I’m going to lead with this statement COME TO THE KERRYTOWN BOOKFEST!!!

http://kerrytownbookfest.org/

Sunday, September 9 11- a.m. to 5 p.m. At the Ann Arbor Farmer’s Market. There will be 130plus exhibitors, including booksellers, artisans, authors, book art demonstrators, librarians, etc., as well as a full slate of author panels, children’s activities and other bookish stuff. I won’t mention the workshops at the unique Hollander’s school because they’re already full, but if you want to help me, the rest of the organizers and a crew of bohemian young ladies and gents move the tables at five I’d appreciate it because the boy scouts crapped out on us!

I was actually going to write a tell all article about the Kerrytown Bookfest and the Ann Arbor Book Festival (not affiliated), exposing the backstage dirt and origins of both of them. But guess what, I’m not. I guess it’s because the Ann Arbor News has finally deigned to admit that the Kerrytown Bookfest exists and is a vibrant success. Last time we asked them to write an article about it they said Why? We covered it last year. But I’ll cut off that rant right there because they actually had a feature in the paper Sunday. I guess we’ll see if they have a follow up, but that could be too much to ask for one year. I mean it’s not like we’re the Ypsilanti Shadow Art Fair or anything.

Our store first got involved with the BookFest because Gene Alloway, a founder, owner of Motte and Bailey, and one of the nicest guys in a business which is filled with a lot of, uh, eccentrics, asked me to. Pretty much all of the independent bookstores in town (except for the one that was running it) had had a bad experience with the Ann Arbor Book Festival, so there was a little spite factor involved. But when we got there spite was left in the dust. There’s just such a good, positive feeling about the Fest, a vibe if you will, and we felt it right away. It’s like the best of Ann Arbor, communal, informal and driven by a passion for books and ideas, and all our favorite people were there with smiles on their faces. As professional book event presenters we saw the author panels were the one part that didn’t work. There was no direction from the moderator, and, as a seat filler, trying to make it look like there was somebody in the crowd, I sat there in a big, hot tent, listening to a few local authors gripe about how tough it is to be published. I went back to our table and said to my wife that they should just eliminate the author events, but she had a gleam in her eye and said No, they should just make them better. A few years later there I was, moderating a panel with the nationally syndicated comic authors Jeff Mallett of Frazz and Dave Coverly of Speed Bumps in front of a SRO crowd that filled the tent and spilled out all around.

We’re not really a book show type shop – we’re more set up for rabid readers than rabid collectors and the Fest is now the only show we do, not for money, because we like it. (Though we will deign to take your money if your so inclined. This is about selling books after all.) Gene came up to me at a library book sale and asked if I wanted to be on the board a while ago, and like the true committee-phobe that I am I offered up my wife in my place. It’s been both inspiring and a little depressing to watch her and the rest of the gang struggle to get the thing going in the face of the financial neglect of the high and mighty and the silence of some portions of the media, but they’ve pulled it off to increasing attendance and participation each year. There’s some great panels and great authors like Loren D. Estleman, Elizabeth Kostova, Eric Villegas, and my own panel Midwest Noir with a bunch of up and coming newer writers whose books I really dig: Marcus Sakey, Sean Chercover, Steven Sidor and Mitchell Bartoy.

The day itself is simply magic, and if you have any sense you’ll be there. This year also marks the return of Gregory D. Anthony OFFICIAL PHOTOGRAPHER, so if you come you can be immortalized by this shutterbug legend….