Literate Matters: Bright lights at the Harbor Springs Festival of the Book
It is never too soon to plan ahead, and if you want to attend the Harbor Springs Festival of the Book, you’d best make that plan soon enough to register. The festival, an annual collection of writers and illustrators that rivals any such gathering anywhere in the country — or beyond — takes place Sept. 23-26 in various locations around town.
This year’s festival features more than three dozen presenters, from genres representing a gamut that runs from noir fiction to poetry and everything in between.
Among those that will be featured are Chris Dombrowski, author of the forthcoming “The River You Touch,” the story of becoming a parent for the first time, told against a backdrop of his river guiding adventures near his Montana home.
A Michigan native, Dombrowski is also assistant director of creative writing at the University of Montana in Missoula, and an accomplished poet. He refers to the new book, from Milkweed Editions, as an “oarsman’s ode … rife with apprehension” about parenthood as well as “his own complicity in the destruction of that which he claims to adore.” This is neither an excuse nor caveat, but rather an honest assessment of his frame of mind at the confluence of responsibility and yearning.
Told across and through time, Dombrowski recalls his youth, when he followed “a map of sorts — one sketched in part by beloved books,” that first saw him chase after wild trout. He explains too how he came to meet and marry his bride, Mary, who also “blew around the region like pine duff — Oregon, Colorado, Idaho, until she landed a teaching job just outside a charming foothills town that was hell-bent on becoming a city.”
In prose often rendered in poetic measures and tones, Dombrowski illustrates how he manages to keep the flame alive while also attending to the daily commitments — entered into willingly and lovingly — of parenthood. His attendance in Harbor Springs is much anticipated.
An illustrator also anticipated in Harbor Springs is Rob Harrell, the author/illustrator of the new Bat Pig series, featuring the newest installment “Too Pig To Fail.” Harrell is also the creator of the syndicated daily comic strip “Adam@Home.”
“Our hero, Bat Pig (also known as Gary),” worries as the story starts that perhaps his bad dream was due to “those spicy tuna jelly beans.” But soon he settles into Mr. Patel’s math class for Fractions Day. Ugh.
When Mr. Patel suggests it’s time for a nap, fractions, a snoozer and all, Gary realizes this might be “a job for Bat Pig,” as the entire class worries that time has moved out of control and if they don’t do something drastic, they will be forever mired in the mud of math class.
Before long, Bat Pig runs into the school janitor Mr. Guffin, who is “like a villain now,” as “Time Guy or something.” Bat Pig must do something to rescue his pals Carl and Brook and the others before Guffin ruins them all.
Through other hilarious turns and unexpected twists, Bat Pig confronts stinky gym socks, alien invaders and more. And in Harrell’s illustrations the mild mannered middle school kid Gary turns into Bat Pig in order to save his friends and save the day.
The Harbor Springs Festival of the Book is a literary highlight that you don’t want to miss, and Chris Dombrowski and Rob Harrell are bright lights of this year’s festival, so it’s best to plan ahead to attend.
Good reading.
This article originally appeared on The Petoskey News-Review: Literate Matters: Bright lights at the Harbor Springs Festival of the Book
