The ninth Central Coast Book and Author Festival returned Sunday to Mission Plaza after a year off. The festival, put on by the Foundation of San Luis Obispo County Public Libraries, raised money for their summer reading program and brought a wide variety of authors to San Luis Obispo.
Despite being absent last year, the festival was busy with activity and attempts to keep the gale-force winds from knocking over booths.
There were also a variety of panels and talks by participating authors at the San Luis Obispo Library and the Historical Museum. Other festival events included book readings for both children and adults, cooking demonstrations by participating and performances by Cal Poly Dance.
Despite all the activity and participants at the festival this year, the Foundation of San Luis Obispo County Public Libraries was unable to put it together last year. Robert Alberti, president of the foundation’s board of directors, said that the reason the festival was not put on last year was due to a large shift in people able to volunteer their time.
“This event needs a lot of organization,” Alberti said. “The people who ran the previous festivals couldn’t participate or needed to step down.”
This year saw a turn of events when, Maryellen Simkins, a retired administrator from Los Osos for the law firm Andre Morris & Buttery, stepped up to chair the festival this year. Simkins had seen a notice in the paper that the festival was not going to take place last year and contacted the Foundation.
“I think it is important to keep books in front of people,” Simkins said, “I just talked to the Foundation and people who had previously chaired the festival to assess the situation and see what was expected of me.”
Simkins said her previous experiences coordinating events for her employer and elsewhere led her to become the festival chair. She had not previously worked with the Foundation before.
The festival had a wide variety of participants, including publishers and authors of children’s books, cookbooks, comic books and fiction and non-fiction for all ages. While most of the authors were local, some came from many different parts of the country for the event.
Friedl E. Semans Bell, a former San Luis Obispo resident, came from Eugene, Oregon to promote her book “She Cried for Mother Russia: A Princess in San Luis Obispo,” which was a collaborative effort between Semans Bell and Cal Poly’s Graphic Communications Institute.
“She Cried for Mother Russia” tells the story of Princess Tatiana Volkonsky, who fled Russia after the Russian Revolution in 1917. Semans Bell, who lived across the street from Volkonsky and was very close to her and her family for years, discovered documents that told of the former princess’ secret past. While she had vaguely known about Volkonsky’s title, Semans Bell had never learned about her life in Russia until her son offered Semans Bell a look into documents from Volkonsky’s sister’s estate decades after the former princess’ death.
Semans Bell chose San Luis Obispo for the release of her book because it features so prominently in the story. “It seemed logical to have the story out where the story took place,” she said. It took her three years of research to put the book together.
The manuscript was donated to the Graphic Communications Institute and everything from the editing, design, marketing and printing was done by various faculty, staff and students at Cal Poly, including Graphic Communications Department Chair Harvey Levenson who served as the project manager.
“It was a total Cal Poly collaboration,” Levenson said. “I’ve never seen an effort go so smoothly.”
Friends of the Library Liason Pat Williams, who has volunteered with the foundation for the past two years, said that the money is a great investment in the community.
The festival raises money for the Foundation to continue funding their summer reading programs, which reach over 5,000 San Luis Obispo County children each year. The program rewards the children with a book of their own, provided by the Foundation, after they complete the program. For many children in the program, it is the first book that they have ever owned.