My Most Fun Ever at the Southern Festival of Books

By Linda Thorne

It happened last weekend at the 27th annual Southern Festival of Books, and I'll get to why in a minute. 

My husband and I moved to Nashville in late 2007 and didn’t know about the Southern Festival of books right away. I attended the first time in October 2009 and have gone every year since.

It has always been a wonderful time for me, but this year was a first. I had an author’s badge and I got to speak on an author’s panel. Hard to pull off because my debut novel just came out August 29th. Humanities of Tennessee puts on the Southern Festival of Books and has submission requirements and a deadline. I had to move fast to meet it. The director, Serenity Gerbman, made some helpful suggestions when I told her about my timeframe plight. My publisher, Black Opal Books, gave me galley material faster than normal. I submitted my material literally on the last day I could. I made sure the last-chance postmark was clear on my package.

Every year I’ve attended, I’ve peeked into the author’s hospitality room wanting so much to join the participating authors. This year I got in and stopped by at one time or another all three days.

On the first day of the festival, Friday October 9th, I was on a panel called Who Can You Trust: Three Mysteries with authors Phyllis Gobbell and Elise Blackwell. Our moderator, Barbie Chadwick, was fun, so if I got boring, I felt I had a friend who could jump in. My novel is my first, Just Another Termination.

After the panel, I joined Phyllis and Elise at the Signing Colonnade on War Memorial Plaza. Parnassus Books set up this signing for the three of us. Anyone who wanted to buy our books had to go to the tent where Parnassus sold books for all of authors’ participating in the festival. Needless to say, my book had lots of competition. Parnassus took some back with them to sell at their well-known Nashville bookstore.

On Saturday night, I went to the author’s party held on the 27th floor of the Nashville City Center. It felt good to hand them my invitation to join in. You could go out on the balcony and see the city of Nashville from really high. There was a band, food and drink.

I don’t know how well my book, Just Another Termination, is doing. It was only released a month and 1/2 ago. I have no figures yet, little feedback. I think I got some real help though in getting accepted in such a last minute rush to participate in this year’s Southern Festival of Books. It was a great time as always, but this time was my best experience ever.

http://www.lindathorne.com

This just in! I learned I have another author's panel on Friday October 30th at the Killer Nashville Conference starting at 10:00 a.m. The title: Debut Novelists. That's me. I'll tell you how it goes next month.