We had a great time at the Arkansas Lit Fest this weekend. Different panels featured some really wonderful people and exciting writing, or “bookmaking” as some people called it.
It seemed as though many of the panels and readers we wanted to see were scheduled at the same time, or too early in the afternoon on Friday! Next year I think we’re going to go with a big group of people and spread out to cover all of the events.
I really wanted to see the Oxford American’s writing about music panel. I have been a fan of the music issue of the magazine ever since REM gave them some outtakes in 1997 or so. Last year Ty and I fell in love with Junior Kimbrough, a Mississippi blues man who was posthumously featured in the magazine last year. We would play the album over and over again while packing up for the south. It also led us to an entire album of Kimbrough covers that The Black Keys released.
One of the reasons why I enjoy the Oxford American’s music issue is that the songwriting they feature is a form of storytelling. Music can transport people, but the words ground to some sort of internal story different for each person.
I couldn’t go yesterday, but Ty went to a couple of really cool panels. He saw Bruce Jackson’s portraits and lecture. His found and renovated portraits on display now at the new Arkansas Studies Institute. These portraits are featured in his new book, Pictures from a Drawer.
We got to discuss some of the portraits with one of Ty’s students on Saturday. Some were completely haunting, and taunted you to write the background story for the portrait on the spot. If you’re in Little Rock, you should really stop by and see the exhibit, as well as the building.
Later in the day, he enjoyed a panel with Wells Tower (woah, he doesn’t have a webpage). Wells Tower is a short story writer and journalist who has been written about exhaustively in the New York Times recently. He read from one of his essays. The Hendrix-Murphy program is sponsoring a shop talk on revision with him today, where he may be reading one of his short stories from Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned.
I’m so glad the Arkansas Literary Festival had the foresight to book him!