Telling Tales

That's right, I attended 2 festivals in one weekend.  I'm just that kind of crazy town.  Yesterday, my children and I headed to Westfield Heritage Village in Rockton, Ontario for Telling Tales, the festival that makes me miss the Eden Mills Writers' Festival every year.  Honestly who schedules two literary events on the same day?  Telling Tales wins because it's closer, free, and has more stuff for the kiddies. Sorry Eden Mills.  Change your dates!

Even though I love Telling Tales, I do have some suggestions for improvement. First of all the schedule is insane.  There's zero time between talks that cater to the same age group and in some cases the two talks are several buildings away.  And in between there are trains and chickens that you can pet and a black smith and historical and literary characters.  As a result, we only managed to catch two talks in their entirety.  Those would be Ted Staunton and Ruth Ohi.  I thoroughly enjoyed their fabulous high energy presentations.  Ted sang about chickens and Ruth drew us pictures based on children's scribbles.  Both were enthusiastic and entertaining readers.

If you enjoy the talk you can purchase books at the book sellers tent way back at the entrance.  The authors go there to sign for about fifteen minutes after their talk.  This means you can't get your book autographed and also watch the next author's talk.  I did get two of Ruth Ohi's Chicken, Pig, Cow books signed (to William and Jadzia, so I can pretend they are for them).

So here's what I propose.  There should be at least a fifteen minute buffer zone between talks.  In addition to the main bookseller's tent, there should be a small selling table set up at each venue that features books by the authors presenting at that location, so you can buy and get your book autographed right then and there. Then you can have a little time to travel between venues, or get kettle corn, or pet chickens, or whatever. Simple right?  I'm going to write them a letter suggesting it.

My other suggestion: trays for the food sellers.  Children cannot carry their own grilled cheese without dropping it.