Book Festival Notes

Notes from the 2013 Houston Indie Book Festival

I'm always a bit nervous before attending a book festival. What will the weather be like? Where will our table be? Who else is coming? Will people show up? Did we pack everything? Do we have enough copies? Do we have too many? It can be a little nerve-racking, even when we've been coming to a particular book festival for years.

This was our fifth trip to the Houston Indie Book Festival, and I still get anxious in the days and moments leading up to the event. This was especially true for this year because there were a few major changes.

(By the way, this year is technically the sixth HIBF; however, there's no record of the 2008 festival, which, if it was smaller than the 2009 festival--our first year--it must have been in someone's garage.)

First, longtime organizer Nano Fiction took a step back and Gulf Coast took over all of the planning. Second, the cost of one table climbed to $50. That's not much in the grand scheme of things, but last year, we got two tables for $35, and the year before, we got two tables for free because we came down from Dallas. Third, the book festival joined with the Menil Community Arts to create the 2013 Menil Community Arts & Houston Indie Book Festival.

My first concern about this year's festival was the weather. Apparently, Houston is notorious for its bad weather, but our experiences have always been pleasant, and this year was no exception. The weather was perfect: sunny and 72 degrees, with a slight breeze and almost no humidity. Couldn't ask for anything better.

My second concern was table size and placement. For the past three years, the book festival has been on the grounds of the fantastic Menil Museum, and for the past two years our table has been in the sweetest spot, on the north side of the museum, near the front doors (out of the sun).

We arrived at the museum at the requested time, a little before ten, and the place was already hopping with exhibitors setting up their tables. We walked around, looking for our table, and I noticed that there were no signs. As I feared, it was first come first serve. One of the young ladies from Gulf Coast told me it was 'pretty laid back, just pick a table.' Luckily, there was one open table on the north side, and we snagged it. But Robin was pissed.

(Maybe it's just me, but I would think half the fun of organizing a festival would be arranging the exhibitors in a way that would highlight every table.)

Though we had almost a full hour before the festival opened, Robin and I set up the table in record time. It also helped that Robin was not in a chatty mood. Still fuming about the laissez-faire attitude toward setup, she ignored early morning lookie-loos and our neighbors. In fact, she was even more upset about our neighbors.

Normally, each exhibitor has one table. For some reason, the two tables surrounding us were each shared by two exhibitors: stage left was a table with two authors, one had a book about travels in India and the other had a book about immigration. The table on the other side was occupied by an author who had a book about traveling in India and a woman who made cool bookmarks.

Usually, one-book authors purchase a single table so they can spread out and show their babies. Now, there's no reason not to share a table, but these tables were small (six-foot) so each exhibitor had three feet of real estate. Not only that, but for eight hours, you are practically sitting on top of someone you may not get along with, and you have to fight with that person for customers. That's right, as much as we'd like to think book festivals are kumbaya get-togethers filled with touchy-feely book people, they are competitions. Sure it's crass, but most people come to book festivals with a set amount of cash to spend, or at least an idea, and every dollar I take away from a customer is one less dollar you get. Sharing a cramped table with the competition doesn't make sense.

Once we got the table in order, Robin relaxed a bit and moved into hostess mode. I, on the other hand, started getting jumpy. I paced in front of the table. I fiddled with the books. I bugged the kids. Finally, just before the official opening of the festival, Robin told me to go find something to do. So I decided to take Gabe to a record store.

Not only did the book festival fall on Gabe's birthday, but it was also National Record Store Day. So, Gabe and I walked down to Soundwaves, a surf/music store, to see what they had. For the first thirty minutes we were gone, Robin didn't talk to one person, but by the time we got back, the festival was in full swing.
And the kids were hungry.

This year, the food trucks were off the streets and in the Menil parking lot, out of sight of the festival. This was a brilliant move. They were close enough that everyone could get to them, but we didn't have to listen to the constant hum of their generators. And the selection was excellent. Liv got a pulled pork sandwich, which she said was like 'eating happiness.' Gabe got a Chicago dog, and Robin got a grilled peanut butter and strawberry sandwich from the Monster PB&J truck.

After lunch, the kids and I went into the Menil to see if there were any cool new collections. Unfortunately, there weren't. And some of the pieces we have enjoyed in years past were gone (either out on loan or back to their owners, I guess). It was a bit of a letdown, but the pairing of the book festival with the Menil Community Arts Festival wasn't.

The entire day was filled with fun, artsy activities, all of which were spelled out in their well-designed full-color program. The Thomas Hulten Hot Viking Dixieland Band kicked off the festival, and though I thought having a band near our table would be a problem, Robin said the music was great, not too loud, and pulled in a lot of people.

But the Dixieland Band was not as popular as Writers in the Schools. WITS, an organization that brings the love of reading and writing to students, held their annual Young Writers Reading in front of the Menil at noon, and the place was packed with kids and their parents. Young writers from all over Houston read their works. It was fantastic. The kids were inspiring, and the crowd was enthusiastic. It actually felt like a literary festival.

Our one issue was with the music at the end of the day. Around three o'clock, a U-Haul truck started unloading drum cases on the lawn in front of the museum doors. An hour and a half later, line upon line percussion began playing Hugues DuFourt's Erewhon.

This was an impressive setup: six guys playing various bangable instruments for over an hour. But it was six guys hitting things for over an hour. At points, it was difficult to talk to each other, much less the people who wanted to learn more about us.

Otherwise, the day was a success. There was always a steady stream of people, many who were happy to see us again, and lots who were happy to see us for the first time.

There was one particularly memorable festivalgoer. I was in charge of the table while Robin and Liv walked around, and a spry young lady approached and asked about The First Line. Her eyes lit up when I explained what we did and she said, "We used to do that all the time in school." She went on to explain that her teachers would pull phrases from a popular book of the time and have the students write stories that started with those phrases (she thought it was called Farthingale Books, back in the 1920s and 30s).

She remembers one particular writing assignment in the fourth grade. Her teacher wrote on the board "Little dog laughed." It was a reference to the famous poem "Hey Diddle Diddle," but she didn't get the reference, and while most of her classmates wrote a story about a laughing dog, she wrote a story about an Indian boy named Little Dog and why he laughed.

I loved it. That's what The First Line is about. Our favorite stories are the ones where someone sees something unexpected in the first line and runs with it. It's those moments, talking about writing with people, that make book festivals fun for me.

I also had fun checking out the other exhibitors. The press has been doing well this year, so I decided to take some of our profits (ha!) and pump them back into the community. I started with the CLMP table, but I noticed it wasn't as stocked as it had been in previous years. Sure, they had two tables full of literary journals for $2 and $3 each, but the selection was limited to several issues of a few bigger-named journals. I don't know if it's because smaller journals are dying out or because they realize sending free samples for the CLMP to sell doesn't really do much for their publications.

I was happy to see a brand new indie journal, Houston & Nomadic Voices. This was their first issue, so I snagged a copy. I also bought a copy of the Houston Zine Fest publication (and left them a copy of Bookstores and Baseball). I bought some zines from Encyclopedia Destructica. Jasdeep Khaira, a book artist based out of Pittsburgh, runs the press, and she came down for the festival.

Some of the presses and journals that were here last year didn't come back, and Domy books, which has always been a mainstay at this festival, was absent, though we were told they are going through some changes (including closing down their Austin store).

We did get to meet the editor of the other indie literary journal in Dallas, Carve. Matthew Limpede came down for the festival to sell some issues of the print edition of his magazine. We didn't get a chance to talk until we were packing up, but among the things we discussed was setting up something like this in Dallas. Maybe someday.

So, how did we do? We did well, thanks to everyone who came out. After expenses (gas, hotel, and food), we came out seventy-five dollars ahead. Of course, if you count the money spent on the press stuff (book printing, author royalties, and advertising), we lost a few dollars. But that's why we don't count that stuff. It helps us feel better about our choices in life.

 

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