Hartford's `One Book' Event Culminates With Harlem Book Fair
By CAROLE GOLDBERG
Courant Staff Writer
September 17 2006
ZZ Packer and the Hartford Public Library want you to "explore new meanings
of the American dream."
That's the theme of the
2006 One Book for Greater Hartford community reading project. Packer,
author of this year's selection, the short-story collection "Drinking Coffee
Elsewhere," will give the keynote talk Friday at the library for the event,
now in its fifth year, and plans to take part in the
Harlem
Book Fair, which will come to Hartford for the first time Saturday.
Packer, 33, whose given name is Zuwena but uses her nickname, achieved a
dream by having her first short story published in Seventeen magazine when
she was 19 and being named a "debut writer" by the New Yorker. Born in
Chicago, she graduated from Yale and has taught at Stanford University. Her
2003 collection of stories, which explores the lives of African American
characters, was hailed for its insight, often-surprising viewpoints and
richly descriptive language.
One Book for Greater Hartford, whose chief sponsor is the library, in
partnership with other media, civic and arts groups, presents discussions,
readings and events related to the chosen book in the weeks leading up to
and after the author's appearance. The project offers a way to combat the
decline in reading, says chief librarian Louise Blalock.
"Literature is important in our lives, and we want to connect people to
books and honor those who read," Blalock says. "Sharing the experience is
much more enriching."
Packer, she says, "is an inspired storyteller. We need imagination and
artistry, and ZZ has that."
Speaking by phone from her home near San Francisco, Packer calls
storytelling "a primitive art, even in novels" and says author appearances
bring people together around "the proverbial campfire." She strives to
entertain, because "you don't want to ruin their perception of your book" by
having the audience see you as "a not-so-good author."
At first, she doubted her skill at giving talks but soon found she enjoyed
the give and take.
"I feed off the energy you get from people. I'm fortunate in that I like
that interaction."
Packer says her readers will find a little of her personality in her
characters, "but to a different degree and kind than what they think." It's
more "emotional truth than autobiography," she says, though her experiences
helped her to get the details right.
"The real crux of character is a person you can imagine yourself being for a
time. You imagine and develop them, but what makes them different is the
author's consciousness."
Packer's current project is a novel about the "buffalo soldiers," black
cowboys who had been in the cavalry or infantry and were crucial in settling
the American West. She's also the mother of a toddler son and expects a
second child in February.
Watching her son Donovan learn about the world has been revelatory, Packer
says. Being a mother "changes your priorities and what is valuable to you,
and that changes how you write. There is a strange slowing of time and you
see all sorts of things in new ways.
"To see him figuring out the physical world, you begin to see the world is
not just what you see. It's a new way of envisioning."
She hopes to sit in on the short-story panel at the fair, which will take
place rain or shine on the parking deck of the library and along Arch
Street, which will be closed to traffic.
The fair, now in its eighth year, was founded by Max Rodriguez, also founder
and publisher of QBR: The Black Book Review. He says it drew about 1,200 its
first year and more than 50,000 in Harlem last year. It now visits seven
cities and plans to add Toronto in 2007.
"We create a conversation about each city by the books we market there,"
Rodriguez says. "Each book fair is a story about that community."
The fairs brings authors, publishers, booksellers, vendors and nonprofit
groups together to promote writing and publishing. About 28 exhibitors are
expected here, including the Connecticut Authors and Publishers Association,
Curbstone Press, Cull Books, Tru Books, Lectorum/Scholastic Books and more.
Also on the program are authors Christopher John Farley, Paul Robeson Jr.
and Steve Perry, a fiction-writing workshop, storytelling by Connecticut
author Raouf Mama and entertainment.
Attendance of 100,000 in Hartford "would be nice," Rodriguez says, "but if
we see 3,000, I'll be happy."
An avid reader whom friends said should have been a librarian, he was
working as a programmer for NYNEX when he found himself searching "for books
that looked like me," which led to the launching of QBR.
"I knew nothing about galleys," sent out by publishers, he recalls. "I
actually bought the books to be reviewed in our first edition."
He began the book fair when he realized that "there was no public
celebration of literature in the home of the Harlem Renaissance." It is, he
says, "a public stand and statement for literature and literacy."
A participant who takes a strong stand in his recent book, "A Black Way of
Seeing: From Liberty to Freedom," is Paul Robeson Jr., the cultural critic
and son of the late singer, actor, scholar and political activist.
Robeson, who has roots in Enfield and is known for his biography of his
father, is working on its second volume. He says his recent book presents
view on contemporary issues and black culture, some of it controversial. The
collection of essays explores such subjects as 9/11, "eight coups in
American history," economics, race and class issues, and what he believes
was vote fraud in 2000 and 2004, which he documents in two appendices.
"A discussion is what we want," he says. "I want to get people to think
about things a little differently, rather than to make a case and convert
people. I present a very clear opinion."
Rodriguez and Blalock say they hope the fair will continue to visit
Hartford.
"We hope to create an event that people will want to come to, to learn about
themselves and their neighbors," he says.
Copyright 2006,
Hartford Courant
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