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In a few short years BookFest Windsor has grown by leaps and bounds and is now one of the premiere literary festivals in Canada. Events are thoughtfully conceived so that a range of tastes is satisfied and practices beyond writing (e.g. editing, publishing, bookclubbing, performance) are celebrated. I chose to hold my book launch at BookFest Windsor because I know everyone will be there, and in a festive, happy, book-buying mood! Lenore Lang's efforts have greatly enhanced literary life in Windsor and fostered the success of authors new and established.
-- Poet Susan Holbrook

Come Wednesday, Windsor will come alive with the wonderful readings and writings of world-class wordsmiths the calibre of David Adams Richards, Marty Gervais, Susan Holbrook, Karl Jirgens, Dorothy Mahoney, John B. Lee, Rosemary Sullivan, Bruce Meyer, George Elliott Clarke, Marilyn Gear Pilling, Karen Hall, A. F. Moritz, Jan Conn, Judith Sinanga, Terry Griggs and Helen Humphreys, to identify but a few of the stellar authors who will attend the Eighth Annual BookFest Windsor, considered by most the finest literary event of its kind in Southwestern Ontario.

How sweet it is! Still, it wasn't always this way. For many years, the tiny festival struggled to find its sea legs, to obtain the kind of funding that would take it to the next (and next) surge and crest, to attract the kinds of lineups (both in terms of audiences and artists) essential to ensure its continued depth, health and growth. Now, of course, it's a genuine phenomenon, a banner event many writers consider one of the grandest on the planet, particularly given the intimacy of its venues and the collective spirit underpinning its unqualified success, a success largely attributable to Lenore Langs, herself an accomplished poet, beloved teacher and, I am proud to brag, my best friend in this world, the woman who means more to me than words could possibly convey. I tell you this so you may understand why, given the closeness of our unbreakable bond, it seems only fair to me that I conduct an e-mail interview with her, a Q & A session, so to speak, so that I do not go overboard -- which I could do, at the drop of a hint -- and, you, Dear IOW Readers, hear the unvarnished truth about the little festival that struggled yet grew to become one of the greatest and most highly anticipated in the universe.

Who are you, Lenore Langs?

I've variously been a cancer researcher, a Raging Granny, a creative-writing teacher, a member of the singing group "Women of Gaia," a lay minister.

You are a poet, too. Where do you find your poems; how do they come into being?

Gee, that's kind of hard . . . I guess I'd say my poems burst forth from my feelings for the people and things I love.

Do you have a new poem you feel comfortable sharing with IOW readers, please?

I do. Thank you for asking. It's called "The Hawk":

From the window
I watch a Cooper's hawk
Swoop to the lawn with a grey bird
Captive in its talons
The hooked beak
Jerks loose strings of entrails
Blood and grey feathers fly
To fall in a circle
On the snow
I watch until the hawk
Spreads his wings wide
And is gone

The carnage remains
Until the next snowfall

Lovely! Thank you. Now, let's talk shop: This year, BookFest Windsor commences Nov. 4th and concludes Nov. 7th . . . Oh, wait a minute, this just in:

Wow. Coolness. How thrilling the entire city's in your corner.

"Our" corner is right. It really is so gratifying, the support we've received from all sectors, especially now, during these hard times for everyone, particularly since this is a city so dependent on its auto industry which, as you know, is not flourishing.

But, the Festival's flourishing, clearly. Tell me about how it came into existence, about the early days when it was just a gleam of a dream in someone's mind's eye.

It began with a bunch of local writers, teachers, profs, bookstore owners and local publishers sitting over coffee in Anne Beer's bookstore (or over a brew or glass of wine at the Dominion House), talking about books and wishing that there was something exciting going on in the Windsor literary scene -- complaining that no one in the rest of the country seemed to know that Windsor existed -- even the maps on the place mats in the service centres on the 401 showed Southwestern Ontario ending in London. Anne Beer kept saying, "We should start a book festival." This went on for a couple of years. Then, Dan and Alexis Wells joined the group to talk and drink beer and, when Anne, as usual, said, "We should start a festival," Dan Wells [of Biblioasis] replied, "Let's do it!" So, we did. Dan invited the writers, we booked the Capitol Theatre for the venue and we asked all our friends for money. Tim Horton's gave us free coffee; Sobey's donated the sandwiches.

Our aim from the beginning was to put on a festival that the visiting authors would enjoy -- we wanted it to be a party, so we took the visitors out to nice restaurants and the President of the University of Windsor invited everyone to an "Afterwords" party. No rubber chicken. For the first few years, we had car pools to take the writers to the restaurant, but we found we had trouble getting them back to the theatre in time for their sessions. They wanted to linger over dinner or they had to leave the restaurant still clutching their desserts. When we changed our venue to the Art Gallery of Windsor after a few years -- there are multiple spaces there that we now use -- we went with Bamboo, the on-site restaurant, for the authors' meals. That worked and works better.

Windsor boasts a thriving arts community. There have always been literary events and writers here. Think, for example, of Alice Munro, Alistair MacLeod, Eugene McNamara, Joyce Carol Oates, Nino Ricci . . . And we have always had readings and writers' groups. For instance, we used to have readings at the Tempest Bookstore (with thanks to Sarah Jarvis) in Amherstburg. Black Moss Press's Marty Gervais hosts his wonderful Writers' Salon these days; but, when Adele Wiseman was Writer in Residence at the University of Windsor, she organized Wayzgoose, a 10-university cross-border reading series. When Judith Fitzgerald followed in Adele's Writer-in-Residence footsteps, she organized "Makin' McLuhan," a colloquium on Dr. Herbert Marshall McLuhan held at the university in 1994 designed to reassess McLuhan's contribution to social, literary, cultural and critical theory, drawing in people from outside the Windsor community. Panellists were Thomas Dilworth, Peter Goddard, Karen Hall and Philip Marchand.

Ah, yes. I remember *that* event. The beautiful Karen really kept the pace hopping and the place bopping; but, the panellists -- all brilliant, of course -- came from such diverse disciplines (for a mere pittance, really). The only thing they had in common was McLuhan. It was, natch, many years before the good doctor was in; but, I was working -- when I wasn't write-working, that is -- in the vault, sorting and organizing his papers and recordings which still exist, in the basement of Assumption University. I loved being down there. It was like being with the media maestro himself, seeing the actual letters Wyndham Lewis and others sent, the signatures . . . but, I digress . . . what else is news :)? Have you found sponsors? How do you fund this shindig?

We have three government sponsors, the Ontario Arts Council, Canadian Heritage and the Canada Council. The University of Windsor and the Windsor Public Library are our partners. Award-winning journalist Ted Shaw (of The Windsor Star) creates terrific profiles and conducts wonderful interviews with our authors. Barbara Peacock -- she recently retired from the CBC -- she did amazing shows for us; truly, one of our biggest cheerleaders and boosters. She always devoted an entire week to conducting interviews on her afternoon slot. Now, we're looking forward to working with her replacement, Bob Steele, the new afternoon host. And, well, there's VIA Rail (which provides us with tickets to use as a fundraiser); there's also CAW Local 444 which gives us funding and we do receive some financial assistance from the Downtown Business Association. The Radisson Riverfront Hotel is the "Hotel of the Festival" and it blesses us with a very good rate. The authors love it! It's right on the Detroit River and the beds are very comfortable (or, so they tell me). We're especially grateful to the Radisson; not many hotels would go the extra mile; but, it certainly does and the writers are always amazed at its fine service and kind staff.

We sell memberships in Literary Arts Windsor, which we made as the umbrella corporation for BookFest -- for charitable purposes -- so we do write charitable tax receipts. Let me think . . . Oh, a lot of people give what they are able. We sell books by the participating authors, and the Bookstore of the University of Windsor lets us pocket a good percentage of the profits. We do sell tickets, but we keep them reasonably priced because Windsor has a lot of unemployment. We don't charge students. Anyone who would like to attend but can't afford a ticket can attend and work as a volunteer. We always worry about money until Barb O'Neill, our volunteer accountant from the KPMG firm, tells us after the Festival that we aren't in the hole. We have no paid employees. All of the committee members, for example, are volunteers.

Our original webmaster was Davydd Cook. He designed and created this beautiful website and ran it until last year -- on a voluntary basis. A huge gift to BookFest; we couldn't afford to hire a professional webmaster like him. Davydd decided to go back to study Drama at the University of Windsor last year. We couldn't believe our luck when Lindsey Rivait offered to take over from Davydd and carry on the webwork, again as a volunteer. Without all the volunteers -- planning-committee members, students, publicists, media people, drivers, dog-walkers, webmaster/mistress, hand-holders, sound-checkers -- we couldn't afford to present BookFest. Windsor is a very giving, very generous city. We do feel very lucky. Somehow, we just find the right people or they find us. It's almost magical.

Nitty-gritty time: Worst catastrophe?

Hrm. Not many really huge ones, thankfully; but, there was the year that his driver went to pick up Austin Clarke at the airport . . . only Austin wasn't there; he was waiting at the train station. Luckily, he's a resourceful as a well as a gracious person; he found his way to the hotel and he wasn't even slightly mad at us. There was the year that we decided to go high tech and rented wireless microphones for all the authors to use. Not until the first panel did we discover that some kind of equipment at the Art Gallery interfered with the wireless gizmos to produce terrible static. The audience shrieked and covered its collective ears. We ripped the mics away from the authors and handed them the Gallery's single old-fashioned mic to share while Martin Deck from the University Bookstore tore off to Long & McQuade's to rent an old-fashioned system. It's always a minor catastrophe when an author says to me, "I accidentally threw out my envelope without taking my cheque out of it" or "Oh, was the cheque in the envelope?"

Highlights?

The year that Clark Blaise brought his little dog to BookFest. It weighed about three pounds and was white and fluffy and very cute. The student volunteers all wanted to go to the hotel and take it for walks -- even the guys. Clark said it was a good way for them to attract the opposite sex. After dinner that night, the dog-sitters of the moment took it some bones from the roast lamb, which it apparently enjoyed very much. Then, there's the morning after, the gatherings at Elias Deli and hearing, without fail, the authors telling us Elias has the best poached eggs they've ever tasted. (I think some authors beg to return so they can stay at the Radisson and eat at Elias Deli again :).)

I'd also say the times after the readings were over for the day and there was music in the concourse and one or another of the authors did an impromptu solo dance performance. Personally, I enjoy the panel discussions very much, especially when the authors in the audience get involved in the discussion. It can get quite heated. An audience with John Metcalf in it makes for a very lively discussion!

Best scoop / coup?

We've had a lot of big bold-face names over the years, some of whom were not all that well-known when we featured them: Lawrence Hill, Leila Pepper, Michael Crummey, Annabel Lyon, Peter Robinson, Nicole Brossard, Stan Rogal, Karen Mulhullan, Christina Simmons, A. J. Levin, Christopher Paul Curtis, Susan McMaster, rob mclennan, Karen P. Ouellette, John Wing, Jr. . . .

Does BookFest Windsor attract many American attendees?

We hope -- always -- to attract more. The slowdown at the border's affected us, I think. It's made some more reluctant to come across. Our American friends and Canadian volunteers are putting up posters and distributing schedules in Detroit and Ann Arbor. That helps, I find.

What do you see in your BookFest future?

BookFest keeps evolving. We began as a one-day stand-up reading event. Now we send writers into both the English and the French schools; teachers take classes to the library to meet authors; we offer publishing panels, we talk about self-publishing, we feature books on the environment, politics and poetry. We have question-and-answer as well as discussion groups. We present a four-day festival in multiple venues. This year, one of our featured authors is David Finch, an artist with Marvel comics. We're featuring an event at Phog Lounge, recently voted the nation's best live music venue in the CBC Radio 3 contest, besting more than 100 other Canadian venues for the title. That event stars Ray Robertson reading from his Moody Food, a novel about a rock band -- and there will be a band led by Kelly Hoppe. Alexander Zelenyj will also be at Phog, reading from his short-fiction collection, Experiments at 3 Billion AM.

Do you like writers less or more now you've done this so many years?

I like people, some of whom are not primarily writers, especially the now-retired Dean of Graduate Studies, Lois Smedick, David Langs and Kitty Lewis, e.g. But, writers are people, as you know. We've found that the "biggest" writers tend to be the kindest and the most like "ordinary" people.

What do you do when you don't do BookFest Windsor?

I'm involved in the local literary community. I belong to a group of writers, "The Five Poets" (Karen P. Ouellette, Dorothy Mahoney, Leila Pepper and Marie Groundwater), and we do readings around town. I support other writers and writing groups -- attend readings, help to publicize events, etc. The writing scene isn't competitive -- plus, we know and try to support one another. I've taught creative writing at the University for many years. My friend -- the great poet and arts administrator Laurie Smith -- and I run Cranberry Tree Press; we've run many writing contests as well as helping writers to self-publish. I putter in the garden. I drink tea on the back porch. Life is good.

Famous last words?

Oh, I think those go to my husband: "I'm happiest during the four months when Lenore is not working on BookFest!"

Thanks, Dick. Me, too :)!

BookFest Windsor will feature roughly four-dozen Canadian authors, many of whom have won or have been nominated for prestigious national and international literary awards and prizes including the Booker, Griffin, GG, Molson, Trillium, Killam, IMPAC, etc. This year, the Fest offers sessions on the Graphic Novel, the Underground Railway, Francophone Literature, Spoken Word, Inter-Media, Digital Publishing and movies relating to literature, live music, poetry and fiction. There'll be launches of numerous new works including Susan Holbrook's Joy Is So Exhausting from Coach House Books; and, one of the magazine launches includes the marvellous 30th-anniversary Rampike issue; but, last yet best? Windsor's legendary Black Moss Press will be feted for thriving for 40 years through thick and thin, thanks entirely to the indefatigable Marty Gervais, himself a very fine poet. We're all hyped. Anybody would be!
-- Poet Karl Jirgens

Photograph of Lenore Langs © 2009 Dorothy Mahoney. Poetry (exclusive to The Globe and Mail) © 2009 Lenore Langs. All Rights Reserved.