Literary light at the end of the pandemic tunnel

No sooner did I see notice that one of the summer’s literary delights in Dallas – the Festival of Books and Ideas – had been cancelled than it popped back up, this time in virtual form. The Dallas Virtual Book Festival excises the best part of the “books” portion of the festival – author readings.

Twenty-two North Texas writers read excerpts from their children’s, middle grade, young adult, and adult books. Readings by children’s and middle grade authors include Netflix sensation Julie Murphy (Dumplin’ and more), to picture book author Jennifer Drez (Goodnight Dallas), Jen Betton, Rosie J. Pova, Kena Sosa, J Tillman, Michael Merschel, Katie Proctor, Melanie Sumrow, and Rebecca Balcárcel.

YA writers include Draegon Grey, Lyn I. Kelly, C. Michael Morrison, and Alex Temblador. Adult books include works of fiction and nonfiction from Carole Fowkes, A’Mera Frieman, Brantley Hargrove, memoirist Sarah Hepola (Blackout: Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget), and A. Lee Martinez (Constance Verity Saves the World). 

Best of all, there’s no having to mark our festival programs with a limited number of “must-hears” and rush from room to room to catch out favorites when we can listen to all at our convenience.

At this time, I haven’t seen information about how long the virtual book fest will remain online, but it seems safe to say, it will be available until the Dallas library branches are able to reopen safely.

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image: Mi Minhaz from Pixabay

Although the Dallas Museum of Art is rescheduling the remainder of this season’s Arts & Letters Live programs, it’s also offering some virtual gems. Sorry to be behind on this, but as of today, May 11, tickets are still available for a virtual session with Sue Monk Kidd, discussing The Book of Longings. Tickets are $45 for the public, $42 for DMA members, educators and students. The cost includes the private viewing link, a signed bookplate, and a hardcover copy of the book. See the site for tickets and details.

DMA follows up May 20 with a virtual book club discussion of The Book of Longings, led by bestselling author Kathleen Kent. (Note, Ms. Kidd will not appear at this discussion.) Book club tickets are $10, available at the site.

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Some Dallas bookstores are planning reopenings in accordance with latest state guidelines. Indie store Interabang Books, doubly hit by last fall’s tornado and the current pandemic, is now open at its new location, 5600 W. Lovers Lane, #142, in Dallas. Although the number of in-store customers is limited to not more than 10 at a time, curbside pickup is still available. See the site for hours and details.

Dallas-based chain HalfPrice Books has also reopened all its North Texas stores. Store capacity will be limited depending on the size of the store. Even in areas where local government orders do not mandate masks, customers are encouraged to do so. Reusable bags are not currently allowed, nor are stores allowed to buy merchandise from customers at this time. Check the site for details.

Used bookstore Lucky Dog Books is experimenting with abbreviated hours for in-store browsing, and still offers home delivery, curbside pickup and books by mail. At this point, it also accepts merchandise from customers through through curbside and home delivery. Check the site for details.

Independent Dallas bookstores Deep Vellum and The Wild Detectives are not currently open, but check their sites for additional information.

Stay safe, everyone, and keep reading!

Wordcraft -- David Baldacci at HalfPrice? Really!

I did a double take when my email feed told me megathriller writer David Baldacci would be at the Dallas flagship store of HalfPrice Books last week. In recent years, HalfPrice, the Dallas-based bookstore that built a business plan on selling used books, collectibles and publishers’ overruns at deep discounts has been going upscale by hosting lively and well-attended authors’ appearances. But an appearance by Baldacci, author of dozens of bestsellers for all ages? Really?

Really. And the store’s community room was packed with fans from all over the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. It turns out, Baldacci was on a promotional tour. (His new YA novel, The Keeper, is out today, April 21.) The morning of his Dallas appearance, he had been in Austin. The next day he would be in Houston. Tonight, by the way, he’s in New Orleans at the Garden District Book Shop. I mention this so any any fans who missed him in Texas still have time to dash to the Big Easy.

After several years of covering author appearances, I’m no longer surprised that writers whose books have a high level of violence tend to be an affable bunch. Presumably, they divert their most vicious impulses into fiction. But Baldacci was funny enough to host his own comedy show. Although don’t even think about trying to lure him away from writing.

“I don’t write every day, but I think about what I want to write every day,” he told his Dallas fans. “I can’t separate it from me, because if I did, there wouldn’t be anything left of me.”

Although for his Texas audience he rolled out a series of anecdotes about former President George H.W. Bush (father of W), he insists that being a bestselling author has yet to impress those nearest and dearest to him. His wife, Michelle, (model, he said, for heroine Michelle Maxwell of his King and Maxwell series), still tells him, “yeah, yeah, it’s trash night, so get on with it.”

(And if I related even half of the Bush presidential anecdotes, my readers would never vote Republican again. So tempting though it is, I won’t.)

Baldacci is as handsome in person as in the author photos on his book jackets, but he still insists being a bestselling author doesn’t mean being automatically recognized. Or if he is, it’s not always in a way he enjoys.

A female fan once cornered him at a restaurant while he was eating dinner with his wife. Sidling up, she asked, “You are who I think you are, aren’t you?”

Praying that the woman wasn’t completely psycho, he hedged. “Do you read a lot of fiction?”

She said, “yes, I do,” then screamed across the restaurant, presumably to her husband, “I was right, Joe. It is John Grisham.”

Baldacci left it to his wife to inform the woman that she had the right genre but wrong author. At which the would-be fan, perhaps not as disconcerted as the Baldaccis might have hoped, screamed across the room again, “You were right, Joe. It’s the Italian.”

Enough with the jokes, his fans said. What they really wanted to know was, will there be another novel in the Camel Club series about a group of conspiracy watchdogs? “Yes,” Baldacci said, “because I’ve gotten so many requests (I call them requests but they’re more like death threats),” waiting only for a new story worthy of them. 

Or, why did he decide to write YA novels like his Vega Jane series, currently including last year’s The Finisher and this year’s The Keeper? (With a sequel due out in September.)

“I wrote it (originally) under a pseudonym,” he said, “because I didn’t want anybody to buy it for the name. Nobody knew I was writing it except my wife. Kids are cool. You can’t write down to kids. As a writer you improve, you get better by trying something different. This series lets me do that.”

For more about Baldacci, his books and appearances on his current tour, see http://davidbaldacci.com/. For more about HalfPrice Book events, including author appearances, see www.hpb.com/. 

Wordcraft -- Stories supernaturally dire and poignant

The Dream Thieves

by Maggie Stiefvater

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Always on the lookout for places to hear authors talk about (and sell) their books, I was thrilled to see my neighborhood HalfPrice Books beginning to sponsor author appearances. Last Wednesday, a crowd overflowed the community meeting room at the Dallas store, 5803 E. Northwest Highway, to hear bestselling YA author Maggie Stiefvater, on tour for her latest book, The Dream Thieves.

Stiefvater currently juggles three separate series, as well as stand-alone novels and short stories, each with its own mix of adventure, romance, mythology and the supernatural.

“My books are hard to get past the elevator test,” Stiefvater told her audience. “You know, when you’re in an elevator and somebody sees you holding a book and asks what it’s about? And you have two floors to tell them.”

The short answers for previous books, she said, were things like “werewolves kissing,” or “murderous fairies” or “homicidal water horses.” Answers that may have left her fellow elevator riders still guessing.

Her new book out just a week before her HalfPrice appearance, may be even harder to explain to fellow elevator passengers. The second book of The Raven Boys series, The Dream Thieves, is the story of Blue Sargent -- “the only non-clairvoyant in a very psychic family” -- apparently doomed to kill her true love the first time she tries to kiss him. And this, everyone in the family predicts, is the year Blue will fall in love. But at the book’s beginning, the boy who meets a psychic’s test for the true love in waiting, rich preppie Richard Campbell Gansey III, is looking pretty unlovable.

As Blue lugs equipment for a search for a legendary king, she asks herself, Am I in love with him yet? Gansey sneers, ‘“I would’ve thought you had more muscles. Don’t feminists have big muscles?” Decidedly not in love with him.’

There are also a strange and strangely handsome assassin, a search for a long-dead Welsh king, and a very cool car involved. Better not try explaining the plot in an elevator, unless it’s an elevator in the world’s tallest building.

Looking young, svelte and dashing enough to be a heroine in her own books, Stiefvater recruited enthusiastic volunteers for a staged reading from The Dream Thieves, before fielding non-traditional answers to their questions about her writing.

“I don‘t really write by word count,” she replied to a question about how many words she churns out daily. “I write by scene count. . . Sometimes it takes twenty minutes. Sometimes it’s twenty-one hours.” (Usually, though, she said her goal is to complete a significant scene each day.)

Asked about what comes first in planning a novel, a character or a plot, the answer was, neither. Instead, she referenced her emotional reaction to another writer’s book, The Time Traveler’s Wife, whose ending made her spend an evening weeping so long and hard her husband wondered why she was putting herself through so much pain. “And I thought, I’m going to write a book so poignant, so dire, it’s going to ruin somebody’s evening. That’s how I started the Shiver series. And pretty much rinse and repeat for the rest.”

She both encouraged aspiring authors in the audience to start writing as young as possible, not waiting to acquire life experience, but at the same time realizing they’ll need the experience they’re gaining to write well. And don’t drop the day job too soon.

After her first book sale, she said, her husband joked that at least they could finally afford a new mattress. “But it was a very nice mattress. And with the second book, we could buy a mattress and a set of tires.”

See more about Stiefvater, her books, writing advice, and newly-bought race car at 
http://maggiestiefvater.com/.

To keep up on events at HalfPrice Books, including, I hope, more author events, see
www.hpb.com/.