GIVE A HERO A HUG by Suzanne Hudson

GIVE A HERO A HUG by Suzanne Hudson

SHINING A LIGHT ON JIM DAVIS AND THE LOUISIANA BOOK FESTIVAL

Jim Davis, Executive Director of the Louisiana Center for the Book and the Louisiana Book Festival, is my superhero. Before my promotion of his rank, he was already my basic, run-of-the-mill, just-plain-hero, having been so supportive of my husband, Joe Formichella, and me in our authorly writing endeavors throughout the years, inviting us to present at the Louisiana Book Festival in Baton Rouge multiple times. The fact that he’s one of the nicest guys on the planet doesn’t hurt none.

Actually, librarians and library staff in general have been my heroes for as long as I can remember—beginning in the Brewton (Alabama) Elementary School, when the single file march to the world of books was hushed and anticipatory, where the smell of leather binding and aging pages mingled with the purple scent of the hand-cranked mimeograph in the teachers’ work space, “ditto machine” papers stacked, waiting for little noses to press against their warmth and the perfume of methanol and isopropanol (no, they did not produce a “high,” unlike Magic Markers). It was a sacred, imagination-filled space.

Later, by third or fourth grade, (mid-Old Yeller, Nancy Drew, Little Women, and A Wrinkle in Time) when we free-range children were walking home, trekking those two, four, six, eight blocks up Belleville Avenue and beyond, the face of the REAL library—the Brewton Public Library—was right on our way. And my laissez-faire parents were happy to grant me permission to take up residence there in the afternoons—just be home before the street lights come on!

I’ll always remember the head librarian, Mrs. Locke, warm and encouraging to all of us little book nerds who camped out in the children’s section, scattered crossed-legged on the carpet, like a bunch of just-tossed jacks, engrossed in another reality, working our way through fifth, sixth, seventh grades, and onward through To Kill a Mockingbird, A Separate Peace, and, before long, Catcher in the Rye.

By eighth grade, when I could roam the area two short blocks over, to where the A&P faced Highway 31, I’d walk to that store, grab a can of Betty Crocker ready-to-spread frosting—milk chocolate, of course—and tell the cashier to “put it on my daddy’s ticket.” Then, having discovered the adult section and Perry Mason, Of Human Bondage, Not as a Stranger, and beyond (think of the lurid lure of Peyton Place), I could slither behind a display board with Valley of the Dolls and Betty Crocker, licking chocolate from my school-germy fingers (germophobes we weren’t), trying not to smudge-frost those pages (already frosted with lust). Mrs. Locke, I am sure, merely looked the other way.

In fact, I have no recollection, ever, of any “off limits” area or any disapproval, let alone hysteria, censorship or book-banning. Even my mother, upon discovering my late-night furtively-by-flashlight devouring who knows what trashy potboiler, simply shrugged her shoulders. “I’m just glad you’re reading.”

That should be a national slogan these days.

And librarians, libraries, and the staff therein should get medals and trophies and better salaries for being the keepers of those relics from the Age of Books, the guardians of the new ones and of boundary-pushing subject matter, the champions of inclusion, the defenders of diversity, the caretakers of knowledge and empathy and every good thing that comes from reading.

Heroes.

Jim Davis advanced from hero to superhero status last year, November 2023, when he suggested that Joe and I should re-launch our novels (Joe’s Lumpers, Longnecks, and One-Eyed Jacks: A 70s Recipe for a Rainy Day and my comic novel The Fall of the Nixon Administration), novels of a 2020 launch that coincided with the COVID shutdown, effectively killing our promotional tour (don’t ask us to “zoom” or “podcast”; we’re old school). “Have a do-over,” Jim said. “Bring the novels to the festival.”

He was in Fairhope, Alabama, to help us celebrate the launch of The Best of the Shortest: A Southern Writers Reading Reunion, the anthology I edited along with husband Joe and throat-puncher Mandy Haynes. The three of us editors were planning a road trip to Baton Rouge (note: said road trip would consist of Joe driving whilst Mandy and I commenced sipping bloody marys), as Jim had already invited the anthology to the festival. And now he was saying “do-over” regarding our novels, as in “let us bring your deceased babies back to life.” No biggie. Resurrection is all.

Beyond the miraculous raising of the dead, the 2024 festival is a very special one, a singular celebration, marking the 20th year of the LBF, the 15th since Jim has been at the State Library of Louisiana, although he was supportive of it during his previous tenure at the Jefferson Parish Library. Note: the twenty years cited here do not include the three years the festival had to be canceled: after hurricane Katrina; during a budgeting shortfall; and during COVID of 2020 (for 2021 only, the festival went virtual).

Best of all, the festival is FREE! Events take place throughout the day of Saturday, November 2, 2024, at the State Library of Louisiana/701 North Fourth Street/Baton Rouge, LA/70802; at the capitol building/state house and grounds/900 North Third Street/70802; and at the Capitol Park Museum/660 North Fourth Street/70802. More details can be found on the festival web site homepage: www.LouisianaBookFestival.org

Jim and his right hand man, Assistant Director Robert “Robby” Wilson, do an amazing job, with every member of the State Library of Louisiana pitching in to make the festival a success. There are scores of authors on the program—too many to mention here—but headliners include bestsellers Ashley Elston, Kimberly Brock, Amina Luqmand-Dawson, James Lee Burke, Andre Dubus III, and William Joyce (children’s books author, filmmaker, and Oscar winner); David Kirby (poet being awarded the Louisiana Writer Award) and Louisiana Poet Laureate Alison Pelegrin; Heather-Marie Montilla (National Director of PBS Books), Snowden Wright, Valerie Martin, Maurice Carlos Ruffin, Monica Arnaldo, Brittany N. Williams, Joselyn Takacs, Taylor Brown, and Kent Wascom. And for a precedent-setting third year in a row, the Class of ’24 National Student Poets (five selected poets) will be presenting.

A standout story/presentation is that of former New Orleans Saints player Steve Gleason, who has been living with ALS since 2011 and now communicates via eye movements and a keyboard. Over the years, “Team Gleason” has raised over fifty million dollars for ALS research and support. Gleason will be joined by his A Life Impossible co-author, sports writer Jeff Duncan.

Joe and I are honored that we’ll be breathing the adjacent air to that of all these folks.

But there’s much more to take in, like the screening of excerpts from the documentaries Books Across America (Mason Engel) and Literary New Orleans (Peggy Scott Laborde); Word Shops, “writing workshops emphasizing both the craft and business of writing”; a children’s pavilion on the capitol grounds; and a YA (Young Adult) HQ (Headquarters) in the state library.

For the fifteenth year of “One Book, One Fest,” the chosen title is Eudora Welty’s Pulitzer Prize-winning 1972 novel, The Optimist’s Daughter, a book near and dear to Jim as the subject of his graduate thesis.

Finally, festival goers and authors alike will want to visit the Great Wall of Books in the library lobby. It’s a grand wall space full of enlarged posters of most of the books featured at the festival and is also known as “Selfie Central.” Authors can check it out at their “welcome party,” Friday evening (11/01), a heavily catered event that’s always a hit—a chance to reconnect with old friends and acquaintances, and to make new ones.

And you’ll certainly meet a librarian and/or a library staffer—likely multiples. Be sure to say, “Thank you for your service!” Be sure to curtsy or bow or salute or otherwise defer to their stupendous status, their devotion to the written word, and their magnificent curation of it all. Or even better: give a hero a hug. Make it a good hug—not a sideways, Baptist hug. A bear hug. Hell, they deserve it. They’ve earned it. But mostly . . . they’re just happy that you’re reading!

The author of multiple novels, short stories and essays, Suzanne Hudson has been named the 2025 Truman Capote Prize winner for excellence in short fiction.