LA Times Festival of Books: The Scholastic Book Fair on steroids
Photo by Zoe Edeskuty, Arts & Culture Editor
While book lovers and wide-eyed emerging writers walked through the rows of publisher, bookstore and illustration booths, looking to cure their writer’s block or connect with fellow storytellers, they weren’t the only ones seeking an affordable literary fix.
At the University of Southern California (USC) campus, with about 350 exhibitors and 500 celebrities and authors paneling, the annual LA Times Festival of Books brought in families and communities from all around for the biggest book festival in the U.S. on April 18-19.
With musician Lionel Richie, Max Greenfield of “New Girl” and comedic actor Larry David to authors Amy Tan of “The Joy Luck Club,” Margaret Atwood of “The Handmaid’s Tale,” Roxane Gay of “Bad Feminist” and playwright Quiara Alegría Hudes of “In the Heights,” audiences were in good hands of many prolific storytellers.
With additional ticket costs to see panels, attendees could sit in on exclusive discussions and learn about the writing or creative process behind book projects.
“Paying attention to who the speakers are — what the topics are … It says a lot about how the arts and literature are being affected by the state of the world,” said junior political science and communication studies double major Angie Barrios-Mackepeace, a first-time attendee.
Only attending the festival portion, Barrios-Mackepeace felt that going booth-to-booth with the independent publishers, reading their book covers and seeing what niche angles they’re succeeding in was insightful in itself.
“You get to see how people write and construct narratives and tell stories based on what's going on in the world,” said Barrios-Mackepeace. “Like, what is motivating people to say, ‘I want to write a book about this’?”
As a writer specializing in the nonfiction genre, they reflected on their own craft and the possibilities they could apply to it. It wasn’t just inspiration as a takeaway, but goal setting and sense of direction for all undergraduates in any field of study.
“It's always too good to see that, because then you get ideas for your own,” said Barrios-Mackepeace. “What direction do I want to go in? What niche do I want to follow? What corner of the publishing, literary and academic world do I want to fall into?”
The LA Times Festival of Books isn’t just for writers, but also for anyone interested in the current climate of the world and how it’s affecting the arts as a whole. Media forms such as zines were commonly showcased at many of the booths, often conveying content about different global or societal issues.
Zines are accessible, often non-commercial, do-it-yourself pamphlets of a subculture publication. Typically constructed out of paper, they are compact stories that anyone can make, often very informative on the world around us.
In tandem with commercial novels, they coexist in a nice balancing act with poetry and magazines. At the festival, among the different sections broken up into poetry, rom-com, children, news and such, it was refreshing to see this form supported in its rise in popularity.
“There's actually information that goes in (zines), research and creativity that's a much better product to me than anything,” said Barrios-Mackepeace. “So I don't think (longer- and shorter-form media) are necessarily competing for each other, because everything's gonna have its audience, but I think zines and short-form things — if done right — can help someone walk away with something without feeling the weight of a full project.”
The festival proved just how active the literary scene is in LA. It’s not just a way to strengthen the reach of your work, but also take you to places bookstores can’t; you see beyond the synopsis of your favorite book and can see the real people that brought it to life.