“A mind needs books as a sword needs a whetstone, if it is to keep its edge.”
George R.R. Martin, Game of Thrones
Photographer: Alberto E. Tamargo
Street MDCMIBF
Miami Book Fair International (MBFI) careers back into our world on Sunday night, Nov. 16, opening with the chronically jam-packed "Evenings With... " series; six nights of cutting edge writers from all walks of life reading and discussing latest thoughts on fiction and non at Miami Dade College Wolfson Campus, downtown. The ever popular Street Fair with more than 350 Festival of Authors residing from near and wide will take us through the weekend beginning Friday, Nov. 21. Over 250 publishers and booksellers will be on the streets exhibiting and selling their wares from the peaked crayon colored booths. Yup, do the math; there are reams of authors and info to stuff into eight days of stimulating discourse. Prize winners of the loftiest of awards will grace our shore: Pulitzer, Nobel, National Book, MacArthur Fellowship... all here for our convenience in providing ongoing brain food lest that pesky sun bleached out last years input.
The first Miami Book Fair International was founded by Miami Dade College and community partners. Now part of The Center for Literature and Theater at Miami Dade College, it’s recognized as the best in the land. If you are not familiar with MDC’s Center for Literature, please take the time to peruse their events throughout the year. Put yourself on their mailing list.... it gets interesting.
MBFI has comprehensive appeal; from Latin American and Spanish writers in the IberoAmerican Authors Program to the Children's Alley which not only incorporates a child's literary world, but is pumped up to include theater, arts and crafts and storytelling. How about comics, let's not forget the galloping graphic artists popularity will be highlighted with well known novelists and illustrators from this non age-restricted genre.
For those who appreciate first editions and original manuscripts, the Antiquarians will be on hand to fill the pages of the collectible realm.
All scheduled authors are listed on the Miami Book Fair International website.
Spoiler alert: Look forward to opening night with Alexander McCall Smith, British author of the internationally noted The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series and the Isabel Dalhousie series to name just two. Patricia Cornwell, Anne Rice, Nicholas Kristof, Chuck Todd, Joyce Carol Oates and Larry McMurty will be a few of many gracing the stages along with the venerable literary icons Mitchell Kaplan and Tom Healy providing a welcoming overview to jumpstart festivities.
Official 2014 Book Fair winning poster artist David Le Batard (LEBO) shared his impressions and conclusions with us: “For the MBFI poster I wanted to create an image that spoke to those from Miami along with those new or visiting to Miami. I wanted to play with icons that balance each other out with the short phrase 'back and forth and back again' illustrating the idea of where reading takes us. on endless journeys that are as profound and endless as the sea that surrounds us.
The MBFI represents a much needed balance to glitz and glamour that Miami is often known for. It’s an international fair that celebrates intellectualism, and in that, not only let’s the rest of the world see that Miami is more than beaches and nightclubs, but also opens a place of tolerance, understanding and different schools of thought.
As I travel the world, I’m always very proud to represent Miami and as a native South Floridian I’m very proud to have my work represent the MBFI.”
I also cornered the always amusing Andrea Askowitz, Miami author and brainchild of the popular Lip Service readings around town. Askowitz, a successful local writer, uses her literary chops to help other writers in the form of her successful Lip Service public readings and other literary events.
AA: "In honor of Lip Service's eight-year-anniversary, we’re launching Badass, Lip Service: True Stories, the Double Album. . . (this book is) a collection of some of the best of Lip Service’s first eight years.”
IS: And how has MBFI served writers and the community in your experience?
AA: “As a local writer and creator of Lip Service, I love the Book Fair. It has given me an audience several times. Once with the publication of my first memoir, My Miserable, Lonely, Lesbian Pregnancy, but also Lip Service had a show at the Book Fair a few years ago, that featured eight local writers. Last year, the publishing company that’s publishing Badass, Lominy Books, which is a local house, published an anthology called All That Glitters, which featured one of my stories, plus several stories by other local authors, and we got a spot on the program for that. There’s so much going on at the MBFI, it’s almost overwhelming, but because of the breadth of the festival, it’s able to showcase new and local authors and it’s given me lots of attention.”
Askowitz went on to add that her Lip Service reading evenings are “an experience of community connecting like nothing else in South Florida”... typically featuring eight true stories... “The stories are funny, poignant, inspiring, and all true.”
“Join us on Wednesday, Nov. 19 at The Swamp.”
Look for The Swamp pop up lounge at the Delano Hotel. This new event venue (free) features Florida writers and their stories interacting with music and other arts.
If you want to maintain that image as the sharpest knife in the drawer, get online tout de suite and sign up for membership (www.miamibookfair.com/membership/friends/) of Friends of the Miami Book Fair International, which, depending on your level of purchase, will at the very least afford early ticket reservations, one free purchase for Evenings With series and author presentations. It enhances the whole experience.... it really, really does.
"You’re never too old, too wacky, too wild, to pick up a book and read it to a child." Dr. Suess.
Other info to aid and abet your mission:
Miami Book Fair International November 16 - 23:
www.facebook.com/MiamiBookFair
Parking and maps:
www.miamibookfair.com/exhibitors/maps.aspx
The Center for Literature and Theater at Miami Dade College:
Andrea Askowitz and her Badass book available through:
Amazon.com, Lominybooks.com and andreaaskowitz.com
The Children’s Trust
Read to Learn program, childrens books for free. DONATE: they need more books
www.flcenterlitarts.com/readtolearn/index.html
Center for Literature & Theater at MDC did 30 in-depth video interviews at last years Book Fair which they are posting for you now, one at a time ..check it out:
www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHeTxLOr3--_FMaMDzlJR99V8NjJ_8uEW
