If it’s March it must be book festival season. Over the course of my career, I’ve attended any number of book festivals. Today I’m going to touch on only three of them.
I’ve been invited to attend the LA Times book festival exactly once. It was what you might call a one and done. For reasons known only to the organizers, I was assigned to the Noir panel. I don’t write Noir, but I soon discovered that the guys who do—and they were all guys—take themselves very seriously. The first question asked by the moderator went as follows: “What do you think of when you hear the word Noir?” I immediately raised my hand and replied, “Pinot.” Now that you’ve finished drying your splatter of coffee off your screen, let me just say, my reply got a good laugh— ONLY one laugh, as I remember. But it’s most likely the reason I was never invited to do a return visit.
In 2001 I was invited to the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C., hosted by Laura Bush. One former librarian to another, how could I possibly have turned that down? Then I learned that as part of the festivities I was one of four authors invited to do a brief reading prior to the Library of Congress dinner—and event where we would all be introduced by Laura Bush. Naturally, I said yes, to that, too, but there was a problem with that. I don’t do readings at readings. I ran out of patience with other people reading aloud in Mrs. Spangler’s second grade classroom when being forced to listen to my fellow Blue Birds read aloud bored me to tears. Turns out, I read for plot, and by the time they inched their way to the end of the lesson I had long ago finished the whole thing. (By the way, I didn’t necessarily get good grades in reading. Since I always read ahead, I never knew the place when it was my turn to read aloud.)
As the DC festival approached, I began receiving e-mail queries about what exactly I’d be reading. I responded each time by saying more or less what I just said above—I do talkings at readings rather than readings, but the emails kept coming. The day before the event, yet another one of those official messages came in, this time from the Secret Service. At that point, Bill said, “You know, I think they’re serious about that.”
So I picked up my most recent Beaumont and scrolled through it, thinking I’d read the part about J. P. Beaumont hiring on with the attorney general’s Special Homicide Investigation Team. I found the passage, but then I found the part where I used Beau’s new unit’s unfortunate acronym—SHIT. At that point I knew that if I stood up in front of the President of the United States and used that particular term, my mother, Evie, would rise from her grave and slap me silly.
That evening, when Mrs. Bush introduced me to the crowd saying I’d be reading from the book, I immediately apologized for turning her into a liar and explained why I wouldn’t be doing a reading. Then I told the story of Cesar Flores. During Desert Storm, Fed Ex made an offer to transport donated books to members of our military serving overseas. We had forty boxes of author copies sitting in the attic of our garage. For Bill, who was worried the garage might collapse under the weight, donating all those books was the answer to a prayer. After signing every single book, off the boxes went to Fed Ex.
Sometime later I received a message from Cesar Flores, a member of the 87th Airborne. He was in a hospital recovering from injuries received when the Humvee in which he was riding ran afoul of an IED. While in the hospital, he was given one of those FedEx signed books—a Joanna Brady. He told me that, being from Texas, reading about a sheriff in the desert Southwest made him feel less homesick.
After that we corresponded back and forth for a number of months. When his daughter was born, I sent her a lovely pink blanket. When Cesar reenlisted, I celebrated with him. Then when I tested positive for uterine cancer and prior to treatment—surgery and another one-and-done—I mentioned what was going on with me. Up to that time, our correspondence had been strictly over the internet, but at that point he asked for my mailing address, and I sent it. A short time later I received a package that contained Cesar’s St. Christopher medal. He explained that St. Christopher is the patron saint of the 87th Airborne and that he’d sent it to me to keep me safe. Years later, I passed it along to a friend who had just received her own cancer diagnosis. She’s fully recovered now. I don’t know for sure, but I’m betting she’s passed Cesar’s medal on to others. (By the way, Cesar makes a cameo appearance in Remains of Innocence where he’s a special agent for the US Treasury.)
After the Library of Congress banquet that night, everyone was directed to remain seated until President and Mrs. Bush left the room. On their way out, however, he came up behind me, tapped me on the shoulder, and said, “Great story.”
Which brings me to book festival number three—the Tucson Festival of Books, TFOB for short. The first TFOB was held in 2009. I was there for the first one and for all the ones in between—including the remote one in 2020. God willing and the creek don’t rise, next week on March 14 and 15, I’ll be there celebrating TFOB # 17. That first year things were a little rough around the edges. I invited several people to the Author Dinner and was a bit put off when my guests had to go through a line to be served up cafeteria style food. After that dinner, I complained about the dinner to the founder, Bill Viner. I doubt I was alone in being disappointed. Now the Author Dinner is an impeccably served high-end feast. I like to think my constructive criticism all those years ago had something to do with that marvelous outcome.
One of the charities supported by TFOB is an organization called Literacy Connects. I have someone who’s now a longtime fan who grew up in Tucson dealing with two issues. Not only was English not her first language, she was also dyslexic. Not being able to read adversely affected her ability to find work as an adult. At age 49, wanting to be able to read books to her grandchildren, she and her Literacy Connects reading coach used my Joanna Brady books as her textbooks. She’s now one of the security officers at the University of Arizona, and I’m sure I’ll see her at the festival.
I believe Luis Alberto Urrea and I are the last two authors standing from that first TFOB extravaganza. I’m eighty-one. The festival now treats me like a fine old antique. This year I’ll be golf-carting it from event to event. I’ll have chairs with arms to make it easier to get up and down. But you’d better believe I’ll be there! Please check the schedule on my J.A. Jance Official Author Page. Once there you’ll find that I’ll also be visiting the Tombstone Book Festival from 2:00 to 3:30 on March 13. (I’ve never been to that one before.)
Of all the book festivals I’ve attended, however, TFOB wins the top prize hands down. Why? Because of the volunteers—literally hundreds of them. They escort authors to venues, they do crowd control, they handle the trash, they clean the tables in the dining tent. They do everything. By the way, that’s one of the things about that long-ago books festival in LA. The trash cans were there, but nobody ever emptied them, and by the end of the festival the whole place looked like a garbage dump. Come to think of it, the Mall in Washington, DC, wasn’t exactly pristine by the end of that other book festival.
That doesn’t happen at TFOB because the volunteers see to it. By the time the festival is over on Sunday afternoon, no one will ever guess that over a hundred thousand people have visited the University of Arizona campus over the weekend.
In the past, I’ve made it a point to go around thanking volunteers wherever possible. I’m not sure how that will work if I’m being whisked around in a golf cart. So please, if you happen to be one of those wonderful volunteers that keeps TFOB chugging along, consider this as my personal thank you. And if you know someone who’s a volunteer but who probably doesn’t read the blog, please feel free to pass it along.
I personally appreciate every single one of them.