If it\u2019s March it must be book festival season. Over the course of my career, I\u2019ve attended any number of book festivals. Today I\u2019m going to touch on only three of them.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve 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\u2019t write Noir, but I soon discovered that the guys who do\u2014and they were all guys\u2014take themselves very seriously. The first question asked by the moderator went as follows: \u201cWhat do you think of when you hear the word Noir?\u201d I immediately raised my hand and replied, \u201cPinot.\u201d Now that you\u2019ve finished drying your splatter of coffee off your screen, let me just say, my reply got a good laugh\u2014 ONLY one laugh, as I remember. But it\u2019s most likely the reason I was never invited to do a return visit.<\/p>\n
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\u2014and 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\u2019t do readings at readings. I ran out of patience with other people reading aloud in Mrs. Spangler\u2019s 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\u2019t necessarily get good grades in reading. Since I always read ahead, I never knew the place when it was my turn to read aloud.)<\/p>\n
As the DC festival approached, I began receiving e-mail queries about what exactly I\u2019d be reading. I responded each time by saying more or less what I just said above\u2014I 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, \u201cYou know, I think they\u2019re serious about that.\u201d<\/p>\n
So I picked up my most recent Beaumont and scrolled through it, thinking I\u2019d 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\u2019s new unit\u2019s unfortunate acronym\u2014SHIT. 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.<\/p>\n
That evening, when Mrs. Bush introduced me to the crowd saying I\u2019d be reading from the book, I immediately apologized for turning her into a liar and explained why I wouldn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n
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\u2014a Joanna Brady. He told me that, being from Texas, reading about a sheriff in the desert Southwest made him feel less homesick.<\/p>\n
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\u2014surgery and another one-and-done\u2014I 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\u2019s St. Christopher medal. He explained that St. Christopher is the patron saint of the 87th Airborne and that he\u2019d 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\u2019s fully recovered now. I don\u2019t know for sure, but I\u2019m betting she\u2019s passed Cesar\u2019s medal on to others. (By the way, Cesar makes a cameo appearance in Remains of Innocence<\/em> where he\u2019s a special agent for the US Treasury.)<\/p>\n 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, \u201cGreat story.\u201d<\/p>\n Which brings me to book festival number three\u2014the 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\u2014including the remote one in 2020. God willing and the creek don\u2019t rise, next week on March 14 and 15, I\u2019ll 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.<\/p>\n One of the charities supported by TFOB is an organization called Literacy Connects. I have someone who\u2019s 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\u2019s now one of the security officers at the University of Arizona, and I\u2019m sure I\u2019ll see her at the festival.<\/p>\n