2nd Annual TRP Book Fest Takeaways

Remember the Greats

4/17/2018

Partnership: Barnes & Noble, represented by Katrina Flores & The Raving Press, represented by Gabriel H. Sanchez.

Saturday, April 14, 2018 was the date of the 2nd Annual Book & Art Festival by The Raving Press Events held at Speer Memorial Library in Mission, Texas. Several important things happened that ensured the success of this great effort in collaboration with the Speer library staff and Barnes & Noble. In this post, we remember the greats...the individuals that showed up and represented.

For one, We were able to see the entire event through. It's not easy to plan an event and carry it out. Many things can happen, like just a simple bad weather situation. Luckily the weather didn't act up on us and we all made it to the event site dry.

Author Mary Humpal-Bain spreading the gospel of her great book series "Reading Logically." Visit her website below.

Secondly, authors sold plenty of books and artists sold their arts and crafts. That's what it's about. Promotion and sales in this field don't come easy. No one is out late at night shopping in a rush because they need to find a local author's book, or an artist's latest piece asap! Unless you're talking about some overnight sensation by an author or artist. We haven't gotten to that point...not yet, that is.

Damien Duque mesmerizes with his "Ambient/Soundscapes/Post Rock" music. Check out his page link "City of Dawn" below.

Thirdly, and possibly the most important of them, we got to meet a lot of new authors and artists who showed up eager to learn about what we are doing and wanting to join us. There's always room for more. The other kind of networking that we achieved was contacts with the media, who made it a point to come out and cover the event. To them, a big thanks. We even had a documentary filmmaker, Abel Gonzalez, on site interviewing each of us for an upcoming documentary he is working on. His motivation being that, as an actor and filmmaker from the border with Mexico, he is tired of always being cast or being asked to portray in his films sicarios or other "bad hombres". He wants to show the tremendous talent that runs through this region like the strong current of the Rio Grande river.

McAllen, Texas' own Poet Laureate, Edward Vidaurre. Find his link below.

As for The Raving Press, we are grateful to all the authors, artists, performers, staff, and patrons who supported this event. Among them is one new friend and now colleague who will be joining our entourage, photographer Miriam A. Vasquez. She is the artist who took all the pictures featured here. Miriam has a tremendous eye for capturing the essence of a moment, as evidenced in these pics. She has a great future, and will be a powerful ally in advancing our projects.

That's all for now. Till next time. In the meantime, here are some more pics of the event by Miriam. Click the images to go to the authors' social media/website pages. (Many more authors were involved who were not captured in these photos. More to come.)