All Lit Up: Nevada Humanities Committee gears up for book fest

Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2003 | 8:14 a.m.

Rudolfo Anaya dropped out of business school to teach English, fell in love with literature and began writing poems and stories.

Unsatisfied, he looked at his life, tracing back to his childhood community.

"I knew that once I got into that story I was finding my own voice," Anaya said. "I had something real to say."

From this emerged "Bless Me, Ultima," a coming-of-age novel celebrating old and new beliefs in a Southwest Hispanic-American community.

Published in 1972, "Bless Me, Ultima," whose popularity spread largely by word of mouth, helped launch a literary movement in America and went on to sell more than 5 million copies.

Now a professor emeritus at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, the soft-spoken writer has reaped an assortment of literary awards, including a National Medal of Arts in 2001, and has been named (among other titles) the father of Chicano literature.

On Friday as keynote speaker at the second annual Vegas Valley Book Festival, highlighting Chicano literature and satire, Anaya will discuss his literary journey and the importance of literary multiculturalism.

Joining Anaya at the book festival will be more than 40 local and national writers. Among them: Kevin Murphy and Michael J. Nelson of the Sci Fi Channel series "Mystery Science Theater 3000," mystery writer Jerrilyn Farmer and TV writer and producer Lee Goldberg.

Editorial cartoonist Ted Rall will discuss "To Afghanistan and Back: A Graphic Travelogue."

Poet Marvin Bell will read from his Dead Man poems.

Also scheduled are "Fake Liar Cheat" author Tod Goldberg, poetry and fiction writer Steve Abee, poet Catherine Daly and the cleverly imaginative short-story writer Aimee Bender.

Authors will read from their work, give lectures, sit on panels and lead workshops ranging from romance writing to marketing oneself as a writer.

Localized panel discussions will include life beyond the Strip and Las Vegas as a symbol in literature and film. Jarret Keene, Dayvid Figler and Hal Rothman are among local writers featured.

Roughly 8,500 people attended last year's inaugural event that brought in top names Tom Robbins and John Irving. The festival replaced the Great Basin Book Festival in Reno that Nevada Humanities Committee started five years ago.

"This is certainly our biggest program," said Kris Darnall, Southern Nevada program coordinator for the committee, the organization presenting the book festival. "It takes 12 months to plan it."

The mission, she said, "Is to inspire people to read and, if they're already reading, to read more broadly, to open new ideas to people.

"To have an opportunity to meet an author, talk to them and find out how they write, it completely changes your perspective of how you read."

Readers will have a chance to discover new authors at an outdoor book fair at the Henderson Pavilion, featuring more than 40 vendors and booksellers. A children's segment includes children's authors and family activities.

Using last year's turnout as a measuring tool, the workshops and panels will likely draw a crowd.

"Those were standing room only," Darnall said. 'It completely overwhelmed us." Writer Rob Roberge, who two year ago founded Double Wide, an independent press in Southern California, will be among a panel discussing alternative publishing: self publishing, e-books and print on demand (press companies that print books upon request).

Roberge's own novel "Drive" was in a holding pattern with a publisher, so he decided to print it himself.

"Then Francois Camoine, my favorite author, his books were out of print, so I asked if we could print one," Roberge said. "Keeping books in circulation, print on demand is great for that.

"The coolest thing about it is the book never has to go out of print."

Online publisher Catherine Daly, who is on the panel, is starting a press that brings back into print feminist poetry from the 1930s and beyond, Roberge said.

Independent presses and print-on-demand services help new authors. But Roberge said, "If they want to have a blockbuster, make a lot of money, sell a million copies, you have to go through a major press.

"The blockbuster mentality that took over film in the 1980s took over books in the late '80s, early '90s. There is no mid-list in major publishing. It really is up to the independent press."

But where music and film gain respect when published on independent labels, indie books tend to have a stigma, Roberge said.

"And in self-publishing, it's hard to get books reviewed if you don't have a publisher paying for it," he said.

For Anaya, 30 years ago it was the small presses that gave him and other writers a chance.

"It was an exciting time," Anaya said, referring to the 1970s rise of Chicano literature. "It was really a spontaneous literary movement. Everything was pretty much new.

"Not only was there a Chicano literary movement, but there was a small-press movement. We got rejected by big publishers in the East and small presses picked us up."

Chicano literature not only invited the rest of the country into a then-unfamiliar genre; it also gave his community something to embrace.

"There was a kind of hunger in our own community to read our literature," Anaya said. "So much of our own history and literature was passed down in the oral tradition."

Among non-Hispanics in New Mexico, he said, "They had interest in the rite of passage of a young boy in a cultural setting that hadn't been used a lot in literature. You live next door to someone in from the Chicano culture and didn't know their neighbors."

In addition to novels, Anaya has written plays, essays and books for children, and is a powerful force in promoting other Chicano writers.

Multiculturalism, Anaya said, "It's a reality. We have to be more inclusive of many voices. As a society we have to know about each other."