Twin Cities BookFest Returns in Person
by Chloë Moore ’24
On Saturday, October 16th, writers, readers, and editors from the Twin Cities and beyond gathered in the Progress Center of the Minnesota State Fairgrounds for a day of literature and love. I had the pleasure of going, along with a friend, Maddie Wayne ’24 (who, incidentally, I met in Introduction to Creative Writing with Professor Emma Törzs). Of the event, Maddie said, “It was so exciting to be around so many people who love to read and love books. The energy was great and everybody was clearly just happy to be there.”
Other Macalester students and faculty were involved in the festival as well. Professor Rachel Gold spoke on the MN Author Mashup Panel about their most recent book, Synclair. Professor Gold had been on stage at the festival twice previously to speak about LGBTQ writing and YA Lit. Apart from going as a speaker, Professor Gold also attended in part as a spectator and said, “I don’t want to say that I like being a spectator better—because I’m afraid they won’t invite me back to speak—but that may be the truth. The TC BookFest is a great space in which to learn about authors who are new to me and to meet and talk with people.” (We here at The Words are quite confident that Professor Gold will get to speak again.)
Another Macalester faculty present was visiting Asst. Professor Richard Pelster-Wiebe, who is currently teaching Crafts of Writing: Screenwriting. When I met Professor Pelster-Wiebe, he was staffing Hamline University’s table, talking with visitors about the college’s Creative Writing Programs. As Prof. Pelster-Wiebe explained, “The table provided information about the Creative Writing Programs at Hamline. We offer a BFA at the undergraduate level and an MFA, plus an MFAC (MFA for Children’s Writing) at the graduate level. We also had information about Runestone (a literary journal produced by Hamline undergrads) and WaterStone (a literary journal produced by grads).” (English majors can submit their work to either journal!)
Of the festival at large, he said, “The best part of the festival was seeing my former students! Students from last year, students from five years ago. Students with book deals, students who are now teaching the joy of writing to others. It was pretty cool.” When I asked him what Macalester students he had in his Screenwriting class, the first two names he listed were fellow Words editors, Kira Schukar ’22 and Patrick Coy-Bork ’23!
The final Mac person I connected with was Shelby Kruger ’22, who was attending the event as a volunteer. Shelby told me she’d first gone to the festival as a first year, but hadn’t been back her sophomore or junior year because of a scheduling conflict and then COVID-19. Of being back in person, Shelby said there were “Lots of emotions all at once. Mostly exciting, sometimes bittersweet, sometimes overwhelming, strangely new and comfortingly familiar at the same time…Overall I—and I sense the people around me—are so grateful and genuinely joyful to be taking part in these activities again! It feels so good to be more active in the Mac and Twin Cities communities in this way again.”
She decided to volunteer because “I thought volunteering would be a great way to be more deeply involved in the event and learn about different behind the scenes elements that go into planning it, and I wanted to help support the event in a more material way.” As a volunteer, not only did she get a voucher for used books and a free T-shirt, Shelby also got to talk to a number of authors while working as a cashier at the used books table for her second shift: “I got to check out all the cool books and records people found and have little conversations about how they were enjoying the festival, which I loved. Another aspect that was so cool was that a lot of the authors who gave presentations also came through to browse the used books along with all the other attendees…Because I was a cashier I got to have a couple quick conversations with the poet and novelist Kazim Ali, and with the poet Kaveh Akbar. They were both super kind and pleasant and those conversations made my day.”
From my perspective, it was lovely to be in community with so many fellow lit-lovers, and it was great to be back in person and still feel safe (kudos to the organizers!). It’s entirely possible that I came away with too many new books (I blame Maddie for standing behind me and telling me to get them—she said I could write that), but really, if I could I’d go back and double the number of books to bring home. Learning more about the local literary arts scene, as well as submission and publication opportunities for undergrads, made me really excited to get more involved with our community. And of course, there’s nothing like wandering through aisles and rows of books, each table a portal into some new, magical literary land.