Here are three scenes of today's first day of the Festival, a premier event of Tucson. This is the second year for this and it's bigger than last year.There are some 400 authors, 170 exhibitors and 12 food court vendors. There are numerous talks by authors (at least one per author) and a book signing to follow. Some of the authors you may know are Elmore Leonard, Scott Simon, Robert Crais, Michael McGarrity and Phillip Margolin.There are authors from just about every subject area you could name, including children's, mystery, health and more. Quite the event.
Carol and I volunteered today. There were reportedly over 1,000 volunteers involved in the Festival, so we were only a small part. My two shifts involved Author Escort and Book Signing. The Author Escort shift involved finding the authors talking at the venue I was to cover, escorting them to the venue (there are 30 or 40 venues on the U of A Mall being used), attending their talk, then escorting them to their book-signing location. The Book Signing shift involved being the signing location, helping to keep people in line and helping the author as needed. I worked the areas for Robert Crais and Scott Simon - both interesting people!
Scott Simon is one of the pictures here, the other is Robert Crais.
Tomorrow is the second day of the Festival. If you're not busy, come out and see it. Admission and parking are free. The location is the Mall at University of Arizona. There's something for everyone!
