13th Annual STARfest Sparkles

It happens every year.

Once STARfest—St. Albert’s award-winning literary festival—announces its lineup of authors, those books fly off of local library shelves. From her vantage point as both STARfest Director and librarian, Michelle Steinhusen gets to watch it happen.

“Once we know who's coming, we make sure we get some extra copies,” she says. “Because they absolutely go out. … We announced the lineup earlier in the summer, and now, finally, some of the copies of the books are actually on the shelf.”

It’s easy to see why you’d want to get ahead on your STARfest reading: Now in its 13th year, the festival brings award-winning writers and rising literary talents to town to share space and conversations with eager audiences. This year features 11 authors, including the acclaimed Ann-Marie MacDonald and her new book Fayne, and Jessica Johns, author of the MacEwan Book of the Year-winning Bad Cree, among others.

Steinhusen notes that the process of choosing which authors to invite starts at the previous year’s festival.

“We ask the attendees who they would like to see—we definitely take suggestions” she says. “I like to make sure we have something for everybody, as far as type-of-book goes. Not everybody reads literary fiction. I want to make sure there's that variety.”

She and the rest of the STARfest team have certainly managed that: Genres represented this year span from horror to historical. There’s even a full-on theatre show—STARfest guest Melanie Gall has not only written Deanna Durbin, Judy Garland, and the Golden Age of Hollywood, but has a solo show about the same material, which she’s toured as far as the Edinburgh Fringe. Steinhusen booked Gall for both a book-talk and a one-night performance of her show at (and in partnership with) the Arden Theatre.

“It's an Arden event, but it is about her book,” she says. “Then a couple days later, she'll be here just talking about the book. It’s like a fun partnership in that way.”

Opportunities to connect with authors changes the reader-writer dynamic, Steinhusen notes: though reading is something one generally does alone, getting to hear from the author themselves reshapes the experience, and can foster a new appreciation for a book.

“Reading is solitary, but talking about books is not,” she says. “That's what makes book clubs popular … pulling in a shared experience and talking about it afterwards. So being able to listen to the author—but also being able to sit in a room with people who are excited about the book as well—it makes it go beyond that solitary activity.”

Article Written by: Paul Blinov

STARfest runs until November 1st. The full schedule can be found at www.starfest.ca. 

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