A Peek Behind the Curtain at the Gaithersburg Book Festival
Not long after the last visitors departed from Gaithersburg City Hall’s grounds and the tents came down, nearly two dozen unseen volunteers began planning for the upcoming Gaithersburg Book Festival to be held on Saturday May 18, 2013. Between them, they read hundreds of books, reviewed and recruited author submissions, and brainstormed on ways to improve the festival this year. This post is dedicated to our tireless volunteers…
In 2012, I had the privilege of being one of the featured local authors at the Gaithersburg Book Festival and the honor of joining the planning committee this year. This festival is mostly volunteer-based, and I can’t say enough for all of the hard work that is put in behind the scenes with the support of the City of Gaithersburg staff to make this one of the most respected literary festivals on the East Coast. They volunteer because they love to read — and more importantly, to encourage others to read and discover new authors.
Recruiting 100 well-known (and some soon-to-be well known authors) is an arduous but rewarding task. Every book must be read, critiqued, categorized and, if selected, categorized to where they would be the best fit. Our volunteers don’t just rely on the press packs. They read all of the books — and there are hundreds of them — submitted from large publishing houses, small presses and the authors themselves. Our festival is one of the few festivals that encourages everyone — big, small or just starting out — to give it a shot. Yes, we have some big name draws, like Mark Shriver, Kitty Kelley, Pati Jinich, Amber Dusick (Parenting with Crappy Pictures), Jill Smokler (aka, Scary Mommy), Brad Parks and Mary Quattlebaum. But it is the new and up-and-coming authors that give Gaithersburg a small town feel on a big town stage.
I, myself, reviewed several books and am happy to say that two of my author recommendations will be in attendance at the festival this year: Jennifer Harlow (“What’s a Witch to Do?”) and Orest Stelmach (“The Boy From Reactor 4”). Both are excellent breakout authors and I expect to see them on best-seller lists someday soon.
If you will indulge me, I’d like to tell you a little bit about each of the books that I found so exciting.
“What’s a Witch to Do?”
At first I approached this book skeptically — after all, since the success of another vampires and werewolves book series, similar books have sprouted up like dandelions in a grassy field — so I can tell you that I was pleasantly surprised by the effortless writing, witty dialog and unexpected twists and turns of Jennifer Harlow’s book. This book about the Mona, the High Priestess of a Witches’ coven, won me over, and it will win you over, too. If this book had come out 10 years earlier, we might be talking about an entirely different witches, vampires and werewolves trilogy. Cue the eye rolling, but I’ve been charmed.
“The Boy From Reactor 4”
This book is a serious page turner. I have long believed that the sign of a really well-written book is the fact that no matter how hard you try, you can’t put the book down. Here I was at two o’clock in the morning saying to myself, ‘Oh just five more pages and I’ll sleep’ and an hour and a half later still reading, wanting to find out every twist and turn as you the reader are pulled through the book as if on one of the runaway jeeps in the no-man’s land of Chernobyl, 20 years after the worst nuclear disaster ever, where you find that a seemingly simple life is but a carefully concocted cover story told from the days of Nadia’s childhood is not at all as it seems. I would gladly sacrifice another night of sleep to read Boy from Reactor 4 again — and when I go to the beach this year, I expect the multi-hued Steig Larsson books to be replaced with the shadowy ice field and a young hockey player unknowingly holding the fate of the world inside of him.
From one Gaithersburg Book Festival author to another, welcome to the party — and when you see the volunteers making your day a success, thank them for all of their hard work.
Interested in being one of those crucial volunteers? Find out how.