The Authors Guild Launches Its First Words, Ideas, And Thinkers Festival In Lenox
The society of published authors is presenting prominent writers in a weekend of conversations and meet-the-author events.
Is your virtual pile of tickets to summer’s events thinning? You might think the countdown to the end of the season's cultural cornucopia is approaching, but we say, not so fast. Not when the likes of authors Dan Brown, Geraldine Brooks, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Jane Smiley, and other leading literary lights will be in the Berkshires next month. They’ll be here for the inaugural “Words, Ideas, and Thinkers: Reimagining America” Festival presented by The Authors Guild on the campus of Shakespeare and Company in Lenox, September 22-25. The Authors Guild Foundation is the educational and charitable arm of the 12,000-member Authors Guild, America’s oldest and largest society of published authors.
The weekend will be jam packed with lectures, conversations, “pop-up events,” receptions and booksignings — and almost all are free. In addition, the lineup includes ticketed dinners at Shakespeare & Co and private homes with Festival speakers, and a fundraiser to support the Authors Guild Foundation. The Festival opens with Dan Brown (The Da Vinci Code, etc.) on “When Religion Meets Science,” and concludes with the pop-up “Community Service,” a short play by Laura Pederson starring Paula Ewin and David Rockefeller. In between, attendees will have the option to take in, among others, “What Animals Know,” with Geraldine Brooks and Jane Smiley; “Does the Supreme Court Have a Future?” with Linda Greenhouse and Nikolas Bowie;” and a pop-up with Letty Cottin Pogrebin reading from her new memoir, Shanda: A Memoir of Shame and Secrecy. The complete lineup is on the website.
Author Simon Winchester, a Sandisfield resident, is delighted that the Authors Guild is coming to the area. He will be speaking with Admiral Harry Harris (U.S. Navy, Retired) in a conversation “American and China: Comes the Moment.” With the Festival’s theme of “Reimagining America” and Winchester’s years as a journalist based in Hong Kong, Harris was a natural choice for Winchester to share words and ideas about where the U.S. stands in that region, and where it’s headed.
Simon Winchester. Photo: Rupert Winchester
“I’ve known Harry Harris for a long time. His culminating job was commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command. He wielded enormous military power. At the time he retired, he was the first Japanese-American ever to hold that post, and then was made ambassador to South Korea. Thanks to Nancy Pelosi, Hong Kong is front and center.”
Registration first opened for Authors Guild members and the festival’s giving sponsors; members of the public have been allowed to register their intentions to attend, and over 1,000 people did. On August 15, open registration begins, and session selection and tickets for hosted dinners will become available.
“The response has overwhelmed us,” says Lynn Boulger, executive director of the Authors Guild Foundation. “Never in my wildest dreams did I think we’d be here at this level.”
Boulger, who lives in Maine and ran the Summer Institute, a weeklong ideas festival at the College of the Atlantic in Bar Harbor, may have been a little surprised at the quick and enthusiastic response to Festival planning, but any regional person could tell you this is the ideal location for an intellectual endeavor like WIT. “A number of independent bookstores signaled to us that there are readers and writers here in spades,” she says. She knew that the Berkshires, so very literary to begin with, is easy to get to from Boston and New York, and was full of venues available to rent post high season. (Fortunately, Boulger listened to Letty Cottin Pogrebin, a member of the Authors Guild Foundation board and summer Berkshires resident, who advised that the event be pushed back into the fall so as not to interfere with the cultural schedule of residents and visitors.)
Elizabeth Kolbert
Boulger was also encouraged by the reception of local organizations, saying she got advice from executive directors Kelley Vickery (BIFF), Pam Tatge (Jacob’s Pillow), and Susan Wissler (The Mount), all of whom offered to help. Local businesses, too, have been generous with their sponsorships.
Was it difficult to draw these prominent authors to take part in the Festival? Hardly, Boulger says. Because it’s the Berkshires, it was an easy ask, and those who were busy this year requested they be put on the schedule for next year. And there will be a next year, as long as they can financially keep it going. Most of the events are free so that the whole community can be involved, but the paid events are important to help fund future festivals.
The indoor and outdoor venues at Shakespeare and Company aren’t huge, but even with so many registrations already in the queue, “not everybody will want to go to everything,” Boulger says. If you’re shut out of a program, don’t give up, she advises. They’ll have a 100-person waiting list for many of the sessions. There won’t be livestreaming, but they’ll be recording what they can for viewing later.
“It’s been dreamy working here,” Boulger says. “We want to become part of the Berkshires.”
Looks like the Authors Guild is moving in, and we are happy to add our own warm welcome.
Words, Ideas, and Thinkers: "Reimagining America" Presented by The Authors Guild
September 22-25
Shakespeare & Company, Lenox, MA
