Aunt Agatha's Robin Agnew — and a Day in the Life of the Kerrytown BookFest

SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: Today I'm delighted to introduce Robin Agnew and Jamie Agnew of Aunt Agatha's New and Used Mysteries, Detection, & True Crime, an absolutely wonderful bookshop (not to mention the 2014 Raven Award winner) in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I was privileged to meet Robin and Jamie at the KerryTown Book Festival this past fall, an annual gathering of book aficionados, which Robin plans and runs in her role as president.

As an author speaking on a panel and signing with fellow authors and meeting readers, everything at the KerryTown Book Fest was absolutely perfect. Only Robin and Jamie know what really goes on behind the scenes to make such a large and complex (not to mention fun!) event run so smoothly, and I thought it would be interesting to peek behind the scenes with Robin — take it away!

ROBIN AGNEW: Along with running Aunt Agatha’s, I have been involved in running and planning Ann Arbor’s annual Kerrytown BookFest, since 2004.  Through the years of the bookfest I have served as “author wrangler” (my original job), secretary, operations chair, vice president, and I have now served as president for the past couple of years.  

As we are a small, hands on board, and we share duties including obtaining permits from the city, renting equipment, finding a hotel with available rooms during busy football weekends, PR, fundraising, grant writing, finding volunteers, signing up 100 or so vendors each year, poster commission and distribution, programming, set up, tear down, and making sure all parties involved are pleased.  Authors, exhibitors, bookfest visitors - we want everyone to have a great day.

Luckily, a capable board means that while I am part of the discussion of all these things I am not part of the nuts and bolts for all of them.  My central focus is on author programming.  Each year I start with a “seed” – an author I’ve spoken with or met, often at a book signing at the store or at a conference – and from there, the planning begins to grow organically.

Last year my “seed” author was Simone St. James.  I had moderated a panel with her at Bouchercon and was delighted by her.   We actually had two seeds last year, as the year before we had hoped to book Chris Raschka, a two time Caldecott medalist with ties to Ann Arbor, and he was unavailable.  In 2014 he was available so our marquis panel became a panel with 3 Caldecott medalists - Chris, Brian Floca, who won in 2014; and Erin Stead and her husband, Philip.  Erin won in 2011.  

Moderating is tricky, as tricky, I’ve discovered, as the rest of the panel.  For this one I turned to Debbie Diesen, author of the “Pout Pout Fish” books, and asked her.  She’s presented at many of our bookfests in our Children’s area, she’s adorable, and she said yes right away.

And what of Simone’s panel?  I asked her at Bouchercon and she agreed, and then it took a couple more months to hear back as she figured out her schedule.  Meanwhile, I went to the board and said I *really* wanted Susan Elia MacNeal.

Who else?  I asked Tasha Alexander, who lives in Chicago, is beloved by readers, and who has been to he bookfest and the store many times.   She said yes.  And then I read The Ashford Affair by Lauren Willig and loved it so much I asked her.  She said yes in an eyeblink and was possibly the lowest maintenance author of the entire day.  

Who to moderate?  I wanted Anna Lee Huber, who lives close-ish, but knew she had a baby on the way.  To my surprise she also agreed and one of the joys of bookfest last year was that many of these women, while fans of each other’s, hadn’t met.  

OK, easy panel out of the way.  What next?  I often do a  

“guy” and a “girl” panel as far as mysteries go (sexist but true) and  the basis for the guy panel was Michael Harvey.  He’d been to the store  and I was so entranced by him I asked him on the spot.  He agreed and I built the panel around him, which eventually included Edgar winner Theresa Schwegel; newbie and local author Elizabeth Heiter, and frequent bookfest speaker and buddy, Loren D. Estleman.  I asked an old friend and mystery fan to moderate and he was on board immediately.  He couldn’t believe all those writers were going to be in the same place, and I have to say, that’s my programming goal in general. So mystery panels set.  

What else?  We often use the Michigan Notable Book Winners list as a template and one of the first people off the list all of us wanted was Matt Phelan, whose book, Bluffton. was a Notable winner.  We built a graphic novel panel around him, eventually including Jim Ottaviani, Dave Coverly of Speedbump fame (Dave and Jim are both local and had been with us before). At the last minute I substituted in Matt Faulkner when another author had to cancel.  As it happened, I had heard Matt on NPR talking about his book Gaijin: American Prisoner of War, and had dreamed of booking him.

Moderator? Knowing he was a comic book geek,  I asked local NPR talent Michael Jewett. Luckily I know his wife, a former bookseller and a mystery fan - she made him agree, and he was fabulous.

The rest of the festival - ten panels, a children’s area, and a book arts specific area - are programmed in a similar way, using the expertise and connections of my fellow programmers; Lynn Riehl, an events coordinator at a large independent bookstore in town (Nicola’s) and my buddy. PR maven Bill Castanier, who has connections all over the state.

Each of us get wild hairs, are approached by authors we know with ARCs, run into people at parties or conferences, and before we know it we’ve programmed the day.  I was happy to include newbie mystery author Sam Thomas as a moderator on an historical biography panel, for example.  Another example: having drinks with Tim O’Mara after the Edgars in May, he suggested being a “writer in residence” at the store for the day.  We transferred his idea to the bookfest and Tim was booked all day talking to would be writers.

The day of the festival (this coming year September 13, 2015) we welcome about 4,000 visitors with our panels being vigorously attended.  For me the day passes in a flash as I run around trying to make sure everything goes smoothly, along with selling books.  Thankfully we divide bookselling duties - several stores share out the panels.

Then I go home exhausted at the end of the day and somehow, start to think about the next year.  This coming year my “seed” is Denise Swanson.  Tune in and see who joins her!

SUSAN ELIA MACNEAL: Robin, thank you so much for giving us a look backstage! What else can you tell us about the 2015 KerryTown Book Fest? 

Readers, have you ever been to a book festival? Are you surprised by how much work goes on behind the scenes to pull such a complicated event off? Please let us know in the comments!

Aunt Agatha’s

213 South Fourth Avenue

Ann Arbor, Michigan 48104

734.769.1114

Hours of Business:

Monday - Thursday 11-7

Friday & Saturday 11-8

Sunday 12-5

store@auntagathas.com