Nine years ago, Rain Taxi Review of Books held a book festival, a gathering at Open Book on Washington Avenue in Minneapolis that drew, to the organizers' surprise and delight, about a thousand people. They had one featured author -- poet Robert Creeley, who traveled for 18 hours to get there because flights had been disrupted after Sept. 11.
"It was another dimension to the value of literature, that it's worth going through that to celebrate this community," said Eric Lorberer, Rain Taxi editor. "That, and his graciousness and eloquence, gave us a lot of heart and encouragement, so we remember that first year very fondly."
This year, the festival's 10th, organizers expect more than 6,000 people to listen to authors and publishers, browse the booths, collect autographs and buy books. The event is Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., at Minneapolis Community and Technical College on Loring Park.
Children's events will be expanded this year, thanks to a partnership with Twin Cities public libraries.
"I think we're tripling our kids' programming," Lorberer said. "It's going to be great."
The Children's Pavilion will take over the second floor, with authors (Bruce Lansky, Stephanie Watson and Marsha Wilson Chall, to name a few), music, magic tricks and, um, reptiles. (Zookeepers from Owatonna's Reptile and Amphibian Discovery Zoo will bring frogs, snakes, turtles and lizards.) Every child will receive a free book.
The rest of the festival will have two featured events each hour and an emphasis on regional writers, including National Book Award winners Jean Valentine and M.T. Anderson; comic-strip artists Chris Monroe of Duluth and Will Dinski of Minneapolis; Jeffrey Zaslow, author of "The Girls From Ames" (and three of the girls from Ames will be in attendance), and Alexander McCall Smith, who doesn't exactly fit the theme of regional writers but who is likely to draw a crowd nonetheless. (He will be autographing books at 10 a.m. during the morning mixer.)
"We have a lot more panels this year," Lorberer said. "The changing world of publishing -- that's going to have various writers and industry people, bloggers, reading series people, people who've been involved with publicity, talking about what it takes to get published these days, and how that's changed."
