Up early and off to the Tucson Festival of Books, but not before using the technology to get ready. Months ago I downloaded the Daily Star App (Tucson’s daily newspaper). The previous Sunday had contained a supplement outlining all the authors and vendors and where they would be on the University of Arizona Campus. In addition, both my phone and the iPad contained the App built by the Festival committee. This little gem had links to all bios of the authors, who they would be teaming with, which classroom or auditorium they use, multiple times during the weekend they would speak and where they would be for book signings, etc., etc. Fantastic resource.
Still, we were not prepared for the size of the crowds or the popularity of some of these authors (rock stars might make an apt comparison). The lines were huge, and had we not known exactly where and when to go, we would have missed a great many chances to hear these gifted people with a message.
Our first author was Luis Urrea (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lu%C3%ADs_Alberto_Urrea) an author I’d never heard of, but one of the favorites of the Little/Logan clan and one whom Cathy had read before (shown above). It was chilly and the venue was a small white tent out on the lawn of the campus, but he made all of that irrelevant. He was a spell-binder. His message was particularly poignant do to the fact that all of his books had just this month been removed from the shelves of the public schools in Arizona as their government suspended all Hispanic Studies courses as a cost-cutting measure. This, is a state with one of the highest Hispanic populations and a rating next to the last in literacy among young students.
Next was J. A. Jance of mystery fame (shown above with Margaret Coel). The rest of the day rolled on with Cath getting to see Richard Russo (I was thrown out along with a hundred or so others due to overcrowding in the auditorium). We did get to hear/see Elmore Leonard today. Wow! Doesn’t he look like Malcolm McCollum???