Iowa City UNESCO Looks to Put Own Spin on Iowa City Book Festival

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This is part two of a two part interview with John Kenyon, executive director of the United Nations Organization for Education, Science and Culture (UNESCO) City of Literature organization in Iowa City. Kenyon was named to the position last fall after a long period serving as Director of Operations and Editor at the Corridor Media Group, which includes the Corridor Business Journal.

In Part One we talked about the multiple events held on April 23 in Iowa City for World Book Day and Night.

In Part Two we discussed Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature taking over the Iowa City Book Festival this year, and what changes will come as a result of that.

Editor's Note: This is an edited and abridged version of the interview.

One part of the interview that I did not include in this writeup regarded the children's book character parade, which is traditionally held on Saturday morning. Kenyon said that at this time they are looking to appeal to a grown up audience with this festival, focusing the attention on children's literature and events at the popular new One Book Two Book children's literature festival in January.

Iowa City Patch: So is the Book Festival the next big thing?

John Kenyon: Yeah, that's really the next big thing we're doing. So that will be on Oct. 11 through Oct. 13 of this year. I'm actually working on expanding that by a day so there could be an extra day on Oct. 10.

Iowa City Patch: That's a bit later than it typically has been.

Kenyon: It is.

It was run by the University of Iowa Library for the first four years, and they held it in July for a number of different reasons.

Iowa City Patch: To be a part of Summer of the Arts?

Kenyon: That was part of it. Another big thing was that their facilities are filled with students every other part of the year, so this was the time their buildings were available.

So that worked out for them, but it wasn't a good time for anyone else really. Students, staff, and faculty are mostly gone at that time. The Writers' Workshop members and instructors are usually off doing something. The International Writing Program (IWP) isn't around.

To remedy this, we looked to the fall so we could utilize all of these resources. We will have participation of the IWP class coming in: I tell people that we will probably be one of the only book festivals around that has participants from more than 25 countries. We've talked with the Writers' Workshop and other student writers about doing things with them. We're going to partner with FilmScene on some things, we're partnering with Mission Creek on some things, we're partnering with Little Village on some things.

We look at it as a way to showcase a lot of local organizations that are doing a lot of things that are synergistic with what we're doing, as well as to offer more traditional book festival offerings.

Iowa City Patch: Sort of a pastiche of all of the different cultural organizations with stuff going on.

Kenyon: Yeah. I've told folks if they have something going on that weekend with ties to literary culture of Iowa City we want to promote them. We might not be involved in putting them on, but I want people to know that they are there. My hope is to then aggregate a big audience that will then be able to choose from a pallet of things we will be able to offer.

Iowa City Patch: This is your first year of doing this, is this a situation where you expect to learn as you while you are doing it?

Kenyon: Yeah.

I was involving with the programming committee for the Book Festival last year representing the City of Literature, so at least I am familiar with the tremendous amount of work that went into making last year's festival happen.

There are also people who were involved on the programming committee for that that will be on our programmign committee, so we're not completely reinventing things.

That said, Kristi Bontrager ran the festival for the the previous four years, and I am learning by doing just what an enormous time commitment that was for her.

Iowa City Patch: It seems like you're doing a similar festival to the Mission Creek model in a way, or what they've become. Going from a model where you just focus on one thing, such as books or bands, to a festival model where you use those things as the main attraction or anchor to a wide variety of events.

Kenyon: You certainly could say that they have provided a model for how to put on a festival here in town. And we're glad that Mission Creek is willing to partner with us on some things and offer guidance on others.

Iowa City Patch: Whenever I've covered the festival before, it's always seemed like it's been so hot outside. Do you feel with the festival being in October there will be a different feel to it? Perhaps a bit more of a bookish atmosphere just by having it a little later?

Kenyon: I think so. I mean I personally kind of equate fall with reading. It's the time of the year where you are putting your summer things away and you can take time to be more reflective.

It also lines up in another way: publishers tend to put out new books in the spring and the fall, and they send their authors on tour at those times. So when it was in the summer that was a challenge that we had, where there weren't people naturally coming in, you were pulling them away from where they were. So we've talked with a lot of the major publishers lately, just in the last few weeks to see if they would be willing to route their authors through here, which obviously would save us some funding and on a lot of different things.

[Editor's Note: Kenyon said the City of Literature should be hearing back from these publishing companies within the next month, and this will be when the Book Festival schedule will start to solidify]

The summer was a great time, it was a great festival time, but I think there will be some built in advantages to having it in October.

Iowa City Patch: So it sounds like if all goes well there will be a consortium of different cultural and governmental organizations working together on this festival with the Iowa City City of Literature organization working as point.

Kenyon: I think in this way we can satisfy the needs of a lot of different organizations. We're still working on the logistics of it, but we're planning on having the festival right in the heart of downtown, moving it a way from the campus centric event it had been for the last four years.

We're really trying to look at the planning of this festival with the idea of how can we appeal to the broadest cross section of the population as possible, and then to bring the local organizations together to support it.