The eleventh annual Read by the Sea literary festival was held in River John, Nova Scotia on July 24th

The weather was perfect and for the first time years we were able to strew ourselves over the lawn at the Legion Gardens to soak in the readings and interviews. The day was a great success.

The morning belonged to the children with WordPlay. About 70 people (adults and children) attended. This year, as last, the WordPlay venue was the River John School. This year’s slate included Shauntay Grant for the younger children and Kit Pearson for the chapter book crowd. The children chose their author and went with her for the reading and the workshop that accompanied it. As is our tradition, children were involved as introducers and interviewers on the chapter book stage. They did wonderful jobs. After the readings and workshops the children came back together to share their writing and art work at the ever-popular children’s Open Mike. The authors stayed to sign books (on sale through Hanna’s Books of Tatamagouche) and to chat with the children after the event.

New this year was a teen writing workshop with Kit Pearson for a small group of pre-registered teens. After the morning’s events, this group of eight particularly dedicated young people had lunch with Kit and a 90-minute writing session.

Centre Stage, in the afternoon, was held at the River John Legion Memorial Garden. Attendance was approximately 300. As has been our custom, we created a varied roster of writers with different styles and from different genres. One of the most oft-heard comments on this years festival was how different and vibrant the slate was—a veritable sampler of Canadian fiction. Our interviewers this year were Stephanie Domet from CBC Radio Halifax and Gary Blackwood.

During the break festival-goers had a chance visit the various tables and booths and concession stands including the book table run by Hanna’s Books. The store always does a land-office business on festival day. This year they sold a total of 288 books by the six invited authors. People had the opportunity to chat with writers, get books signed, and discuss the day with other book-lovers. Dinner followed the main event.  An open mike, attended by about 60 people, closed the day’s festivities.

Another terrific festival! See you all again next year on July 23, 2011.