Pressing on — Six Bridges Book Festival goes digital in challenging year

Brad Mooy is laughing. It's a long, loud laugh during a telephone interview late last month.

Mooy is the coordinator of the Central Arkansas Library System's Six Bridges Book Festival. The event is in its 17th year but, of course, 2020 is not a normal year.

Originally scheduled for April 23-26, the festival will now begin on Thursday. And instead of authors and readers mingling together at venues in Little Rock, this year's event is online, with authors and attendees taking part via Zoom sessions from the comfort of their own homes (or from wherever they are logging in).

Mooy's laughing fit comes after being asked if it was easier to organize the online version of the event, previously known as the Arkansas Literary Festival, than the traditional in-person iteration.

"That probably answers your question," he finally says. "It has not been easier to set up a virtual event. It's definitely been different."

Despite the challenges, this year's festival maintains the event's traditional devotion to offering a diverse and interesting lineup of authors. There are over 60 novelists, essayists, short story writers, poets, historians, biographers, children's authors, cookbook authors and more.

"There is a great diversity of authors," Mooy says. "We make a push to cover a broad swath. People like different kinds of books, and it would be very limiting to only have a certain genre or to have just fiction or nonfiction. To me, that's one of the joys of the event, to be able to offer so many different things."

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“Ordinary Girls” by Jaquira Diaz
“Ordinary Girls” by Jaquira Diaz

Instead of the four days originally scheduled in April, the festival now has events stretching over 11 days, which helps eliminate overlapping sessions and the anxiety of having to choose one over the other.

Among those participating are best-selling author Tim O'Brien; New Yorker writer Casey Cep; novelist Afia Atakora; poet Kay Ulanday Barrett; Little Rock novelist Kevin Brockmeier; pastry shop owner and cookbook author Angela Garbacz; James Beard Award-winning journalist Kathy Gunst; novelist Lisa Howorth; children's book author GennaRose Nethercott; Ernesto Cisneros, author of "Efren Divided"; investigative reporter Jerry Mitchell; "Why We Swim" author Bonnie Tsui — and many more.

Most of the sessions will include two or more writers and a moderator, and the festival begins at noon Thursday with novelist Cassandra King Conroy, widow of novelist Pat Conroy and Jaquira Diaz, author of "Ordinary Girls: A Memoir."

Other intriguing pairings include Anthony Bozza, author of "Whatever You Say I Am: The Life and Times of Eminem," and Dan Piepenbring, who co-authored "The Beautiful Ones," the unfinished memoir of the late musician Prince, on Friday from 7-8 p.m. A session at 1 p.m. Saturday will feature food authors Katherine Alford, Garbacz and Gunst.

At 7 p.m. Oct. 16, playwright R. Eric Thomas, author of "Here for It: Or How to Save Your Soul in America," will team with Alia Volz, author of "Baked: My Mom, Marijuana and the Stoning of San Francisco."

Toni Jensen, along with Little Rock fiction writer and essayist Frederick McKindra and poet Jou Priest, will speak at noon, Oct. 16 on "A Measure of Belonging: Twenty-One Writers of Color on the New American South."

Cep, whose "Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud and the Last Trial of Harper Lee," was published last year, will be featured at 7 p.m. Oct. 15 with Toby Muse, author of "Kilo: Inside the Deadliest Cocaine Cartels — From the Jungles to the Streets."

"I've done a couple of these with other writers," Cep says. "I always love to be in conversation with someone. You both learn more about your own work. The questions they get asked that are related to their book allow you to think differently about yours. It's a lot more fun when there is somebody else there."

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“The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien
“The Things They Carried” by Tim O’Brien

O'Brien, a Vietnam veteran who wrote movingly about the war in "The Things They Carried," which was published 30 years ago, will discuss the book during a session at 7 p.m. Saturday.

"The way I talk about the book has changed pretty dramatically over the years," says O'Brien, who won the National Book Award for fiction in 1979 for the novel "Going After Cacciato." "I try to talk about how it applies to what is happening today, and how it applies to [wars in] Afghanistan and Iraq. Much is different today, but much is the same as it was 50 years ago. There's sort of this helpless frustration feeling that doesn't conform with the standard notion of going to war and armies confronting each other."

On Oct. 17, the Natural State is in the spotlight, with Arkansas-connected authors including food writer Kat Robinson, "The Hospice Doctor's Widow" author Jennifer A. O'Brien, Jeffrey Condran, Tommy Foltz, Mark Saviers, Jen Fawkes, Mark Barr, Tyrone Jaeger, Stacey Margaret Jones and Virginia Walden Ford, the Little Rock-born author of "Voices, Choices, and Second Chances" and subject of the film "Miss Virginia."

Also on the 17th, supporters from the Read, Lead, and Level Up project at Hall High School in Little Rock will discuss the anthology "Our Stories, Our Voices, Our Visions."

"There are some Arkansas authors in the fest on other days as well, but on the second Saturday, it is all Arkansas authors," Mooy says. "To not have any Arkansas authors would kind of be a crime."

Vaughn Scribner, associate professor of history at the University of Central Arkansas, will talk about his new book, "Merpeople: A Human History," at 2:30 p.m. Oct. 18.

"The book looks at humanity's obsession with merpeople from ancient history to the present," says Scribner, author of "Inn Civility: Urban Taverns and Early American Civil Society."

"Merpeople" is also loaded with illustrations of mermaids and mermen Scribner uncovered in his research.

"I found cave drawings of merpeople-like creatures in South African deserts; I found carvings of merpeople in the ancient Middle East and China. All over the world, no matter where humans have lived, they've always been visualizing merpeople."

The final event, at 7 p.m. Oct. 18, will feature Shea Tuttle, author of "Exactly as You Are: The Life and Faith of Mister Rogers."

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Along with author sessions, there will be cooking demonstrations, yoga, storytelling, a poetry contest, an edible book contest, craft making for kids, Writers in the Schools events, a screening of the film "Watership Down" and other programs.

The 73-year-old O'Brien, who has written 10 books including "In the Lake of the Woods" and last year's "Dad's Maybe Book," has done a few Zoom talks.

"I'm looking forward to it, but it's scarier online than it is in person," he says. There's always an initial fear before speaking in person, he says, but it dissipates once he begins interacting with the audience.

"For me, it hasn't gone away when I'm speaking online," he says. "It stays with me the whole time, but I'm going to prepare very well."

CALS is also preparing, Mooy says, and has its own Zoom Squad Commander, Nathan Smith — the library system's digital literacy specialist — on board.

"He has a team and is coordinating all of the tech aspects of the festival. It's really helpful because there is an awful lot on everyone's plate and it's nice to have somebody making sure all the tech goes well."

The library system has built up its experience with other virtual events, says Mooy, who stresses that Zoom, the platform for almost all of the festival events, is user friendly.

"Even for the technically challenged, Zoom is really easy to use," he says. "It is going to be very easy to attend."

Attendees can register for the free sessions at cals.org/six-bridges-book-festival/ and there is an email address for tech support.

Also, since part of literary festivals involves moving product, copies of all the books featured during Six Bridges will be for sale at the website and at WordsWorth Books in Little Rock.

And though readers can't meet authors face-to-face, get all giggly and have them sign their copies, CALS has the next best thing.

Mooy has sent authors bookplates to sign that will be placed in the books bought by fans.

"I think it's great that Brad is doing that," Cep says. "That is such a good thing."

Cep was among many of the authors taking part in the digital edition of the festival who were originally scheduled to be here in April.

"I've never visited to the state," she says. "My older sister and I keep a running list of the states we have visited and I was excited to have a good reason to cross [Arkansas] off. Unfortunately, this is not the right year for that.

"But I'm just glad they are being safe. I know it's tricky for the organizers and I'm excited that they have moved it online."

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Were these normal times, the talk of the 2020 festival — besides books and writers, of course — would have likely been around the new name.

After 16 years as the Arkansas Literary Festival, organizers opted for something poetic and symbolic, taking inspiration from the bridges that stretch across the Arkansas River at Little Rock.

"CALS decided it was time to refresh a bit," Mooy says, "to make it more accessible and bring in more folks, and make sure they got a sense of what it was that we were doing. I cannot tell you how many times I had to talk to people who were inquiring about the 'literacy festival.'"

Those six bridges, by the way, are Junction, Broadway, Baring Cross, Main Street, Rock Island and Interstate 30.

With a new name and — for now at least — a new format, this annual celebration of books, writers and the people who love them, presses forward.

"We love it," Mooy says. "It's important for the state, it's important for the city and I truly believe in our mission. This is 11 days of putting reading center stage. I think that's great."

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