A Great Day at The Villages Literary Festival

As a “rookie author,” I was proud to have been invited to participate as a presenter and exhibitor at the 3rd Annual Villages Literary Festival held on October 20th at The Lake Miona Regional Recreation Center in The Villages, Florida. The event sponsors included: The Villages Life Long Learning College, The Villages District Recreation Department and The Villages Charter Schools. Corporate support was provided by Barnes & Noble Booksellers and Chick-fil-A. According to Event Director, Dawn Tripp, attendance at this year’s event broke all prior year’s figures, with close to 500 attendees.

To start the event at 9:00 A.M. sharp, my barbershop quartet, “The Sun Chords,” sang the “National Anthem” at the opening general session, which featured “World renowned underwater and ocean photographer,” Annie Crawley, from Santa Barbara, California. Ms. Crawley’s motivate- ional presentation was well received by a packed room of over 300 attendees. You can review her work at: www.anniecrawley.com. My 10 A.M. presentation titled “An Approach to Writing & Publishing a Family History” (including hand-outs) was on of 27 different sessions scheduled throughout the day. Twenty eager folks attended my session which revolved around my recently published book, “A Journey Through The Twentieth Century” with discussion focused on developing and writing the manuscript, the publishing process and marketing tips. Upon review of the Event’s printed program, I found that there were many literary “heavy hitters” from all around the state of Florida listed for various sessions throughout the day….What a humbling experience it was for me to be included!

Over in the exhibit hall, there were 37 exhibitors, including myself. Most, like me, were selling and signing their books. Additionally, the event planners had a lot of activities designed for youth participation. A few examples included, a poetry contest for high-school students and an ongoing treasure hunt for the “little guests” between the hours of 10 A.M. and 2:30 P.M. In keeping with the inter-generational spirit of the Festival, I hired my former manuscript high-school typist, Shelby Fussell to assist me in the exhibit hall for the day. As a bonus, her younger brother, Shawn, showed up and helped out for the day as well. Shelby is now a Junior and Shawn is a Freshman at The Villages Charter High School. Both are really neat young folks and fun to be around. They sure were a great help; especially during the time period I had to be away for my presentation. My participation in the Festival provided me with an extensive amount publicity for promoting my book to the local community. As a prelude to the event, I received the following media coverage:

• “The Villages Magazine” – feature story on Literary Festival, pp. 39-40, October 2007
• “The Reporter” – article, Ocala Florida Star Banner weekly edition; p. 5, Thursday, October 18, 2007