The Collingswood Book Festival is the second longest running festival in the area, second to May Fair.
Held the first Saturday of October every year, the festival, showcases over 60 presenting authors and an additional 275 authors and exhibitors, plus music, food, and literary games and activities along six blocks from Collings to Homestead avenues and draws upwards of 5,000 people throughout the day.
“We are all volunteer; all resident run,” said festival chair Sharon Hackett, who became involved with the festival in 2008.
She had suggested “The Geography of Bliss” by Eric Weiner, who was the brother of her husband’s best friend.
“[At the time] we had just seen him on the Stephen Colbert Report,” Hackett recalled, noting Weiner has traveled from his home in Washington, D.C. to the festival over the years. He is back this year.
Collingswood 08108 met up with Hackett as they head into their 22nd year. Organizing and booking authors and exhibitors begin in January and by May a lineup is outlined.
We take a look at how the festival began and why.
Jeanne Brennan is the founder and board member of the annual book festival; Michele Zeldner is a founder and board member, Tammy Paolino organizes the poetry authors; Rich Renner organizes the adult authors; Beverly Michaels organizes the young adult authors; and Meredith Brennan organizes Loompaland.
On festival day, approximately 40 to 50 volunteers in the community help the nonprofit organization with the set up, make sure everything is running smoothly, and the breakdown.
How it started
It was in early spring of 2002 when a group of friends, neighbors, relatives, library staff and trustees came together to plan a book festival in Collingswood.
“We were a very diverse group, but we were all on the same page,” Jeanne Brennan said. “We loved books and thought that reading is one of the great pleasures in life.
“We felt a book festival that celebrated reading, the written word and everything book and literacy related would be the formula for a very exciting event. The Collingswood Book Festival was born.”
Putting on such an event takes a lot of “time and money,” Jeanne Brennan emphasized. The group’s diverse skillset and many talents including graphic design, soliciting sponsorships and teachers and library staff – as well as volunteers who were good organizers and willing to do the grunt work – helped with the initial process. All of that and more continues to this day.
“A few of the volunteers who joined the group in 2002 are still active and attend monthly meetings,” Jeanne Brennan said. “All the members who have joined the group over the past 22 years have been valued participants.”
Meredith Brennan became involved with the book festival because of her mom Jeanne.
“I was originally on hand to pitch in with the set up and break down of the event,” she said. “I eventually became involved in Loompaland, which is dedicated to exhibits, activities and performances just for kids to celebrate and encourage reading.”
For younger Brennan, the festival is particularly meaningful to her because of her kids’ involvement.
“They have been lifelong attendees, usually spending the entire day enjoying and/or helping out in Loompaland,” she said. “My daughter Quinn and her friends have run a ‘bookstore’ and sold crafts the last few years and donated the money to the library.
She is insistent that I turn the reigns of Loompaland over to her when I ‘retire.’”
Renner answered a call for volunteers for a brand-new literary festival in the summer of 2003.
“At the time, I was a producer at NJN Public Television, however, I’d always fancied myself as a writer,” he said. “I answered the call figuring I’d get some advice from published authors about writing a best-seller.”
Since then, Renner has published a bunch of short stories and poems in literary magazines. And as he continues to find time to finish a novel of his own, he spends volunteer time helping to plan the book festival.
“For many years, I was responsible for lending my broadcast television experience to promotion, which included managing the website, establishing and maintaining our social media presence, gathering photos and video of the event and managing the audio requirements during the day,” he said. “In recent years, I’ve been the children’s authors organizer and currently, the adult authors organizer.”
Renner said it has been a pleasure to be surrounded by so many volunteers, who share his love of “all things literary.”
When Micheals moved to Collingswood in 2004, she was eager to become part of her new community.
“The first big community event after our arrival was the book festival, and I was a book lover, so I headed up to Haddon Avenue to see what it was all about,” she said, noting she was “truly astonished by the number of authors and vendors and by the crowds – literally thousands of people.”
Later that fall, she answered the call for festival volunteers. Since she had previously been a children’s librarian, she found herself on the author committee working with the middle grade and young adult authors.
“During my many years of working on the festival, one of my main responsibilities has been recruiting new authors,” Michaels said.
Author invitations are a year-round activity, she said.
“The committee members attend other book festivals and conventions, read book reviews in their areas of interest, and generally keep an eye out for the rising stars in the literary world,” Michaels said.
“Finally, on festival day, it’s all hands-on deck.”
Festival day this year runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Oct. 5.
This year’s town book is “Ours” by Phillip B. Williams from New York. The novel, “Ours,” is set over the course of four decades and tells the story of the spiritual costs of a freedom that demands fierce protection. Williams will be on hand in the adult author tent. He will be the keynote speaker of the poetry tent.
The town book is a summer reading assignment for students in Karen Tanier’s AP English class at Collingswood High School.
“Jennine [Cook] of Ida’s book shop recommended the author,” Hackett said. “We have been working with her for a couple of years.”
Additional adult author presenters include Adelle Waldman, Amy Jo Burns, Keith O’Brien, Lorene Carey, and Eric Weiner.
The festival will welcome two high profile young adult authors including Erin Entrada Kelly and Gae Polisner.
Over 900 students will be reading books by the two authors and will have opportunities to meet with them at this year’s book festival.
Along with the number of tents, the festival will feature a panel and conversation on the book banning debate, the broader implications for freedom and censorship at 2 p.m. in the young adult tent. Despite increased cultural awareness, 1,500 books have been banned in the last three years.
In the next hour, there will be a panel featuring the co-lead of Temple University Representation Lab, Alex Wermer-Colan. The lab is digitizing and text mining banned books in order to identify patterns such as adjectives commonly used to describe characters of color or dialogue based on gender identity.
After the discussion, a unique group of book narrators will read passages out loud from banned books to illustrate the intent of and outcomes from Temple University’s research.
Hackett said the panel on book banning was an outcome of a recommendation that was made to members at the May Fair festival two years ago.
“Two years ago we had at least five people running up and asking, ‘What are you going to do about banned books? You should be at the forefront of creating some kind of effort,’” Hackett recalled.
“It was tall order,” she said. The outcome is this year’s panel discussions.
For more information visit www.collingswoodbookfestival.com.
