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Get Breaking News on your cellLive from the book festival: Why not Dallas?
10:19 AM Sun, Nov 04, 2007 | Permalink
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I am starting my Sunday at the Book Festival at the Little City coffee house on Congress Avenue, a block from the Capitol. This is the second year in a row I have done so. I guess that makes it a ritual. The coffee is sweet, the music is "Abbey Road," the walls are covered in funky art and another day of interacting with really smart people lies ahead. The vibe is so perfect it has me wondering: Why can't we do this in Dallas? As I see it, all we have to do is relocate the captial, import the university and its Ransom center and a few thousand intellectuals, tear down a Starbucks or two to add an independent coffee shop, and presto! We have a book festival! Hmm. Maybe there is more to it than that. OK, try this: I could envision something at Fair Park, Dallas' most underused cultural gem. Something in the spring, to catch all the touring authors not hitting the Austin festival. (Let's assume there are plenty of authors to support our festival and not detract from the excellent author series already in town, such as Arts & Letters Live, Writers Studio and the others.) I'm not sure who could rally the thousands of volunteers and millions of dollars necessary for such an undertaking, but consider this: Laura Bush established the Austin festival. Then she duplicated it in Washington, D.C. Say what you will about her taste in husbands, but the lady knows bookfests. She's allegedly moving to Dallas. And will have a lot of time on her hands while Mr. Bush builds his library. Hey Mrs. Bush -- whaddya say? |
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Comments
Posted by Harry Hunsicker @ 2:44 PM Mon, Nov 05, 2007
A Dallas book festival would be nice.
The Writer's Garret sponsored the first annual Writes of Spring Literary Festival in 2006, using the Southside on Lamar as a venue. The turnout was a teensy bit less than they had in Austin this past weekend, so much so that they decided forego organizing another festival for 2007.