2017 Tucson Festival of Books
MODERATOR HANDBOOK
A Celebration of Books, Authors, Literacy & Reading
Saturday, March 11 & Sunday, March 12, 2017
Festival Contacts:
Moderators Committee
[email protected]
Frank Mascia, David Nix & Michelle Blumenberg
PLEASE FAMILIARIZE YOURSELF WITH THE
HANDBOOK CONTENTS
MOST QUESTIONS ARE ANSWERED IN THIS DOCUMENT
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TUCSON FESTIVAL OF BOOKS
MODERATOR INFORMATION & INSTRUCTIONS
Event Location and Information:
Location:
University of Arizona campus
Dates:
Saturday, March 11, 2017
9:30am to 5:30pm
Sunday, March 12, 2017
9:30am to 5:30pm
Admission:
The Festival is free and open to the public
Website:
TucsonFestivalofBooks.org
Rain Policy:
The Festival will be held rain or shine
Thank you for agreeing to be a moderator at the Tucson Festival of Books. Please read this handbook
thoroughly to make your session the best possible experience for the audience, your authors, and yourself.
Moderator Responsibilities:
• Moderating a panel – The most important thing to remember when moderating a panel is that the audience is attending
to hear the authors, not listen to the moderator. Your job is to facilitate, encourage and keep the session on-time at both
the start and the finish.
• Expectations – When leading a panel discussion or interviewing authors, in addition to introducing them, you must
read their book(s), researching their work as much as possible. It is your responsibility to correspond with the
author(s) to ensure that the program will progress in a manner that is agreeable to everyone involved.
• Contacting authors – You will be asked to contact the authors well in advance of the panel to prepare for your role.
Contact information will be provided when you are emailed an assignment. Your initial communication should include:
• Introducing yourself;
Confirming the particulars of the session (topic and description as provided by the Festival’s genre committee,
other participating authors, day/time/location);
• Confirming what book(s) the author will be discussing (it’s usually their most recent, but not always); and
• Checking whether they require audio-visual or other special equipment (other than microphones) for the program.
It is a good idea to ask your authors whether they are willing to have their contact information shared with the other
authors in the session. This simplifies subsequent communications about format, questions or discussion topics, etc.
• Advance preparation – It is imperative that you read each of your authors’ featured book as part of your preparation. .
The Festival may be able to help you obtain a promotional copy of this book, but this is not always possible, and you may
need to buy a copy. All featured books are available from the University of Arizona BookStores, which is a primary
sponsor of the Festival. Online purchases through the UA BookStores website receive the amazon.com price and help
support the BookStore’s programs.
• Check-in during the Festival – On the day(s) you are scheduled to moderate, you are expected to arrive in the
Hospitality Room at least 30 minutes prior to the presentation (location TBA). When you get to the Hospitality
Room you much check in to obtain your Festival credentials, the meet your author(s) and review last-minute instructions.
A volunteer will escort you and your author(s) to the presentation venue. At the conclusion of the session, a volunteer will
escort the author(s) to the pre-designated signing area. If you have back-to-back sessions as a moderator, you may go to
your next venue without returning to the Hospitality Room.
• Follow the script – At the venue you will receive a short script welcoming participants to the Tucson Festival of Books,
and acknowledging the venue sponsors who make the Festival possible. At the end of the presentation, you will use the
script to direct the audience to the book signing area. The script must be read verbatim in order to provide accurate
information to Festival audiences.
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• Introduce author(s) – To introduce an author / authors, please prepare an introduction - maximum thirty seconds! If
you are selected to moderate, more information on preparing the introduction will be provided. Beyond the brief bio
sketches on the Festival website, check you authors’ own websites for more extensive biographies, profiles, and videos.
• Keep the session moving on-time – As a moderator, you are responsible for ensuring that the presentation does not
exceed its allotted time. Authors generally speak for 40-45 minutes and answer questions for 15-20 minutes. The venue
volunteer will prompt you with time remaining cards from the back of the room to assist in keeping on time.
From your reading of the featured books, research on your authors, and communications with them, prepare enough
questions relating to the session topic to keep the discussion going for 45 minutes. (If your authors turn out to be too
terse, the appendix to this handbook is a list of generic emergency questions, but these should be a last resort.)
• Moderator training sessions. The Moderator Committee will provide one or more training sessions before the Festival.
• Questions – Please direct moderating questions to [email protected]
Moderator Committee Members: Frank Mascia – David Nix – Michelle Blumenberg
TUCSON FESTIVAL OF BOOKS – GENERAL INFORMATION
Festival Website: The Festival of Books website is TucsonFestivalofBooks.org. We encourage you to visit the
site prior to the Festival. There is an enormous amount of information available regarding the authors,
exhibitors, programs and special activities. Thousands of people are involved with the Festival and you will
gain a sense of the community’s active involvement in the event. If you are booking overnight accommodations,
please refer to the discounts available from hotels, motels and resorts listed on the website. Please mention that
you are participating in the Tucson Festival of Books.
Festival Parking: As a Moderator, you will be provided one parking pass for the Second Street Garage for the
day of your session. As described on the Festival website, there is also an enormous amount of free parking
available around the University of Arizona for use by the general public during the Festival of Books.
Disturbances or Emergencies:
If a disturbance or medical emergency arises at your session, the on-site Festival volunteer at that venue will contact
UA security or emergency personnel to respond. The venue captain can also contact UA facilities people in case of
equipment malfunctions or other problems with the facility.
Lost & Found - Items: Items lost during the Festival should be turned into the closest information booth in
your zone. Items will be kept until the end of the day on Sunday then forwarded to the Student Union
Information Desk which serves as the central lost and found for the UA campus.
Lost & Found - Children & Parents: A child who has become separated from his or her parent or guardian is
a critical situation at the Festival due to the size and number of attendees. If a lost child is found at your booth,
please ask that child to stay at your booth. Stay with the child and send someone else to report the situation to
any of the following:
•
The closest Festival Information Booth
•
The First Aid Tent
•
Any Security Volunteer
•
Any Festival volunteer with a walkie-talkie
The person you send will need to know your booth name and number, your booth location in the Festival and the
child's name. A notification will be dispatched and a search for parents will ensue. DO NOT allow the child to
leave your booth or protection, even if the parents return, until the proper authorities have arrived at your booth,
verified identities, and cancelled the notification.
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Dining & Food Services: Festival Food Courts will be open on the UA Mall – south of the Student Union and
west of Science City. Food Vendors will be ready to serve by 10am on Saturday and Sunday and will remain
open until 5:30pm Saturday and Sunday.
UA restaurants and concession stands will be open both days (Saturday and Sunday) during Festival hours.
Major concession stands are located in the Student Union Memorial Center near the UA BookStore.
Time Zone Information: Arizona observes Mountain Standard Time throughout the entire year. In 2017, most
other parts of the country will move to Daylight Savings Time at 2am on Sunday, March 12 however, this will
not occur in Arizona. Please plan accordingly.
Questions: Because all of our committee chairs are volunteers, we respectfully ask that moderators utilize our
email communication system as the preferred method of communication for directing questions. Our volunteers
are highly responsive to exhibitor needs and will return inquiries in a timely fashion. Should you have general
questions about the Festival, please feel free to call 520.621.0302 between 9am and 4pm Monday through
Friday. Student interns will make every attempt to address your question or connect you to the appropriate
committee. If we are unable to answer, please leave a message and we will return your call.
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IN CASE OF FIRE, BREAK GLASS –
Sample Moderator Questions (for emergency use only!)
1. What are your writing habits?
a. How do you prepare to write?
i. Do you outline – scene by scene?
ii. Chapter by chapter and then fill in?
2. Do you use someone as a sounding board for your ideas?
3. Before book is published, who reads it?
4. Tell me a little about your life outside of literature?
5. How was it when you first started and had another job (or still have one) and how do you make time for both?
6. Did you have any formal writing training?
7. Tell us about the central character in your last novel.
a. Where did s/he come from?
8. What book is on your nightstand?
9. When did you know you wanted to write?
10. Was there anything specific that influenced your latest book or characters?
11. What was process to get first book published?
12. Why do you write _________ (mysteries – romance – non-fiction)?
13. What has been the most challenging work of your career?
14. What do you think of the argument that “some characters are for atmosphere and should not become the center of
attention in novels”?
15. Walter Mosley is known to write naked. Do you have a specific routine or charm that you use habitually when you
write or do you discover a new process with each book?
16. All authors love to “steal” from other authors, but how do you stave off the desire to emulate to an inappropriate
degree?
17. Do you always know how you want your story to start and end before you sit down to write?
a. Do you write your stories chronologically (or in chronological order it will appear in your book)?
b. Do you map your plot or structure?
18. How did you pick an agent or publisher?
19. Do you have trouble with procrastination?
20. Many people don’t realize that fiction writing – even literary fiction without specific historical context – requires a lot
of research. Can you talk about your research process?
a. What resources do you use?
b. Do you conduct all your research before you start writing or as you go?
21. Does where you live influence your writing?
a. How?
b. Can you talk about sense of place in your work?
22. Does the setting or city of your book ever become another character, of sorts, in your writing?
23. Have you ever jumped out of your genre or wanted to jump out of your genre?
24. Is it difficult to write from the point of view of the opposite sex?
25. Do you read novels while you’re writing them?
26. Do you read most of the big new releases in literary fiction?
a. Do you read the book sections in newspapers?
27. Do you revisit classics?
a. Is there a book that you’ve re-read more than any others?
28. Do you read craft books?
a. What books do you recommend on craft?
29. What are you reading right now?
30. What were the favorite “chapter books” you read as a child?
31. You hear all the time that more books are being published than ever. You also hear that less people are buying books,
that most books are bought and read by women between the ages of 25 – 65 and that printed books will one day be a thing
of history. Do you think books are on the decline?
a. Do you think the market is oversaturated or is the variety good for literature and emerging writers?
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32. How do you feel about Print-on-Demand publishing and its place in the future of book publishing and selling?
33. We live in an age of instant feedback, with amateur online reviews and cut-back book tours. Are critics, book
reviewers, newspaper book sections and blurbs (the almighty blurb!) still relevant?
a. How relevant?
34. How long have you been writing?
35. How many books have you published?
36. Have you ever co-authored a book?
a. How does the collaboration generally work?
37. Mystery writers – Do you have a police connection?
38. What is next for you?
39. If you had a Book Club what would you recommend reading?
40. Any tips for aspiring writers?
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