Support your local authors

November 9, 2009 by Bryant Nguyen 

Vegas Valley Book Festival unites readers, writers

Las Vegas is primarily known as the city of entertainment, but look below the surface and it will reveal another aspect of the city’s culture.

Last weekend, Vegas Valley Book Festival 2009 showed that there is a place for cultural activities and events in a city driven by glitz and glamour.

“I think the purpose of the festival is to introduce authors to the community and the community to authors,” said Michael Green, professor and discussion panelist. “And to bring them all together to try to show one another that there is a cultural community here, that there is much we all can learn from one another.”

Located in the heart of downtown Las Vegas at the Historic Fifth Street School, the four-day event presented a full slate of free events that consisted of readings, panel discussions, book signings, workshops and performances.

The first two days of the festival featured events including the opening keynote speech by the poet laureate of the U.S. Kay Ryan and mayor Oscar Goodman reciting a haiku poem.

The pace of the festival picked up over the weekend with the bulk of the events taking place on Saturday before closing on Sunday.

The focal point of the festival was the Saturday Special Programs, which included the Local Author’s Fair, the Target Children’s Festival, the Comics Festival and the Plaza Used Book Fair.

The highlight of the festivities was the featured workshop “Beyond Twilight and True Blood,” which included two acclaimed local authors: Vicki Pettersson, New York Times Bestseller and author of ‘The Signs of the Zodiac’ series, and Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist Geoff Schumacher.

“I’ve been coming to the Vegas Valley Book Festival since before I was published,” Pettersson said. “Even back then I dreamed of being up here and giving presentations and giving back to my community, specifically because I didn’t have any… local authors to look up to when I was striving to be published.”

In the workshop, Pettersson spoke about the art of writing and explained urban fantasy to her audience. Schumacher added historical details and facts to the conversation that complemented Pettersson’s knowledge and career experiences to give the fans a broader look on the topics.

“Urban fantasy is everywhere in the popular culture and popular media right now,” Pettersson said. “It is arguably the biggest-selling genre. It’s at the height of its zenith right now. So it was important to tap into that and explain.”

Pettersson features aspects of Las Vegas in her novels.

“As someone who grew up here, I know that there is a lot more beyond the neon and beyond what the popular media likes to portray Las Vegas as and that was my goal,” Pettersson said. “I wanted the reality of the Las Vegas I grew up in represented.”

Schumacher and Green had their turn on the final day to discuss their specialty, Nevada history, in the panel discussion “Great Characters from Las Vegas History.” The panel consisted of Schumacher, Green, Jack Scheehan and Lorraine Hunt-Bono.

“I think it is difficult to understand the literature you are reading when it is about a particular time without knowing about the history of that time and vice-versa,” Green said. “We are trying to encourage their interest in the area. I think it’s important to convey that there is also a local history.”

The Vegas Valley Book Festival continues to be an intricate part of the diverse culture here in Las Vegas.

“This book festival in my view – and I’ve been involved with the book festival since its inception – is so important in building the culture of Las Vegas which is pretty small,” Schumacher said. “We are not known for the cultural aspect of our city so I think things like this festival can really help build that profile of our culture.”

“We do have a lot of good writers here and a lot of people involved in a variety of arts and people need to know about them.”