Review: Utah Book Festival 2008

Salt Lake City Library (Nice venue!)

I spent all day Saturday at the Utah Book Festival at the City Library downtown. I didn’t enjoy it quite as much as last year, but I enjoyed it nonetheless and parts of it were excellent. Here’s what I learned in my two favorite ‘classes’ this year:

Ann Cannon
The Loser’s Guide to Life and Love (her most recent novel)

This author writes a weekly column for the Deseret Morning News in addition to writing young adult fiction. She’s been a working writer since 1989 and she’s the mother of five sons. All of her stories take place in Salt Lake or Provo, though they are published in New York.

Ann Cannon was delightful! She talked about how she uses real people in her books – from neighbors and family members to a guy she saw at 7-11 with a boa constrictor around his neck.

She said when her sons were younger she tried to write at least 20 minutes or one page per day, but now she tries to write more. She stops writing while she’s still excited to be writing so that she will look forward to getting back to the story and know exactly where it’s going. (Sometimes she leaves herself a keyword to help her remember what scene is coming next…) What a great idea!
Richard Peck
Newbery Award winner for A Long Way from Chicago; author of 37 books

HE WAS FANTASTIC! He said he writes with his feet because he travels about a quarter of the time, but he lives in NYC and grew up in Decatur, Illinois. His mother was an educated woman, but his father was a car mechanic who stopped going to school in the sixth grade. When he read Huckleberry Finn in the fourth grade he knew he wanted to be a writer. He said he still wants to be Mark Twain, and that every writer needs a writer they wish they were to inspire them.
He said all of his books start in the library in the hope that they will end up there – he does a lot of research. When he had to write a book that took place in 1937, he did not go to history books because people who write history books are a) democrats and b) they know the future (since the book is invariably written much later than 1937). He read Time magazines from 1937 and discovered that people in the United States knew who Hitler was but weren’t very concerned about him yet, etc. Good tip – makes a lot of sense. A lot of his books are historical.
He was hilarious! He spoke about the process of getting cover art for his books and how they often get it totally wrong, which infuriates him.
Peck avidly collects opening lines and stressed the importance of a great opening line for all books. One of his favorites is “Where’s Pa going with that axe?” Do you remember where that line comes from? You’ve probably read the book…by E.B. White…That’s right – Charlotte’s Web.
He also read passages from his most recent book which will be published next fall called A Season of Gifts. I actually came home to see if he does audio for his books on CD and it does not appear that he does – but it was delightful listening to him read.



Other authors who spoke include Paul Fleischman (Newbery Winner for Joyful Noise), Sara Zarr (Story of a Girl) and the Watts Writer’s Workshop poet Wanda Coleman, who read from her most recent collections. The concluding speaker was Thrity Umrigar, an Indian writer who wrote Bridging the Space Between Us.