Want a good read?
Then how about this inspiring story: A community comes together to celebrate reading and inspire young people to pick up books by making it fun to do.
That’s the plot line for the Great Valley Bookfest presenting its 11th edition on Saturday, Oct. 14, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at The Promenade Shops at Orchard Valley anchored by Bass Pro Shops.
Authors will be at the free event to discuss their books as well as share the power of reading and writing. While they will be offering their books for sale, the Great Valley Bookfest is more than just a chance to meet and greet authors.
Activities such as a chalk the block event and other touches make the day as much as about having fun as it is promoting the love of reading.
The heart of the annual celebration of literacy is Author’s Alley. Not only will they have books for sale but they are always happy to engage people in conversation about books and writing.
The Friends of the Manteca Library will also be staging their annual used book sale. The committee works year-round sorting books to make it easy to search for your favorite genre or author. Books range from 25 cents to $2.
There is also a poet’s corner plus a writer’s nook.
The writer’s nook features hourly programs starting at noon that are conducted by authors.
Jennifer K. Morita, as an example, will speak at noon about character driven mysteries along with fellow authors Claire Booth, Jessica Cline, and Richard Meredith.
Morita started her writing career as a journalist, working her way up from a small weekly newspaper in Paradise, California to The Sacramento Bee. She spent several years juggling freelance jobs with being a stay-at-home mom.
Six months into the pandemic, after purging, painting and baking along with the rest of the world, Morita decided to give her pipe dream of being a mystery author a chance and wrote the book floating around in her head for twenty or so years.
Her debut, “The Ghost Of Waikiki”, will be released by Crooked Lane Books in the fall of 2024. Learn more about Jennifer by following her on Facebook or Instagram. She is still working on her website.
At 1 p.m., four San Joaquin Valley writers will share pathways from starting books to being published.
Authors Rae Rankin, Mariah Clark Skewes, and Pam Atherstone at 2 p.m. will present “Writing and Publishing 101 for Indie Authors.” They represent the Northern California Publishers and Authors group.
The 3 p.m. program presented by Gold Country Writers is centered around: “Relationship marketing for your specialty book – your ideal reader and who can help you get your message to them?”
Last year, more than 6,500 people attended the six-hour event.
The Bookfest not only speaks volumes about the commitment of organizers and participants to reading and literacy but it underscores the valley’s tremendous resources and commitment to elevate lives through the power of reading.
Some may read the previous paragraph and sneer.
You know the spiel.
The Northern San Joaquin Valley is supposedly a place absent of culture and literacy because its roots are firmly planted in agriculture.
Fans of William Stonehill Saroyan will disagree.
The prolific Fresno author who gave us “The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze” is just one of numerous authors inspired by the San Joaquin Valley including Manteca High graduate William Kent Krueger, who has had several books on the New York Times Best Sellers List.
And if anyone disses those who toil on farms and factories of agriculturally rich valleys as being dolts, let’s not forget John Steinbeck who hailed from Salinas and spent much of his life in Northern California including a stint working in the Spreckels Sugar refinery that once dominated the Manteca skyline.
Still when Manteca builder Toni Raymus returned from a visit to Decatur where she came across a bookfest that covered virtually the entire downtown of that Georgia community and started circulating the idea of staging a bookfest in Manteca, the nearly universal response was, “what, a bookfest in Manteca?” with more than a few silently wondering whether she was joking.
Her response: Why not?
There is little doubt much of the San Joaquin Valley has its challenges.
But that said, the valley is not a desert when it comes to literature or culture.
In fact, you could argue that the Northern San Joaquin Valley is the perfect setting for not just a Bookfest but to strengthen the written word.
The Bookfest site is 30 minutes from Livermore Lab and an hour from the Silicon Valley that is populated with some of the world’s greatest tech minds with many of their collaborating colleagues residing this side of the Altamont Pass.
It is at the epicenter of a million people within a 30-mile radius who labor in a wide array of professions and can find inspiration in some of the most diverse landscape and communities of people in the world.
If the United States is the melting pot, and California the golden ingredient then the Northern San Joaquin Valley is where you will find the biggest nugget.
It’s not refined per se but it is still gold.
The Great Valley Bookfest in a sense is also a way to remind us that not only does the Northern San Joaquin Valley have a lot to offer but that the written world is alive and kicking here.
Mark your calendar for Oct. 14 and drop by the Bookfest. Search for specks of gold along Author’s Alley and celebrate reading.
There is a wealth of talented people living here and even more people committed to making lives better.
The Bookfest would be impossible to stage if that wasn’t the case.
For more information on the Great Valley Bookfest go to greatvalleybookfest.org
