The literary festival reading slash appearance is one of the stranger jobs involved in the work of a writer. While the instrumentation used in these readings is always the same: small podium, microphone, bottle of water, and script/book, the venues vary. Sometimes you're situated in a little room at a university, sometimes you're on an outdoor stage in the middle of a closed-off city street. Once, at the Calgary Folk Festival, featuring various literary talents to boot, I stood in front of a nearly empty field of sweaty folk fans in cowboy hats, blistering in the sun.
I've got literary festivals on the brain these days because I've just come off a bit of a spree of them over the past couple months. I'm also stewing from the recent election results, I'll admit, and the many mentions of "arts festivals" that came up during the debates. It all has led me to wonder, what does it all mean? Why do we put on these things and what do we, as lit fans and as lit artists, get out of them?
As an attendee, I find it amazing how different the vibe is from festival to festival. Going to larger festivals like Word on the Street (now in Toronto, Halifax, Kitchener, Calgary and Vancouver) is like attending a circus of books. There's any number of side attractions: balloons, giant Mounties, candy apples, corn on a stick. Crowds flock around tables of books, munching and browsing. Smaller festivals, like the Eden Mills Festival, in the wee village of the same name just outside of Guelph, are a little more out of the way but always dazzle me with their unique readings and spaces, authors and audiences posed next to tiny working mills and under apple trees.
From a writer's perspective, one huge benefit of these festivals is the incredible sense of community they create. Festivals are one of the few occasions where writers get the privilege to bunk up in fancy hotels (not all in the same room). This makes for many opportunities to run into fellow writers in the elevator and in the green room (where all festivals should stock a neat supply of donuts). Festivals provide one of the few occasions for writers to "bump into" colleagues in the hallway, the way most workers bump into their colleagues at the office/workplace every day. So you get these fabulous moments of, "Oh hey, Ursula [Le Guin]. S'up?! You get that book finished yet?" The fringe benefit is that you don't have to worry about bumping into your boss as you socialize and make nice "at the office." There is no boss! You're a writer!
The other big benefit is that you get to actually meet your readers, which is cool and bizarre, like a first date lasting all of two minutes. The book-signing table can be lonely at times, as you wait patiently for people who actually want to talk to you and have to sign a book. But when the signees do arrive, it's worth the wait. I'll sign just about anything, even if people don't have the cash to buy books. I've signed many an agenda in my day. I once signed a flyer with my face on it for a 12-year-old boy who advised me that I was "wrecking the picture."
Canada counts one large queer literary festival, Xtra's "Writing Outside the Margins," in its arsenal of big lit fests (editor's note: and, of course, Capital Xtra's annual one-night Transgress Festival in Ottawa, part of the Ottawa International Writer's Festival). This doesn't mean that other literary festivals are un-queer. Many literary festivals, when you scroll through their line-up, count at least one homo writer, which I suppose, if we're working on the "one in 10" law of averages, is fine.
Should there be more queers at these things?
Yes.
Would it be nice to see a variety of queers, from the Ivan E Coyotes to the Sky Gilberts to the Zoe Whittalls of the q-lit world on these stages?
Absolutely.
I consider festivals a little bit queer when I'm there, because I am, I think, a potent queer ingredient in the mix. At the same time, I hate the idea of representing "the queer" when I'm standing behind my podium, because it seems a little unfair to do the double duty of representing a book and "a queer." It makes me wonder what everyone else is representing. Their poetry and "the elderly ladies with the big sweater jackets," their play and the "cute dudes in suits who smoke too much prior to performing" people?
Coming off our recent election, it's hard to think about these festivals as a working artist without considering where these events fit into the realm of arts funding. During debates many politicians flagged their support of arts festivals. A similar vibe can be felt when you hear Toronto's mayor talk about the fabulousness of arts festival Nuit Blanche. It's all, "Look, Toronto supports the arts! We've allocated a whole night to the arts!" Awesome.
I think festivals are symbols, sometimes, that governments like to hold up as proof that they, insert party name here, support art (see also: writing, theatre, film) in Canada. The trick, mind you, is that while these events do, in fact, bring literature, film, theatre and visual art to communities and cities, and celebrate the wide diversity of art (hopefully) out there, they don't necessarily support artists. Yes, artists get paid to appear and read. Yes, these events promote books and hopefully help book sales. But do these events make the working lives of writers easier or financially feasible? Not really. Could you survive on roughly $100 a month (the average performance fee for a single performance at a literary festival for those artists starting off)? No, obviously not.
What does make artists lives easier? Larger funding programs and granting programs that give artists the funding to devote the space and time necessary to write books, plays, and generally make art happen.
It may be that the bigger picture here is that festivals ultimately give communities and illustrate communities' love of literature and the arts in general. This is their greatest calling, I think. And this may be why we need more queer literary festivals: so more queers can come out and show their love for queer literature and the people who write it. Let's create more and more big time love for q-lit. We can hire some giant gay Mounties and get a popcorn machine. And the green room will have donuts and martinis. Sounds amazing to me.