Perfect weather leads to one of the best Decatur Book Festivals

Alicia Davis, of Stone Mountain, enjoys the Emory Tent at the Decatur Book Festival with her son, Justin.

Sunny skies and refreshing winds helped make this year’s Decatur Book Festival a wonderful experience for the larger-than-normal crowds that filled downtown Decatur this weekend.

“It was a fabulous Decatur Book Festival, with more visitors than we’ve ever had before,” said Leslie Wingate, director of campus and community relations.

Julie Newton, library coordinator in the conservation department, has organized a book festival art project three different times. This year’s attendees used crayons and markers to color fans that had multiple  line drawings on them. “The depth of imagination and the variety of artistic approaches to these simple drawings was just awesome.”

Julie Newton (right) helps guests attach popsicle sticks to finish their fans.

According to Julie, “For much of the weekend it was standing-room-only in our hands-on area in the Emory tent. There was one time that two children shared the same chair, it was that popular.”

An added benefit for having people work on the fans is that it makes them more likely to stay and listen to LITS staff talk about all of the events happening this year. The beatnik fan was a helpful tie-in to the upcoming Beats Generation exhibit to be shown in the Woodruff Library’s Schatten Gallery.

Standing room only.

Added Julie, “I had several people tell me that the Emory art activity is their favorite part of the entire book festival.”

Under the Emory tent, which was the largest of the festival, visitors could learn about special collections, library exhibitions, faculty authors, Carlos Museum artifacts, Frankenstein and the Center for Ethics, and virtual reality initiatives.

“We are so fortunate to have such a rich array of offerings at Emory,” said Leslie. “I am grateful the Decatur Book Festival provides the platform to show it off to the Atlanta community.”

The Beatnik,  which was one of three designs festivalgoers could color.

Special thanks goes out to Maya Cody, who organized this year’s event, and an army of Emory staff, including over a dozen LITS employees, who set up, manned, and broke down the Emory tables.

For information on how to participate in next year’s festival, contact Maya at maya [dot] cody [at] emory [dot] edu.

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