READING REVIVAL:  BELFAST BRINGS BACK BOUND BOOK FESTIVAL MAY 2016

(event site: http://ourtownbelfast.org/book/ )


Organizers of this year’s book festival say it’s a celebration of the written word “in it’s many artful, bound, and unbound forms.” After a two-year hiatus, Our Town Belfast, in partnership with the Belfast Free Library and Belfast Area Chamber of Commerce, is bringing back the Belfast Bound Book Festival on Saturday, May 7th.

“The festival ran for two years led by the vision of Nanette Gionfriddo, who at the time owned Beyond the Sea bookstore downtown,” says Our Town Belfast executive director Breanna Pinkham Bebb. “When she relocated the shop to Lincolnville Beach, we decided to not continue the festival for the time being. But the community spoke up in favor of bringing it back and we are excited to be doing so.”

Belfast is home to a high density of booksellers given the size of the population. In the downtown alone there are four bookstores with many other retailers selling books as well. The festival aims to celebrate this, as well as the bounty of avid readers, writers, poets, and book artists among the community.

A range of bibliocentric events will fill up the first Saturday in May including signings, book talks, a poetry reading, workshops, an art show, and activities for children as well. The fun will take place at venues throughout Belfast; Waterfall Arts, the Belfast Free Library, Left BankBooks, Front Street Pub, Old Professor’s Bookshop, The Green Store, the Chamber of Commerce Visitor’s Center, the Belfast Co-op, downtown parks and sidewalks, and others.

Event organizers are pleased to be bringing back archivist Abraham Schechter, of the Portland Public Library, who will be doing book repair demos in the lobby of the Belfast Free Library throughout the day. Author Elizabeth Peavey will present a talk entitled “The Best Truth: Honesty vs. Truth in Memior” as well as a workshop on Memoir Writing (call the Belfast Free Library to pre-register). Other presenters include Miriam Nesset (Sea Smoke and Dream Legend: Facing the Condor), Michael Alpert (Historical Atlas of Maine), Allan Whitmore (published Professor Emeritus of History and Political Science at the University of Southern Maine) and Tom Furrier (owner of Cambridge Typewriter Co., Arlington, MA) who will be presenting a public “Type Out” for typewriter fiends, at the Belfast Co-op. 
There will be a children’s book presentation at the The Green Store and a poetry reading at Left Bank Books.