FIRST-YEARS EXPLORING BALTIMORE WITH MESSINA
The last weekend of September was a busy weekend for Baltimore. The Orioles played their last home games, the convention center was crowded with Comic-Con enthusiasts, and the Baltimore Book Festival took over the Inner Harbor. Encouraging students to explore all that Baltimore has to offer, Messina ran a shuttle on a continuous loop from the library to the Inner Harbor for the Baltimore Book Festival, on Sunday, September 30.
The Baltimore Book Festival features hundreds of appearances by local, celebrity and nationally known authors and booksellers. Some of the festival’s biggest attractions include book signings, nonstop readings, cooking demos, poetry readings, workshops, panel discussions, storytellers, hands-on projects, and live music.
“It was a really beautiful day! The festival was really crowded, but not in a suffocating way and it was wonderful to see all the different people coming together for the love of books, and as one big community. I passed tons of different authors’ panels from, comic books to writers of color and children’s books. People were so passionate about what they were talking about. The diversity of the festival really showcased a lot of Baltimore’s different sides and cultures” (Brooke Amodei ‘21, Evergreen).
With something for everyone, some of Sunday’s activities included “Yoga Pants, Coffee and Word Counts: Writer’s Life,” “Fantastic Places & Where to Find Them,” and “A Cooking Demo with Executive Chef, Will Reed from the Royal Sonesta.”
Each event was unique in its own way. “Yoga Pants, Coffee and Word Counts: Writer’s Life” delved deep into discovering what fuels a writer, as a talented group of authors explained how they craft their stories and the goals that they set to ensure their books get written. “Fantastic Places & Where to Find Them” explored the many vividly imagined places that set the scene for many books, as authors talked about their favorite hidden, lost, invented, and reinvented spaces. During the cooking demo, Chef Will Reed provided samples to the audience of his local Pan Seared Rock Fish with a Lemon Chive Butter Sauce.
Some additional attractions at Baltimore’s Book Festival included the Baltimore Raven’s Bookmobile, giant scrabble and chess, wood carvings, and discounted bookshops.
To learn more about the Baltimore Book Festival visit http://baltimorebookfestival.org/home