Decades in the making

I’ve been a bibliophile for as long as I can remember. Indulge me a couple paragraphs to explain. (I apologize in advance for all the “I”s. They’re hard to avoid in autobiographical writing).

We had an underground bookstore in Pittsburgh, and descending those steps with saved money in hand was one of the early thrills of my life. I bought my first set of Chronicles of Narnia, Lord of the Rings, Nancy Drew and Beverly Cleary books there. But I read faster than I could afford to purchase and will be forever grateful that Mom took us so often to Carnegie Library.

When I was in middle school we moved to Cambridge Springs and I insisted on reading every night after the lights went out. The thin line of light from the hall gave me all I needed, though Dad warned me it was bad for my eyes. Just one more chapter…

In high school we had amazing English teachers, who expanded my reading interests and greatly improved my writing. It is a testament to their skill that so many of us went on to English-related careers, including myself. I attended Grove City College as an English/Literature major. Again, benefitting from really talented professors who inspired us, pushed us, and also invested in us personally.

Teaching English at Hernando Christian Academy periodically since 2000 gave me the opportunity to encourage a love of reading in students. It was a test of creativity, which sometimes meant teaching figurative language through Taylor Swift lyrics, cutting up stories into paragraphs so the kids could tape them back together, or teaching speed reading so they could race through the boring parts. Watching how students have since incorporated literature into their lives has been a delight.

As a mom of four, I wanted to make sure my kids also knew what a great gift literature is to life. Jason and I both spent countless hours reading to and with them. Seeing my adult kids and their significant others lounging around the house with books and hashing out the book’s ideas with each other makes my heart happy.

With all that, it seems odd this hasn’t happened before I’d spent 52 years on this earth, but nonetheless, I’m thrilled to announce Booksville Festival 2025. The festival will celebrate all things literary, and also offer events and activities leading up to it the entire community can participate in.

My friend Lisa and I had tossed Booksville around during our Chinsegut era since the property’s owner, Elizabeth Robins, is our county’s most famous author. But the timing was never right. Two weeks ago, I found out Brian Brijbag had pitched the Booksville idea to the city when he was working in the Community Development Department. The time wasn’t right then either.

Since then I’ve written a couple books and read books in speeches and written/produced a podcast about a writer, but the time wasn’t right for anything more.

The time is right now. We’ve been working on basic planning (including the world of trademarking) for several months and last night we had our first planning meeting. The diverse team brought all the talent and wisdom to the table expected. We have writers and teachers and bibliophiles and creatives and event planners and actors. We have more ideas than are reasonable but that’s nothing new. We’ll filter it all out and in the end it’s guaranteed it’ll be fun for us and fun for everyone who chooses to take part.

Onward and Upward!