The highlight of the 12th Arkansas Literary Festival may have been Hairspray director John Waters' show -- and it was a show -- the night of April 25 at the Central Arkansas Library System Ron Robinson Theater, but the highlight for Waters may have been Author! Author!, the now de rigueur reception for all the authors and anyone who shelled out $25.
Where else would narrative fiction matriarch Jamaica Kincaid, heroin chronicler Sam Quinones and U.S. Navy Reservist and food book author Morgan Murphy meet and mingle? (Waters was there, of course.)
"What other event puts you in a room with dozens of best-selling authors, and, this year, a world-famous filmmaker? Every year I'm so impressed," said chairman Katherine Whitworth.
Nearly all of the other presentations and panels, spanning Thursday through Sunday of that week, were free. The festival achieves this through grants, sponsorships and donations, and then, by reimbursing authors for their travel but offering no honorarium or stipend. That is, pay.
Several dozen ticket holders attended Author! Author! on the fifth floor of the downtown library Friday night, where they enjoyed heavy hors d'oeuvres such as cheeses, bite-size ham sandwiches and spinach artichoke dip. By Saturday, festival organizers were estimating attendance to all events at roughly 13,000.
The four-day festival featured about 80 presenters, including Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood author Rebecca Wells, who is scheduled to do a one-woman show for the Arkansas Repertory Theatre next season (Feb. 16-21).
-- Photos and story by Bobby Ampezzan
High Profile on 05/03/2015