Local Book Festival draws large crowd
Despite a cold and rainy day, the Second Annual Lexington Book Festival on Saturday drew a large crowd of enthusiastic readers of all ages.
From young children and middle school-grade students wearing their “Battle of the Books” T-shirts to young adults and older adults, the Arts Davidson County building at 202 N. Main St. was filled with close to 500 people during the day-long event, said Angela Frith, chair of the board of directors of the Lexington Book Festival, the nonprofit organization that planned the event with sponsors and volunteers.
Stacy McAnulty of Kernersville interviewed by teacher and volunteer Daniel Everhart drew a crowd of team members from “Battle of the Books,” a reading incentive program for grades three through 12. {Photo: Antionette Kerr/Davidson Local}
The event sessions included children’s readings, interviews with authors, book signings, vendors and panel discussions on topics ranging from Southern and LBTQ+ voices in literature to faith and social justice.
“We were very pleased to see there was good representation across all the sessions,” Frith said, noting the variety of attendees who were drawn to hear and see 15 authors talk about their work.
Frith said only about half the vendors who were to be outside the building under tents made it to the event due to the weather, but the ones who were there told her they were successful. She noted one self-published author told her she sold 70 books.
In fact, Frith noted, several authors sold out of books on-site and at Pig City Books, the official bookseller for the event.
She noted there were long book-signing lines for Dan Yaccarino, the author and illustrator of more than 50 books for children. His visit was sponsored by Friends of the Lexington Library.
Stacy McAnulty of Kernersville, who has written more than 30 books, including the middle school-grade novel, “The Miscalculations of Lightning Girl,” an Indie Bestseller, also drew a crowd of team members from “Battle of the Books,” a reading incentive program for grades three through 12.
While there were veteran writers in attendance, several of the authors were promoting their first novels, such as Crystal Smith Paul, who had a long line of people waiting for her to sign “Did You Hear About Kitty Karr?” She was born and raised in Charlotte and her father and his family are from Winston-Salem so those locales figure into the story set in Los Angeles, where she lives now.
{Photo By: Clarence-Vernon Hargrave/Davidson Local}
The book, which explores American pop culture, colorism and the generational trauma of racism in the U.S., is a Reese’s Book Club and Book of the Month Club pick. The historical novel spans the years from 1937 to 2017.
{Contributed Photo By:Mavis Gant} Crystal Smith Paul, author of award-winning novel “Did You Hear About Kitty Karr,” wave to the more than a dozen of her family members and friends in the audience.
During an interview session Saturday, Paul, who has worked as a journalist and is currently doing digital marketing, said she had been working on the book for 10 years before it was published.
“It’s my attempt to color in the leaves of my family tree combined with my interest in the entertainment field and celebrity,” she noted.
Paul, who said she is already working on a second novel about racism in corporate America, said she hopes her book “fosters discussion and more empathy on all sides — to open eyes to the struggles of all people.”
Another crowd gathered to hear a panel discussion on seeking justice with Phoebe Zerwick, the author of “Beyond Innocence: The Life Sentence of Darryl Hunt,” which is shortlisted for the 2023 Southern Book Prize in nonfiction.
Zerwick is a veteran journalist, narrative writer and documentary maker who is now the director of the journalism program at Wake Forest University. She noted her first reporting job upon graduation from the Columbia University School of Journalism was covering Davidson County for the Winston-Salem Journal.
She continued to write for the Journal for many years and was asked by an editor there in 2003 to investigate the case of Darryl Hunt, who had been convicted of the rape and murder of a copy editor at the Journal in 1984 but had steadfastly proclaimed his innocence. A new appeal had been filed in 2003 requesting DNA testing and he was subsequently exonerated and released in February 2004.
Zerwick wrote an eight-part series exposing the systemic racism in the legal system in the case for the Journal titled “Murder, Race, Justice: The State vs. Darryl Hunt,” which the writer called “the highlight of my career.” After advocating for other prisoners for years after his release and becoming a leader of justice reform, Hunt committed suicide in 2016. When that happened, Zerwick began looking into Hunt’s background, his private life and personal anguish, to find out why. The result was her book.
“If he were here today, Hunt would be advocating for Charles McNeair,” Zerwick said of a black Lexington man who has served 44 years in prison after pleading guilty, at the age of 16, to second-degree rape of a white woman in Lexington.
{Photo By: Vikki Broughton Hodges/Davidson Local} Rev. Alan Suber (left), author Phoebe Zerwick and Jim Strillacci discuss her book about the late Darryl Hunt and a local case involving systemic racism in the legal system at the Lexington Book Festival Saturday afternoon.
Two members of a local advocacy group working for clemency for McNeair, retired police officer Jim Strillacci and the Rev. Alan Suber, also spoke during the panel discussion.
“I was flabbergasted, offended and ashamed,” Strillacci said about reading information on the McNeair case.
As a 36-year-veteran in law enforcement, with 20 years of those as police chief in Hartford, Conn., Strillacci said he was appalled at the “lousy police work” in the case, such as having no physical evidence. In addition, he noted that McNeair was “functionally illiterate” and pleaded guilty under the threat of a death sentence.
“By statutes today, he could get no more than 17 years,” he noted.
Suber and Wanda Cox, another member of the committee seeking McNeair’s release, told the group assembled for the panel discussion to continue to contact the governor’s office to bring McNeair home.
“We don’t want Charles to die in prison,” Suber said.
Zerwick advised the people supporting McNeair’s release to tell their personal stories about him in letters to the governor.
“There’s a power in telling stories,” she said. “Tell your stories in these letters. That’s what I encourage you to do.”
