It’s amusing now to think that a mere generation ago South Florida was considered a cultural wasteland were people did not read. Today the region is blessed with several of the most influential – and fun! – book festivals in the nation, if not the world.
Take the Palm Beach Poetry Festival, for example. The youngest of the region’s literary events, in only eight years it has established itself as an equal to the more venerable Miami Book Fair or the Key West Literary Seminar, at least when it comes to prestige.
“We’ve become a major player in the poetry world,” says founder and director Miles Coon with justifiable pride. “I say the same thing every year. The poets coming this year are so different from one another, it’s going to be terrific.”
The Palm Beach Poetry Festival combines workshops for aspiring poets with plenty of public readings and other events. Running Jan. 16-21, this season’s slate of featured writers is headed by Pulitzer and National Book Award-winner Charles Wright.
“I’d describe him as a metaphysical poet,” says Coon, a lawyer-turned-poet who studied with Wright at the University of Virginia. “His poems reflect what we see and illuminate it in a fresh and original way.”
Other poets range from Kim Addonizio and David Kirby to Gregory Orr, Claudia Emerson, Cornelius Eady, Thomas Lux, Chase Twichell, Eleanor Wilner, and performance poets Jamaal May and Vanessa Hidary.
For a complete schedule and workshop registration, visit http://www.palmbeachpoetryfestival.org/home/. Plenty of room remains in the workshops.
“Our reputation keeps growing,” Coon says.
The traditional beginning of the South Florida literary season remains Miami Book Fair International, one of the nation’s oldest, largest and most beloved book events. This year’s event runs Nov. 13-20, and features – as always –an embarrassing wealth of authors, such as Roseanne Cash, Daniel Closes, William Kennedy, Michael Moore, Colson Whitehead, Michael Ondaatje, Téa Obreht, Harry Belafonte and hundreds of others.
This year’s featured country is China – what could be hotter? All events, including the weekend street fair, will be held at the downtown campus of Miami-Dade College. For more information, visit http://www.miamibookfair.com/.
“We have a lot of writers here for the first time, like Tea Obrecht or William Kennedy,” says book fair co-founder Mitchell Kaplan, “and a lot of favorites coming back, like Michael Ondaatje.”
With its overflowing number of writers, plus the street fair, exhibitors’ booths children’s activities, and other attractions, the Miami Book Fair is a giddy-making event, almost an orgy of reading, and certainly the high point of the literary season in South Florida.
The Key West Literary Seminar celebrates its 30th anniversary with a survey of futuristic fiction titled Yet Another World. Set for Jan. 5-8, the event boasts a gaudy line-up of emerging and established literary stars, including Margaret Atwood, Jennifer Egan, Gary Shteyngart, Douglas Coupland, William Gibson, China Mieville, and Joyce Carol Oates.
“This year’s ‘futuristic’ theme might highlight the fact that reading and writing are thriving as much as ever,” says seminar media director Arlo Haskell, “no matter the advent of technologies which threaten to distract our attention.”
The Key West Literary Seminar, the most intimate and rewarding book event on the calendar, routinely sells out. For more information and registration, visit http://www.kwls.org/seminar/.
Organizers at the Broward County Library Foundation are still putting together the slate of writers for 24th edition of Literary Feast, but they already have commitments from Wall Street Journal columnist Jeffrey Zaslow and African-American novelist Bernice McFadden.
“We’re looking forward to an exciting event with some 20 nationally recognized authors,” says Dorothy Klein, executive director. “We’ll have something for everyone, whether they be students, library donors or book lovers.”
Literary Feasts consists of a fundraising event, with authors appearing at private homes for dinner, and a day of free public lectures and panel discussions at Nova Southeastern University. Last year, the foundation raised $144,000 for the library system.
This season’s Feast weekend is scheduled for March 2-5. “We encourage everyone to follow our confirmed authors and event details on our website, www.literaryfeastonline.org, and on our Facebook page, www.facebook.com/bplfoundation.”
Literature is only a portion of what the Festival of the Arts Boca has on offer – there’s music and dance, too – but it’s a serious part, with an emphasis on history and current affairs, and nary a novelist in the mix. Set for March 10-16, the festival lineup includes historian Doris Kearns Goodwin and Daily Show writer Kevin Bleyer, among others.
“Kevin Bleyer is coming back, which speaks volumes for the festival,” says festival chairman Charlie Siemon. “Doris Kearns Goodwin will also return and having her as our distinguished writer in residence is another indication of our growing stature. We think having Mika Brzenzinski and Andrew Ross Sorkin at the Festival 2012 shows that our goal of being the ‘festival of ideas’ has become a reality.”
The festival will have an updated website by October. In the meantime, call 866-571-ARTS for more information.