308 Festival Report #2

There were some heavy hitters for the presentations at the larger facilities which drew the largest crowds. The Field House was not a comfortable spot to sit for 2 hours, as you can imagine, although sports fans seem able to tolerate it. We also attended some larger gatherings at the Sunshine Church, off campus, but definitely designed for comfort and communication, with comfortable seating and good acoustics.

Thursday night we enjoyed Katherine Paterson, a popular children/young adult writer, whom I’d never read, but she had a huge number of fans there from the college and surrounding communities as well as attendees.

Notes for writers: “Tell the truth,” she said. Notes about life: She also commented on a writing workshop she did for prisoners. She has been a foster mother and has also written about a boy who had been in foster care. “I asked the roomful of prisoners how many had ever been in foster care, and every one of them raised his hand.”

Friday was definitely the heaviest day--with so many concurrent sessions that it was difficult to choose. The Friday evening session at Sunshine was given by Joyce Carol Oates. Neither of us was interested in that, so we went to a local shopping center, found a Naturalizer store where we could buy sensible librarian shoes, and ate at a pleasant restaurant with huge portions and reasonable prices. The reason we skipped this one was simple--we’ve read her.

Saturday had two large gatherings at the Field House--in the morning was Barbara Brown Taylor, an Anglican priest who is now a college professor and in the afternoon the delightful Leif Enger, who wrote “Peace like a River,” and who lives on a farm in Minnesota and appears on NPR. Rev. Taylor loves words and is a wonderful writer/speaker. Her faith, although beautifully expressed, is where I was 30 years ago and I don’t want to go there ever again.

Notes for writers: “Words are meant for the ear. The page is where they audition.” Notes about life: “People who won’t go to R-rated movies often come to pastors about their own R-rated lives.”

Enger wrote poorly received mystery novels with his brother that he seems a bit embarrassed about now, and then developed his acclaimed novel because his son is asthmatic and he started from the perspective of a boy who had asthma. Even from a bit of a distance, you can see the twinkle in his eye, and the women swooning over his good looks.

Notes for writers: “Write with passion.” Notes about life: “Gratitude defeats despair.” Enger read aloud from his favorite book, “Wind in the Willows.”

A third large gathering on Saturday (I assume it was large, but I wasn’t there) was at Sunshine Church given by Frederick Buechner, who has written more than 30 books of fiction, non-fiction and auto-biography. Again, I’m not familiar with him and didn’t attend, but I could see his books were selling well at the publisher’s exhibits. By the time he spoke I was eating a hot-fudge sundae somewhere around Rt 30 and 23 in Ohio, ready for the last leg home.