Miami Book Fair

 

November 25, 2021

Miami Book Fair

The 38^th annual Miami Book Fair was back as an in-person event this year after being held completely virtually last year due to Covid. It was not all the way back, but something of a fifty-fifty split with a limited schedule of author appearances and the return of a somewhat smaller version of the three day street fair as well as a number of virtual on-line zoom presentations featuring many authors.

It was a much stricter ticketing situation as well as all events needed a pre-printed ticket for entrance, meaning they could control the crowds at each session, but also substantially reducing the spontaneity which I had come to enjoy so much. No longer could you decide at the last second to pop in an an author talk, instead all plans had to be made well in advance.

I love the book fair so much and was thrilled to be back in any format, so I did not really let it impact me too much. Kathy remained in Key West, not wanting to leave our pets if not totally necessary and so I was on my own in attending the fair for the most part. There were a number of Key West people on hand including Arlo Haskell, the Executive Director of the Key West Literary Seminar and our friends Andy and Jamie and their family, who I would join for our traditional Indian food feast on Saturday night at the Bengal Indian Restaurant only a couple of blocks from the fair’s location at the downtown Miami Dade College campus.

I arrived on Friday evening because a friend of mine was co-headlining one of the prestigious “Evenings With…” presentations on Friday night. Dantiel Moniz is a talented young writer whose first book of short stories, “Milk Blood Heat: Stories” has been grabbing all sorts of awards, accolades and attention. Dantiel was one of our winners of our emerging writers awards at the Key West Literary Seminar a few years ago and I became a friend and fan of her work and it was so cool to see her reading along with another talented writer, Deesha Philyaw who has another fantastic new book called “The Secret Lives of Church Ladies”.

It was a great kick-off to one of my favorite weekends of the year and it was so awesome to see Dantiel and Deesha, who were both terrific in their presentations.  The following morning the street fair was in full-swing and the author presentations were going on as usual at a variety of locations across the campus of MDC. 

Among the author presentations that I attended on Saturday were Chris Matthews, Mitch Albom, Lauren Groff, Paula Stone Williams, Melissa Febos and Alan Cumming. Cumming was my favorite of the group, though they were all interesting and it was a wonderful day. Cumming spoke on his new memoir, “Baggage: Tales From A Fully Packed Life” and was both hysterical and poignant – something that is often tough to pull off.

After a fantastic evening at dinner on Saturday, I was back at the fair on Sunday morning for another full day of author presentations and perusing the street fair and taking in the performances at the Porch stage by some of Miami’s best bands and performers. Among the writers that I saw Sunday were Pamela Paul, Kai Bird, Peter Baker, Chip Kidd, Charles Kochman, Julia Phillips, McKenzie Cassidy, Dawnie Walton, Les Standiford and Patricia Engel.

I was bummed because my friend Tiphanie Yanique was scheduled to appear, but flight delays made her miss out, so I will have to wait to see her again. It was another fantastic day though, with some great authors and really fun experiences, such as getting to eat lunch with Julia Phillips, in the VIP donors room at Tuyo restaurant. She is the author of “Disappearing Earth: A Novel” and is eager to hopefully attend the Literary Seminar in Key West at some point in the future.

I also ran into our friend Diana Abu-Jaber, who is a terrific writer and was on hand to serve as a moderator/questioner for another author and was with her husband and daughter, out enjoying the Book Fair. It was so awesome to be back on site and attending the book fair, I am already looking forward to returning next fall once again.