A Twenty-Five Year Full Circle Moment: A Book at the National Book Festival!

On September 8, 2001, I was three years into the writing life and so, so, so eager to hopefully, fingers crossed, finally be an author someday. There was a new event in DC taking place that day, a book gathering started by then First Lady Laura Bush and held at the Library of Congress called the National Book Festival.

I lived in Northern Virginia at the time, so I loaded my sixth-month-old in his stroller and took the Metro into town. All morning and afternoon I sat in on lectures and book signings. It was beyond inspiring. I listened to an author (whose name now escapes me) talk about story ideas. Some, she said, you had to work for. Others she called Athena ideas: They came to you fully formed (like Athena popping out of Zeus’s head). I got to talk with Katherine Paterson and tell her how much her books meant to me. At one point, I entered an elevator and looked up to see the other passenger was Jan Karon. “I love your books!” I blurted. “And I love your baby,” she said. Then the doors opened and we went our separate ways.

So when I got an email a few weeks ago from the New Mexico Center for the Book* saying that The Burning Season had been selected as the Great Reads youth title to represent New Mexico at this year’s Festival, I could hardly believe it. This is the greatest honor I can think of for a book that in many ways is a love letter to my beautiful home. I remembered my twenty-seven-year-old self that day, soaking in the festival and so full of yearning. What if I could go back and tell her that not only would she sell a couple of books, but someday one of them would be featured at the festival too?

Two titles are picked every year to represent each state — an adult book and a children’s book. This year’s adult title is Philip Connors’s the mountain knows the mountain: a fire watch diary. Phil works in a fire tower in the Gila National Forest. His book, Fire Season: Field Notes from a Wilderness Lookout, was hugely influential in the writing of my story, and I am such a fan. I got to meet him last fall when he was in town for a book signing. After he was contacted by the New Mexico Center for the Book, he sent me a congratulatory message from his tower (fun!). This pairing of books feels like another full-circle moment. See this quick news clip and article where we both briefly talk about our books.

The writing life can be pretty discouraging, but it’s pretty incredible, too. Grateful for this incredible moment in so many different ways.

* I’m not sure why the image from their site says twenty years, as the first festival was twenty-five years ago. I guess it’s an old graphic.