The first annual SunLit Festival, a lit lover's dream

We're excited to announce a brand new literary event in Florida, and more specifically in St. Petersburg. In the six days leading up to the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair, there were be myriad activities from which to choose.

Book lovers are going to be pretty sure this is what heaven is like. The first annual SunLit Festival begins on March 7 (that's the Saturday before the book fair.) Then all week long there will be literary face offs, a library centennial celebration, dramatic readings, a participatory exploration of books we read as kids, opening night of Shakespeare's As You Like It, and on it goes. You get the idea.

One of our favorite events is the SunLit Crawl, a pub crawl with literature. Four popular local establishments will play host and actors portraying dead authors and very much alive writers create fun as they take literature to the streets. It's probably one of our favorite events because we're sponsoring it. Truth is, we couldn't pass up the opportunity to be associated with such a fun event. It happens on Wednesday before the book fair. We think the picture above is kind of appropriate to represent the SunLit Crawl. It was taken in the 1950s in front of City Lights Book Shop with Beat generation writers and poets.

Below we're posting the news release that will give you a complete rundown of what's in store. Hooe you can make it to all of these events.


Sunlit Festival Celebration of Literature, March 7-15, 2015
Literary circles intersect with other arts and cultural endeavors during the SunLit Festival, a springtime celebration of literature March 7-15.  Fourteen literary events over nine days showcase St. Petersburg’s literary heritage and today’s vibrant literary community, raising the profile of our City of the Arts.

The SunLit Festival brings together various literary organizations and arts disciplines to celebrate literature, reading, and writing. The SunLit Festival is co-produced by the St. Petersburg Arts Alliance with the program partners below.  For more please visit facebook.com/SunLitFestival, sunlitfestival.org, or stpeteartsalliance.org

Participants and Schedule

1.  SunLit Festival Kickoff!  Honoring St. Petersburg’s Poet Laureate
The Friends of the Main Library will kick off the Festival and honor Peter Meinke, Poet Laureate of St. Petersburg, who will receive the first annual SunLit Festival Award for lifetime achievement in letters. Award-winning writer Sterling Watson, co-director of the Writers in Paradise conference at Eckerd College, will be keynote speaker.   The Friends of the Main Library will present a collection of Mr. Meinke’s work for the Library’s collection. Mr. Meinke will read from his work.
Saturday, March 7
2 p.m.
St. Petersburg Public Library, 3745 9th Ave. North
Free Admission   

2.  Lucha Libro
Eight of Tampa Bay’s most daring writers will face off in live literary combat!  In Lucha Libro, two authors are given a random prompt and then they have five minutes to create an original piece of written brilliance, right before your eyes! After the frenzy of spontaneous creation, our combatants will present their work and a winner will be declared! Winners move on to the next round until only one remains! Theatricality and costumes encouraged!
Saturday, March 7
7 p.m.
Oleson Gallery Bloom Art Center, 910 5th Ave North
Free Admission
Info: facebook.com/BloomUnderground

3.  Karla Harris sings the Dave and Iola Brubeck Songbook
Songs and stories about the great composer Dave Brubeck, who wrote with his wife, jazz lyricist Lola Brubeck.  Show will focus on her lyrics. Los Angeles pianist Ted Howe is featured with his trio.
Sunday, March 8
6 p.m.
Side Door Café, Palladium Theater, 253 5th Avenue North
Tickets: General Admission $22; Reserved $30
Info: mypalladium.org/dave-brubeck-songbook-karla-harris-ted-howe-trio/

4.   Behind Baby Talk: Why Reading to Infants Really Matters
In “Behind Baby Talk,” James McHale details the real reason why reading to newborns, infants, and toddlers is so crucial.  The presentation helps distinguish “socio-emotional readiness” from “cognitive readiness,” explains why the latter is dependent on the former, and reflects on the attitudes and practices central to any effective undertaking seeking to support families and children’s success from the earliest moments of life. 

Dr. James P. McHale is Director of the USF St. Petersburg Family Study Center and Past President of the Florida Association for Infant Mental Health.
Monday, March 9
6 p.m.
Childs Park YMCA, 691 43rd Street South
Free Admission
Info:  http://www.usfsp.edu/fsc/

5. Centennial Celebration Presentation with James Schnurr
Mirror Lake Library celebrates its 100th Anniversary!  Mirror Lake, located became an early reservoir for the small settlement in the late 1800s. Author, James Schnur has more than 100 images to share that take us back through the last century as the area around Mirror Lake transformed lower Pinellas as the first cultural and educational complex of the Sunshine City, home to the first schools of St. Petersburg and the Carnegie Library that celebrates its centennial in 2015. 

James Schnur is the university librarian for Special Collections at the Nelson Poynter Memorial Library and a member of the USF St. Petersburg faculty. He will bring some of his St. Petersburg Through Time books to sign
Monday, March 9
5:30 p.m.
Mirror Lake Library, 280 5th Street North,
Free Admission

6. Fiction Live
Local actors pair up with local writers! Writers submit short stories or excerpts from novels and the actors present a dramatic reading. Fiction Live will benefit Project Shattered Silence, a teen theater/storytelling project.
Tuesday, March 10
8 p.m.
The Studio@620, 620 First Ave South
Tickets: $10 in advance; $12 at the door
Info: wordierthanthou.com

7. SunLit Crawl - A Pub Crawl with Literature
Four dead writers. Seven living writers. Love. Hate. Life. Death. Hilarious laughter. Here’s where literature meets the street. It’s a moveable feast and a traveling circus complete with Rawlings, Hurston, Kerouac, Hemingway, and seven local writers sharing their pursuit of happiness, self-expression, and mad adventure at an avant garde coffee shop, an authentic Cuban restaurant, and a favorite local micro brewery.  SunLit Crawl drink specials at each venue.  Specific schedule TBA

Epilogue: It all ends in a Key West bar with Beat poetry and jazz. Produced by Keep St. Pete Lit and Venue Theatre Collective and Actors Studio. Sponsored by the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair.
Wednesday, March 11
7-10 p.m.
Genero Coffee Co., 1047 Central Avenue
Bodega Cuban Restaurant, 1120 Central Avenue
Green Bench Brewing Co., 1133 Baum Avenue North
Old Key West Bar & Grill, 2451 Central Avenue
Free Admission
Epilogue After Party begins at 9 p.m. at Butler’s Old Key West.
Info: sunlitfestival.org, facebook.com/SunLitFestival

8. The Books that Changed Our Lives: The Secrets of Formative Reading
Renowned writing coach Roy Peter Clark will lead “The Secrets of Formative Reading,” an event that invites students, teachers, readers of all ages to come and think about and write about the books that changed their lives.  The date, March 12, is also the Kerouac birthday celebration, so don't be surprised if someone brings a copy of On the Road. Roy Peter Clark spent more than 20 years re-constituting his formative library, from nursery rhymes through novels he first read in college.  He will share his experiences revisiting these classics, and lead participants in a fun and creative writing exercise designed to bring our "old friends" back to life. Bring your own precious books to the session and show them off to others.
Thursday March 12
4 p.m.
The Poynter Institute, 801 Third Street South, St. Petersburg
Free Admission

9. St. Petersburg Shakespeare Festival Opening Night
This is one of William Shakespeare’s most popular comedies: As You Like It as you’ve never seen it before, with original music by Los Angeles music industry veteran Mark Matthews. This is St. Petersburg Shakespeare Festival’s inaugural season.
Thursday, March 12
8 p.m.
University of South Florida St. Petersburg
140 7th Ave South
Admission: Pay what you can
Performances: Thursday-Sunday, March 12-15 and March 19-22
https://www.facebook.com/stpeteshakesfest

10. The Florida Antiquarian Book Fair
The 34th annual Florida Antiquarian Book Fair will feature rare and unusual books as well as reading copies, antiquarian maps and prints, vintage photographs, ephemera, historical autographs, and related materials. More than 100 antiquarian book dealers from across the country gather each year for the three-day event at the Coliseum in downtown St. Petersburg. This year’s theme: Modern Literature: The truth and beauty of fiction.
Info:  floridabooksellers.com/Book_Fair_2.html and floridabookfair.blogspot.com
Friday, March 13, 5-9 p.m.; Saturday, March 14, 10-5 p.m.;
Sunday March 15, 11-4 p.m.
St. Petersburg Coliseum, 535 4th Avenue North
Admission: Tickets $10 for weekend pass or $6 per day

11. Boyd Hill Poetry Night Hike
Local poets read their works during the Boyd Hill Poetry Night Hike
Saturday, March 14
6:30 p.m.
Boyd Hill Nature Park, 1101 Country Club Way South
Tickets: $3 adults; $1.50 children

12.  Jack Kerouac Night at the Flamingo Bar
A celebration of this great man’s life, times and art at the bar where he had his last drink.   Music and beat poetry, all in the spirit of Kerouac. The Brad Morewood beat poets are usually there and they read their work backed by a highly-skilled improvisational jazz band led by Russian symphony conductor JohnTeryl Plumeri and jazzy guitarist Kelly Green.  Between the poets are some of the best musicians anywhere, including Ronny Elliott, Eric Andersen, Phil Lee, Tom Scudiero, the Florida Boys and many more.  A full night of music, intimate and informal – as Jack would have enjoyed it – on the front deck of the bar, next to the large window-sized photo of the author staring out at nearby Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. St. N.
Saturday, March 14
7:30 -11 p.m.
The Flamingo Bar, 1230 9th St North
Free Admission

13. Pass the Plate: The FHM Passover Cook-off
Recipes help keep our links to the past alive.  Celebrate the 1st Annual FHM Passover Cook-off, Sharing Testimony Through Food, with special recipes from local Survivors. The public will have a chance to taste the dishes and vote on their favorites, and local celebrity judges will present a Judges’ Choice Award. Author Joanne Caras will help kick off the new competition, and share her experiences compiling The Holocaust Survivor Cookbook, which is filled with survivors’ recipes and stories to pass down to future generations.   Stories and food tastings – what could be better?
Sunday, March 15
2 p.m.
Florida Holocaust Museum, 55 5th Street South
Free Admission

14. Get Lit with Keep St. Pete Lit
It’s part game night, part night at the bar – we’ll have word-minded games, so you can feel like getting lit makes you, well, more lit!
Sunday, March 15
7 p.m.
The Amsterdam, 1049 Central Ave.
Free Admission

Have you seen the latest news on papyrus?

Pompeii fresco of Greek lyric poet Sappho.

We've been reading with utter fascination the recent developments with ancient papyrus writings that have been in the news recently. A few days ago, there were reports from all over about the biblical scholars who may have found a fragment of the oldest known Gospel of Mark inside an Egyptian mummy mask. If it turns out to be authentic, that surely is an astounding find.

Now comes news from Smithsonian Magazine that new x-ray technology is allowing Italian scientists to study for the first time ancient scrolls from Pompeii blackened in the volcanic eruption in 79 AD and made so fragile that they could be destroyed just touching them.

With the new x-ray machine, scientists won't have to touch the scrolls to study them. They'll just scan them like CT scanner, only a little different. It's all quite technical but the gist is that ancient inks sit on top of the papyrus fibers just enough that they can be seen in the x-ray images.

Anybody who is attracted to the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair, of course, is going to sit up and take notice when developments like this pop up so we figure we're probably not alone in seeking all the details. From what we've seen, the technological breakthrough has just begun to yield something the scientists can work with so it may be some time before there are any great revelations. Apparently there are some 1,800 blackened scrolls that have been discovered.

As it happens, next year's theme for the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair is Written Relics: Papyrus to paperbacks. It's a great theme that gets to the heart of the many varied reasons collectors collect books. It'll be fun to explore in 2016. Maybe by then there will be some new developments on these two stories.

In the meantime, we're focused on this year's book fair. The theme this year is Modern Literature: the truth and beauty of fiction. We'll be talking about that in much greater detail in these days leading up to the book fair, so stay tuned and share with your friends.

For book lovers, something a little different

Here's something a little different for book lovers. We came across a Washington Post article about this lady. Her name is Maria and she has gained something of a celebrity status for her practice of making videos in which she speaks very, very softly.

For some people, her whispers induce a pleasurable tingle all over their bodies. It's known as autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR). It's like what might have happened as a kid and your friend whispered in your ear and you felt a shiver and pulled away giggling. In the Post article, Maria described it as a "shower of sparkles" and "like warm sand being poured all over you ..."

Hey, we like the beach so it was enough to send us poking around her YouTube channel, GentleWhispering, and wouldn't you know it, we discovered Maria's offering for book lovers that you see embedded above.

She had another interesting one set in a library in which she seemed to be portraying the world's quietest librarian. She typed information to issue us a library card but we left before it was ready. You'll have to find that one for yourself. This ASMR effect may not be for everyone but some will enjoy it.

We'd rather sit in our own library and listen to the sound of pages turning in a book we bought at the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair.

Past is prologue: a little history of the book fair

This is the 34th year for the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair. Sometimes fair goers wonder about the history of the book fair. How did it start? Was it always at The Coliseum? Is anybody still around who remembers the old days? We're always happy when we get questions like that because we've got answers.

Yes, there are people still around after all these years who were involved with the first Florida Antiquarian Book Fair. No, it wasn't always at The Coliseum, though few would dispute the suggestion that this is probably the perfect venue for this book fair. The story of how the book fair started and some of its history over the years is told in the FABA Museum, an online space on our website devoted to our history. We encourage you to click the link and go visit the museum. It's free.

One of the videos that you'll find in the FABA Museum is displayed at the top of this post. In it, book fair chairman Michael Slicker talks about the earliest days of the book fair and where the idea for it came from in the first place. We hope you'll enjoy the video and that you'll take the time to visit the FABA Museum and learn a little about the background of this amazing event.

As always, we'd love to hear from you -- your thoughts, your ideas, your responses to what we've posted.