Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 1, 1995 TAG: 9504030036
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: B10 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MIKE MAYO BOOK PAGE EDITOR
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
If Thursday's beginning was any indication, The Virginia Festival of the Book got off to a fast start. The opening lunch and reading by novelist Rita Mae Brown was a sellout; the first night reception was oversubscribed; and so many people said they were going to a poetry reading by Rita Dove, Charles Wright and Greg Orr that the event was moved to a larger hall.
This year, the festival was aimed primarily at Charlottesville and the immediate area. It was a creation of local individuals, libraries and the Virginia Foundation of the Humanities and Public Policy, underwritten by Virginia Power. The initial rush of popularity kept festival organizers busy.
On Thursday, Margaret Ann Bollmeier, director of development for the Virginia Foundation of the Humanities, said, "We filled 260 seats for the opening lunch and turned people away. We're expecting 400 people at the poetry reading this evening. With this year's success, we'll expand. Next year, we'll be statewide."
According to Paul Collinge, owner of Heartwood Books, the reaction of the community caught the planners by surprise.
"It's a shoestring, community-based operation," he said. "Everybody is working for free. It's a much bigger operation than we thought. We organized about half the events; the other half came to us." And the festival grew. The 20 programs they'd expected to sponsor became 50.
Those include readings, workshops, panels, film screenings, lectures and such. Parallels to Charlottesville's "other" cultural event - the Virginia Festival of American Film - are unavoidable, but the organizers downplayed them.
Robert Vaughan, president of the Virginia Foundation of the Humanities, claimed "If we have a model, it's the other book festivals, [particularly] the Southern Festival of Books in Nashville. There's nothing else like this in the mid-Atlantic region."
In describing the none-too-specific theme, Vaughan said that he hoped the festival would address "the public dimension of a solitary activity - reading - and how it leads to participation in society."
For those who weren't able to attend this weekend, one related exhibit is still open. It's a small, fascinating display of books in the top floor Dome Room of the Rotunda. These are books with a specific relationship to Charlottesville. They range from serious fiction and non-fiction to paper dolls. And though the books and passages cited are mostly favorable, the exhibit has a sense of humor. Note this entry:
"Philip du Pont published a short volume of poetry called `Currente Calamo' in 1907 that included some pretty awful stuff; he is more fondly remembered for the $6 million he contributed to the University as a grateful alumnus."
The Rotunda exhibit will be on display through June. Next year's book festival is scheduled for March 27-30. For information, call (804) 924-6890.
by CNB