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Woman place her arms on her lap and open book to read
St. Louis is bizarrely lucky when it comes to literature. We can claim the biggest names in the canon of American poetry (T.S. Eliot) and playwriting (Tennessee Williams), and we also boast Maya Angelou, Sara Teasdale, Marianne Moore, Quincy Troupe, Kate Chopin, Mark Twain, Jonathan Franzen, and William S. Burroughs. Matter of fact, there’s a bust of Burroughs going up in the Central West End this month, completing Left Bank’s “Authors’ Corner.” It’ll be installed on a most appropriate day: September 23, during the inaugural BookFest.
The goal of the event—organized by Left Bank Books and the Central West End Community Improvement District—is to create a national-quality festival to serve the whole city rather than producing a smaller-scale event. And though the programming skews local, the vision is very much national. (Think LouFest for books.)
“If someone not from St. Louis was looking at this list of authors, the caliber of our local representatives is indistinguishable from the caliber of other nationally renowned authors,” says Left Bank Books event coordinator Cory Lovell. “That’s Ann Leckie, George Hodgman, Kea Wilson, Alex George—these are ours. And Alison Rollins is so incredible: She has a national reputation as a poet, and she doesn’t even have a book out yet. We already have such great talent here. We want to have a showcase to show the richness and depth of St. Louis’ and Missouri’s own talent base side by side with nationally renowned authors.”
Events will be held throughout the CWE, including a Celebrity Storytime for kids at the Schlafly Branch Library. “There are some really incredible premiere authors, too,” Lovell says. “Debut books that will be really successful, and we have a chance to get these folks in front of a St. Louis audience before they’re out of reach. Gabriel Tallent is going to be here with My Absolute Darling, which came out in August and is already being spoken about as potentially the most exciting fiction book of the year.” And poet Roger Reeves’ book King Me “was one of the finest books of poetry to be published in the past several years,” Lovell adds.
If literary fiction isn’t your thing? Not to worry. “There’s a little bit for everyone, from the most die-hard science fiction fan to beach reading,” Lovell says. “It’s meant to appeal to the broadest possible range of readers—anybody who enjoys any aspect of literature and reading, they’re going to have a great time.”
Highlights from this year's BookFest:
An Evening With Sherman Alexie
Poet, novelist, screenwriter, and young adult author Alexie headlines BookFest. The night before the festival, he’ll talk about his past work and his new memoir at The Sheldon.
Sherman Alexie, Nina LaCour, Zac Brewer
Avoiding the fad for dystopian fiction, this trio of panelists will talk about the recent upsurge in socially conscious young adult fiction.
Roger Reeves, Alison C. Rollins, Treasure Shields Redmond, Tongo Eisen-Martin
A group of poets speak on how poetry can wrangle with social justice and “the political as the very, very personal.”
Science Fiction: Ann Leckie, Mark Tiedemann, Charlie Jane Anders, Annalee Newitz
The work of these panelists runs the gamut “from intergalactic politics to techno-pharmaceutical noir and the razor’s edge of understanding between magic and science.”
