and now I’m trying to decide whether to eat lunch first today or try the festival food. Do they have food trucks like the ones at Atlanta Food Truck Park, or are the food sellers more in the funnel cakes and hot dogs category?
Thanks!
More funnel cakes
Just to clarify, this is not a bad thing. Funnel cakes are never a bad thing!
Funnel cakes are irresistible. But cloying if one either eats the whole thing or lets it get cold.
I misspoke a little above. There WAS a Nectar truck but the rest was greasy street festival food.
Maybe more food truck variety next year? I’ll bet the demand is there. Or is it a problem for local food eateries?
Joining the plea for more variety in the food options in future, and by “variety” I mean something besides grease and sugar.
Oh and King of Pops was there. Speaking of which, I tried Sea Salt Chocolate and it didn’t work for me. Neither does Bacon Caramel doughnuts at Revolution. I know everyone else loves these but salty and sugary just doesn’t work well for me. I love all the other flavors of pops and doughnuts.
Give me more detail on what food you would like to see at the event. I can influence that. Having said that, I’ve never really understood who goes for the festival food when there is the richness of the Decatur restaurant scene surrounding them. What I would really like to see is the Decatur restaurant community do book festival specials: maybe boxed lunches or other to-go items for the festival crowd. My lunches on Saturday and Sunday were from Samiches and Stuff.
Boxed or to-go specials from Decatur estblshmts would be great. My own perspective: I usually volunteer, which involves being on my feet for 3-5 hours in some capacity. Want to enjoy the festival before and/or after, don’t really want to “waste” time sitting around in a restaurant — I can do that any time. But fried and super-sugary food makes me feel awful on the go, especially in hot weather. At Inman Park Fest this year, grabbed a big cup of veggie stir-fry, not perfect but much better than french fries/kettle corn/funnel cake kind of fare. Would love doner-kabobs, some kind of veggie wraps. My dream is for the fest to get the folks at Las Brasas to run chicken boxes to a kiosk somewhere on the square…. I’m not veggie, actually prefer a little animal protein w/ every meal, but willing to give up protein to avoid deep -fried sugar in this environment
I took the kids up to DBF expecting to have some festival food, but couldn’t stomach feeding the kids sausages or fried everything, especially since we were going to a cookout after our time at the festival.
I didn’t see any option besides going to a restaurant – which may be by design. But with little ones in tow, and not wanting to miss our first scheduled event, I was scared away from any restaurants on the square. I decided we needed to have a salad option, so ended up walking to Taco Mac. They had enough servers, but it was still crazy.
If we had more healthy options, I would have preferred to stay in the festival area to eat.
My daughter did discover her new favorite King of Pops flavor – plum and ginger. Not my cuppa tea, but she’s dreaming of them now.
About the junk food vs. restaurants: I had an easy time grabbing lunch at Brick Store (upstairs bar, a bit before noon) on Saturday. Granted, I had an hour before my next event. On Sunday, I had no problem getting a sandwich to go at Java Monkey.
Also had my first dinner at Colbeh on Saturday night. Food was good, service was great, and the place wasn’t too crowded or noisy.
This year was one of my best food experiences at the festival, partly because I didn’t go near anything on a stick–except for a tasty lamb skewer at Colbeh!
My nephew left his autographed Captain Underpants book somewhere…maybe at the DEF book tent. Maybe around the Children’s Stage. His name is Parker, which should be on the inside.
Any rescuers?
[email protected] or 678-429-5131
I was curious as to why the high school auditorium wasn’t used this year? It has been a great venue for the Theatrical Outfit events. Unfortunately, the library stage filled up well before the start time of their presentation of “My Name is Asher Lev.”
On a positive, ahem, note, I discovered a wonderful author and book at the library stage: Frank Barrett and “Yes to the Mess” : Surprising Leadership Lessons from Jazz.”
Loved that one. That and the “Art of Procrastination” presentation were good antidotes for all the training thrown at us about strategic planning, organizational skills, systematic approaches, change management, team building, leadership, yada yada yada.
The high school auditorium is one of the best venues available to the DBF, and we plan to be back in 2013. The reasons we didn’t use it this year had everything to do with the lawn renovation and traffic flow.
Got to say that the DHS auditorium was a bit of a hike. That and the First Baptist venue can really throw you off your game. I found that this year it was much easier to get around because I wasn’t trekking to DHS and I didn’t happen to see anything at First Baptist. Plus the coordination of time slots was much, much better than some previous years. I wasn’t in one session while another was starting somewhere else.
I hope that means there will be a Decatur welcome tent on North McDonough. Lots of people walk in there and the bike corral is there a day they need programs and info.
+1
I,too, am curious as to why The Decatur High School Auditorium was not used for the DBF. I am even more curious about how often it is rented out. Is there anywhere we can see statistics about revenue brought in by the auditorium and who rents it?
I am not a frequent Twitter user, and I suspect I am ignorant of some Twitter pecularities. But the number of tweets that come up in a search for #DBF12 is far smaller than last year’s book fest tweets. Was there some other hash tag being used? And why do my tweets with #DBF12 not show up in the search?
Have the results of the silent auction been released? If so, are they posted somewhere?
As I picked up after my mother in law (who either simply left her trash at her feet or tossed it onto the street while walking around) I realized 2 key things:
1. Just how clean the festival is. Been to many others in other towns where the location is trashed by festival’s end. Kudos to the staff and the community.
And 2. That it is best not to go out in public with my mother in law 😉