Sometimes I wish I could just travel around the country going to all of the different book festivals and conventions. Alas, I have limited funds and plenty of responsibilities here at home. But luckily I do have a twin sister who can attend some events in my stead! You may remember reading a guest post from Carly back when she first created her own book blog in 2018. While she no longer maintains her own blog, she is still very active in her local book community in Washington, D.C. Last weekend, she attended the National Book Festival, and was generous enough to write up her experience for us. Read on for Carly’s highlights of the event, featuring several authors beloved by The Gothic Library:
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The National Book Festival is a free public event held in Washington, D.C., run by the Library of Congress. I had the opportunity to attend the full day of author talks, signings, book shopping, industry exhibit booths, and other activities on September 3. If you missed it, recordings of most of the sessions should be available on the event website soon.
This year was the event’s return to in-person programming after the onset of the pandemic and was my second time attending. There was a large contingent of Young Adult authors in the lineup this year, which sealed my interest. Once there, I was particularly impressed by the festival’s efforts toward diversity and accessibility. Of the five panels I attended, one was made up of all nonbinary authors, and two were entirely women of color. Every session had both a sign language interpreter and screens with live captioning. Several rows at the front of each room were reserved for people with disabilities.
Some highlights of the event for me included Library of Congress trivia, a panel called “Magic to Haunt You,” and hearing Holly Black speak about her recent debut adult novel. Right when I arrived, I headed to a trivia session to learn more about the hosts of the event. I ended up volunteering to be one of four attendees sitting up on stage to answer the trivia questions. My favorite fact I learned was that the Library’s American Folklife Center has a whole collection devoted to Halloween and Día de Muertos.
Next, I attended “Magic to Haunt You,” the aforementioned all-nonbinary panel. R.M. Romero, who uses she/they pronouns, discussed her YA debut novel, The Ghosts of Rose Hill, in which a young Jewish Latina who likes to spend her time restoring an old Jewish cemetery near her aunt’s house in Prague (a hobby borrowed from the author herself) falls in love with a ghost and meets a magician who says he can help them be together. Rose Szabo, who uses they/them pronouns, discussed their recent book, We All Fall Down, a queer fantasy novel about teens chosen to keep magic alive in the face of police violence, city politics, and the struggles of daily life. The moderator of the discussion pointed out that both stories feature a strong sense of place, with big cities that seem almost like characters themselves. Longtime readers of this blog will recognize this emphasis on bringing a setting to life as a common feature of gothic literature.
Although I would love to share about every panel I attended, the last one I will touch on was Holly Black’s discussion of her recent adult release Book of Night. Given Black’s renown in the faerie and urban faerie young adult genres, it is no surprise that fantasy elements are a focus of her adult debut, although I would describe it as primarily a thriller. The novel follows Charlie Hall, a professional thief in a world much like our own except that certain people known as gloamists can perform magic through the manipulation of shadows, both their own and others’. Inspiration for this story struck when Black was getting her ears surgically pointed in homage to the fae she commonly writes about. As she contemplated the concept of body modification, she began to imagine a world where you could modify your shadow, and how you might use that for ill or gain. In the book, gloamists can make their shadows attack others, pass through locked doors, control people’s minds, and more. As these magicians’ shadows gain more and more agency and power, parallels to the gothic trope of doppelgangers become evident.
Given the no-cost nature of the event, I highly recommend attending next year if you live near D.C., or even making a weekend trip to the nation’s capital out of it. The National Book Festival would be of particular interest to historians and others with a special interest in the Library of Congress, as there were many opportunities to learn more about the Library and its resources.
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Carly lives in Washington, D.C., where she promotes international education by day and gets sucked into primarily young adult sci-fi and fantasy novels by night. She has written for a group book blog and her own (now defunct) literature and witchcraft blog Chapters and Charms, but has transitioned to a merely occasional guest blogger to make room for completing her master’s degree, dancing, and advancing her career.
Did you attend the National Book Festival this year? Which panels were your favorite? Tell us about your experience in the comments!