At the Festival of Books, the resounding message was that books save lives, and words have immense power. In a landscape marked by increasing divisions, literature stands as a battleground and sanctuary. This year, authors, researchers and creatives confronted how creating is contentious — and that books have an enduring ability to sustain imagination and preserve history.
On feeling the power of a book for the first time
“‘The Funny Guy’ — Grace Allen Hogarth. The reason I’m choosing that one is because in children’s literature, especially, they speak of windows and mirrors. You want books where I’m going to see myself, and you want books where you look at others’ experiences. In ‘The Funny Guy,’ they’re both. Here I’m experiencing someone else’s very different life — and it’s not just a window. I’m seeing my own life reflected back onto me with friendship awkwardness and family bumps.” — Debbie Levy, historian and author of “A Dangerous Idea,” speaking on the “One Page at a Time: Books, Bans, and Resistance in the 21st Century” panel.
On balancing between research and fiction
“I considered myself a straight-up fiction writer for years. There was a shift when I moved downtown. Once I moved downtown, I became obsessed with history, and I became obsessed with the past. That started me down this road of research for the stuff I wanted to write. I found myself turning to scholarship to write the kind of fiction I wanted to write. I wanted to imbue that history with life.” — Dana Johnson: author and USC English professor, speaking on “The Literary Life: Connecting the Creative, Critical, and Personal” panel.
“Learning how to venture into emotional depths that scared me was something I had to work through. Because I’m inspired my feminist writers, the politics of citation is something really important to me. A challenge I face is how do you cite without slowing down the prose? Academics are taught to explain. Creatives are taught to create emotional effects. Balancing my desire to pay homage while at the same time, telling a good story.” — Elda María Román: author and USC associate professor of English, speaking on “The Literary Life: Connecting the Creative, Critical, and Personal” panel.
“One thing I value about writing fiction as a scholar is that I can weave my academic ideas in through and maybe introduce an idea to someone who hasn’t encountered it already. I do wish we could have more of a market for criticism that really does analyze literature in a way everyone wants to read . . . I lament that if something doesn’t have market value, it develops no cultural value.” — Sara Sligar: author and USC creative writing professor, speaking on “The Literary Life: Connecting the Creative, Critical, and Personal” panel.
On revising and drafting writing
“With fiction, I can say anything or do anything. I never hide in fiction. And the revision process is so fun. It’s so fun. It’s the best thing about writing. I do have that feeling that I’m shaping, I’m chiseling, things are blurry, like I’m at the optometrist office, and they’re making my vision sharper and sharper. That’s how the whole revision process feels to me.” — Dana Johnson
On sports and politics
“Sports performance is a magnifier. It magnifies the political question of the day. The sport world has been this space where marginalized people have found opportunity. It’s attractive because they’re in their bodies. They’re unapologetically performing, and there’s something appealing to those who feel a sense of imprisonment. And in our country, sport is a place where we say democracy exists.” — Frank Andre Guridy, historian and author of “The Stadium: An American History of Politics, Protest, and Play” speaking on the “On Your Mark, Get Set, Politicize: Sports in Politics” panel.
“The Coliseum has a rich history — partially because it’s in South Central, it’s in proximity to Black and Latinx communities of Los Angeles, and because it’s an iconic venue where Angelenos came together. Stadiums are inherently political institutions because they’re dependent upon public resources to build them, and even when they are privatized, they’re dependent on enormous mobilization of public resources in terms of infrastructure.” — Frank Andre Guridy
“It was so beautiful while writing that book, realizing I’ve always been that little girl wanting to come out of my shell and not knowing how to. Nobody asks questions. They just assume. The more elite you become in a sport, the more you realize the things you do are really politicized. You can’t be an elite individual without being a part of politics.” — Cece Telfer, first openly transgender person to win an NCAA title, speaking on the “On Your Mark, Get Set, Politicize: Sports in Politics” panel.
On facing opposition and personal costs
“I’m a school librarian, and I’ve worked at my school for 24 years — at the same school I attended. I have eight coworkers that I taught. Very small town and we’re all family. Not if you talk about censorship at the public library, which is what I did. I went and spoke at the public library . . It’s anything any librarian would say. Apparently that was the wrong thing to do, because I’ve been harassed for three years about it. What I’m seeing as an educator of 650 9, 10 and 11 year-olds, is it’s getting really bad with the kids.” — Amanda Jones, educator and the 2021 School Library Journal Co-Librarian of the Year speaking on the “One Page at a Time: Books, Bans, and Resistance in the 21st Century” panel.
“Toni Morrison has a quote for everything. She was basically saying to be a writer is a very bloody game. It’s one of the most dangerous jobs because once you put something into the world, and once it starts to shift culture in a way that someone or some group does not like, you become a target . . . We learned through ‘All Boys Aren’t Blue’ that you can file a criminal complaint against a book because in Flagler County, Florida, a woman took my book to a sheriff’s office and filed two criminal charges.” — George M. Johnson, activist and author of “All Boys Aren’t Blue,” speaking on the “One Page at a Time: Books, Bans, and Resistance in the 21st Century” panel.
“The imagination — that’s really what they want to get, right? When they do all the things they’re doing to us — banning, policies, 77 executive orders in a week – they want you to doom scroll. And they want you to feel hopeless. The thing they can’t see is your imagination. And that’s the one thing they’ve been so upset about, they can’t crack with creatives.” — George M. Johnson
On hope and hopelessness
“It’s okay to feel hopeless. Hopelessness is one of the strongest tools my people have come from. Hopelessness within us sometimes is the catalyst we need to push us forward. As important as it is to hope that things get better, when you get to a place of hopelessness, sometimes that’s where the power of your resistance actually lies. Always remember that hopelessness is okay to lean into. At times, it’ll bring you back to that place of hope.” — George M. Johnson
On looking to the future during the present moment of turmoil
“When you have children, you’re always forced to think of the future — of what kind of country they’re going to inherit. One of the most vital things for us to do is to write down everything that is happening now. Write it down as it is happening, so we do not lose touch of the emotions of that time and of that reality of that time. We’re living in an era where there’s an attack on accurate history, when a lot of stories of American life are being censored or erased.” — Sarah Kendzior, author of “The Last American Road Trip” speaking on the “Write to Remember: Memoir as Witness in Times of Turmoil” panel.
“There are a large number of politicians and plutocrats who not only see you as disposable but also want you to surrender your soul. And I choose that word surrender on purpose because no matter what is coming our way, you have control over how you treat people, and how you treat yourself. You have qualities, like imagination or compassion or resilience, that no one can take from you. They can only be surrendered. I just encourage that whatever is coming our way the next 10, 20 years, do not ever give those up. Do not ever think that someone’s humanity is disposable or negotiable.” — Sarah Kendzior
Literature persists because it refuses simplicity. The more systems try to control writing, the more vital the act of storytelling becomes. At the Festival of Books, these writers demonstrated how words are the most powerful weapon to wield.