BRATTLEBORO — With the ninth edition of the Brattleboro Literary Festival still several weeks away, organizers Ruth Allard, Sandy Rouse and Wyn Cooper discussed this year's offerings.
“The excitement is palpable at events and on the street, and authors are appreciative about their experience here,” Allard said.
Special guests will include prolific Barre children's book author Katherine Paterson, “whose international renown is not only due to her writing, but also her speaking,” Allard added.
“Mary Childers writes with clarity and eloquence about her harrowing childhood on welfare and is committed to encouraging lower-income people to read literature,” she added.
And Francisco X. Stork, “who writes about young adults in difficult circumstance,” will also participate, Allard said, as will David Budbill and Geof Hewitt, who will perform their poetry.
“I am most excited about Sue Miller, whose insight into the mind[s] and heart[s] of her characters is absolutely stunning,” Rouse said. Miller, the author of ten titles, teaches at Smith College in Northampton, Mass.
With Major Pettigrew's Last Stand, Helen Simonson's first novel, the Washington, D.C.-based author “has written one of the most charming books to be released this year,” Rouse added. The book centers around the title character “and the quirky characters who live in his small English village,” she said.
“Former U.S. Poet Laureate Maxine Kumin is a wonderful poet [who] also written scores of other books - novels, essays and countless children's books,” Rouse noted.
“Maxine Kumin will be wonderful Friday night - she wowed the crowd the last time she was here,” Cooper said.
Journalist and Wall Street Journal columnist Jeff Zaslow, whose three books sold more than a million copies last year, will also participate.
Bruce Feiler, who wrote The Council of Dads: My Daughters, My Illness, and the Men Who Could Be Me, a book about his struggle with cancer, “defines courage in the adversity of serious illness,” Rouse said.
When asked who his favorite authors were, Halifax poet Wyn Cooper responded: “Everyone!”
In addition to Kumin, Cooper highlighted the participation of Josephine Dickinson, a deaf poet who is a shepherd in northern England, “because I love her magical poems.”
He also looks forward to Pete Nelson, whose book “I liked so much I wrote a blurb for it.”
Nelson's novel, I Thought You Were Dead, will, according to Cooper's blurb, “make you laugh, cry, and want a dog you can really talk to.”
Finally, Nelson anticipates Rebecca Chace, whose novel, Leaving Rock Harbor, was published in June. “Novelist, actress, filmmaker, singer - she does it all,” Cooper said.
Behind the scenes
Allard said as co-chair “I basically have at least one finger in every part of the pie,” a description that Rouse echoed.
“We meet year-round and deal with all aspects of the Festival, from inviting authors to poster and program design, from raising money to making venue arrangements,” Allard said.
Allard said this year, the Literary Festival is focused on making sure there are sufficient numbers of volunteers for “every aspect of the festival.”
“We've also continued to carefully pair authors, and this year, we decided on two poet/fiction author pairings,” she added.
Rouse said her favorite part of the festival is the “the intense gratitude of the festival-goers.”
“And we have the very best audiences!” she said.
“The number of festival-goers increases slightly each year,” Rouse said. “It is controlled somewhat by the number of events and size of the venues we use.”
Last year's festival drew more than 4,000 people to town.
Occasionally, some authors or poets are re-invited to the festival and are happy to come back for another year.
“We do re-invite people, but usually not until five years has elapsed,” explained Allard.
Cooper is responsible for inviting many of the authors each year, and does much of the writing that goes into promotion of the festival.
“I help with fundraising, write copy for the website and the program, help write press releases, put up posters, do radio and print interviews to promote the festival, organize the author reception Friday night and the author dinner Saturday night,” he said.
Cooper says his favorite part of the festival is watching the crowds of people who have come to enjoy the event.
“[I love] seeing the crowds on the sidewalks of Brattleboro, knowing they're on their way to or from a great reading, listening in as they discuss a new favorite author,” he said.
Cooper said he enjoys the readings “when I watch a writer connect with a large audience, and the Q & A that follows. Suddenly it feels like I'm in someone's living room, having an intimate chat about books.”