My Memorable Weekend at the 2024 Tucson Festival of Books

For book lovers, the Tucson Festival of Books is a marvel! For starters, it’s FREE. And for the most part, it’s outside on the beautiful University of Arizona campus where, on a single weekend, 100,000 bibliophiles from all over the world can wander at will under sunny skies.

But this past March, a cold wind and unrelenting rain quashed plans to set up our New Mexico Book Association booth on Friday morning, the day before the Festival. The only thing we could do, having driven nearly eight rain-fraught hours to reach Tucson, was unload NMBA Book Chair Paula Lozar’s Toyota 4Runner. After carrying boxes of books, banners and a table into our rain-swept booth, we threw a protective tarp over everything and left with a fervent hope for clear weather.
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Early the next morning, under a sunny sky, we wiped down tables, unpacked books, unfurled banners and completed set up minutes before the Festival opened to the public. Our NMBA booth #150 was one of more than 200 white-tented booths showcasing books of all sizes, quality and prices. A collectible, rare-book booth offered books costing as much as $4,000!  Midst the sprawl was a children’s section and at least one booth dedicated to Young Adult books. On one side of us was a publisher that helps writers who want to self-publish; on the other side, an inter-faith group offered books on mind, body and spirit.

We displayed 45 books by our member authors. A big seller was The Adventures of Santa Fe Sam, a charming children’s book about a prairie dog. Many who stopped by our booth wanted to purchase a book from the author or publisher who was standing in front of them. I asked one passerby what she liked to read and when she said, “biography,” I told her about Banged-Up Heart. She picked up the book from the display, read the back cover and said, “I want to buy your book.”
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Knowing that readers at the Tucson Festival cannot live on books alone, organizers placed food courts and snack areas in strategic spots. Many offered multi-national dishes – Indian and Mexican as well as Southwestern – but the food lines were, at times, daunting. A great find for coffee and a sandwich was Subway inside the nearby Student Union. Off to the side near the Student Union, guitarists and other musicians played non-stop.

Inside the Student Union and other venues, people stood in lines for up to two hours to hear authors talk about a host of subjects. My friend, New York Times best-selling author Anne Hillerman, joined two other mystery writers to discuss character evolution or how to keep a reader interested in a character featured in a book series. On Saturday afternoon, I left booth #150 to hold a place in line for Frank who had left to play golf but planned to get back in time to hear journalist and author Tim Alberta (The Kingdom Power and the Glory) discuss the GOP’s Evolving Base with author and ABC News chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl and Republican pollster Patrick Ruffini.

In line, I started talking with a couple of women – Joan from South Dakota and her friend Ursula from Tucson. When they found out I was an author, they asked how they could get my book. I offered to hold their places in line while they dashed to booth #150 to buy my book. By the time they got back, I was inside the venue, saving front-row seats for the four of us. Initially, I’d planned to hold a place in line for Frank and return to the NMBA booth but I’m glad I stayed for the mind-blowing discussion by the three panelists. The next day, Frank attended two more sessions featuring Tim Alberta and others discussing “Out of View Political Control” and “Religion’s Grip on Politics.”

Early Sunday afternoon I left Booth #150, pulling a wagonload of books and display signs to the Indie Pavilion for Fiction and Nonfiction Authors. (Indie authors are those who have been published by a publisher who is not one of the Big Five: Simon & Schuster, Penguin Random House, Harper Collins, Hachette Book Group, and Macmillan.) Notified in December that my memoir had been selected for the Pavilion, I arrived with books in hand and registered off-site on Friday, selecting my table based only on the fact that the sun wouldn’t be in my eyes. Hours later, when I found the Indie Pavilion, I discovered two huge barrels of water adjacent to my table, anchoring the Pavilion tent. Thinking they might block me from the view of walkers passing by, I wished I’d selected another table. Fortunately, they weren’t a deterrent.

Much to my surprise and delight, Ursula whom I’d met the day before while waiting in line, brought a clutch of friends to meet me. Turned out it was her Tucson book club. When one of them asked if I would return to Tucson to discuss my book with them, I told her about the Sedona book club that had visited me in Santa Fe. “Let’s take a trip to Santa Fe to see Shirley and discuss her book,” she crowed. “That would be great!” I said.
            “You should feel good about being in the Indie Pavilion,” Hillary, the Indie honcho said when I introduced myself. “We had 220 submissions for 100 spots. And most of them were memoir and poetry. Of course, we couldn’t have just memoir and poetry because we wanted a diverse representation of Indie authors. So, we had to make tough decisions.”
“I was surprised my book was selected because it’s seven years old,” I said.
“There was a SNAFU on our part. Every submission was supposed to have been published in the last two years but that copy got inexplicably dropped. So, Shirley, you should feel really good.”
I did, and I do. Being selected for the Indie Pavilion was an honor, not to mention an opportunity to sell a few books. Kudos to Frank who came up with a unique display sign: Banged-Up Heart – Ask Me Why?

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