Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
NWA Book Fest touts local authors, their works and the fun of reading
Independent Bookstore Day is coming soon, and the community of booksellers in Northwest Arkansas is getting an early start with a day of book-related sales and programming.
Walk the stretch of Arkansas Street between Chestnut and Walnut in Rogers from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. April 1, and you’ll find lots of local booksellers, authors, publishers and makers selling books and book-related items such as journals, book cozies, bookmarks, zines and other literary publications.
Two stages will allow booksellers, authors and poets to have readings, make a case for a current favorite read or, in the case of the children’s stage, offer up story times.
“This started as a way to get together, and it turned into something much larger,” says Courtney Smith, co-owner of Underbrush Books in Rogers. She is organizing the first Northwest Arkansas Book Fest with Emily Walker, a children’s librarian and bookseller in Northwest Arkansas known as “The Cozy Librarian.”
Smith grew up in Fayetteville, shopping at the now-closed Nightbird Books. The fact that the region now has so many booksellers is something that astounds her in a good way.
“To see at least one bookstore in every one of the major cities in Northwest Arkansas is incredible,” she says. “We have a community that supports this so much that so many in such a small area can be successful. That they’re thriving and growing, it just means so much to me.”
A total of six independent bookstores will have booths at Northwest Arkansas Book Fest, including Two Friends Books of Bentonville, Underbrush (naturally) and Brick Lane, both of Rogers, Mas Libritos of Springdale, Pearl’s Books of Fayetteville and Bookish of Fort Smith.
Two used bookstores will be joining in, too, Once Upon a Time, which has locations in Tontitown and Bentonville, as well as the Friendly Bookstore in Rogers, a function of Friends of the Rogers Public Library.
“We were not expecting the response that we’ve gotten,” says Emily Walker, The Cozy Librarian. Her favorite part of organizing Book Fest so far is “seeing how the community reacts to it and how they came together so quickly.”
Walker and Smith couldn’t accept all the interested authors, and they had to shut down the volunteer sign-up app after only eight hours.
“We want people to know it’s an all-day event … with a local makers market in the middle of it all,” Walker says. “It would be hard to miss, but they’re really amazing local vendors.”
Bookseller sessions will give those stores, as well as Paper Hearts Books of Little Rock, a 15 minute window to use however they like, either talking about a book that the seller is really excited about, discussing the events and book clubs they offer and the titles they’re reading within them or showing off chances for presales, an opportunity to purchase a book in advance of its publishing date so the reader can be guaranteed a copy on the first day of its availability.
This practice, “hand selling is the best part of the job,” Smith says. “To talk about a book and sell it to a customer in a personal way.”
Authors will take the stage to discuss their books and upcoming publications. If you see one of your favorites or just want to learn more about their book, you can speak to the author immediately after their talk, since signing tables will be set up along the stages.
Occasional breaks for live music will take place, such as one during the lunch hour and again from 3:30 to 5 p.m. Added to the mix is that local makers’ market and beer sales from Ozark Beer Company. The brewery is the anchor spot for the day’s events.
One stage will be dedicated to fiction and nonfiction geared for adults, while the other stage has children’s book programming in the morning and early afternoon. After that, the
second stage will turn into a venue for rapid prose poetry.
“We had a ton of poets apply for the event,” Smith says. “So we’ll have a 10 minute rotating schedule for them to read works.”
A total of 40 authors are involved this year and their works range the gamut — prose poetry, middle grade, children’s, romance, sci-fi, nonfiction and general fiction.
“You name it,” Smith says. “It was important to us, having that genre mix and making sure there was a wide range of representation for all tastes.”
Walker started her small business, The Cozy Librarian, with the same hopes of introducing more readers to diverse and inclusive reading. She does that through selling exclusively “blind book dates,” covering a book so the title and author are concealed. Customers make their decisions based on Walker’s description written on top.
Smith started Underbrush Books as a virtual book club during the pandemic after finding that a lot of friends and family, and then customers too, were feeling alienated in their reading. If you haven’t read much in a while, Smith says, it can be a challenge to pick it up again as an adult.
“It’s a skill, and if you don’t use it, it becomes really hard,” she says. If you’re overwhelmed and not getting into books, you might be “reading the wrong things — they’re too challenging or not interesting.”
Smith found that people were abandoning reading due to factors like that, or because they had no sense of community, so she set out to create one.
Before becoming a full fledged store, Underbrush sold only the books that the club read together and provided reading prompts to help members think critically and get prepared for discussions. Those selections were all over the place with a little YA, fantasy, horror, etc.
“So bringing that element and that passion to the festival was important,” Smith says. The author programming will reflect that too. It won’t be all literary fiction on the event stages. “It’s important for Emily (Walker) and I as readers of sci fi and fantasy and romance that they (become less) stigmatized, that less people are embarrassed if they only read that.
“We have a lot of literature and prose, but we wanted mystery and thrillers throughout.”
Twenty six of the authors will take a chance to speak with audiences from the stage, while another 14 are available to chat more informally from their places at booths.
Smith hopes that by getting authors engaged with potential audiences, it will help drive up their recognition, both locally and nationally. She’s looking forward to the large pool of newly published and firsttime authors at this year’s event, since helping them take that first step is an exciting process.
“We were thinking about how to make it more than a book fair, because I really believe that bookstores grow the entire local publishing industry,” Smith says. “We work with local authors, stock (their books) and promote them and from that it grows … now you need representation … as you see authors getting more national, large publishing house deals, that all starts with bookstores.”