October is Literary Festival Time -- 2010 Edition

If you live in Massachusetts, and are a reader or writer, then it's a good time of year. Over the next month there are no fewer than three festivals geared toward book lovers and writers. The following is a run down of the upcoming events.

Jack Kerouac Literary Festival
Where: Downtown Lowell, MA
When: Sept 30-Oct 3
Cost: Most events are free, although donations for some events encouraged

This is an annual event here in Lowell, although this year the festival is touted as new and expanded. The Jack Kerouac Lit Festival boasts a great line up of authors and speakers including Alan Lightman, Jay Atkinson, Russell Banks, Andre Dubus III, Ann Hood, Tom Perrotta, and Anita Shreve.

There will be lots of readings, films, panel discussions, walking tours, and other events. The cobblestone streets and industrial mill architecture in and around downtown Lowell really lend a great atmosphere for this crowd-pleasing event.

Highlights include:

• Historical Kerouac pubs tour (Friday night starting at the Worthen House tavern)
• Poetry and street prose competition
• Dennis McNally's presentation on Kerouac and the American Bohemian
• A walk in Doctor Sax's woods led by Margarita Turcotte
• Children's book illustrators event, featuring David Macaulay, Chris VanAllsburg, David Wiesner, Christopher Bing, Kelly Murphy, and Matt Tavares.
• "Art and Commerce" panel discussion, featuring Anita Shreve, Ann Hood, and Tom Perrotta.

Boston Book Festival
Where: Copley Square, Boston
When: Saturday, October 16th
Cost: Most events are free

In only its second year, the Boston Book Festival (BBF) promises to convene plenty of talent for a single day of packed events. I attended last year and the hardest part is deciding which event to view at any one time since there are multiple events for each time slot. But, how else can you do it? There is a great variety, so if you're a fiction writer or reader, then you can choose a fiction reading over a memoir reading. While the schedule hasn't been set, click here to see a description of each planned event.

Speakers and authors slated to show include Atul Gawande, Stacy Schiff, Nick Flynn, Joyce Carol Oates (keynote), Chip Kidd, Bill Bryson, David Shields, Daphne Kalotay, Michelle Hoover, Gish Jen, Ann Hood, Joshua Ferris, Tom Perrotta, Dennis Lehane, A.M. Homes, and many more. And be on the lookout for fellow Beyond the Marginer and Drum founder Henriette Lazaridis Power who will be hosting the Fiction: Time and Place and Fiction: the Web of Relationship events.

Highlights include:

• Writer idol: Have a professional actor perform the first page of your manuscript, then stick around while a panel of four judges that includes agents and editors let you know what they think. Presented by Grub Street. I attended this one last year, and it's actually a great way to get some immediate feedback on your first page, to find out whether it's working or not working, and why. And you also get an idea of what kind of writing agents and editors are seeking.
• Guided open mic. With Steve Almond. Get on up there and read five minutes of your story, novel, or what have you, then see what Mr. Almond has to say about it, in terms of performance and reading choice.
• Antique book appraisal. Bring in your rare and antique books, maps and ephemera for appraisal by  respected industry experts. Sponsored by the Boston Antiquarian Book Fair.
• The Book Revue: An evening of music and words. Features Nick Flynn, Kristin Hersh, Dean Wareham, and Joe Pernice.
• Lots of booths representing literary magazines and book publishers. Great place to pick up stuff that's often hard to find elsewhere.

Concord Festival of Authors

Where: Concord, MA

When: October 20 - November 7, 2010 (2 weeks, people!)

Cost: Most events are free

The Concord Festival of Authors has been around for years. And for the past few years some of the events were held in Lowell. Unfortunately this year not a one will grace city limits. I suppose it makes sense if you're a festival with Concord in the title. It was never the Concord and Lowell festival. Still, it will be missed here in town.

This year's lineup offers up the usual stellar cast of authors who just want to talk about books and writing and publishing. Is that so wrong? Authors scheduled to appear include: Gish Jen, Brunonia Barry, Jon Katz, Andrew J. Bacevich, Nathanial Philbrick, Iris Gomez, Rusty Barnes, Tara Masih, Pauline Maier, David Macaulay, and Stace Budzko among others.

Highlights include:

• Hoaxes, Frauds, and Forgeries. Panel discussion.
• New Literary Voices 2010. Four emerging fiction writers (including Iris Gomez) discuss and read from their work.
• Flash Fiction Panel. Discussion to answer the question, what is flash fiction. Features Rusty Barnes with whom I've studied at Grub Street. And yes, he knows much about flash fiction.
• Publishing a Book in the Digital Age, panel discussion.
• Community Reading Series. Poetry reading sponsored by The Concord Poetry Center.

Kerouac & Lowell

Lowell, Massachusetts is the birth (and resting) place of Jack Kerouac. And since Jack died in October of 1969, October is Kerouac month here in Lowell. And this year marks the 40th anniversary of his death. This weekend we're in the middle of Lowell Celebrates Kerouac. It started Thursday, but if you hurry on down this rainy Saturday you can still catch events like readings from Dr. Sax at Kerouac Park.


If you can't make that, then get downtown by 4 for The Kerouac Places of Downtown Lowell tour. This starts at the Lowell National Historical Park Visitors Center at 246 Market Street (around the corner from Unreliable Narrator's historic condo building). If you don't want to take a walking tour of Lowell in the rain, then find out how you can do it on your own time here.

If that's not your style (plus, it's raining), then check out an open mike starting at 5:30 at Brew’d Awakening, 61 Market Street. Here anybody can read a selection of their favorite Kerouac writing. Or, if you're a writer and Kerouac acolyte, then you can read your own Kerouac-inspired writing.

If you can't get to Lowell until tomorrow, then your best bet is to show up by 11:30 a.m. at Caffé Paradiso on Palmer Street, for a screening of Grave Concerns—A Deadly Road Trip, a documentary filmed during the On the Road scroll exhibit. Despite this gruesome and questionable title, it sounds like an interesting and apt addition to this festival.

Here's the trailer for Grave Concerns:

Two summers ago when the On The Road scroll exhibit hit the Boott Cotton Mills Museum in Lowell, Liz and I attended the opening night festivities.



Here's the scroll. I took this picture before I found out that I wasn't supposed to photograph it, especially with a flash. The flash didn't cause any additional damage, although I did spill some coffee on it:

Poets in Lowell

This past weekend Lowell, Massachusetts hosted the first Massachusetts Poetry Festival. When I received a flyer about the event in the mail, I was happy to see fellow Grub Street writer Ann Killough scheduled to appear. Ann and I have taken a few of Ms. X’s classes together where I found her writing incisive, inventive, and profoundly lyrical. She was an enthusiastic participant in the critique discussions and generous and honest in her written comments.

On Saturday I attended her event. She read poetry and participated in the panel discussion Poetry and Our Times, alongside Martin Espada and Richard Hoffman. Conducted at the Whistler House Museum of Art, the hour-long panel (moderated by poet Michael Ansara) was engaging and enlightening. All three poets write with a keen social conscience and moral perspective.


Readings covered the disparate but acquainted topics of apocalyptic visions of George W., social injustice in the courts of Chelsea, the growing migrant class in America, and the idea of country as a metaphor for its condition. Discussions and audience questions touched upon the global financial crisis, America through the eyes of other nations, and the realization that Sarah Palin could conceivably be president of the United States within a year. Literature of ideas and conscience risks crossing into propaganda or didactic rants. But these poets proved that social cause can be rewarding and personally emotional without striking righteous false notes.

It was great to see a festival of any literary pedigree in Lowell. Lowell is home to a vibrant poetry scene and carries its literary history with a fanatical, domineering pride. Who doesn’t know that Lowell is the birthplace of Jack Kerouac? Lucy Larcom met John Greenleaf Whittier in Lowell while he was an editor at a local newspaper. Last summer Lowell hosted Kerouac’s legendary On the Road scroll in an award-winning exhibition. There are parks in Lowell named after Kerouac and Larcom.

On the Road scroll under glass at the Kerouac exhibit:

Brew’d Awakening, a Lowell coffee shop, champions local poets with a monthly open mic and poetry slam night and sells chapbooks by local poets. Lowell is also home to small presses and literary journals that emphasize poetry including Bootstrap Press, Shakespeare’s Monkey Revue , and Loom Press.

From all accounts (so far, mine), the Massachusetts Poetry Festival was a success. It was good to reconnect with a fellow writer while seeing Lowell continue to nurture its creative class. Pick up a copy of Ann Killough’s latest chapbook, Beloved Idea. She’ll inscribe it for you if you ask real nice-like.

More Information

Lowell Poetry Network

Concord Festival of Authors, running from Wednesday, October 15th through November 2nd. Many highlights of this event are held in Lowell.