[RP TownTalk] ArtsFest2014 Writers Row: An Opportunity to Meet Local Authors

[Jeffrey Yorke]

*ArtsFest2014*

*Writers Row: An Opportunity to Meet Local Authors*



Nearly 35 years ago when his first book was being published, Joel Garreau,
a young national news editor at *The Washington Post* told colleagues
“writing a book is the closest a man will ever come to giving birth to a
baby.” Within weeks, Garreau delivered *The Nine Nations of North
America,*<http://www.garreau.com/main.cfm?action=book&id=3> which
describes how the continent behaves not so much like 50 states or three
countries, but nine separate and powerful civilizations or economies. It
was a homerun for the author and the first of many of Garreau’s books
embraced by readers, marketers, political operatives and academics.



While penning a book is a monumental task, when it’s done writers take
great delight in talking about their characters, about their stories and
the process of getting published. ArtsFest2014, the seventh annual arts and
music festival hosted by Riverdale Park Arts Council in Town Center on
Sunday, May 4, 11 am to 5 pm, offers a rare opportunity for readers to meet
and greet local authors who will sign their books and tell them the behind
the scene stories of their works.



Sometimes writers get inspiration when they discover a hole in a story told
by a famous author. “When I was a high school student at Christchurch
School, a private Episcopalian boarding school located on the banks of the
Rappahannock River in Middlesex County, Virginia, I fell in love Dr. Arthur
Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes adventures,” says *Samuel Williams, Jr*., a
55-year-old Africian American journalist and grant writer based in
Riverdale Park, MD. “However, I noticed there were only two black
characters ever mentioned in any of the adventures. I was also concerned
the only black male character to appear, Steve Dixie, was depicted as a
rogue and grifter. I decided I would write a Holmes adventure that would
give Dixie’s character some positive, redeeming value and I believe I was
successful in doing so in the book, *Anomalous: The Adventures of Sherlock
Holmes featuring Jack Johnson* *and Alphonse Capone*.”



Williams, the first African American writer to ever author a major Sherlock
Holmes novel, will be among a half-dozen authors at ArtsFest2014 discussing
their work.


Others appearing on the ArtsFest2014 Writers Row include novelist *Richard
Morris.*

To read more about authors at ArtsFest2014 being held Sunday, 11-5 in Town
Center, see attached...

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