A successful author has to be more than the introverted wordsmith, consumed by the story.
The writer must become the extrovert, marketing the story to audiences, said Gregg Wilhelm, president of CityLit Project, a nonprofit that promotes writers in the Baltimore metropolitan area.
“You really need to know how to read and entertain and perform,” he said. This ease comes with practice, he said.
Several writers had a chance to test their voices at the 11th annual Baltimore Book Festival on Sunday in Baltimore City.
Creative Alliance, a nonprofit that promotes the arts, partnered with CityLit to bring writers to the festival, where they read their work to their peers and curious passers-by.
Their voices competed with the rising din of the festival as handfuls of people wandered by the tent, stopping to listen.
Others sat quietly, filling the two dozen or so chairs, their heads tilted slightly to the side as they listened.
“This was a good little break-in for me,” said writer Judy Turner, who read aloud Sunday for the first time, adding that she was nervous and excited. Turner joined fellow writers Nancy Greene, Paul Lagasse, Eric Goodman, Barbara Friedland and Fernando Quijano, all participants in the Creative Alliance?s Write Here, Write Now workshops. The workshops create a community of writers in Baltimore, where they can get support, feedback, editing and revising.
“If people meet you and don?t like you, they won?t buy your book,” said Christine Stewart, host of Sunday?s panel and one of eight artists-in-residence and the only writer at Creative Alliance. “You?re like a walking ad.”
The readings were among dozens of events at this weekend?s Book Festival, which was expected to draw about 50,000 people, said Tracy Baskerville, spokeswoman for the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts.
The clear weather, as well as the much-anticipated appearance of Elmo and the man behind the monster, Kevin Clash, brought the crowds Sunday for the final day of the festival.
