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Feb 16
2011
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In 2006 Laura Fitzgerald's debut novel, Veil of Roses was released. The sweet story of love and cultural discovery centered around Tamila Soroush, an Iranian woman sent to the USA by her parents to "wake up your luck". The story found a receptive audience and became popular with book clubs and reading groups.
Laura followed up Veil of Roses with the national bestseller One True Theory of Love, and though many other writing projects clamored for her attention, her fans kept asking her to revisit the wonderful characters from Veil of Roses. As any author knows, an idea, once planted, is hard to shake. It turns out that Tami, Maryam, and the rest of the characters from Veil of Roses still had stories to tell.
It's been over twenty four hours since the Tucson Festival of Books wrapped up, and just now, we're beginning to recover. We might have eaten a few too many of our own Starburst and suffered the successive sugar crash. Still, it was all worth it, even when the sun hit us right in the eyes late in the afternoon. Anytime we can meet hundreds of people who love books and writing as much as we do, you can't pass that up and the Festival of Books was that perfect opportunity. We loved walking around and seeing all that was going on, from the circus on the east end of the mall to the workshops and author events happening everywhere. The booth itself seemed to be jumping all weekend long, and we thank every one of you that stopped by. If you made it out to the Festival, maybe you were surprised by what an amazing event this has become in two years. From pulling in a flood of best selling authors to great local restaurants to all the other stuff going on, it was an amazing two days. Well done, Tucson Festival of Books. We'll see you next year.
While all the author events, workshops and vendors are probably enough to convince anyone who enjoys the written word to come to the Tucson Festival of Books this weekend, I don't know if you're legally allowed to use the word "festival" if there isn't food. Thankfully, this particular festival will have an excellent selection of food from Tucson restaurants. While you can't go wrong with barbeque from Brushfire, a sandwich from Beyond Bread or the always classic Sonoran hot dog, I'd like to put in a brief endorsement for the Tucson Tamale Company. Tamales are just about the perfect food, as far as I'm concerned, and the Tucson Tamale Company makes excellent tamales, both traditional and more playful. The tamales are made with the best ingredients, they have vegetarian and vegan options and it also helps that the owner, Todd Martin, is among the nicest people on earth, giving every customer a warm welcome. Bring cash (the food vendors won't be accepting credit cards), grab a tamale, and come say hello to the staff of the Editorial Department this weekend.
Obviously, over two days of events, there's something for just about anyone who cares about words in any form at the Tucson Festival of Books, but we'd like to share a few of the events we're excited for over the next few days. One seemingly must see presentation will be the discussion of how to get started in screenwriting featuring John August (Sunday at 11:30 in the UA Mall Tent). We love great screenwriting here (