Virtually Festive

     One of the things my wife and I have missed most in 2020 is going to book festivals. We really discovered them only a few years ago, but we quickly fell in love and decided to attend as many as we could. We went to a few in Savannah and Decatur Georgia, and we were looking forward to the Tampa Bay Times Festival of Reading after we moved into the area. Book festivals allow readers to sit in on book talks and interviews with authors of all genres, and readers also get the chance to meet and interact with authors whom they admire. Festivals allow readers to feel a real connection to authors and works they enjoy, and they discover many more things to read. There is also a camaraderie that develops when you find yourself in a group of people with the same tastes in reading that you have. 

    Then, of course, COVID 2020 destroyed all that. Or did it? Most book festivals and authors adroitly pivoted to offering virtual book festivals, recording interviews with authors and hosting live virtual events that readers can log in to. In fact, going virtual allows festival planners to stretch their events from 1 or 2 day events to weeks, months, or forever. Readers can watch recorded interviews from anywhere at any time.

    Check out these festivals virtually and make plans to attend one in person as soon as your able.

Tampa Bay Times Festival of Reading: Originally scheduled for November 12-14, you can go here for recorded interviews, which will be uploaded throughout the weekend. 

https://www.tampabay.com/expos/festival-of-reading/ 

The Savannah Book Festival is usually held on the second weekend of February. Savannah Georgia is always a great place to visit, but the weather is usually pretty nice at this time.  The 2020 event happened live, but planners have already  cancelled the 2021 event. Instead, they will be hosting events and posting videos over several months. See this page for information:

https://www.savannahbookfestival.org/ 

The Decatur Book Festival is usually held on Labor Day weekend, at venues throughout the city. It's a little different from many other festivals because they often put together panels of authors in the same genre or to talk about a particular theme, but they also have single author events.  Here's the link to their recorded talks:  https://decaturbookfestival.com/festival/past-sessions/

The Library of Congress has hosted the National Book Festival for 20 years now, and they have lots of recorded talks and interviews on their Youtube Channel: 

https://www.youtube.com/c/loc/playlists?view=1&sort=dd&shelf_id=2