Miami Reads Together At 40th Annual Book Fair
The Miami Book Fair returned to the heart of downtown last week for its 40th installation.
Hundreds of authors, poets and literature lovers from across the world swarmed the streets of Wolfson Campus from Nov. 12-18 to celebrate the art of writing and reading.
A “flashback” block party kicked-off the Fair with Grammy-Award winning DJ/producer Louie Vega curating salsa, jazz, hip-hop, gospel, soul and classic beats into the night.
Festivities officially began on Nov. 12 with the Evenings With series that featured a conversation between American actresses Kerry Washington and Eva Longoria about Washington’s latest memoir, Thicker than Water.
Notable figures such as actress Jada Pinkett Smith, singer/songwriter Joan Baez, political commentator David Brooks, Argentenian journalist Andrés Oppenheimer and actor and comedian Henry Winkler made appearances throughout the week.
But people and books weren’t the only thing that flooded the streets of downtown.
Slow-moving storm systems from the Gulf of Mexico and the East Coast merged on Nov. 15, bringing with it five to 10 inches of rain and up to winds of up to 60 mph.
The storm wrecked more than 33 tents—between 4th and 5th Street along N.E. Second Avenue—that were adorned with thick vinyl covers and fortified by steel poles held in place by 45 pound bases.
Speaker events, however, continued as scheduled.
“No lie, I was heartbroken,” said Christine Ferreras, the Book Fair’s director of operations. “You put so much energy into working 12 to 13 hour-long days for months to see it all [get destroyed] in a matter of hours.”
But, there was “no time to sit and dwell,” Ferreras said. By 6 a.m. the next morning, campus services and Book Fair staff cleaned up the mess and forged on.
Approximately 17 “non-salvageable” 12×12 tents on NE Second Ave. were replaced by unaffected tents from Third Street.
The rest were replaced by extra tents from previous years and 10×10 tents made of fabric covers and aluminum frames.
During the final three days, the Book Fair held its staple event—the Street Fair. It featured more than 400 authors, performers, panel discussions and vendors selling books, food and artisanal crafts.
Book worms swarmed the streets with tote bags, sprinkle-covered soft serve ice cream and dog-eared Book Fair guides as they browsed tents, seeking new additions to their literature collection.
BLOOM! by Sway, a Melbourne-based aerial acrobat group, dressed in flower costumes and performed atop 15 foot flexible poles on the corner of Third Street and N.E. Second Ave., drawing crowds that vocalized their amazement with “oohh’s” and “aahh’s.”
Peruvian author and journalist Jaime Bayly appeared on Nov. 17 to discuss his new novel, Los genios (the geniuses), a fiction piece that explores the notorious conflict between Gabriel García Márquez and Mario Vargas Llosa, two Nobel Prize-winning authors in Spanish literature.
More than 230 people attended the event and nearly 100 fans waited in line for him to sign his book afterward. Bailey discussed topics ranging from his novel and personal life to communism and sexuality.
“It immediately became evident that [Bayly] is a local celebrity and to the highest degree,” said Kevin Guirola, a 22-year-old recent graduate of the University of Florida who volunteered at the Book Fair to get his mind off studying for the LSAT, the law school admissions test.
Colombian-American journalist and radio and television host Sabina Covo, who serves as the City of Miami commissioner for District 2, spoke about her first novella, La casa de los relojes (the house of the clocks), at the weekend authors program.
The psychological romance thriller follows Niké and her father, who suffers from a complex heart condition, as tragedies begin to unfold.
“For me, it’s been really important to get to know other Latin authors and, in particular, someone like [Covo] who has so many roles day-to-day,” said Elio Morillo, a space systems engineer at Blue Origin, the Jeff Bezos’ owned aerospace company, who recently published his own memoir, The Boy Who Reached For The Stars. “That’s an inspiration to continue doing what I do as an author and yet again, reaffirming that it is possible, as she described, to time-block your day and be a multifaceted individual.”
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