One nice thing about the Ann Arbor Book Festival was seeing the continual development of a group of people that share the common excitement when it comes to literature. The city of Ann Arbor has two excellent independent literary journals in Hobart and Orchid and not all that far away in Farmington you have Absinthe: New European Writing. Ann Arbor is also home to Shaman Drum Bookstore and obviously the University of Michigan Creative Writing Department, and the Michigan Quarterly Review. It is also the residence of 826 Michigan. Again, not too far away from Ann ARbor is LIvonia's The MacGuffin, which is associated with Schoolcraft Community College. The west side of the state hosts the journals Third Coast and Diagram. Just down the street from Ann Arbor is Ypsilanti and Eastern Michigan University and their own Creative Writing Department.
Readers here have probably noticed the numerous mentions of my being at events with Aaron Burch of Hobart, Dwayne Hayes of Absinthe, Steve Gillis of 826 Michigan, Stefan Kiesbye and Jeff Parker of EMU. There was a question at the literary journal panel about learning experiences - do journals share them with each other, either positive or negative? The response, just from my vantage point on the near sidelines is a resounding yes. There were great discussions going on in the tented areas between the journals listed above, as well as Felicia Sullivan (Small Spiral Notebook), Rachel Swearingen (Third Coast), Meg Galipault (Kenyon Review), Karen Craigo (Mid-American Review) and Kyle Minor (Frostproof Review). They ranged from have you checked out this author? Try this printer...Advertise here...and so on.
After the Festival was over, a great many of us went out to eat afterwards and the discussions continued, both about journals, writing, reading and otherwise (do yourself a huge favor and corner Kyle Minor and just ask him to tell you every story he told at this dinner!). It was just very cool seeing this group continue to develop and bond.
Some other results of the AABF? There are three writers that have begun to sneak up my MUST READ EVERYTHING list:
While I had already begun skimming through Jason Ockert's Rabbit Punches, hanging out with him a bit on Friday and then listening to him read and especially, respond to questions from the audience on Saturday, has really made me want to follow up, finish the book and look for everything else the man has written.
Roy Kesey - I had read a story or two of his from Night Train and Hobart, and have a copy of his just published novella headed my way, but discussions with others on Friday, and then having the fine folks at Hobart lend me a copy of Ninth Letter with a story of his in it, and the new Orchid picked up Saturday had another and these two both just blew me away. It will be fun tracking down his as he's got about 40 short stories out and about in literary journals.
Amy Sumerton - The Assistant Director of 826 Michigan and Co-Executive Editor of Orchid was also at the Festival and I ran into her on Saturday and began talking about 826 MI, Orchid and her band Canada. It dawned on me that I'd not read any of Amy's work, and in fact, wasn't even sure if she wrote fiction, or poetry. So Sunday I did a little googling and found three stories that were available online and after reading the trio, was really sort of bummed I couldn't find more. And while I enjoyed the earliest story I could find, Our Girl Friday from 2003, the next one, Ian's Head, was even better and then the most recent I found (hardcopy) is just incredible and has me pretty excited about the possibility that more are either out there or coming soon.
Lastly, I received a verbal promise from a person who many of you may have noticed has become my favorite uncollected short story writer, Elizabeth Ellen, that she will print out copies for me, of all of her work that I cannot find online!
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