Written By JPV Oliver, Gent
Photos by Fred R. Conrad
JPV Oliver, Gent, is a local author and historian.
His memoir, I Know This Looks Bad, can be found in the
usual places and his wry scribblings are published every day at
LoucheLife.substack.com.
The Saratoga Book Festival, held every October, is a literary showcase that routinely features marquee names like Joyce Carol Oates, Russell Banks, Ruth Reichl, Wally Lamb, Liz Moore and Greg McGuire and it'd be swell to say since its founding in 2020, the SBF's gone from strength to strength to achieve its now legendary status.
It'd be swell, but untrue.
What actually happened is, in its first year, the event nearly succumbed; a victim of Covid, like so many perfectly good businesses, nonprofits and programs. How SBF battled back from the brink is largely down to the efforts of one woman, Ellen Fenlon Beal, the festival's founder, who simply would not accept defeat. It's a story straight out of a best seller.
"I knew in my heart a town as unique as Saratoga Springs deserved a book fair worthy of the place," she says. "So, I wouldn't let it go without a fight.
"I simply couldn't allow the pandemic, gruesome though it was, to keep us down."
The showcase has grown to be an irresistible three-day affair that involves presentations of multiple genres - horror, romance, history, science, serious literature, graphic and young adult novels, fantasy, the lot, as well as a Night Market where authors, writers and creators offer their works to attendees.
This year the festival kicks off on Friday evening, October 2nd, at UPH with the Night Market, live music, light bites, a cash bar and a vibrant showcase of local authors and literary-themed vendors. A variety of mostly free panels and events follows on Saturday and Sunday, including the KidZone at the Saratoga Children's Museum.
As those two sentences suggest, the festival's a weekend full of splendid events at different locations across the city.
"One of the big weekends on our calendar around here is, of course, Chowderfest. The Saratoga Book Festival is just Chowderfest, but with books," Beal says cheerfully.
Over the last six years, Beal assembled a terrific group of devoted book lovers who are the foundation of SBF's success, chief among being the Friends of the Saratoga Public Library, where the festival is now their biggest fund-raising event. "Without the Friends there's simply no Book Festival," she says evenly.
The two people always shoulder-to-shoulder with the weekend's originator are Jennifer Allen, who works at the Friends and spends about 30% of her time managing Festival logistics, partnerships and fundraising, and Steve Rosenberg, the multifaceted operations director who does everything from managing the Night Market, volunteers and book sales.
"They're both elegant artists in their own ways," according to Beal.
When asked what was her most challenging moment in festival history, she has a ready answer.
"A few years ago, Dee Sarno - a legend in the Saratoga arts world - and I were at the Saratoga Arts Center, and we needed to get to a keynote speech in a hurry. It was a big name - it might have been Joyce Carol Oates - and we started walking the quick march, got caught in a horrific cloudburst and we both were drenched to the bone. I said, 'Dee, we're stopping at my house, we're going to drop our drawers, throw our stuff in the dryer and not leave till our clothes are done.' And that's exactly what we did. We made a mess of the introductions, but on the up side, we didn't catch pneumonia either."
SBF has been fortunate to have the incomparable Joe Donahue interview festival keynotes over the years. Host of WAMC's The Round Table's Book Talk, Donahue reads something north of 80 novels a year (nonfiction pushes the number higher), but says he'd probably be doing that even if it wasn't job-related work.
“But I really love talking to authors. I find they always have such interesting things to say and not always just about their books." His love of literature now brings him to book events all across the Hudson Valley, Upstate New York and Western New England.
"The terrific thing about the Saratoga Book Festival," he notes, "is it's open to such a huge variety of tastes - it's quite special in that way. Every community should have a book festival in my opinion.
"And the bonus is, readers are really fun people to hang out with," Donahue says. This year, he'll be back in the host chair at the SBF with a soon-to-be-announced special guest.
Beal and her crew make a point of finding inventive ways to keep the SBF fresh. For example, this year's October weekend will - for the first time - include a session specifically designed for people who want to learn how to get their stories out into the world.
"There's a lot of needless mystery surrounding book publishing and the new panel, called I Could Write a Book, aims to set out a clear path for would be authors," she says. "There's no feeling on Earth like holding your very own book for the very first time and if you haven't experienced that, this panel will help get you there."
One of the things Beal looks forward to every October is what the event's speakers will say once they're on stage. She notes what you expect to come out of an author's mouth rarely does - and that's what makes things interesting. "I look, really look forward to seeing an audience connect with what the author is saying and sensing how important that connection is to the writers".
That sense of connection suffuses throughout the whole Festival weekend. Ellen says the mood is perfectly captured in Joyce Carol Oates quote: “Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another’s skin, another’s voice, another’s soul".
"For one lovely weekend in October, we help bring readers and writers together to leave the world for a while and slip into what it's like to see life from other people's eyes.” And for everybody involved, that's more than a little magical.
Saratoga Book Festival will host its sixth annual city-wide event this year October 2-4 p.m. For more information, go to friends.sspl.org/book-festival.