Imagine being a musician and songwriter trying to establish your own name despite having a country legend as a father. Or after several # 1 Billboard Country hits not being able to sing for two years because of brain surgery. Or being married to one of the most respected songwriter/producers in Nashville, and seeing all your marital problems splashed on the front page of the news.

Can’t imagine what it’s like to be Rosanne Cash? Neither can I.

She has broken through her father’s shadow and has successfully made her own mark for sure. Cash has a couple of #1 Billboard Country hits, bestsellers under her belt and has written fiction ranging from fairy tales to short stories. Seems like a lot doesn’t it? Well, the only thing that she hasn’t done is visited us here in Decatur—which is what she’ll be doing on the 14th of August to share her new memoir, Composed.

Mark your calendars and come on over to Agnes Scott College’s Presser Hall where Cash has promised to share some stories, sign your books and also play a couple of songs at the end of the event. She will perform on a custom-made Martin guitar donated by America’s oldest brewery, Yuengling. And it gets better—this awesome guitar will be auctioned after the event, proceeds of which will go towards the festival’s literacy efforts.

Do you want to purchase her new book and also attend the event? Worried about the cost? Don’t worry; purchasing the book will be your entry into the event. The event is being brought together by DBF, A Cappella Books and Agnes Scott College.

The Decatur Book Festival is bringing Bruce Feiler to town on May 25th. He'll be at Agnes Scott College at 7pm at Presser Hall.

Bruce is a great speaker, and this is his most personal book:

Bruce Feiler was a young father when he was diagnosed with cancer in 2008. He instantly worried what his death might mean for his daughters. “Would they wonder who I was? Would they wonder what I thought? Would they lack for my approval, my discipline, my voice?”
Three days later he came up with a stirring idea of how he might give them that voice. He would reach out to six men, from all the passages in his life, and asked them to be present through the passages in his daughters’ lives. And he would call this group of men, “The Council of Dads.”
“I believe my daughters will have plenty of opportunities in their lives,” he wrote to these men. “They’ll have loving families. They’ll have welcoming homes. They’ll have each other. But they may not have me. They may not have their dad. Will you help be their dad?”
The Council of Dads is the inspiring story of what happened next. Mixing the harrowing tale of his treatment with the uplifting lessons of these men–“Approach the Cow,” “Pack Your Flip-Flops,” “Live the Questions,” “Harvest Miracles”–Feiler’s account is touching, funny, and ultimately a deeply moving account of parenthood, loss, and love.

I'm really looking forward to having Bruce here on campus--this should be a marvelous event.

So if I'm the Executive Director of the Decatur Book Festival, why the hell haven't I posted about it?
Quite frankly, I thought our crack communications staff at Lenz was doing such a great job, and didn't need my help.
But this past Sunday there was a very nice article about the festival, Tom and me in the AJC. It was flattering, but I was a little uncomfortable about some aspects of it. I wrote a letter to the editor, but they probably have better things to print. So I am offering it up to anyone who happens upon my little post here:
Actually, it takes more than a village...
The article about the growth of the Decatur Book Festival that ran Sunday was accurate as far as it went, but from my perspective as the Executive Director, it was a bit incomplete.
The article left out the festival’s dynamic working board, and that is a big part of the story.
Alice Murray and Bill Starr, president and vice president of the board respectively, had been planning an Atlanta book festival when they were co-opted into the idea of holding in Decatur. Alice brought the AJC with her, and Bill the Georgia Center for the Book, and its tireless and endlessly creative assistant director Joe Davich.
Director Richard Lenz helped us understand that the best book event in the world would be a failure if we didn’t do good job getting the word out. His continued mentorship on that front, and his firm’s astounding commitment to the festival is central to the festival’s success.
Judy Turner, our treasurer and President of Decatur First Bank, has seen us through very lean times, makes sure we spend our money efficiently, and continues to make sure that crackpots like Tom and me don’t get in over our heads.
Linda Harris, the great, great, granddaughter of Joel Chandler Harris, has literature in her veins and the City of Decatur in her heart. She has been the key to the city and the festival having such a great healthy relationship--which is not something we take for granted.
I could go on--Elizabeth Dewberry, Bill Means, Meg Holman, Brett Gadsden and Rob Jenkins round out a great working board, and they all bring time and resources that are key to this festival getting better every year.
But one of the biggest pieces we didn’t get to talk about in the article is Mary Flad the third contract worker on the festival, handling all the street fair logistics with a remarkable level of cheer and patience.
When I look at the growth of the festival, I am flabbergasted. But when I look at the team of people that work on this thing, it becomes a little less surprising. It’s this kind of support structure that allows Tom and me to continue to dream big.
Daren Wang
Executive Director
AJC Decatur Book Festival presented by DeKalb Medical

Decatur Book Festival All over Decatur Sept. 4-6 We've selected about 225 authors from around the country, and then there's another 150 that will appear on the local stages. Yep, we're actually closer to 400 than the 300 that we've been talking about. That's mainly because Tom doesn't want to admit that he's grown the festival when we weren't supposed to. Damn him. Don't ask me for Eudora Welty tribute tickets. I don't have any. I don't even have one for myself. It's a popular show. Really. Yep, the fourth annual DBF is going to be huge. We've got the best line-up ever, We've got more press than ever, we've got a great team working on this, and we're going to have perfect weather.

They look so friendly, and harmless. Only pure happiness can come from bluebirds. The Decatur Book Festival has launched a Twitter site, and we'll be using it to keep followers up to date with excitin' author announcements and such. Please sign up: http://twitter.com/DBookFestival We promise to not tell you what we had for lunch. Also, my personal address is: http://twitter.com/darenwang I update at least once a quarter.

The Decatur Book Festival

In February 2005, while driving back from the South Carolina Book Festival with a Marc Fitten, Daren Wang wondered aloud: Why could Columbia sustain a successful festival while metropolitan Atlanta could not?

Atlanta is well known for its many festivals: Dogwood, Music Midtown, The Inman Park Neighborhood Festival, and Virginia Highland Summerfest, just to name a few. These events shape the summer landscape of Atlanta. But despite several earlier attempts, there still was no free festival celebrating the written word. Over the course of that drive from Columbia, Wang hatched a plan to establish a book festival modeled after the overwhelmingly successful Decatur Arts Festival.

Soon, Wang, Fitten, and fellow Monkey-with-typewriter Tom Bell had concocted a new hare-brained scheme, The Decatur Book Festival.

(Lilia Bell, Tom Bell and Marc Fitten at Wine in Words in Dahlonega, GA--an early precursor of the festival)

Wang had been putting on book events in Atlanta for years. The syndicated radio series The Spoken Word had been launched as a series of events at the Georgian Terrace, and would bring such big name artists as Coleman Barks, Philip Glass, Margaret Edson and Bruce Sterling to Atlanta. Working with Bell, Fitten, and wine-maker Doug Paul, Wang threw Wine and Words in the Spring of 2005 which featured Connie May Fowler, Barbara Robinette Moss, and Jack Riggs, just to name a few. In September, the Verb launch party would draw over 300 attendees with Robert Olen Butler, Elizabeth Dewberry, Tom Lux, Marjory Wentworth, and Caroline Herring all performing.With the early September date and the Decatur location, it has become known as the Decatur Book Festival-beta test.

(A full house at the Seen Gallery for the Verb Launch, September 2005)

 

It would take another year of nearly full-time volunteer work to bring together the inaugural festival, which drew over 100 authors and a stunning 50,000 people to the downtown Decatur square over Labor Day weekend 2006.

The event got rave reviews, and it was clear that festival visitors and authors had fallen in love with Decatur. The city’s appeal––a combination of supportive local businesses and restaurants, eager and able volunteers, and the ability to walk easily from venue to venue––contributed greatly to the remarkable festival spirit.

“We always knew Atlanta had a thriving writing and book community, but it needed a centerpiece to bring all the parts together,” said Tom Bell, now the festival’s program director. “That’s what the festival does best.”

“Publishers have come to see the DBF as a significant part of the nationwide publishing landscape,” said Wang, now DBF executive director. “The sponsors that make this all possible have stayed committed to us through a tough economy. In a lot of ways, it feels like a coming of age for us.”

(Billy Collins, Daren Wang and Mayor Bill Floyd, backstage at the 2009 Festival Keynote)

The Decatur Book Festival has come of age and promises to bring Atlanta together around books for many years to come, all the while maintaining a spirit of fun and childlike wonder as we celebrate the written and spoken word.