Along with fresh cut grass and the scent of just-baked pumpkin pie, the smell of books ranks high in my list all-time favorite smells (okay, so I don't really have such a list, but I just made one up, so now I do). I don't just like smelling books, however; occasionally I read them too. If you're anything like me, and you like to experience books with all of your five senses, you'll be at the Eighth Annual Baltimore Book Festival being held this weekend on Saturday the 20th and Sunday the 21th at Mount
Vernon Place, on the 600 block of Charles Street. The festival had also included an evening of events on Friday the 19th, but they have been cancelled due to concerns that Hurrican Isabel might not be very well-behaved party guest. Otherwise, the festival is on, come rain or shine.
There will be live music, book readings, famous author sightings, endless opportunities to flip through endless pages, and the lovely scents of musty old books and the crisp pages of new books commingling in the fall air. The only thing I'm sure the organizers of the festival won't encourage is the tasting of any books on display. If you do want to do that, it's strictly BYO Book, but there will be many food and beer vendors on hand to feed you tasty treats as well. They've thought of everything.
... including a range of authors that will be on hand to give readings, conduct seminars and try to get you to buy their books. Some of the featured guests include Johns Hopkins's own Writing Seminars professors, Stephen Dixon and Tristan Davies , who will participating in Saturday's Short Story Panel at 4:30 p.m.
This dynamic duo makes up the backbone of the Writing Seminars major at Hopkins. They are rarely found in the same room together because under normal circumstances their sheer luminosity would be blinding, but if you bring your sunglasses you should be safe to watch them make one of their unusual co-appearances.
Other acclaimed personalities and writers on hand will include local film-maker, Barry Levinson, director of such classics as Good Morning, Vietnam, Rain Man and Diner, who will be debuting his first-time novel, Sixty-Six (Sept. 19, 7 p.m.), Lia Purpura, poet, memoirist and author of Increase, a book about motherhood, (Sept. 20, 2 p.m.), as well as poets Jane Satterfield, a professor at Loyola (Sept. 20, 4 p.m.), and the extraordinary X.J. Kennedy, who is also a published children's book author (Sept. 20, 1:30 p.m.).
Free seminars will also be held throughout Saturday and Sunday at the festival's Literay Salon where expert authors will lead panels on various specialty topics. Highlights include a "Lifestyle" stage where cookbook, home and garden authors will inspire the inner Martha Stewarts and Julia Childs-es (Children?) in us all, a sports writing seminar entitled, "Journalists: On Track, Court & Diamond" led in part by
James Bready, author of Baseball in Baltimore, and a travel writing workshop entitled, "Change Your Vacation Into Memoir," a great way to make that crazy road trip last spring pay for all the damages you incurred to your mom's car and maybe launch you as your generation's Jack Kerouac.
But best of all, that brooding, unwashed Writing Seminars graduate student you've been watching during his or her daily cigarette break on the steps of Gilman is sure to be there.
