Even though I haven’t been a big book reader lately, I thoroughly enjoyed last year’s National Book Festival, and I’m planning to go back for another full day this year. The Library of Congress holds the free, annual event at the Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C. For 2025, it will be on Saturday, September 6, from 9 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Caveats
A word of warning: expect big crowds. In order to get a seat at smaller presentations, plan to get there around 10 minutes or more before the start time, or you might be standing at the back struggling to hear amidst the general buzz of everything else going on in a huge convention center. For example, I went to several talks at the Library of Congress Pavilion in Hall D, which to my eyes was about the size of a football field, with more than a hundred tables of exhibits, books and reading-related items for sale, as well as other presentation areas like the STEM and Story Districts.
Another warning: I did not bring a book to get signed by the author, but I’ve heard that you might stand in line for hours and not necessarily get your book signed. There are about 80 book signings on the schedule this year. Eventually, a volunteer may cut off the line where they expect to run out of time for a given signing.
Author talks
As for author talks, it was only appealing to attend when I had read a book by that author. Reading someone’s book is like a peek into their soul, and when you love a book, it becomes a part of you, too. It’s an odd kind of relationship with a stranger, and being in the same room with them is a little thrilling.
James McBride
The first one I attended was with James McBride, who wrote a memoir called “The Color of Water,” among several other novels. He was also there to receive the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction. It was moving to be able to listen in person to a great author who impressed me with his writing when I was starting college and assigned to read “The Color of Water” as summer reading. I took copious notes on his remarks, so I’ll include a summary toward the end of this post.
Max Greenfield
I haven’t read any of Max Greenfield’s children’s books, but I caught the end of his storybook reading and discussion session. Even at the back of a massive ballroom, it was fun to hear from someone I’ve watched on TV (New Girl). His book, “Good Night Thoughts,” is about saying goodnight to your thoughts and quelling anxiety. He explained how books can be your own voice as a parent to open up to your children. I don’t have children, but it was lovely to hear about his effort to give parents a resource to help their children manage their anxiety.
Sandra Cisneros
Most exciting for me was sitting in the seventh row for the interview with Sandra Cisneros. (I was positioned to hurry to the front once Max Greenfield’s session ended.) I read “The House on Mango Street” as required school reading when I was around the age of the protagonist. Although I had a very different life, when reading her tale, I could relate to her struggles and felt encouraged by the wisdom of her perspectives. I also took a lot of notes during this interview and will include them at the end.
History and science sessions
In addition to dozens of author presentations, the festival has lectures about scientific and historical subjects related to books.
Making and Writing with Historic Inks presentation
At the STEM District stage, there was a presentation about historical inks. I arrived before 9 a.m. and it started at 9:30, so I found a bathroom and looked around at other presentations before heading back. By then it was standing room only, with a line of people sitting on the floor in the front. Here are some tidbits that I learned:
- Changing the acidity changes the color. Adding an acid like lemon to red cabbage makes a blue color.
- Iron gall ink was the most common type. It disappears under infrared light.
- Carbon black is the opposite, as it will stay visible.
The presentation was only eight minutes, at which point the presenters invited everyone to try out pens with historically made ink. I was standing at the front to the side, so I was one of the first to walk up to the table. I wrote with carbon black, iron gall (both black), and matter root (reddish-orange). The pens had small brushes and the ink came out as a light liquid. It also ended up all over my hands.
At the second table, the other presenter was answering questions without a microphone, so he was inaudible to me when I approached behind a group of people.
The Library of Congress’s Geography and Map Collection
A session about the geography and map collection at the Library of Congress was called “There’s a Map for That!” and I had to stand at the back. It was hard to see the maps projected on the screen. It was also hard to hear, despite the microphone, due to the noise from the rest of the room and people walking by. I stayed long enough to learn about some literary maps based on “Language of the Land: The Library of Congress Book of Literary Maps” by Martha Hopkins and Michael Buscher.
Some maps presented:
- An 1878 world map of literature, with an outline of continents, religions, languages, authors, and their works by region
- A Moby Dick map showing representations of the main character and voyages in the book (made to promote lithography)
- Dick Martin’s the wonderful world of Oz map from 1986
- An Anciente Mappe of Fairyland by Bernard Sleigh, ca. 1920 (I got a free bookmark of this beauty at the Library of Congress’ table.)
Spectacular Science Demonstrations!
This demo by the U.S. National Science Foundation was directed toward children, but I enjoyed it as an adult. Two scientists put on safety goggles and then opened a book that erupted in flames. They blew smoke rings from a “trash can of science.” They made test tubes of clear liquids turn pink, yellow, black, and back to clear as they poured them into other vessels. A balloon placed into a small bag of liquid nitrogen came out crumpled due to Charles’ Law of Gases.
In one demonstration, they filled a small, clear soda bottle with liquid nitrogen and put the cap on, which they said you should never do because the air is expanding. To prevent an explosion, the scientist didn’t tighten the cap. He held it out and the contents shot out as steam from the small pinhole in the lid.
In another, he dipped a Graham cracker in liquid nitrogen (-200°C) and ate it, blowing what looked like smoke out of his mouth and nose. Finally, there was a coffee cup filled with liquid nitrogen. When they poured water into it, it spilled all over the table into a big cloud for a few seconds.
Chronicling America: Your Guide to Discovering Digitized Historic Newspapers
You can view historic newspapers online on the Chronicling America website by the Library of Congress. It was still in beta testing at the time of the talk. They had 50 states and three territories contributing historic newspapers, ranging from 1756–1963, representing 34 ethnicities and 30 languages. Newspapers from the last 60 years are copyrighted, but they have paper versions in the library.
Other attractions
The festival also has writing and drawing workshops, poetry readings, and more. I listened to short poems by a dozen state poet laureates, caught the end of a Copyright Office talk (and learned that you can be any age and don’t have to be an American citizen to file for a copyright), and heard from former Library of Congress high school interns (to tell my bibliophile niece about the internship).
Logistics
Getting off the Metro at Mount Vernon Square (green and yellow lines) takes you straight into the convention center at the top of the stairs. Volunteers guided festivalgoers through hallways to a ballroom where they looked inside bags. In the hallway, I saw a sign for prohibited items that included metal water bottles, which surprised me because that wasn’t listed as prohibited when I read about the festival online. My plastic Yeti one wasn’t a problem.
I followed the signs upstairs to Hall D, which is a huge area with booths and stages. (Download a map of the festival here.) There was free Wi-Fi by making a free account with the convention center.
Next to Hall D, there’s a small food court. The restaurants were closed early in the morning, but there was a snack area open with coffee carafes, sandwiches, yogurt, fruit (including unripe bananas for $3), and muffins. There were creamer packets for the coffee. Serve yourself and pay at the register. At lunchtime, Ben’s Chili Bowl was very popular. People were sitting along the walls because there weren’t enough tables. I found a small lounge on the first floor at the bottom of the escalators under the giant bullseye hanging art installation. There was only one other person there. I brought my own snacks for lunch. There was a $15 veggie bowl for sale in the dining hall, which I wish I had tried, because it’s a long day to subsist just on your own snacks.
In Hall D, there’s a sales area for books and gifts. There were booths representing every state around the perimeter and a book signing area in the back. I stopped by Virginia’s booth and heard about the Festival of the Book, based in Charlottesville, that also has events in northern Virginia. There were story areas, people lined up for photos with a children’s book character, and many other booths, such as for Folger Theater (Shakespeare), Planet Word museum, the National Science Foundation, Scholastic, Geography and Map Division of the Library of Congress, as well as their Prints & Photographs Division, the U.S. Copyright Office, etc.
Finding the main stage ballroom was easy because there were many volunteers in pink shirts holding “Ask Me” signs to provide directions and answer questions. The North and South buildings are connected over the street with a large hallway area called the L Street Bridge on the second floor.
There was a good number of bathrooms, but the ones in the busiest areas sometimes had lines. It can help to go downstairs to a quieter area to find a bathroom without a line. Each place to wash your hands at the sink had individual water, soap, and air dryers lined up. I’ve never seen such an efficient communal sink before. Before the James McBride interview at the main stage, they announced that if you leave to use the restroom that you’ll need a green sticker to get back in, so plan accordingly.
James McBride’s talk summary
As promised, here is a summary of my notes from James McBride.
James McBride entered the ballroom to a standing ovation.
He wrote his memoir “The Color of Water” when he was working as a saxophone player and made enough money that he decided to stop doing music gigs. The success made him realize he had a writing talent and that he should keep going.
As a student at Oberlin, he needed a writing course to get up to speed. After writing a story about a man having flashbacks as he sat on the toilet and had a heart attack, his instructor told him he had a talent for writing.
McBride always enjoyed creative writing but never believed he was talented. He worked at the Washington Post in the Style section, but journalism wasn’t creative enough for him.
When he started getting attention for his writing, it didn’t sit well with him. “If these people think I’m smart, something’s wrong,” he said. In response to how he crafts such different voices for his characters, he said, “I just happen to be the person in the room who holds the handkerchief when God coughs.”
The interviewer, NPR’s Michel Martin, asked how he could make abolitionist John Brown’s hanging into a hilarious story. He replied that learning to laugh is a way of survival. He grew up in a family and community where laughter was the best medicine.
He can’t stop being creative and feels limited by books and music. The industries don’t understand what to do with someone like him. He’s always looking for something new.
Regarding his 2020 novel “Deacon King Kong,” set in 1969 Brooklyn, Martin said the book is about every crazy person that she grew up with. McBride said that disabled people spend their lives watching, so they’re often much more intelligent. It’s like being Black—Black people had to watch their own lynchings. When your job is to find the humanity in people, look to the differently abled. These are the heroes who power his world.
Asked if anything keeps him up at night, he said that one person can’t change anything; it takes a community. If anything keeps him up, it’s the idea that the harbingers of truth and the last line of defense are assaulted. The wisdom of women is starting to make its way into American life. When women let their wisdom out, it moves the world. He’s convinced that women are going to be the force that moves us into the future.
The interview lasted about 30 minutes, followed by Q&A.
McBride’s mom is Jewish, and his dad is Black. Judaism is based on giving. Ironically, they are portrayed as stingy. The stereotypes we lay on communities are destructive and go on for generations. That’s why we read books, because we want to go on to the deeper story.
Love is the greatest novel ever written, he said. And with that, the session ended.
Sandra Cisneros’ talk summary
As referenced above, these are my notes from listening to Sandra Cisneros.
The interviewer, Rachel Martin of NPR, structured the interview on her new radio show called “Wild Card.” She had Cisneros pick a series of cards to determine the questions. The cards allowed her to skip questions or to have Martin answer first.
Cisneros has been working since 2017 on the opera for The House on Mango Street. She’s 69 but still 11 years old inside.
Asked about a moment when she felt proud of herself as a kid, Cisneros said she couldn’t think of proud moments. She just remembers having felt lots of moments of shame due to her family’s economic level. She was not treated as an equal at school. The proudest she always felt was when she made something. Making something was the antidote to the toxin of shame.
She started writing around middle school, hiding poems in high school, and they knew she was a writer later in high school. She didn’t have a lot of close friends who knew about her inner life, which made her feel alone. It wasn’t until her junior year of college that she found other writers to be her friends.
Martin asked her to name an adult who had influenced her.
Some made Cisneros lose shame and feel more courageous about speaking out. In sixth grade, she changed schools and had cat-eyed glasses. A teacher pulled up her drawing and showed the class that the new student had made some beautiful art. Her previous school had only criticized her. She thought she had fooled the teacher with her glasses. But it gave her the courage to raise her hand in class. It made her grades increase from Cs and Ds to As and Bs. Students can tell when teachers love them, and that teacher loved her students.
How do you get in your own way, Martin asked.
Every writer is blocked by fear. Being asked to write for articles and events can bring up your old trauma. Speak in the voice that you speak when you’re in your pajamas. Some things can’t be published in your own lifetime, so you can be Emily Dickinson and let it be published later.
Cisneros invited people who want to ban books to invite the author. She wants to know why her book was banned in South Texas. That book is already written in such a way as not to offend anyone. She wants to know what is in the book that frightens them.
What has Cisneros reluctantly realized is true?
She’s an intuitive and thinks death is exciting. Her next graduation is death. It can’t be as hard as living. She wants to be prepared to leave this world feeling like she’s earned her death, having lived a courageous and interesting life.
She said “de estas alturas,” which translates to “from these heights.” We learn more from our failures. Without them, you wouldn’t be who you are now. You transform yourself from your failures. From these heights, she can think, “Look what I did there,” and launch herself forward.
Writing poetry is praying. If we all wrote one every day, or something else that struck our hearts, it would help us understand ourselves. Good or bad, writing creates little pearls. Writing poetry usually helps her depression enough that she doesn’t need therapy. She used to think therapy was just for wealthy, white, or crazy people, or all of the above. She had a 9-month depression before trying therapy. She encouraged people to go if they need to and look for sliding scale payment plans if the cost is too high. Poetry is laparoscopic surgery for your heart. It’s also a kite that you have to give string and let it run.
What was one moment in her past she would not like to change?
Cisneros had a major mystical experience when she was young in Mexico near Cancun. Her parents left her alone, and she lay down in a shallow inlet with the softest sand, which rippled like the roof of your mouth, warm, cushioned, the wind just right, the ocean lapping at her earlobes. Everything shifted, and she was in a state there’s no word for. As with Buddhism, she felt connected to everything, like a textile woven together. She thought she wouldn’t mind dying now because she can’t die. She was in that state for a while until her dad yelled for her. It happened again once while in a state of great beauty. We’re all connected, like the Buddhists say.
Martin asked about the Chicana experience then and now.
Cisneros’ niece is ashamed of being Mexican, and that breaks her heart. Travel is the antidote to bigotry (a Mark Twain quote that she loves). Even if she gives her nieces and nephews a free ticket, some of them won’t visit her. She wants them not to be afraid of who they are. Misinformation from schools can do that.
Her website has a place to ask questions, and she answers all her mail.
Cisneros doesn’t don’t know why her book is still selling, but she’s so glad it is. It’s her oldest child. She hopes her next book is even better.