It Takes a Village:The 2022 Book Bash Festival
by Zandra Juarez, Director of Communications, Vocamus Writers Community
The 2022 Book Bash Festival took place on November 6th at the Guelph Farmers’ Market. Yes! A unique venue for a unique event.
After the last 30+ months and two editions of the festival being cancelled or postponed due to the pandemic, it finally resumed its presence in the literary scene of Guelph.
The Book Bash Festival aims to help writers and publishers spread the word about what has recently been published in Guelph and Wellington county. It’s not just an opportunity to see what is on the shelves at local bookstores, it is also a great opportunity to introduce authors to readers and to present their work to the community while in community.
This year, the festival was a real celebration for everyone: readers, publishers and more importantly, writers. All sorts of different genres and publishing styles were on display, from the artisan-like minimal production and well curated hand-made book publishing art (and labor of love, I might say), to the much more established series of books either in the form of a saga or by a well-known collaboration between writer & publisher.
During the event, I had the chance to meet emerging local authors who were launching their first book and who in some cases had been waiting since the beginning of 2020 to share their work with Guelph and specifically at this festival. Some more seasoned authors were premiering their most recent work with the same enthusiasm as their first.
- 82 titles
- 43 writers on site (at the event)
- at least a dozen local publishers
- (& hundreds of attendees)
Although the main attraction were books, the conversations were not restricted to them. Guelph’s literary arts reiterated their enticing, intriguing, diverse and accomplished character. The best part was learning that the readers had missed this in person literary rendezvous and that what awaits the next Book Bash Festival for sure are years and years of collaborating with the audience as well as growing fonder and fonder of writing and reading, which is what ultimately keeps us alive and going.