Local book festival features Chasten Buttigieg, Blade editor Seventh annual Books in Bloom slated for Saturday in Columbia

By TINASHE CHINGARANDE

A YouTube video shows Nikki Giovanni leaning on the armrest of a brown leather chair with her layered purple-beaded necklaces reaching past her waist and closer to her knees. Her perfectly manicured afro tilted backwards as she gazes into the eyes of James Baldwin, seated opposite her, as they had a conversation about the state of affairs between Black women and men on a 1971 episode of “Soul!,” a variety show about African-American music, dance, and literature.

“Jimmy, I’m really curious, why did you move to Europe?” she began their segment.

Giovanni, who has been honored with many awards, including the NAACP Image Award, will co-headline this year’s Books in Bloom Festival on Saturday, May 13 at Color Burst Park in Columbia, Md. She will join a host of other authors on the main stage, including co-host and LGBTQ rights activist Chasten Buttigieg, sociologist Eric Klinenberg, and Blade Editor Kevin Naff. Buttigieg is author of the new book, “I Have Something to Tell You.” feminism, equality, and culture, according to the festival’s website.

“Each year we highlight books that can highlight timely conversations that are happening nationally,” said Casey Jones, festival organizer and marketing director for the Howard Hughes Corporation. “One of those speakers is Eric Klinenberg, [and this] is very timely in downtown Columbia as the county executive just announced plans for a beautiful new central library that will be designed by Thomas Heatherwick.”

Klinenberg’s session will center on his book “Palaces for the People,” which focuses on libraries as community anchors. He will also participate in a panel that includes Stuart Wood, a senior designer at Heatherwick Studio.

Though Books in Bloom may follow the template of spearheading relevant discussions each year, this year’s edition is unique because the festival has engaged its local partners “more authentically.” The festival’s theme is “Building Community Through Empathy and Understanding One Another.”

“In prior years, we’ve [asked] our local partners to help market [the festival],” said Phillip Dodge, executive director of the Downtown Columbia Partnership. “Whereas this year from the get-go we sat down and asked what value Books in Bloom can bring to them, and what can we offer them that could raise their profile in the community and help them do their jobs better.”

An example is Howard County Public School System Pride, which will participate in some of the programming and also launch its “Rainbow Vision 2023 Literary Magazine.” Students who contributed to the publication will also read their works, including poems and personal essays, in front of an audience.

“Incorporating our partners makes sure that conversations exist beyond the event,” said Jones. “Libraries aren’t just houses for books, they’re opportunities to hear different perspectives.”

In line with uplifting the LGBTQ community in programming, Kevin Naff, editor and co-owner of the Washington Blade, will be in conversation with film critic and culture writer Manuel Betancourt, discussing his new book, “How We Won the War for LGBTQ Equality — And How Our Enemies Could Take It All Away.”

“I grew up in Columbia, so it’s quite a thrill to be asked back years later as a published author,” said Naff. “I can’t wait to talk about the important and grave issues facing the LGBTQ community in a city with such a long, progressive tradition.”

This progressive tradition dates back as far as the 1970s when Baldwin answered Giovanni’s question on “Soul!”

The festival, a collaboration between the Downtown Columbia Partnership and the Howard Hughes Corporation, began in 2017 to facilitate cutting edge discussions about diversity and inclusion in Columbia, Md. Authors, chefs, activists, and poets, among many others, have since gathered in the town to participate in programming about race,

“I was trying to become a writer and couldn’t find in my surroundings in my country, a certain stamina, a certain corroboration that I needed,” said Baldwin “As far as I knew when I was young, as far as my father knew, there’d never been anything called a Black writer.”