Newburyport Literary Festival Weekend

WE HAVE LINKS TO THE PICTURES FROM FRIDAY AND SATURDAY'S EVENTS IN A SLIDESHOW FORMAT! ENJOY!!
www.reflectionsbymcgarry.net

Happy weekend all! We had a VERY busy day yesterday and Friday night photographing authors, poets and their readers. It was a great time and it was amazing that everything on Saturday was free to the public. On Saturday from 8:30 am until 4 pm, Jessica, Richard, Pearl and I photographed most of the venues. Jess and I were running up and down Pleasant Street hitting The UU Church (upper and lower levels), The Montessori School, The Book Rack and City Hall. Richard was covering Nicholson Hall and the Library and Pearl was covering The Old South Church, Jabberwocky & The Firehouse. There were more events happening into the evening, but we were crispy critters by 4 pm. The eyes were blurry, the back and feet were killing us and we were just plain tired! We should have put our pedometers on to see how many miles we walked! Let's just say we all slept well last night!

The author who was honored at this festival was Peter Guralnick. Here is a quote from the Literary Festival website on Peter:

"Peter Guralnick has been widely hailed as the preeminent chronicler of twentieth-century American roots music. He has been called "a national resource" by Nat Hentoff for work that has argued passionately and persuasively for the vitality of this country's intertwined black and white traditions (blues, gospel, country, soul, and rock 'n' roll) as well as for their integral place in mainstream culture. His books include the prize-winning two-volume biography of Elvis Presley, Last Train to Memphis and Careless Love, which the New York Times Book Review declared to be "not simply the finest rock-and-roll biography ever written; it must be ranked among the most ambitious and crucial biographical undertakings yet devoted to a major American figure of the second half of the twentieth century." Other books include an acclaimed trilogy on American roots music, Sweet Soul Music, Lost Highway, and Feel Like Going Home; the biographical inquiry Searching for Robert Johnson; and the novel Nighthawk Blues. His latest book, Dream Boogie: The Triumph of Sam Cooke, has been hailed as "monumental, panoramic, an epic tale told against a backdrop of brilliant, shimmering music, intense personal melodrama, and vast social changes." Guralnick lives on Massachusetts’ North Shore."

Another author who drew a big crowd at the Firehouse was Andre Dubus III. Here is some info from the website on him:

Andre Dubus III is the author of a collection of short fiction, The Cage Keeper and Other Stories, and the novels Bluesman and House of Sand and Fog. He has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, the National Magazine Award for fiction, the Pushcart Prize, and was a finalist for the Prix de Rome Fellowship from the Academy of Arts and Letters. House of Sand and Fog was a fiction finalist for the National Book Award, the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, the L. L. Winship/PEN New England Award, Booksense Book of the Year, and was an Oprah Book Club Selection and New York Times bestseller. Published in thirty countries, it was adapted into an Academy Award–winning film starring Ben Kingsley and Jennifer Connolly.

A member of PEN American Center and the executive board of PEN New England, Dubus has taught writing at Harvard University, Tufts University, and the University of Massachusetts at Lowell. He and his wife live in Massachusetts with their three children.

There were many, many more authors and poets that were featured at this festival. Click on www.newburyportliteraryfestival.org for more of the authors and their books.

Reflections by McGarry donated its time and images to the Newburyport Literary Festival. Thanks go out to Skye Wentworth for letting us participate in this great event!

Have a great week!

Chris & Richard