Sunlit Festival
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The shared enjoyment of the written word has extended beyond the usual book clubs and internet fora. Lively, social, multi-genre events — such as the Kerouac Ride, Tampa and St. Pete zine fests and the Lucha Libro Tampa typewriter deathmatch — have brought us to a new chapter in Tampa Bay’s literary scene. The events are so pervasive that CL devoted an entire cover story package to it last July. In our feature “Word Play,” we shared plans in the offing for two new major annual festivals: Florida Bookstore Day, which debuted last November, and the SunLit Festival, kicking off this Saturday.
The new annual SunLit Festival comprises a broad range of word-centric events, all taking place March 7-15. T. Allan Smith, a retired book trader and newspaper editor, and Michael Slicker, owner of Lighthouse Books and chairman of the Florida Antiquarian Book Fair, co-founded the event to ramp up interest in events happening in and around St. Pete, and to celebrate the city and Florida’s connection to literature.
“Literary events turn what’s normally a solo reading experience into a social one,” Smith said. “We realized that, and as we were planning things for the book fair, we started to talk about how we could encompass the existing events. That was the nucleus of the idea of how the SunLit Festival started.”
Smith and Slicker, who work together on the Antiquarian Book Fair each year (this year, March 13-15 at the Coliseum), sought advice from Paul Wilborn, the Palladium Theatre’s executive director. Wilborn put the two in touch with John Collins, executive director of the St. Petersburg Arts Alliance, an organization that has brought thousands to downtown St. Petersburg for the Second Saturday Art Walk and other arts happenings. Collins, Smith and Slicker now form the steering committee for the SunLit Festival. Their intention was both to initiate new event offerings for the festival and corral preexisting events.
“Allan and Mike came to me with a creative idea several months ago, and we made it happen!” effused Collins in an email. In turn, the St. Petersburg Arts Alliance became the nonprofit producer, organizing the steering committee meetings and the calendar logistics, raising funds and producing media releases.
In addition, the Alliance is producing “Behind Baby Talk: Why Reading to Infants Really Matters,” presented by Dr. James McHale on Monday, March 9 at 6 p.m. in the Childs Park YMCA, 691 43rd Street South, St. Petersburg.
“Some of the events were already scheduled at another time,” Smith said. “The Jack Kerouac Night at the Flamingo Bar was slated for a week later, on the 20th, but organizer Peter Gallagher moved it up a week.”
Rescheduled to Sat., March 14, 7:30-11:30 p.m., the Kerouac celebration commemorates the beat icon’s birthday (March 12, 1922). It’s the first of two annual celebrations. A second party happens in the fall at the Flamingo Bar, the favorite, final watering hole of the late author, and commemorates Kerouac’s death in St. Petersburg (Oct. 21, 1969). The March Kerouac celebration will, as per tradition, feature The Brad Morewood beat poets reading their works backed by an improvisational jazz band, led by Russian symphony conductor JohnTerryl Plumeri and jazz guitarist Kelly Green. Musicians Ronny Elliott, Eric Andersen, Phil Lee, Tom Scudiero, the Florida Boys and other musicians will perform.
One of the major new events of the festival will be the SunLit Crawl — A Pub Crawl with Literature (March 11, 7-10 p.m.) At each of the venues, a rotating cast of actors recruited by the newly rebirthed Venue Actors Studio will bring to life four dead writers with Florida connections: Kerouac, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Ernest Hemingway and Zora Neale Hurston. In addition, seven living writers (Cathy Salustri, Shelly Wilson and Patrick J.F.X. Smith, Matthew Jackson, Gloria Muñoz and Maureen McDole) will read from their works in “a moveable feast and a traveling circus.” Venues include Genaro Coffee Co., Bodega on Central, Green Bench Brewing Co. and Old Key West Bar & Grill. Admission is free.
Other events include writing guru Roy Peter Clark’s “The Secrets of Formative Reading,” an event that invites students, teachers and readers of all ages to bring and write about the books that changed their lives (March 12, 4 p.m., the Poynter Institute); Boyd Hill Poetry Night Hike (March 14, 6:30 p.m.) and Pass the Plate: The Florida Holocaust Museum Survivors Passover Cook-off (March 15, 2 p.m.).
Though the inaugural event is ’Burg-oriented (with the exception of the inaugural Tampa Shakespeare Festival), indie booksellers and other organizations outside St. Petersburg are invited to participate in future, Smith said.
“I see no reason why this can’t eventually expand and embrace all of Tampa Bay.”
