Bibliophiles young and old, rejoice! The annual Las Vegas Book Festival celebrates its Sweet 16 this Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. at downtown's Historic Fifth Street School, 401 S. 4th St.
Nevada's largest literary event is free and open to the public, featuring more than 150 authors in panel discussions, book signings and more. Programming has expanded over the years to cover literature related to age, race, sexual orientation and the mythology of Las Vegas, in forms ranging from spoken poetry and graphic novels to standard prose.
“We want everyone to feel welcome,” said Brian Kendall, cultural supervisor at the Las Vegas Office of Cultural Affairs. “This (event) reinforces both literacy and literature. It cultivates a culture and community, starting at a young age and keeping it strong all the way up to the oldest reader. Literature speaks to people in different ways.”
Featured authors engage in outreach beyond the event, appearing at local schools to get students pumped about reading and encourage them to attend the book fest.
“College students, high school students, elementary students are all getting to interact on a very personal level with these authors,” Kendall said. “It shows the kids that, ‘Hey, I can do this; I can write.’ ... It becomes something really tangible that those kids can grab ahold of and get excited about.”
One of the headliners is Daniel Handler — better known as Lemony Snicket — author of the popular children's collection "A Series of Unfortunate Events." He will be at two events, one for that work and another for his new book "All the Dirty Parts."
“I'm looking forward to talking about 'All the Dirty Parts' because I feel that sexuality and its surrounding baggage is not often discussed publicly or in interesting ways,” Handler said of the book's focus on what publisher Bloomsbury describes as "the erotic impulses of an all-too-typical young man." Hence the placement in the festival's "After Dark" segment, during which only those 21 and older are allowed (Handler's talk is 7:15-8 p.m. at Inspire Theater, 107 Las Vegas Blvd. South). He also is looking forward to being in the crowd, appreciating what other authors have to offer. "I see literature as a large conversation, and I feel really grateful to be a part of that conversation, as a reader and as a writer and talker.”
The city of Las Vegas will have a booth set up for attendees to make cards to help heal the city after the Oct. 1 shooting (look for the Hearts4Vegas table). There also will be food trucks and book vendors, and parking is free in the lot at the Lloyd D. George U.S. Courthouse and Federal Building (333 Las Vegas Blvd. South) or $3 in the city's garage on Third Street between Clark and Lewis avenues. Fourth Street will be closed between Clark and Lewis from 3 p.m. Friday until midnight Sunday.
Checking in with Lemony Snicket (aka Daniel Handler)
How's your book tour going?
It's been completely fascinating. I'm about halfway through it, I guess. I get little windows where I come home and do my laundry and flop out books to read on the road, and then I go out for more fascinating times.
That's fantastic. What books are you reading?
You caught me just deciding what to bring on the road, but there is a new — well, new to me — Australian writer named Michelle de Kretser who wrote this really good book called "Springtime." I'm interested in her other novels, so I was planning maybe to bring one of those. I'm doing an event with Tom Perrotta soon, so I have his new novel "Mrs. Fletcher" so that I can ask him questions and not just say, "Your book has a woman on the cover," but actually know what it's about.
A lot of your novels center on teenagers. What is so fascinating about that age group?
I guess everything. It just seems like such a fraught and fruitful time. When I think of stories, it often turns out to be that the people in those stories are going to be of that age group. I think if you, say, have a man alone in a hotel room in Las Vegas, as I will be in a couple of days, that's not necessarily a story. But if it were a teenager alone in a hotel in Las Vegas, it's already intriguing. I think if you’re interested in stories where a lot of things happen, which is generally what I'm interested in, I think young people provide a nice engine for that.
What were your teenage years like?
I was kind of moody and pretentious, I would say. I listened to a lot of gloomy, British synthesizer music, and my friends and I would have dinner parties that were decadent and sophisticated. I read a lot of E.M. Forster, so I wasn't the hardcore sexual dynamo that Cole is in "All the Dirty Parts." But I was a romantic.
How did you transition from writing novels to writing a play? (Handler's play, "Imaginary Comforts, or The Story of the Ghost of the Dead Rabbit," opened earlier this fall.)
Well, when I wrote the play I didn't know what I was writing. I wrote it shortly after my father died. I got the idea for it when a rabbi came over and was comforting our family, and helping us plan the funeral, and she was very centered and considerate, which was a great comfort. But I began to think: What if she were very terrible at it? And in the weeks following his death I was not really in much of a place to do a lot of writing, but I would do a little writing every day just to not drive myself nuts. What I was writing were conversations, and only gradually did I figure out that they were attached to one another, and that it suddenly felt like a play — which is very startling to me, and also a little nerve-racking because my wife hates theater. So then I had to tell her I had written a play, kind of like how I would confess to having an affair. (Laughs) But she's been very supportive.
You partner with your wife on a lot of projects. How do you manage that professional and more intimate relationship?
It's always been a part of us. We started a zine when we were first dating, and we spend a lot of our time on our sofa or in bed lying around cracking each other up. That's kind of the basis of our relationship — both creative and emotional. There are many collaborations or collaborative ideas that don't go anywhere, but then some of them become books.
Tell me a little bit about how you chose Lemony Snicket as your pseudonym.
I was researching my first novel, "The Basic Eight," and I was talking to some right-wing political groups and asked them to mail me their materials so I could mock them in my novel. And I didn't want to be on their mailing lists, so someone asked me for my name and that's what popped out of my mouth. Years later when I was working on children's books and discovered I was using a narrator that was as much a part of the story as anything else, I had this old pseudonym lying around gathering dust.
"A Series of Unfortunate Events" is about orphans. How did you decide to write about that?
I think because I was interested in writing a version of the gothic novel, but for children. And there's such a long tradition of orphans in gothic novels and children in literature that it just seemed natural to me.
What kinds of letters from fans of that series impacted you?
I get a lot of letters; just got some more from children who have lost one or more parents. I never thought my books would be of interest, let alone of comfort to someone who had been through that kind of thing. ... They're read very hungrily by people who are quasi-orphaned, and that's very moving to me. I think you never love a book the way you love a book when you're 10, and it's an honor to take up space in some people's heads.
How did the characters in the 13 books in the series evolve?
I just continued to be interested in them, and I just tried to explore them the best I could. I think of them evolving as they got into people's heads and people thought about them — that's the kind of evolution I think about more than how I manipulated them. I think about the fact that I've met people, young women who are studying to be engineers because they were inspired by Violet Baudelaire. Or people who name their babies Sunny.
Did it surprise you that your books had such impacts?
It's very surprising to me. I never thought I would be a writer that got much notice, and I could never predict, as anyone could never predict, what kind of response happens when a book goes out into the world. It's very moving, but it's more confusing than it is moving. It's more bewildering to me. But life is bewildering, so I'm trying to become accustomed to it.
What else in life is bewildering besides people being moved by your words?
Oh, god, what isn't bewildering? Please. ... I think just walking down the street, just reading about what is happening in the world. I think an approaching hurricane in Ireland, I think the president being cruel to a widow, I think our nation coming to grips with its own guilty history, I think everyday injustice in the school yard, and larger than life injustice globally, is bewildering.
Join the Discussion:
Check this out for a full explanation of our conversion to the LiveFyre commenting system and instructions on how to sign up for an account.
Full comments policy