INSIDE VOICES

INSIDE VOICES

Robert Gwaltney and Jeffrey Dale Lofton introduce Clay Smith, the Literary Director at the Library of Congress.

Clay Smith is the literary director at the Library of Congress. In that role, he curates the lineup of the National Book Festival and oversees the Library’s ambassadorships, which include the United States Poet Laureate and the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. Previously, he was the editor-in-chief of Kirkus Reviews and the literary director of the SanAntonio Book Festival and the Texas Book Festival and worked for Sundance Film Festival.

Jeffrey: You are the Literary Director at the Library of Congress, one of the more impressive titles I’ve heard. It feels like a bend-at-the-waist bow should be required of everyone when you enter a room. What does the Library’s Literary Director do?

Clay: No bowing accepted! Essentially, me and my department produce a lot of book events, large and small, during the Library’s Live! at the Library series on Thursday nights; we think about what kinds of books our National Book Festival audience wants to hear about and which of that year’s writers they want to engage with and we bring those writers to the festival; and once the Librarian of Congress chooses the writers and poets who will become ambassadors for the Library, we are the office that works with those ambassadors on projects that bring the delights of reading to the American public.

Robert: We’d love to hear the story of your career, how you began, how you found yourself at the Library of Congress?

Clay: During my last semester at the University of Texas at Austin, I asked the Austin Chronicle for a proofreading internship and since I don’t think they’d ever had someone ask to proofread for them for free, they hired me just to see if I was really as weird as they assumed I’d have to be. I eventually became a senior editor there, the books section editor, and then after a few years, I headed to NYU to study in their graduate Cultural Reporting and Criticism program.

My career has been along a spectrum in the book world, really: partly book journalism and book criticism but also the performance of books—book events and big festival productions. That’s been a real pleasure because I use different aptitudes according to what the job demands. After grad school, I returned to Austin to be the literary director at the Texas Book Festival and then worked at Kirkus Reviews, then the San Antonio Book Festival. I found out about the Library of Congress position from a friend of a friend and applied in the summer of 2021—all interviews for the job over Zoom. I picked up sticks and moved from San Antonio to Washington in early 2022 and love Washington and am very proud to work at the Library.

Jeffrey: The National Book Festival is arguably the most prestigious such celebration in this country. What does planning such an event entail, well, beside sleepless nights and one of the most envied virtual Rolodexes in the literary world?

Clay: Great question—when I meet someone new and they ask what I do and I tell them my title, they often look a little confused. Essentially, me and my department review publishers’catalogs, which are the lists of books they’re going to publish in upcoming seasons, and we look for trends. We read a lot of book reviews, we talk to publicists about which writers they’re touring, and we get to invite writers we really admire to the festival. The most mysterious part of the job involves looking at all the coverage of this year’s books and what’s selling well and intuiting what’s on the minds of the festival’s audience and as a result, which writers they’d want to hear from the most. Yet we also undercut that mystery by asking our audience who they want us to invite.

Robert: Tell our listeners and viewers about the Library of Congress literacy programs and how they figure into the mission of the Library, one, and two, how they intersect with the National Book Festival.

Clay: One way we achieve that mission is in the project created by Meg Medina, who is the current National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. Soon, we’re going to start releasing short videos where Meg is “book talking” with some of her favorite writers. Cuentame: Let’s Talk Books is the title of her project and it’s a wonderful idea: that talking about books shouldn’t be reserved for “book reports” in school. Friends need to talk about their favorite books with one another, families should talk about books at home, educators should talk to kids about books in an informal way in addition to a more formal way. We’re excited to launch those videos. The Library of Congress is a place for everyone to learn more about the world and to find out more about ourselves—this series does a great job of articulating that mission. There is vital work my colleagues in the Informal Learning Office and the Professional Learning and Outreach Initiatives Office are doing but my department works with Meg and our other ambassadors, so that project comes immediately to mind.

Jeffrey: If there are listeners today who want to start a book festival in their community, what is the single most important advice—perhaps it’s a word of caution—you would give them over an afternoon cup of tea, bone china of course?

Clay: I’d tell them that a free, open book festival is really an investment in the culture of books that the entire city needs to make. It’s wonderful if there is a group of dynamic people who want to start a book festival, but they need to get the city’s government on board and ensure that all the other literary or literacy nonprofits in the city are actively involved. If you can do that right at the start, then you have a better chance of success.

Robert: Clay, what early on ignited your love of reading? And is there a type of book, a genre, you are drawn to?

Clay: Honestly, it wasn’t really until high school that I became a huge reader. We were assigned One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and it wasn’t until that reading that novel that I felt what an extraordinary literary imagination can really do. I’m a real generalist in my reading. I tend to stick to a lot of literary fiction and I read a lot of LGBQ+ fiction but one of the virtues of my work is that because we feature all different kinds of writers at the festival, I get to read widely! Being a generalist is under-appreciated in our world.

Jeffrey: Is there anything you can tell us about the 2024 book festival, which I believe is in August this year? Just a wee bit of inside scoop?

Clay: Put August 24 on your calendars. I am a black box where information is deposited but information doesn’t ever emerge from said black box (until early June, when we will release this year’s lineup)!

Robert: Any last words from the Literary Director of the Library of Congress?

Clay: Read widely and often!And take risks in your reading.