Many authors at Press Fest

For those who love local authors as much as they love their public libraries, there's an event happening today that's guaranteed to please.

The Capital City Press Festival is a one-day smorgasbord of books by Alberta authors along with the authors themselves. Capital City Press is a new initiative of the Edmonton Public Libraries. The way that the 2017 writer in residence describes it makes it sound like some kind of incubator with many resources for writers and their audiences.

“It's a place that is meant to highlight Edmonton authors … and to make them more available to residents of the city. That happens both digitally and also in meet space, as you might say,” David van Belle said. “It's also a place for people to exchange ideas.”

“The goal is to grow writing within Edmonton. How do we get Edmontonians to recognize who's in the community, who's doing what, and what kind of great writing is being done by authors who live in the same city as them.”

Some might be surprised at how many strong writers in all genres come from the metropolitan region. That's a long list of names, some of them with St. Albert and Morinville connections.

“There's a huge community. When I took over the job as the writer in residence at the beginning of the year, Marty Chan (one of the two outgoing writers in residence), he put together a list of every author in Edmonton. It was an exceedingly long list. It was enormous.”

Among the festival participants are current and former metro writers in residence Wayne Arthurson, Marty Chan, Laurel Deedrick-Mayne, Jason Lee Norman, and Natasha Deen, as well as Leif Gregersen.

The festival ties in with the launch of the initiative and events that were held Friday evening to kick things off.

As for the festival proper today, there is a selection of book signings and panel discussions on topics ranging from how to write for younger audiences to true crime and speculative fiction. There's also a chance to meet the finalists for the Alberta Readers' Choice Award.

Van Belle himself will be offering the Storytelling Workshop, starting at 12:30 p.m. It's a way of encouraging people to get involved in the library's Digital Storytelling Project as part of the Canada 150 celebrations.

“We are making electronic kits available to people to tell stories from their lives or stories about Canada, or about their experience of Canada. My job in that is to work with people who might be interested in doing those stories to help them shape the form of their story.

These stories, he added, will become short videos that have narration, with images and maybe music added too.