Miami Book Fair 2012

2011 Book Fair poster illustrated by Rosa Naday Garmendia

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We are continuing to post photos from the Book Fair. We're inserting them into the time line where they should appear. So please check back!

—FBR Editors

Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012, 8:30 PM

       As I was leaving the Book Fair, the vendors were all tearing down the booths for another year. At the exit, a Book Fair volunteer was holding a box. "Can I take your badge to recycle?" She asked.
       I looked down at my media badge, "No," I answered, "you can't."
       I'm keeping it forever, and I am sleeping with it for the next three weeks.
                —Jan Becker

FBR Reporter Jan Becker & Badge. Photo, Matt Porcino.

Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012, 8:30 PM

      I have been waiting all weekend to see the final panel I attended: a reading with Justin Torres, Nina Revoyr, Adam Johnson, and Scott Hutchins. Strangely, they all are related to California somehow, all three men directly tied to Stanford University. While it was an amazing lineup of intelligent authors, I had come specifically for Adam Johnson. I was eager to hear him read from his third novel, The Orphan Master's Son. During a gap year between high school and college, I had traveled to South Korea to work with orphans and North Korean refugees, and since then have had a special interest in humanity in this particular country. This is the first novel set in North Korea that I have come across. Johnson calls it an obsession he had; his research included gathering information on actual heartbreaking stories of human beings rather than political stances (although he read up on that too). His characters are composites of details from the few testimonies he was able to uncover. He is surprised more people haven't written about or aren't interested in the issues of North Korea.
   At the book-signing table, I asked him about his book's reception by Koreans and Korean-Americans. From what he can tell, they are interested in and supportive of the book. Apparently, one of his interviews was translated into Korean and somehow broadcast into North Korea. I wonder at the effects of that broadcast.
   Later, I overheard him say, "My wife reads all my reviews and then sums them up for me. I don't have anything to do with them." For such a dark subject matter, he manages to artfully maintain a wonderful sense of humor. I look forward to reading more work from Adam Johnson.
               —Marci Calabretta

Three Journeys Panel, l. to r.: Scott Wallace, Eric Weiner, Andrew McCarthy. Photo, Jan Becker.

Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012, 8:00 PM

       The afternoon panel Three Journeys in the Chapman auditorium was a discussion of how moving far away from what is familiar can lead to self-discovery. The three writers on the panel were Andrew McCarthy (yes, that Andrew McCarthy), Eric Weiner, and Scott Wallace. All three men have recently published memoirs that draw on their strengths as travel writers and show that connection between travel and personal insight.
        The discussion began with McCarthy’s book, The Longest Way Home: One Man’s Quest for the Courage to Settle Down. It is important to note that McCarthy is not just a pretty face. For the last decade he has been writing for publications that include National Geographic, The Atlantic, and Bon Appetit. He has won numerous awards for his travel writing, including four North American Travel Journalist Awards. McCarthy says, "Traveling helped me grow up.”
        During his trek across the North of Spain on the pilgrimage of Santiago de Campostelo, McCarthy says he found himself having a hissy fit in a field, and found that in the midst of that rage, he had a moment without fear, and noted that in that moment when he was not longer afraid, he could see how fear had been dominating his life for many years. This led him to travel more and allowed him a perspective that the spotlight of acting never afforded him.
        After he and the mother of his children made a commitment to marry, he was confused at his continued feelings of wanderlust. Shortly after his engagement became finalized, McCarthy said he was surprised at the happiness he felt at the prospect of traveling to Patagonia. His memoir is an exploration of the journey he took, and how it led him to a more stable and satisfied home life.
      Eric Weiner’s memoir Man Seeks God: My Flirtations With the Divine began Weiner was hospitalized for severe abdominal pain. Weiner notes that he is a hypochondriac, but that even hypochondriacs become ill. During his hospital stay, a nurse asked him, “Have you found your god yet?” This led Weiner to explore eight different world religions in a quest that ultimately led to a better understanding of himself.
         The third member of the panel, Scott Wallace, took a three month journey into the Amazon River Basin to find a tribe he says does not want to be discovered. The Unconquered is a chronicle of his journey into the rainforest with Sidney Possuelo, “an explosive, brooding, scary guy,” whose mission is not to contact the tribe, but to gather information crucial to their survival in the face of environmental catastrophe. Avoiding the tribe was important Wallace pointed out, because they have not been exposed to the kinds of microbes that cling to most of the rest of the world, and contact could hasten their destruction through illnesses.
        The discussion was lively and interesting, especially when it turned its focus to American society. McCarthy says that anyone who gets off the couch has his admiration, because for the majority of Americans, foreign travel is not something we do. McCarthy pointed out that only 30% of Americans have a valid passport, and only half of those with passports ever travel. “Travel,” McCarthy says, “is optimism in action.”
        During the audience Q&A, a woman asked the men how their gender and ethnicity might play a role in their view of travel, when the experience of a female traveler who is not white might lead to a different experience and therefore a very different opinion of travel.
        Their answer was that different cultures do not differentiate between ethnic differences as much as we do in America, and while it might be easier for a white man to travel in India, where they are treated as Bramans, for much of the world, questions of ethnic differences are blasé and if we got out a little more and walked around, we might see that more clearly.
        I asked Andrew McCarthy to sign his memoir for me, and by the time I reached the front of the long line waiting for signatures, he was tired. The inscription in my book reads, “Jan—Go far.”
       And yes, he is a well-respected travel writer, but when he wrapped his arm around me, and smiled for the camera, I wasn’t thinking about his writing.
—Jan Becker

Andrew McCarthy signature. Photo, Jan Beaty.

Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012, 5:30 PM

       Book Fair weekend is when I most wish I had Hermione Granger's "time turner" necklace and so could attend simultaneous sessions in sequence. Here are this year's "wish I were there but was double-booked" awards, by genre:
       Poetry—panel with Jesse Millner on Dispatches from the Department of Supernatural Explanation.
     Fiction—Kingston Noir panel.
       Non-fiction—panel including White Bread: A Social History.
               —Bob Morison

Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012, 4:45 PM

Given my own serio-comic Army tour, best part of the comic novels panel late on Sunday was the piece read by David Abrams about heading into a combat zone (Iraq) for the first time in a 17-year career as an Army journalist. To become a Fobbit, a soldier who never leaves the relative safety of the FOB (Forward Operating Base), assigned to write sanitized press releases. Equipped with much trepidation, a "duffel bag full of Dickens," and a determination to make something literary (and preferably comic) of the military experience.
—Bob Morison (15E20, 3BN, 84FA)

Saturday, Nov. 17, 2012, 4:01 PM

Charles Burns' father bought him comics, a rare thing in the 1950s when public opinion of comics had begun to turn sour. His father had also tried his hand at it, copying a strip or two into his sketchbooks. Burns notes that these images, projected onto a screen for the audience, were obviously done by hand. "Some people," he said, "don't know human beings made those. Where did those come from?" Now he keeps his own simple scrapbooks for both work and pleasure.
—Marci Calabretta

Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012, 3:39 PM

Justin Torres prefaced the reading of his new book, We the Animals, with the following statement: "I'm going to read the chapter 'Big Dick Truck' because I never read it, but it was requested, so I feel a little bit like Beyonce."
—Marci Calabretta

Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012, 3:14 PM

       There are three kinds of war books, Castner says. The first are the kind that offer a top-level explanation of policy. The second are detailed descriptions of the events of a time and place, and the third kind of war story tries to get the feeling of war right. He tried to write the third kind, Castner says, because he wanted to convey how it feels to return from war, to be walking through the airport terminal and suddenly realize that you are thinking about who you are going to shoot.
       "I had trouble thinking about anything other than grief, than fear," Castner says. "Part of the grief is that you come home, but your friends go back and you're helpless." Caster left the Air Force after eight years and three combat tours. Many of his friends re-enlisted.
       "I tried to weave together the threads of war and of coming home," Castner says. Those woven threads come through in his reading, in which the narrative goes back and forth from a suburban landscape Castner jogs thorough (he's found running to be therapeutic since his return from war) and a war-torn battlefield.
               —Ed Irvin

Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012, 3:05 PM

One of my favorite things about MBFI is the casual atmosphere. It's a place where you can loan Anne Lamott your blackberry and let her hold your infant, and where you can run into Edwidge Danticat buying books. How great is that!

–Claire Ibarra

Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012, 3:00 PM

I heard from a confidential source that Andrew McCarthy would be here in the hospitality suite at 3 PM. Guess where I was at 2:45? He walked in right on time. The man walks like a cat. He doesn't walk. He saunters. I know he is a respected travel writer now, but when I saw him, I was in eighth grade all over again and the crush is as big now as it was for me back then. I made Ed Irvin's quivers from earlier look like catatonia, and those were no exaggeration.
—Jan Becker

Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012, 2:55 PM

Industry consolidation at the Book Fair: Toby's Concessions has apparently acquired Ricky's Arepas and pushed Arepa Queen out of the market. Defied my cholesterol coach and had my annual Book Fair arepa from the stand at 2nd and 3rd. Was okay, but it had been stacked on the griddle for some time. And no Book Fair arepa is ever as good as one's very first Book Fair arepa.
—Bob Morison

Arepas on the griddle. Photo, Jan Becker

Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012, 2:16 PM

       The editor of Kingston Noir, Colin Channer ,and contributor Kwame Dawes are both amazing readers. They read their work like master storytellers. Their stories are a great mix of noir with humor, a comic of the dark side, as described by author Robert Arellano.
       The Noir panel has a small audience, so when Edwidge Danticat walks in and sits down, I definitely notice. I'm told by my friend sitting next to me that she thinks Danticat went to school with one of the authors. But my friend says, "Don't quote me on that."
        After the reading, Edwidge Danticat asks Kwame Dawes if he ever sees his detective in a novel. Dawes answers with an enthusiastic, "Yes, yes I do!"
                –Claire Ibarra

Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012, 2:15 PM

Dear Diary: Senator Bob Graham just told me I was the best audience member at the Florida Book Awards Panel! Attentive and responsive and smiling throughout. Given his role as champion of honesty and probity in politics, I was obligated to confess immediately my connection to one of his co-panelists—and that I'd received extensive training. Still worth a tweet, I think.
—Bob Morison

Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012, 2:15 PM

Florida Book Awards was one of the best panels I've ever seen. Definitely had more harmonica than any other literary event I've attended.
—Sammy Mack

Florida Book Award winners Stephen Kampa and Lynne Barrett smile for the camera, while Sen.Bob Graham is busy signing, with a long line in front of him. Photo, Bob Morison.

Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012, 2:10 PM

       After introducing Sen. Bob Graham at the Florida Book Awards panel, the moderator invited him to say a few words about The Bob Graham Center for Public Service at the University of Florida. Founded in 2006, the Center's mission is renewing the values, knowledge, and skills of citizenship, and training the next generation to be public and private sector leaders. Its initiatives include direct education, engaging students in public life, and programs that extend far beyond the university community.
       Given what passes for political "dialogue" these days, the Graham Center is an organization well worth supporting.
               —Bob Morison

Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012, 2:07 PM

Edwidge Danticat is spotted buying books!
—Claire Ibarra

Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012, 2:05 PM

       The Florida Book Awards (FBA) panel had it all—brilliant readings, thought-provoking discussion, and a harmonica solo. It featured four of the 2011 award winners. Leonard Nash, himself an FBA winner and then judge, introduced the writers with a combination of standard credentials and lesser known facts.
       Lynne Barrett (general fiction award) read from her story collection Magpies. In "One Hippopotamus," a story comes to light and a romance unfolds thanks to a so-Florida event—a thunderstorm-induced power outage.
       Stephen Kampa (poetry) read from Cracks in the Invisible. Whether about a solitary compliment or Lord Byron himself, each poem was a treat of language, connection, and clever rhythm and rhyme.
       Jessica Martinez (young adult) read from Virtuosity, whose protagonist is a teenage violin prodigy. The book's prelude showed how young adult fiction can be thoroughly haunting with nary a vampire or zombie in sight.
       Bob Graham (yes, Florida Governor and Senator Bob Graham) talked about Keys to the Kingdom (popular fiction). He wrote the book "out of frustration" (and as fiction) because the story of Saudi Arabia's involvement in 9/11 has been so thoroughly censored.
       A few audience members tried to get Graham to comment on current politics, but he steered the discussion to books and writing and the panel at large, and they talked about how the personal and factual get fictionalized and poeticized. Funniest moment was when Graham estimated his novel as 40% true (with most names changed), 40% imagined, and 20% a mix—and an audience member was desperate to know which 40% was which.
       The lesser known fact about Stephen Kampa is that he is certifiably the first simultaneous holder of Florida's best poetry and best harmonica player titles. With just a smidgen of prodding, he closed an unforgettable session in the latter role.
       —Bob Morison

Florida Book Awards Panel: l. to r. Leonard Nash, Sen. Bob Graham, Jessica Martinez, Lynne Barrett, Stephen Kampa. Photo, Bob Morison.

Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012, 2:00 PM

       Fans of Anne Lamott gathered outside the auditorium 30 minutes before her talk. If we were worried we might not get a chance to see her, it was unnecessary. She was sitting on a wooden bench with the rest of us, waiting and texting. She wore rolled up jeans, a white shirt, and a light blue scarf in her dreadlocks. A woman approached the line near her and said, "Is this the line for Anne Lamott? Oh my God, you are Anne Lamott!"
       Anne milled around a little, asked my friend Mary for help working her Blackberry, held someone's baby. I asked her if she had planned a talk, or would be reading from her new book, Help, Thanks, Wow.
       "Really," she said, "I have no idea."
       Inside she plopped her big handbag down next to the podium. She talked a little. She read a little. She answered some questions. The audience collectively fell in love with her. When a toddler in the room fussed, she pulled some crayons out of her bag and delivered them.
       When she talked about prayer, the subject of her book, she said, "I like simple and real."Which is, of course, the exact description of her.
               —Betty Jo Buro

Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012, 1:57 PM

Ellen Forney, author of Marvels, a graphic memoir revealing the author's struggle with Bipolar Disorder I, said that in writing this book, she had steeled herself against its reception and what others might think of her. "I had never run down the street naked, screaming that I was God, so I thought I had no story." She proved herself wrong. Whenever the conversation turned toward her latest book, Forney discovered that it was a powerful support for everyone dealing with any emotional issues. She reminded us that those who suffer from such disorders have so much company. There's not much room for these stories to be told, even though many are desperately hungry to hear them.
—Marci Calabretta

Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012, 1:50 PM

Anne Lamott's book recommendations? Happy All the Time by Laurie Colwin. She also recommends State of Wonder by Ann Patchett.
—Claire Ibarra

Anne Lamott. Photo, Claire Ibarra

Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012, 1:35 PM

Anne Lamott was raised by atheists but says she grew up praying anyway. I came to know her as a writer's writer, when she wrote her writing masterpiece Bird by Bird. I'm not one of those religious types, but it seems Anne isn't either, despite the title and subject of her latest work. She is that rare author who can pull off Christianity without making readers feel like they are at a sermon. During the early part of her talk, where she was explaining how simple it is to pray, a baby interrupted to do what babies do. The baby's mother politely was exiting the auditorium when Lamott said: "If he's only medium fussy, he can stay. I have crayons. Does he eat crayons?" Turns out he's not on solid foods yet, but Lamott walked out into the audience to give another whiny kid a set of crayons and something to draw on a few minutes later. Lamott then went on to read a passage from her latest work, where she simplifies the act of praying down to just three words which formed the title : Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers.
—Deb Alberto

Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012, 1:43 PM

Dan Parent, cartoonist for the famous family-friendly comic, Archie, spoke of introducing Kevin, the strip's first gay character, into the mix. The reception was overwhelmingly positive. He said they had to make sure he wasn't too perfect a character, giving him specific issues to deal with. However, he also pointed out that "Archie is the way things should be, not the way things are." According to Parent, Kevin's character will get a little more dramatic in 2013.
—Marci Calabretta

Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012, 1:15 PM

      Conor McCreery is the tall, red-headed co-creator of Kill Shakespeare. As an avid reader of comics in any form, I decided to check out his "Craft Talk for Artists and Writers." I wasn't sure what to expect, but as soon as I saw his bright green shirt and black custom-made vest, I knew he had a sense of humor.
   Kill Shakespeare is the story of Prince Hamlet, who is lost overboard when pirates attack his ship. He washes ashore a strange island, where he is taken in by Richard III and Lady MacBeth. Commissioned to kill a man who Richard's underlings believe to be a god, he is again faced with the question of whether to pursue vengeance for his father. However, along this adventure, he meets the leader of the rebels: Juliet. She reveals that Hamlet's target is not a "god" but rather the Creator, whom the rebels call Shakespeare. "To kill or not to kill. That is the question."
   According to McCreery, the main points to any successful writing include rewriting, rewriting, rewriting. Storytelling is just getting from A to B both physically and emotionally. A series of "lies" can create truth, which creates stories driven by tension. This allows for parallel development between "outer" and "inner" stories. When developing characters, keep in mind their three masks: 1) the masks they show the world, 2) the mask they show themselves, and 3) their "true" selves. Joseph Campbell's hero's journey is useful not only for comics but for any story, whether graphic or textual only.
   McCreery says no medium beyond comics has a physical home for words. But regardless of textual context, what story does the art tell?
   After the craft talk, I ran down the stairs to buy a copy of Kill Shakespeare, and waited for him to come down to the signing area. He didn't come. So I wove my way through the press of people, looking for an author tent I was sure bore the same name as McCreery's comic. After some difficulty, I found it. I asked him about the king somehow embroidered on his beautiful black vest, and he told me he had commissioned a friend to make it for him. Then he signed my book!
       Watch this comic. I have a feeling it is going to explode very soon.
           —Marci Calabretta

Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012, 1:10 PM I'm sort of glad to learn that Anne Lamott is as technologically challenged as I am. She makes jokes about putting together a power point for her discussion of prayer. She says, "I love simple, I love real." As her discussion goes on, I learn that she also loves candy corn. She says as she ages, she cares more about candy corn than her thighs. Anne Lamott is a funny, wise lady.
—Claire Ibarra

Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012, 1:07 PM

Jan Becker exaggerates.
—Ed Irvin

Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012, 12:55 PM

Outside in the line to come into the auditorium, Anne Lamott mingled, letting people take photos with her and holding babies. She asked if anyone had a blackberry she could use.
—Claire Ibarra

Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012, 12:44 PM

Kaplan asks Patterson which of his characters he resembles most. "Alex Cross, because we're both African-American," the author, who is much funnier than I expected, says. Kaplan then asks, "If you could live inside one of your books for a week, which would it be?" Patterson says Maximum Ride, part of a kids' series he authors.
—Ed Irvin

Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012, 12:37 PM

Patterson says that Amazon needs to take more responsibility for what is happening to books in this country, to which Mitchell Kaplan, owner of Books & Books and moderator of the fireside-style chat with Patterson, adds, "In France they are giving grants to endangered bookshops."
—Ed Irvin

Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012, 12:28 PM

       Patterson says that many parents approach him and say they are unable to get their kids to read, to which he replies "Can you get them to the dinner table?"
       He says that parents should make reading a household rule, but be careful not to make it a chore. Turn off the television one night and have family reading night. Parents should make sure their children see them reading, and should also have books themselves. Kids don't need another cellphone; they need more books, Patterson says.
               —Ed Irvin

Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012, 12:26 PM

"It's not the school's job to find books for your kids." This quote draws an enthusiastic round of applause.
—Ed Irvin

Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012, 12:25 PM

"The reason I write books for kids is that, as adults, we can't solve global weirding or whatever is going on, but we can get our kids reading." I've never been a fan of Patterson myself, and I'm still not likely to run out and buy all his books, but his drive to make reading a family event has dramatically changed my opinion of him as a hack driven mostly by commercial success.
—Ed Irvin

Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012, 12:19 PM

"I was poor, then middle-class, then poor again, then middle-class. Now I'm kinda rich. I like being rich much better," Patterson says jokingly.
—Ed Irvin

Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012, 12:13 PM

"Hi, I'm Stephen King!" James Patterson says as he comes to the podium.
—Ed Irvin

Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012 12:01 PM

       I moved to Miami to study with Dan Wakefield, and I had the pleasure of taking classes with him for a year before he retired from teaching and moved back to his hometown, Indianapolis. Dan is the kind of professor who comes to class and tells you how he went to Allen Ginsberg’s place one afternoon. Timothy O’Leary was there, with his psilocybin capsules. He was dosing people, and Jack Kerouac was there too, angry at Dan for some minor misunderstanding that, under the influence of hallucinogens, had escalated to the point that Kerouac was ready to toss him from the balcony of Ginsberg’s apartment.
       Dan is also the writer who went to Mississippi in the middle of some of the biggest social strife and injustice of the 20^th Century and reported for The Nation on the Emmett Till murder. I have not seen Dan since he moved away, so I was thrilled to hear he was coming back to Miami for the Book Fair to discuss Kurt Vonnegut: Letters, a book Vonnegut’s son Mark says is a testament to the lasting friendship between the two men, and the genuine love they felt for one another. Wakefield’s role in the new book was to cull through Vonnegut’s correspondences, and edit them together into a collection representative of the man who wrote them.
        On the panel with Wakefield were Kurt Vonnegut’s son, Mark, a pediatrician and memoirist, and Donald Farber, Kurt Vonnegut’s close friend, agent, and his literary trustee. The three men’s discussion of their relationships with Vonnegut and his role as a literary icon was so well-attended (despite the Molly Ringwald appearance at the same time in the Chapman auditorium) that the walls along both sides and the rear were standing room only. There were moments when it felt like Vonnegut was still alive and present in the room.
        The sense I got of Vonnegut is that he was a literary icon, who felt akin to Mark Twain in his use of the common language, and also in his acerbic wit. When Wakefield began attending church in 1985, he came home to find a message on his machine from Vonnegut who told him, “I forgive you.”
        When Vonnegut published Breakfast of Champions Farber said he had to write Wheaties on behalf of Vonnegut to tell them, “You are not in the business of writing books, and Kurt will not be manufacturing any breakfast cereal,” over allegations that the title of the novel night be a problem for the company.
        Along with being witty, I also got the feeling that Vonnegut was sensitive. When the football coach gave him a gag gift of an Atlas bodybuilding manual as he was graduating high school, Vonnegut was hurt. So much so, he called his former coach years later to tell him, “Look, my body turned out just fine.” He was also genuinely hurt when his books were burned by a school superintendent—not just banned, but burned. As the panel pointed out, some of Vonnegut’s most ardent readers continue to be high school students.
        Mark Vonnegut said that reading the letters was emotionally difficult at times. That his father was the kind of man who wrote, “God dammit, you’ve got to be kind” on the walls at home. When asked about his father’s reputation as a lover of women, Dr. Vonnegut responded, “He truly loved, when and where he could.”
        Vonnegut’s trust is still publishing new material, some of it posthumously signed by the author, who used to sign several hundred blank pages at a time and set them aside to be sewn into limited edition copies of his work. Mark Vonnegut noted that this might be “really creepy.” It’s also exactly the sort of thing that Mark Twain did.
               —Jan Becker

Sunday, Nov. 18, 11:50 AM

       So, is it an elegantly written and character-rich story that happens to include a crime—or a crime story that also features 3D characters and memorable prose? The bottom line at the "Literary Crimes" panel was that publishers may be intent on categorizing books to help them sell, but that this often pigeonholes a book and its author. Smart readers enjoy it all—narrative drive, complex characters, language that is uncannily apt and smooth, and a caper or crime to center the plot.
       Edna Buchanan, mystery/crime writer extraordinaire, introduced the panel and moderator with telling details caught by her journalist's eye, rather than the standard bios.
       Joseph Olshan read from Cloudland. A week or so after finding a woman's body on her property, the narrator receives a phone call from the woman's husband. The passage is all about closure that can't be had and awkward pauses that tell half the story.
       Joy Castro read from Hell or High Water, whose protagonist is a reporter covering the story that 1,300 registered sex offenders have gone "off the grid" in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Her lyrical passage was about why April isn't the cruelest month in New Orleans.
       Emily St. John Mandel read from The Lola Quartet, whose central character is a flamed-out New York journalist returned home to Florida to sell foreclosed real estate. The opening chapter finds an ex-girlfriend with a new baby and $118,000 in cash hidden under the stroller.
       Lynne Barrett, who was also the moderator, talked about the importance of place and read a scene from Magpies in which the main characters discover the scene of the crime-to-be in an old Florida sinkhole.
       The panelists discussed the arbitrariness of genre classifications. Raymond Chandler was a pulp writer promoted to the literary class. The Great Gatsby is in many respects a noir tale. And how do we classify John Le Carre? Best moment was when an audience member said that classifications matter less because she can sample books on her e-reader and decide what she likes. Barrett suggested that you can also do that in a bookstore.
               —Bob Morison

Literary Crimes: Joseph Olshan and Joy Castro. Photo, Marci Calabretta.

Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012, 11:47 AM

Sandra Cisneros' sweet, articulate voice piped up from the background in the "Literary Crimes" panel Q&A: "It seems to me that you're all writing about fear, and these books are medicine to heal that fear." She agrees that while publishers have to invest in selling a book they print, readers also have to invest to buy that same book. The issue of categorization is nobody's fault. Rather, it's inherent desire. "What about us demands labels?"
—Marci Calabretta

Sunday, Nov. 18, 11:37 AM

"I'm most interested in flawed characters. There is nothing at all interesting about perfection," Ringwald says.
—Ed Irvin

Sunday, Nov. 18, 11:34 AM

       A young woman asks Ringwald about her writing process and how long her book, When It Happens to You, took to write. "This book took a couple years," Ringwald says, adding that, as a rule, she writes 500 words or two hours, whichever comes first, each day. She went on to say "I find my grammar is deplorable," and that "I am constantly working on different aspects of writing."
               —Ed Irvin

Sunday, Nov. 18, 11:27 AM
       The mother of a transgendered child with whom Ringwald spoke in Denver reads a passage from an essay her son wrote about the experience, which Ringwald remembers. After the short reading, the two women share a touching moment of embrace. There is nary a dry eye in the house.
               —Ed Irvin

Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012 11:22 AM

       When asked if she will be reuniting with Andrew McCarthy, fellow Brat Pack member and her co-star in Pretty in Pink, who is appearing later on this afternoon, Ringwald says she must board a plane shortly after her reading.
               —Ed Irvin

Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012 11:20 AM
       Although she says her novel-in-stories is about betrayal, the story Ringwald reads, about a young mother and her transgendered child, is lightheartedly funny, as well as touching.
               —Ed Irvin

Sunday, Nov. 18, 11:14 AM

     The panel for the discussion of Kurt Vonnegut includes his son, Mark Vonnegut, and retired FIU Writer-in-Residence Dan Wakefield, along with Don Farber. Mark Vonnegut talks honestly about his father's talents and weaknesses. He says writing saved his dad's life. He also remembers his dad muttering and crumpling pieces of paper trying to get it right. Mark Vonnegut describes his dad as a gateway drug to reading, and to thinking.
      Dan Wakefield met Kurt Vonnegut at a dinner in Cambridge in 1963. He shares stories of their friendship, referring to Vonnegut as generous. He remembers Vonnegut saying that the greatest plague to civilization is loneliness.
      It is interesting to learn that the Drake School Board not just banned, but actually burned Vonnegut's books in the furnace. Mark Vonnegut says his dad was hurt by accusations that his books were bad for kids.
      Vonnegut was known for saying that evil deeds and lying damage kids, not coarse language. He also shares that his dad wrote on walls "Goddammit, you've got to be kind."
      I look forward to reading Wakefield's book Kurt Vonnegut: Letters.
                —Claire Ibarra

Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012 11:05 AM

The audience releases a collective groan when the presenter announces that Molly Ringwald will only be signing books following her reading. No DVDs, posters, or other memorabilia.
—Ed Irvin

Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012 10:58 AM

My next two hours will be spent here in Chapman Hall. First up, Molly Ringwald, followed by James Patterson.
—Ed Irvin

Sunday, Nov. 18, 10:48 AM

Moderator Lynne Barrett says that it is easier to start in literary rather than in genre fiction, and then cross over to the other side. Apparently, the label of "literary" or "genre" fiction is generated primarily by marketers, but "definitions are made but always fall apart . . . you write for your own delight first."

—Marci Calabretta

Sunday, Nov. 18, 10:45 AM

In writing her crime novel, Hell or High Water, Joy Castro was constantly conscious of her intended audience: "Beach read for smart people." She has written literary memoirs, but in wanting to talk about race, class, and environment, she asked herself, "How do I make all of that go down sweetly, as in the spoonful of sugar kind of sweet?"

—Marci Calabretta

Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012 10:26 AM

Got the opportunity to speak with Bryan Mealer in the hospitality suite. For his book Muck City: Winning and Losing in Football's Forgotten Town, Mealer actually took residence in Belle Glade, a town reluctant to trust the media thanks to decades of negative press. I asked him how long it took to earn the townspeople's trust, to which he replied "A couple of months."
He jogged the streets in the mornings, ate in mom-and-pop restaurants, and went on local gospel radio to introduce himself. His determination to get to know the people of Belle Glade comes through in Muck City. He gave me a wonderful inscription, too.

—Ed Irvin

Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012 10:38 AM

Update: OH MY GOD. Molly Ringwald just sat down next to me. I need some selling salts.

                  —Jan Becker

Sunday, Nov. 18, 10:35 AM

   In the panel "Literary Crimes," Joseph Olshan was introduced as "Kate Winslet's favorite author."
    —Marci Calabretta

Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012 10:06 AM

As a child of the eighties, I find it awesome that I an sitting across the room from Molly Ringwald in the Author Hospitality Suite.
—Ed Irvin

Across the high school cafeteria—aka Author Hospitality Suite—Molly Ringwald. Photo, Jan Becker.

Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012 10:02 AM

I am sitting up here in the author hospitality suite with Ed Irvin, another FBR live blogger, when he starts quivering, like seriously quivering (ok, I admit it, I was quivering too). And then I look up, and there is MOLLY RINGWALD. She ate fruit, and texted on her telephone. Ed had it bad the whole time she was up here, shaking, and pacing the room. He followed her into the coffee line. I walked up to her and introduced myself and told her how much I admired her work. And to be honest, I haven't read her stuff. But I loved Pretty in Pink and Sixteen Candles. Oh, and I snapped a photo from across the room, because Ed wanted one, but was too shy.
—Jan Becker

Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012 9:52 AM

Mental note: come back to the Dead Ink Books tent at the end of the day when, if they follow the trend of the past few years, they will be dropping the prices on inventory they wish not to transport home. I saw some Tim Dorsey and Bob Morris first editions that are missing from my collection.
—Ed Irvin

Sunday, Nov. 18, 2012, 9:00 AM

I keep hearing from people who come to the Book Fair that their favorite street food to pick up is an arepa. They’re heating up the grills right now, come and get ‘em.

—Jan Becker

Saturday, Nov. 17, 2012, 5:50 PM

       Every year I swear off going to weekend sessions in Chapman, and every year at least one session makes me break my oath. This year it was the panel discussing the late Christopher Hitchens from three perspectives—wife (Carol Blue), best friend (Martin Amis), and publisher (Cary Goldstein).
       The public Hitchens was author, journalist, "anti-theist," contrarian, debater, and skewerer (of Mother Theresa and anyone less holy). We learned a bit about what was beneath the surface: "He made thought dramatic and always seemed to be conducting a deeper argument with himself." "He didn't want you to try to impress him, but just to make him laugh."
       The edgiest anecdotes came from Amis, several scenes ending with an abrasive bon mot from Hitchens. The panelists stopped themselves several times to remark that the man they were describing was probably unfamiliar to the public—uncompetitive, generous, really caring about the things he cared about. He seemed larger than life because he lived continuously—drinking and writing (faster than he let his editors know, lest they ask for more earlier) and barely sleeping.
       They described Hitchens' final days in a cancer ward in Houston, writing a book about the experience, as both sad and affirming because of his brutal honesty.
               —Bob Morison

Saturday, Nov. 18, 2012, 5:18 PM

Ran into John Dufresne and Denise Duhamel on their way out of the SWEAT Broadsheet collaborative reading.
—Jan Becker

Authors John Dufresne and Denise Duhamel, photo Jan Becker

Saturday, Nov. 17, 2012, 4:35 PM

   When asked about the pressure of creating a graphic novel that would forever become part of the Batman canon, Kidd stated the pressure came entirely from him; DC Comics had approached him, and had been very supportive throughout the whole process. Despite the pressure, however, he obviously had fun, evidenced by his discussion of Batman: Death by Design. He read a few panels, effecting appropriate male and female voices to do so. The main starlette, Cyndia Syl, loosely created after an early Jackie Onassis saving Grand Central Station, "looks like Grace Kelly—because we can." His sense of humor was matched only by his swanky style: navy blazer with thick gold stripes, a blue shirt and salmon pants.
     Obviously good friends with the other two designers on the panel, Chris Ware and Charles Burns, he also seemed the most comfortable with public speaking. When Chris Ware stood at the podium, he towered above everyone else. A good friend of Kidd and an avid follower of Burns, he spoke of his latest feat, a multi-layered, interactive story set called Building Stories. Earlier career progress that led to this project include "Acme Library Commentary," which he described as "proof you should never name anything in your twenties."
   Ware had his own sense of humor. For him, reading is about learning empathy in one way or another. Writing directly and honestly is a step toward that. "Maybe we wouldn't be so mean to each other if we all wore pictures of ourselves as babies on our lapels at all times."
          —Marci Calabretta

Saturday, Nov. 17, 2012, 4:10 PM

Irvine Welsh gives the traditional English language a nod for being a nice language, but he explains that he uses the traditional Scottish language because it's funky, it has a beat to it. "I built the book like a DJ would build a track," Welsh, a former European Dance Music DJ, said of Trainspotting. He started with the beat of the Scottish language and added things on as the story grew.
—Annik Adey-Babinski

Saturday, Nov 17, 2012, 3:55 PM

Les Standiford's new book Desperate Sons has a very long subtitle, so long, it worries the author that potential buyers might not feel the need to purchase the book, because the subtitle gives the whole story away. The full title is Desperate Sons: Samuel Adams, Patrick Henry, John Hancock and the Secret Bands of Radicals Who Led the Colonies to War. During the audience Q&A, I asked Standiford a question. If he could take one of the founding fathers to a bar, who would it be? "Not Sam Adams," Standiford said, "he was too much of a zealot. I'd probably want to go with Isaac Sears." I'd never heard of Sears, but Standiford says he was a buccaneer.

               —Jan Becker

Saturday, Nov. 17, 2012, 3:50 PM

       Irvine Welsh is an incredibly animated reader, changing his voice to suit different characters, physically acting out certain charged moments and smiling with us when the audience roars at a hilarious section.
          —Annik Adey-Babinski

Saturday, Nov 17, 2012, 3:45 PM

One writer who just about everybody who comes to the book fair reads without realizing it is Nick Garnett, who does the copywriting for The Fairgoer's Guide. His job as copywriter starts in late July/early August and consists of culling through a mountain of press releases that he whittles through to create the author bios in the guide. There is a separate copy writer who coordinates the more than 100 Spanish writers who come to the fair, but Garnett still writes about 300 bios a year. This is his third year doing the copywriting for the Book Fair. Garnett says for him, the most enjoyable descriptions to write are for the authors who, like Junot Diaz, show a narrative arc. Diaz struggled for five years and had just about given up when his debut book, Drown, was published and won a PEN Award, so within a bio like that, Garnett can find a traditonal arc of struggle and eventual triumph over adversity. Nick says doing the copywriting also gives him a good feeling for publishing trends. Based on the bios he wrote, who did Nick want to see this year? Jeffrey Toobin. He missed that evening as he also works coordinating events during the week, sometimes even filling in to moderate a panel. I should have had him sign my Fairgoer's Guide when I had the chance.
—Jan Becker

Nick Garnett, MBFI Fairgoer's Guide writer and ubiquitous moderator. Photo, Jan Becker

Saturday, Nov. 17, 2012, 3:30 PM

       A mystery man has joined Irvine Welsh on stage as excited audience-members gather at the front of the room to take photographs and MBFI Volunteers usher in a few late stragglers. I am not sure who the man is, but he is wearing a hat, which he takes off and re-arranges at a jauntier angle as people snap pictures of both men. His confident demeanor and dark sunglasses suggest that I should know who he is. When a volunteer introduces Welsh and his new book, Skagboys, and fails to acknowledge the presence of this mysterious guest, the man walks off stage in a huff. When the volunteer approaches him, offering a seat in the front row as the audience applauds Welsh, the mysterious man puts his hand up to her face to stop the volunteer from speaking, and stalks out of the room.
          —Annik Adey-Babinski

Saturday, November 17, 2012, 3:30 PM

       Chip Kidd, Charles Burns, and Chris Ware gave a presentation on graphic novels and building stories around images. The presentation was started off by Kidd, who talked about his growing up a fan of Batman and being a popular cover design artist before being approached by DC Comics to write his new work, Batman: Death by Design. Kidd showed a few slides of how the drawings in the book come to life, and also teased a few details of the main plot. The story centers on the architecture of Gotham City, where Bruce Wayne/Batman is drawn into a case revolving around the Wayne Central Station and a newly opened nightclub by a woman who Kidd based a bit off of Jackie Onassis. The only other plot detail he teased was the Joker would come in and cause trouble at the nightclub.
       Charles Burns talked about The Hive, and how a lot of his art was inspired by the comics he read in the ‘50s. One title that really inspired him was Tintin, and he showed the audience a few pages from his book that seems to resemble the kind of art from that comic book. A lot of the slides he showed were clipping from various photos and magazines that also contributed to his work. He included a personal one of a friend wearing a cardboard house on her head. This drew some laughter from the crowd, and Burns explained that he needed an idea of how it looked so he could draw it into his story.
       The session was concluded by Chris Ware, who talked a lot about how images or characters he drew eventually had a story built around them. Ware focused on an art student who lived on the top floor of an apartment. What caught my interest was that he had this character take creative writing classes and write stories that revealed more about her than she would have liked. Ware went on to talk about characters in different strips, and he also showed slides that pertained to them.
       Overall, it was a very interesting session. I was most intrigued by Kidd's Batman story, and wondered what some of those images he showed us would look like if they were ever made into a movie. That was something Kidd said he would loved to have seen as well.
               —Ignacio J. Fontan

Saturday, Nov. 17, 2012, 3:17 PM

Lots of Tommy Bahama shirts at the David Nasaw/Les Standiford Event.
—Esther Martinez

Saturday, November 17, 2012, 3:15 p.m.

Close to the entrance near 5th Street, there's a tent called Friends of the Library. They're selling all paperbacks for $1 and all hard cover books for $2. That's a deal too good to pass up.
—Ignacio J. Fontan

Saturday, Nov. 17, 2012, 3:12 PM

Whenever he gets bored, Victor LaValle, author of The Devil in Silver, pictures two people who would never sleep together and imagines what their child would look like. His novel was inspired in the same fashion. He imagines it is the spawn of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Jaws.
—Ed Irvin

Saturday, November 17, 2012, 3:06 PM

       This caught my attention immediately. Behind to Building 1, there’s a live performance going on. What caught my attention was the shouting in Spanish. The next thing I see is a guy dressed in a Nazi uniform (although it may not be) shouting at another dressed in rags. The soldier occasionally shoves the guy around and he remains silent throughout.
      These performers are with MDC’s Koubek Center, which is putting on different fifteen minute Microteatro plays throughout the weekend in English and Spanish. Microteatro is a concept that originated in Spain, adding to the fair’s international flavor. I see someone I know photographing the act on the street. The act is drawing a small crowd of onlookers, and they’re not even the main event which I think starts at 4 PM.
                —Ignacio J. Fontan

Saturday, Nov. 17, 2012, 2:59 PM

Glen Duncan, author of Talulla Rising, wastes no time on small talk, launching straight into his reading. His accent brings a hypnotic, sleep-inducing serenity to his words, even as he describes a werewolf tearing the throat from a woman.
—Ed Irvin

Justin Cronin signing. Photo, Ed Irvin

Saturday, Nov. 17, 2012, 2:51 PM

To write his trilogy, Cronin, a self-professed man of peace, had to learn a lot about guns. Conveniently, he lives in Texas.
—Ed Irvin

Saturday, Nov. 17, 2012, 2:45 PM

Standing in line to get a bag from the C-SPAN people when a Narnian walks by. No, bounds by. He's a powerful centaur, about eight feet tall, and gracefully sweeps his long coffee-brown dreds away from his shoulder and looks a tiny girl directly in the face. Her mouth drops open and he leaps from the street to the curb and looks around. He's on a mission to find something. His long black coat reaches to his knees and flows elegantly behind him. The little girl's mother tugs her along, having seen nothing.
—Sarah L. Mason

Saturday, Nov. 17, 2012, 2:42 PM

Books & Books, which sponsors much of the Book Fair, has one of the best book tents, dedicated solely to authors presenting this weekend. As I perused the tables laden with books, the corner of my eye caught a man in a navy blazer with thick gold stripes, wielding a Sharpie and signing (gasp!) a massive book by Chip Kidd. This man is Chip Kidd? Best book designer in the market, author of the new Batman: Death by Design. "Why don't you go talk to him?" my boyfriend suggested. As if. I could just go up and—hah! I wish I were braver. But I did manage to snag a copy of the new Batman book, the Sharpie ink still drying. The Books & Books representative hadn't even been able to put an "autographed" sticker on it yet. I bought it for a Christmas present, but who am I kidding? I hope my sense of Christmas-present morality wins out before December 25. Or I hope it doesn't. I don't know anymore. It's a beautiful book.
—Marci Calabretta

Saturday, Nov. 17, 2012, 2:41 PM

Cronin says he has a much larger military readership than he ever would have imagined. One serviceman he spoke to told the author "Books are to deployment what cigarettes are to prison."
—Ed Irvin

Saturday, Nov. 17, 2012, 2:36 PM

       Justin Cronin, author of The Passage trilogy, designed the series because his daughter said his other books are boring, which they are not, he insists.
       The Passage and The Twelve, the first two novels in the apocalyptic trilogy, are each a series of thank you notes to the authors Cronin read as a child.
       There is an entire chapter in The Passage that is an homage to Virginia Woolf.
                 —Ed Irvin

Saturday, Nov. 17, 2012, 2:30 PM

MDC’s Teatro Prometeo has a curious show going on between MDC Multicultural Programs tent and the Young Arts tent next to Building 2. There are four people dressed and standing like Ancient Greek statues. They tend to shift position every now and again. I can’t help but be amazed at how well they’re managing to hold their positions for so long. Like I’ve said before—there are a lot of new things to see around the street fair.
—Ignacio J. Fontan

Saturday, Nov. 17, 2012, 2:25 PM

       Every year, I hit upon a Book Fair session that delights in unexpected ways. This year it was discussion of Bunny Yeager's Darkroom. I knew it would be a revealing session—with the pioneering woman photographer who put Bettie Page, one of the most famous pin-ups of all time, on the map and in the centerfold.
       Extra fun began when I sat in the front row of Batten stage right, and the lady behind me turned out to be Miami's own Bunny Yeager. She'd come early and was awaiting the arrival of Petra Mason, who compiled and wrote the book, for the last-minute, pre-event briefing: "We'll show a bit of the clip of your appearance on What's My Line? and then the short promo video for the book, and then we'll talk a bit and take questions." When they got to detailed tactics—how much of the clip to show—I piped up: "Those segments only take 5-7 minutes, so show the whole thing, and just start it while people are settling it."
     Worked like a charm. Audience was (depending on age) intrigued or mesmerized as a glamorous young Bunny Yeager stumped Dorothy Kilgallen, Arlene Francis, Bennett Cerf, and the guy I can never remember with her occupation of "cheesecake photographer."
       Mason talked about creating the book—a compilation of Yeager's photographs, her writing about photography, and Mason's commentary. Then she'd pick a section of the book or a specific photograph and ask Yeager for some details. With straightforward charm and (you guessed it) photographic detail, Bunny talked about how she worked as a model and photographed herself, how she could advertise for models in the Miami Herald (until people started taking the ads the wrong way), how she had to shoot over in Naples where the beaches were deserted, how she took her classic photos of Ursula Andress on the set of Dr. No in the brief intervals when the film canisters were being reloaded, why it was a bad idea to have a pet leopard in Miami Shores, what a scrupulously honest businessman Hugh Hefner is, and why her photographs from the 1950s still look contemporary.
      Note for collectors: The May 1959 issue of Playboy is a trifecta of Yeager's work—cover, centerfold, and 12-page feature on the sights of Miami Beach.
       Audience questions: Did she consider herself a pioneer? No, she was a working girl in a male business, "one of the guys," except that she was more serious and commercial than they were. Is she still photographing? Of course, "I can't stop—there are too many interesting things in my mind."
       Facebook page: Bunny Yeager's Darkroom.
               —Bob Morison

Saturday, Nov 17, 2012, 2:15 PM

     At the Bookwise booth I scored big. For $1, Issue 21, 1959 Spring-Summer, The Paris Review with fiction by Terry Southern and Alexander Trocchi, poetry by, among others, Ted Hughes, and a Donald Hall interview with T.S. Eliot. I can't read it just yet, because everytime I open it, I see another name that makes me sound a barbaric yawp—and that is just in the advertisements. Names like e.e. cummings, Carl Sandberg, Jack Kerouac and William Carlos Williams, who were all publishing in 1959, and those are just a few of the great writers. The cashier at Bookwise explained that they buy out estates. He says they have a store, and that it is big, and has an entire section devoted to rare books, and a cat.
       Also, from Bookwise, I found The Heart of the Matter by Graham Greene and Shane by Jack Schaefer. Yes, THAT Shane, "The unforgettable novel of a boy's love and a gunman's struggle to escape his past." I tried to check out without purchasing the last book, but every time I tried to walk away, the book started yelling out, "Don't leave me, Jan!"
       I couldn't leave it there, crying and alone.
       I try to buy a boxed set each year from McSweeney's at their booth. This year, I picked up Issue No. 4, which has a red-breasted robin with wooden planks for feet and contains "14 discreet booklets." I opened the box briefly, but the yawps are frightening small children.
               —Jan Becker

Jan's purchases. Photo, Jan Becker

Saturday, November 17, 2012, 2:13 PM

I’ve been going to the book fair for the past few years, and immediately as I walk in, I’m seeing a lot of new tents and vendors. Right in front of Building 1 next to the large Books & Books tent, there’s a tent that has all the works of authors who are presenting at this year’s book fair. I’m looking forward to all the new things to check out.
—Ignacio J. Fontan

Saturday, Nov. 17, 2012 2:00 PM

If you buy one of Terry Cronin's thrillers about a dermatologist turned detective from the Skinvestigator booth, it comes with a complimentary "tramp stamp." My friend Enzu picked up the first in the Cronin trilogy. He went for a more innocuous placement than is traditional. This is probably a good thing. Enzu's a little too furry for a traditional stamp.
—Jan Becker

The age of author self-marketing: Skinvestigator and "tramp stamp." Model, Enzu Castellanos. Photo, Jan Becker

Saturday, Nov. 17, 2012,1:42 PM

I wish I hadn't left my copy of Looking for the Gulf Motel at home. I just peeked over at the signing table and saw Blanco writing more than his name (personalized messages!) in a glorious black pen.
—Marci Calabretta

Saturday, Nov. 17, 2012, 1:40 PM

I'm not going to buy any fully-priced books the first day. Oh. But there's Kevin Young's newly edited anthology about FOOD!!! The reading was so good! Young has this incredible cadence in his poems that comes through in his deep, even voice. OK, I admit I totally bought Kevin Young's The Hungry Ear. As he signed it, I asked him if he had researched all the food. He looked at me a moment, then he laughed. "Well," he said. "I've eaten just about everything in the book."

—Marci Calabretta

Saturday, Nov. 17, 2012, 1:38 PM

I have taken classes with James W. Hall, and I was fully expecting him to erupt into orangutan calls once again (I have heard his orangutan impression on at least three separate occasions. It's fairly close to how I imagine an orangutan would sound). He did not make the ape calls. Instead, he suggested that those in the room who have never been to Miami should visit our local polling places, as they are infamous, and still taking ballots. On being asked, "why be a writer?" Hall's response is, "because you've failed at being a human. Most of us never had social skills."

Hall's latest book Hit Lit grew from an experiment he started in a graduate course at FIU on "trashy books." He said about two weeks into the semester, he realized he was in trouble, that he had entered into the course with a, "snobby, idiotic, pretentious attitude." He'd fallen in love with Scarlett O'Hara from Gone With the Wind. And he loved the other books in the course too. Hall looked closer, and found twelve things all the biggest bestsellers have in common, but he is not telling what those are. You need to buy the book to find that out. You can read about 100 pages that the editors cut out of Hit Lit on his blog.

—Jan Becker

Saturday, Nov. 17, 2012, 1:33 PM

Susan Isaacs hears the voices of her characters as she is preparing to write. "I hear voices—not like Joan of Arc. Most of them say please, and ask nicely." Some it would seem may not be so nice, but as Isaacs put it, "Do you think Dostoevsky ever asked, ‘Gee, is that Raskalnikov a nice guy?' We just have to root for them to find a better path."

—Jan Becker

Saturday, Nov. 17, 2012,1:29 PM

Thank you, Campbell McGrath and Kevin Young, for reading elegies to Jack Gilbert. May he rest in peace.

—Marci Calabretta

Saturday, Nov. 17, 2012,1:16 PM

Kevin Young talks about how he recently got into an argument with someone about whether gumbo needs to include okra or not. "'Gumbo' just means 'okra.' Of course it needs to have okra. They were wrong." Young says he started writing his odes shortly after his father died. He couldn't write for a while, and then he just sat down and wrote an ode to something simple. "So that," he says, "is what these poems are really about. It's about hunger."
—Marci Calabretta

Saturday, Nov. 17, 1:15 PM

Dana Gioia, when asked why and how he memorized the poems in his new book, Pity the Beautiful, tells the audience that he composed the poems on walks, as a musician might compose a song. If Gioia could recite the poem from memory, he judged it ready for publication; if not, he continued his work.
—Annik Adey-Babinski

Saturday, Nov. 17, 2012 1:09 PM

With an hour and a half of free time before my next panel, it's time to shop the street fair.
—Ed Irvin

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