Written by Rachel Maycock
The St. George Book Festival celebrated its 10th anniversary last week, with events running from Oct. 19 through Oct. 24. The 2015 event featured over 50 speakers, authors, and poets, and given the St. George Book Festival’s partnering with the Spooky Town Fair held on Friday and Saturday, Oct. 23 and 24, there truly was something for all ages and reading or writing interests.
Brad Wilcox, a professor in the education department at BYU and author of over a dozen books, was the first keynote speaker. Craig Clyde, the actor, director, and television and film writer, was the keynote speaker for the St. George Book Festival’s third annual Writer’s Journey Workshop. Clyde is probably best known in Utah as the screenwriter for the video “Lighting the Way—The Olympic Dream for the International Olympic Committee,” which was used in the winning Utah bid for the 2002 Winter Games.
Dan Mabbutt, a contributing writer for The Independent who has attended many writing seminars, spoke highly of the workshop and the various presenters.
“The best thing about this workshop is that the speakers were people who were actually writing for a living,” Mabbutt said. “People who teach writing at a university don’t make their living writing. Agents, publishers, and editors don’t necessarily make money writing either. But Amy Jarecki was moving up the Amazon.com ranking for romantic novels and had a very good year. Johnny Worthen had found publishers for his first five novels himself through persistent hard work and had signed a contract with an agent because he was determined to break into the ‘Big 5’ publishers. And the keynote speaker, Craig Clyde, told you what actually happened when a novel was ‘in development’ in Hollywood because he had a lot of scripts that had gone that route.”
Mabbutt also said he appreciated the fact that it was a relatively small workshop, which provided the opportunity for discussion with other participants and the various presenters.
“The questions that you might wish you could have asked at a larger event can be hashed out at length at this one,” Mabbutt said. “I have specific assignments for myself that flowed out of each session I attended. As a result of this workshop, the learning isn’t stopping.”
Aside from the Writer’s Journey Workshop, there were many free activities throughout the week for families to enjoy. Kicking the week off was a welcome from Virginia Grenier, the director the St. George Book Festival, followed by family and kid time with face painting and crafts. There were book signings, discussion panels on various topics impacting literacy, and a children’s book reading at the St. George Children’s Museum by author Kelly Bennett reading her book “Not Norman: a Goldfish Story” just to name a few.
On Friday, Oct. 23, the St. George Book Festival held its third annual Literacy Charity Dinner at the St. George Children’s Museum. Actor, comedian, writer, and speaker Joe Nipote was the master of ceremonies for the dinner, and he entertained the audience with numerous jokes and stories. Craig Clyde again took the stage as the keynote speaker for the evening’s event. Closing the evening was a silent auction to benefit the Washington County Literacy Programs through the Washington County School District, Libraries and Children’s Museum.
The St. George Book Festival concluded with the Spooky Town Fair, full of fun for the whole family, including a book expo, gaming events, campfire stories, performances by local artists, appearances by super heroes and much more.
