Authors Descend on Michael Towbes Library Plaza for Dec 8 Festival

Now that Towbes Plaza has been ceremonially launched with an enormous pair of scissors, here comes the Local Author Book Festival to break the place in! Santa Barbara is unfairly over-blessed by the g*ds of literary talent, and here’s a chance to walk among these leading lights. Poets, novelists, authors all – some 40 of these rarely-seen creatures will be furtively blinking in sunlight and signing their lovely tomes. Authors will also be reading excerpts from their work in a “book karaoke” format (yes the juxtaposition of literature and karaoke is questionable, but let’s roll with it) and literary Santa Barbara will be out in absolute force.  

Heck yes, books make great gifts! And in this season of gifting, signed books are even sweeter to the yearning bibliophile. As has been noted on certain [mildly saccharine] bookmarks: “A book is a gift you open again and again.” Ahem. Undeniably true. 

Smack in the middle of SB’s swirling Art and Theater District, this will be one of those delicious occasions wherein Santa Barbara’s literary set comes out of the woodwork and gathers to revel in books and writing and the exalting written word. There will be a crafting table for kids, and Friends of the Library will be on hand to gift wrap. Kids books, adult fiction and non-fiction, poetry … and a crowd of authors in smoking jackets, gesturing avidly with their meerschaum pipes and emoting over their own work. What’s not to love?! To paraphrase rock band Quiet Riot – “Come on, Feel the Prose!”

Michael Towbes Library Plaza
Sunday, December 8, 2024
2:00pm – 4:00pm