On April 5, 2025, the Town of Amherst, as part of their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) programming, celebrated the first Global Village Festival. It was scheduled to be outside, on the Town Common. I signed up to be a vendor in the name of my publisher.
It was my first bookselling event since last summer. Normally, we would have had a table at either Arisia or Boskone. And, a couple of years ago, I had a table in November at the Mill District holiday arts and crafts festival. But, for various reasons, none of those panned out this year. I felt a little rusty as I prepared this year, to get ready to stand up the table.
I thought a bit about which books to take. I wasn’t sure whether this would be primarily a kids’ event or have more adult interest. I wanted to take a nice selection of books from my publisher. I requested suggestions from the publisher, but didn’t get any. I ended up selected twenty short, novelette length books that are $5 each and a couple of middle-grade books.
I took my own books, of course. I had hardback and trade paper editions of Revin’s Heart and Better Angels: Tour de Force. I had my books of haiku, Poŝtmarkoj el Esperantujo, Premitaj Floroj, and senokulvitre. I also brought some of the original novelette-length editions and some stand-alone copies of The Third Time’s the Charm.
As the date approached, it became clear that the weather wouldn’t support an outdoor event. A cold rain was predicted to fall, beginning in the morning and not ending until the next day. They changed the venue to the middle school cafeteria. This raised a conundrum. I have avoided doing indoor events where people are unmasked. In the end, we decided to go ahead with the event. We both wore masks (as did perhaps 2-5% of the other attendees).
My wife was of immeasurable support. She used her connections ahead of time to try to get people to come to the event and promoted my table as part of it. She helped me load in and load out, which saved me a lot of time. She went to the dollar store and got some candy to give away — and a few little knick-knacks to dress up the table (some little magical wands and some balloons.) And then, she simply wandered around the event looking for people she knew to remind that I had a table. When my state representative took a turn through the room and missed me, she tracked her down and forced her to come back and say hello to me. She’s the best.
It’s fun to run a dealer table. One of the organizers, who is a philatelist, expressed interested in Poŝtmarkoj el Esperantujo (though she didn’t buy one.) I sold a copy of The Third Time’s a Charm to a grandmother shopping for a book for her grandson. One bibliophile bought a copy of Premitaj Floroj. A couple of science fiction fans bought books. Lots of friends stopped by. One friend hadn’t realized I had hardbacks out and bought copies of Revin’s Heart and Better Angels: Tour de Force.
A daughter of a friend came by the table with a friend and another younger girl (probably the other girl’s sister). I did my annoying-uncle shtick when I gave them packets of gummi candies (purchased by my wife). There were “happy chicks” and “happy hoppers.” The younger expressed curiosity about the hoppers and I told her they were grasshoppers. The older girl gave me a withering stare and explained to the girl that they were rabbits. But the little girl had a hard time choosing which to take. Eventually, she did an eenie-meanie-miney-moe routine that went far beyond any reasonable length and, finally, ultimately, she chose the hoppers. As she walked away, I told her to enjoy her grasshoppers. She grinned happily, now in on the joke.
We had to load out in the rain. We staged things carefully to get everything efficiently into the car in the correct order. (Where everything still is, since its still raining the next day). When I got home, I fixed a bite to eat (because I couldn’t really eat anything during the event due to needing to stay masked). And then, exhausted, I went to bed early.
