As the doors of one of the Iowa City Book Festival’s final events opened, literary fans were eager to file in. The Local Author Book Fair took place at MERGE on Sunday afternoon, allowing writers from Iowa City to show off their prized writings.
The UNESCO City of Literature carefully put together a week’s worth of events for the Book Festival’s 16th year of festivities. Rachael Carlson, UNESCO’s director of operations, detailed many of the ins and outs of organizing the fair.
With the work of a small, dedicated board of people — and lots of volunteers — these activities come to life for literature lovers in the community. UNESCO continues to provide the city with three festivals every year.
“If you want to write, learn to write, or be affiliated with writing, or publishing, translation, anything, this is the place to be,” Carlson said.
Among the many tables promoting books, the founder of The Writers’ Rooms corporation, Erin Casey, laid out the six anthologies of The Writers’ Rooms on the table before her.
These books consist of works submitted by members within the Iowa City community. They are made in the hopes of inspiring authors to continue doing what they do best — write.
“And I think the best thing is when a writer comes up and says, ‘I had lost the love and joy of writing, and then once I joined The Writers’ Rooms, I found my voice again.’ And that’s what we hope for,” said Casey.
Meanwhile, Deborah L. King was promoting her trilogy. The first two books follow a young girl trying to find her independence and freedom, and the third takes readers back to the 1930s, describing her mother’s story.
King has won two Literary Global’s Independent Author Awards and was a finalist in three other categories. While the stories within her books can be empowering, her goals were just to get them out of her head. Her biggest hope is that the audience is simply entertained.
“I wanted to get the stories out. And from that point, once I got the stories all written down, somebody said, ‘Publish them.’ And I said, ‘Okay, I’ll try,’” said King.
Another author at a nearby table was Joe Egan. His journey through the writing world has been interesting, as his four books range across multiple genres.
“It’s very funny, I never envisioned myself having children’s books as a part of my collection, but here we are, and I wouldn’t change anything about it,” Egan said.
Passing table after table, it was clear that every writer there was excited to be given this opportunity to show off their work. Any time someone stopped near their table, they were excited to show off their unique texts.
Carlson acknowledged the book fair is meant to give new and old authors a chance to show their community what they offer. But it goes deeper than that. It gives aspiring writers within the Iowa City area a chance to see that their dreams can come true, too.
“Really, any city can be a city of literature if the people are paying attention, and they’re definitely paying attention here. This is the place to be,” Carlson said.