September 11, 2005

A Moveable Fest

by Margo Hammond

On Saturday, Oct. 29, the Times Festival of Reading moves to a new locale: downtown St. Petersburg. With the sailboats of Tampa Bay as a backdrop, the festival will be held on the campus of the University of South Florida St. Petersburg.

Why the move? The popular annual gathering of readers and authors was facing a variation on that classic lament, "Too many books, too little time." To wit, "Too many readers, too little space."

In 1993, the first year the festival was held, a hardy 5,000 souls tramped around the Eckerd College campus on a windy and damp October Sunday. Some made their way to Bininger Theater, where Betty Friedan and Art Buchwald spoke to standing-room-only crowds. Others, to stay dry, crammed into Fox Hall, where a rock band incongruously played next to tables staffed by Junior Leaguers offering children's activities.

In later years - under repeatedly sunny skies - attendance soared past 15,000. Most of the headliners - David McCullough, Peter Matthiessen, Dave Barry, Lesley Stahl - spoke in Fox Hall, a 600- seat venue that grew more crowded each year. Savvy festival regulars began heading for the hall early to claim a seat, staying there for the day. Last year, when New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd (Bushworld) came to speak, the hall was already filled from the previous speaker. Hundreds who had waited to get in were turned away.

At 13, the festival, like any robust teenager, needed more room to grow, and USF St. Petersburg offers just that. It has more and larger spaces for author talks and room for future expansion. The move puts the festival at the heart of St. Petersburg's booming downtown area.

No doubt there will be some kinks. Some of the downtown area is under construction, hampering parking. There will be some free parking on campus and on the streets, but not everyone will find a spot. For the overflow, there will be free shuttle buses from several city parking lots (which will charge $5).

With more than double the number of authors invited to participate this year and an expansion of children's activities, however, the trip downtown should offer some memorable moments.

Prepare to see a sea of red hats at the 1,000-seat USF Activity Center: Red Hat Society founder Sue Ellen Cooper will be presenting The Red Hat Society: Fun and Friendship After Fifty. Other headliners are Candace Bushnell, whose novel Sex and the City launched a television phenomenon (she'll talk about her next novel, Lipstick Jungle); bestselling author Mireille Guiliano (French Women Don't Get Fat); Carl Hiaasen, who will present his second children's book, Flush; and Doris Kearns Goodwin (Team of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln).

R.L. Stine of Goosebumps fame will tout his new series, Mostly Ghostly, while Florida author Greg Jenkins will talk about his book, Florida's Ghostly Legends and Haunted Folklore.

Jenkins is the first speaker in the 257-seat auditorium of the Fish and Wildlife Research Institute, which will be devoted to Florida authors. His talk will be followed by a panel called Eyes on Florida: Looking at the State Through Different Lenses. The panel features a historian (USF's Ray Arsenault), a journalist (Times writer Jeff Klinkenberg) and a novelist (St. Petersburg author Lee Irby), discussing how their professions change the way they look at the state. USF historian Gary Mormino, author of Land of Sunshine, State of Dreams, is moderating.

Also at the all-Florida venue, Miami-based thriller writer Barbara Parker (Suspicion of Rage) and St. Petersburg's Marc Giller, author of the high-tech thriller Hammerjack, will talk about their white-knuckle writing. Another panel - From Idea to Bookstore: How a Book Is Born - will feature a New York agent (Sloan Harris), a Florida publisher (June Cussen of Pineapple Press) and a Times reviewer (staffer Colette Bancroft) who will join Irby in discussing how his novel, 7,000 Clams, went from the germ of an idea to your bookshelf.

Other novelists attending include American Book Award-winner Ana Castillo (Water Women/Opaque Men), PEN/Hemingway Award-winner Bobbie Ann Mason (An Atomic Romance), book critic Kit Reed (Dogs of Truth) and bestselling author Richard Paul Evans (The Sunflower).

Some author talks are scheduled at the nearby Poynter Institute for Media Studies, the nonprofit school for journalists that owns the St. Petersburg Times, with the children's stage and children's book authors featured across the way in Poynter Park.

A panel on The American Empire: The Power of Politics and the Politics of Power will feature Robert Merry (Sands of Empire), David Rothkopf (Running the World: The Inside Story of the National Security Council and the Architects of American Power) and Craig Crawford (Attack the Messenger: How Politicians Turn You Against the Media).

Rona Jaffe, whose 1958 novel The Best of Everything was an early precursor of Sex and the City, Quacker Industries CEO Jeanne Bice (Pull Yourself Up By Your Bra Straps) and French Women Don't Get Fat author Guiliano will discuss Women Today: Are We Better Off Than Our Mothers? Another panel - Writing Couples: How Two Authors Survive Under the Same Roof - will feature PBS journalist and mystery writer Jim Lehrer (The Franklin Affair) and novelist Kate Lehrer (Confessions of a Bigamist); Southern author Lenore Hart (Ordinary Springs) and David Poyer, the most popular living author of American sea fiction (That Anvil of Our Souls: A Novel of the Monitor and the Merrimack); and nonfiction writers Mim Eichler Rivas (Beautiful Jim Key: The Lost History of a Horse and a Man Who Changed the World) and former Miami Dolphin and FSU offensive lineman Victor Rivas Rivers (A Private Family Matter). Rivas Rivers, who became an actor after his football career, is spokesman for the National Network to End Domestic Violence.

Several other Tampa Bay authors also are on the roster: Giller (Hammerjack); Beverly Brandt (The Tiara Club), whose 2003 romantic comedy Room Service has been optioned for the big screen with Jessica Simpson signed on to play the lead; Tampa attorney James Sheehan (The Mayor of Lexington Avenue); Bob Andelman (Will Eisner: A Spirited Life); Peter Golenbock (Red Sox Nation); and husband-and- wife team Christopher Scanlan and Katharine Fair (The Holly Wreath Man).

Vinoy chef John Pivar will present his cookbook, Taste the Vinoy, while Times food editor Janet Keeler will talk on How to Pick a Cookbook. Sarasota's Sarah Gardner will present Read It and Eat: A Month-by-Month Guide to Scintillating Book Club Selections and Mouthwatering Menus.

Sisters Jennifer and Kitty O'Neil, former Tampa residents, will explain Decorating with Funky Shui, while former St. Petersburg resident Jessica Hundley will present her biography of musician Gram Parsons, Grievous Angel.

Other speakers at the festival include New York Times business writer Joseph Treaster (Paul Volcker: The Making of a Financial Legend); Radio America personality Greg Smith (On a Roll: Reflections from America's Wheelchair Dude With the Winning Attitude); Andrew Carroll (Behind the Lines: Powerful and Revealing American and Foreign War Letters and One Man's Search to Find Them); Quang X. Pham (A Sense of Duty: My Father, My American Journey); South Florida Sun-Sentinel travel editor Thomas Swick (A Way to See the World: From Texas to Transylvania With a Maverick Traveler), David Oshinsky (Polio: An American Story) and Florida thriller writer James O. Born (Shock Wave).

Copyright Times Publishing Co. Sep 11, 2005