Vincent Feli Boy’s Blog

One aspect of the festival that’s really taken off this year, said Kahan and Goddard, has been booths rented by independent authors to showcase their work. The festival has sold out its available spaces - more than 40. “We’ve been inundated with independent authors who have taken tables,” said Kahan. “In fact, we have an extensive waiting list.

” All told, according to Goddard, there are “way more” exhibitors than last year, with total booths and sponsor spaces topping 100. The growing numbers make both frontline dynamos hopeful that the Philadelphia Book Festival will eventually expand in the direction of the Miami International Book Fair and Los Angeles Times Book Fair, the country’s two largest events of this kind. Their hundreds of offerings and hundreds of thousands of attendees during multiple days have made them major economic boons to their cities’ economies.

One catalyst for the Philadelphia Festival has been a Knight Foundation grant of $450,000, spread over three years. “We’re expecting even more people this year,” said Kahan, “because the Knight grant gave us the opportunity to do advertising in the tri-state area.” Goddard pointed out that the library’s expansion - groundbreaking is expected later this year - will aid growth: “The new building will have conference rooms where we can do workshops, and enclosed areas where we can have antiquarian booksellers, none of which we can do now. ” “Because we don’t have the space,” chimed in Kahan.

On the whole, both Kahan and Goddard plan to take things one step at a time. “We’re not really comparing ourselves to them,” stressed Kahan when asked about Miami and L.A. “We’re still in the nascent stages. That’s something to strive for.

We have to take two, three, four years, figure out what our strengths are, and grow it from there.” Contact book critic Carlin Romano at 215-854-5615 or. Read his recent work at.

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