 Photo by Ken Odor
Third time around for the Hanover Book Festival
It was her first time at the Hanover Book Festival, and Marilyn Ellis from Richmond was pleasantly surprised.
“It’s like I want to buy everything here!” she explained.
Last Saturday’s festival, the third put on by the Hanover Writers Club, drew more than 50 authors to the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 9808 building on Flag Lane in Mechanicsville, along with a crowd of shoppers. “Reading to the Rescue” was this year’s festival theme.
“I like that you get to meet the authors,” said Ellis, who was carrying several purchases with her as she browsed the tables.
One was a copy of “Millicent the Magnificent,” by Kathleen Nussbaum, who goes to the same church in Richmond as Ellis. She had told Ellis about the festival.
Ellis said her bookshelves at home were overflowing, but that didn’t seem to stop her from shopping for more books.
Not all the attraction was of the literary type. Three clowns roamed the hall, and Hanover Writers Club member and festival volunteer Virginia Beck paused to have Kosmo the Clown make her a balloon hat.
Beck has not yet published her novel.
“I’m a would-be writer,” she said. “It’s going pretty well but it isn’t out yet,” she said.
But Beck does have a story in a volume of Christmas stories published by the club, and available at the festival.
Festival organizer Joanne Liggan said this year attendance was better because “We got the word out better.” Having Fire/EMS and representatives from the Hanover Sheriff’s Office was also a plus, she said.
With half a hundred authors present, a wide variety of material was available for readers. Fiction and non-fiction, stories for children, historical, romance, mystery, science fiction and more lay waiting on the tables that filled the VFW hall.
Outside in the shade of the fire safety trailer, Mechanicsville volunteer firefighter Jeff Ashworth relaxed with a copy of “Midnight Gates,” a collection of short stories by Williamsburg’s Richard Corwin.
That is until Ashworth hopped up to give 9-year-old Joseph Baskette a lesson in how to hold a fire hose and direct water onto an imaginary fire. Baskette came with his mom, Anne, from their Short Pump home after reading about the festival in the Richmond Times-Dispatch, she said.
Hanover Herald Progress editor Greg Glassner was there, with a table exhibiting his five self-published books on Virginia historical figures. Glassner said it was his first time at the festival.
Mechanicsville author Sheila Talley, a frequent contributor to the Mechanicsville Local, also had a table with her books on display.
She has another novel in the works, she said. “I started one but I just haven’t found the time to finish it,” she admitted.
Talley said the festival gets better each year, with the goal to get past the break-even point so a scholarship fund can be set up.
For some authors, just being there with books to market was enough. Goochland’s Emerson “Willie” Williams had his two historical novels of the Civil War, “Roaring Creek,” and “Sinkhole Justice” on display.
The retired car salesman is now doing what he’s always wanted to do, he said.
“It’s like a dream come true for him,” said his wife Anne.
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