30 years of books. YAY!

     So lets say that Star Trek isn't your thing.  And let's say that you don't like ribs(who are you?).  And let's say that you're not into the whole marijuana thing.  Well fear not, because there was still something going on in Chicago over the weekend that you could've enjoyed.  The Printer's Row Lit Fest went down this past weekend in the South Loop, and this year we saw a commemoration of the 30th Anniversary of the first Lit Fest.  Originally put together 30 years ago as a book fair and drawing in 6,500 people, the Lit Fest has grown to draw 150,000 people this past weekend.  As part of the 30th Anniversary celebration, there was a chat with an old MTV personality, members of Second City performed a reading adapted from The Breakfast Club, and there was a performance from the Old Town School of Folk Music.  But the weekend wasn't solely devoted to living in the past.  No, this was a time to celebrate the readers and writers of 2014.

     One of those so honored was Stuart Dybek, winner of the 2014 Harold Washington Literary Award.  Dybek has quite the history with Printer's Row, even going back to that very first festival where he won the Nelson Algren Short Story Award.  This time, Dybek was honored for two of his new collections of writing, which were inspired by Chicago.  "It happened so naturally," Dybek stated. "It wasn't an aesthetic decision of 'I will write about Chicago.' A lot of the stories happened here. When I drive through a lot of the neighborhoods, less (now), but still, back in the olden days when people didn't have air conditioning during the summers, they sat out with bottles of beer and they told stories.  The great lesson is that you don't have to leave Oak Park and go to Paris to find something to write about."

     Stuart Dybek wasn't the only person being honored though, as James Patterson received the Chicago Tribune Young Adult Literary Award.  Patterson has a long and prolific writing history, but has most recently taken a turn as a young adult writer and philanthropist, pledging to donate 28,000 books to the Chicago Public School system.  While Patterson was giving his presentation, he gave words of encouragement to the young aspiring writers there, while ending with this piece of wisdom: "I am aware that I write for a large audience, but when I write, I pretend there is one person sitting across from me and I don't want them to get up until I finish." To close out the festival, Marlo Thomas(yes, that girl) gave a talk about her new book and was very accommodating towards the audience.