The written word ties community together
Writing is a solitary effort. The scene might be a noisy room full of partygoers but its creator will have pulled it together sitting alone at a keyboard or with a blank page.
Reading is also done alone. Even on a blanket on a crowded beach, a reader’s world shrinks to just the book.
But books generate ideas, insights and opinions, all best appreciated when shared.
This weekend readers can share their experience with some of Canada’s most talented writers at the annual Lakefield Literary Festival (LLF).
Some might consider an annual celebration of books outdated: an attempt to recreate a quaint and quiet past or deny the real world of technological change and electronic communication.
They would be wrong. Books, books printed in ink on paper, are alive and well.
Last year Canadians spent just shy of $1 billion on books, according to BookNet Canada. More than 78 per cent were printed in hardcover or paperback, an increase from the year before.
But the Lakefield festival, which opens Friday night and continues through Sunday, is not about marketing books or the health of the industry. Those are for publishers and book fairs.
A literary festival is about the craft of writing. Writing is about ideas, and writers are thinkers.
That is one of the pleasures of a literary festival, to be able to sit for an hour or two and listen to writers let the rest of us in on what they think about and how and why they put it down on paper.
For those who usually get their mental stimulation from video, think of it as a TED talk that is communal, somewhat less focused but always informative and entertaining.
Who wouldn’t like to hear what Steven Price, for instance, has to say about his creative process? Price, a poet who moved into writing novels, will one of the featured writers at Saturday night’s session. His second effort, Gaslight, was last year’s biggest selling book written by a Canadian. The international rights were sold for what is thought to be more than $1 million.
It’s a murder mystery of sorts but hardly a potboiler. More like accessible, compulsive literary fiction. Whatever label goes on his book, Price is an original thinker. LLF is a stage where anyone interested in ideas and how they develop can hear what he, and other accomplished writers, have to say.
The festival also has sessions where writers discuss the detail of their craft. And it will again honour young local winners of a writing contest sponsored by The Examiner.
Well-written books are a necessary part of any successful society. Spending time at a literary festival helps us understand why. Plus it’s a lot of fun.