Orcas Island Lit Fest: “An intimate, world-class literary festival”

— by Margie Doyle —

Orcas Lit Fest co-founders Jule Treneer and Scott Hutchins hope to re-create the beginnings of their friendship at a book reading in Paris here on Orcas Island among enthusiastic book readers and writers at the inaugural Orcas Island Lit Fest. They are beyond pleased that the whole community seems to embrace that concept as the first annual Lit Fest gets underway in partnership with Orcas Center and Darvill’s Bookstore April 13-15.

With their board and organizers they have put together an exciting, ambitious schedule with writers’ workshops, events for kids at the Public LIbrary, a Lit Walk, panels and conversations,  a book fair and a “whacked-out silly party at Odd Fellows Hall to boot. (To see the Orcas Island Lit Fest (OILF) schedule and purchase tickets go to oilf.org

Jule Treneer

Jule Treneer, OILF President and Treasurer, arrived back on the island in late March to finalize details for the April weekend. Treneer is a writer and financial advisor who splits his time between Orcas Island and Paris, France.

He has been coming up to the island — since he was a kid, from Seattle —  where he attended Camp Four Winds. His Mom, Paula Treneer, moved to Orcas Island in 2014 and Jule, his wife and kids have spent summers here since then. He says the idea for a Literary festival “started just with my observation that Orcas had become a wonderful arts venue with the Jazz Festival, the Chamber Music Festival and the Film Festival. That struck me as remarkable and terrific but very odd that it didn’t have a Literary Event, a Book Festival.

“So I recognized this need, and started asking people informally, and reached out to my friend Scott Hutchins. We met in Paris at a book reading about 12 years ago; we’re both writers; and we’d been looking for something to do together for a long time. I thought a Lit Fest was something we could get a lot of local support for and make it happen.”

They established the non-profit in 2016 and then in spring 2017, formed OILF’s first board with Shannon Borg and Jill Johnson as the nucleus. In September, Iris Graville and Ayn and Sam Gailey joined the board. Theresa Harris who moved to Orcas Island recently joined the board in 2018.

Jule continues, “Our core strategy  was writing an LTAC (county lodging tax) grant and we were awarded $10,000 last summer which was an enormous help. It put us on the map, and legitimized us.” He thanks Orcas Center’s director Brian Kemp, Island Stewards and the Orcas Chamber of Commerce for their assistance in facilitating those grant funds.

Then he and the Lit Fest board started developing the programming and organizing the Festival’s inaugural year, this April 13-15. Last summer OILF formed a partnership with Orcas Center, which provides the main venue — in the Center Stage, Black Box, Madrona Room and Lobby — for the festival. “That partnership is something that we hope to grow in years to come. Part of Brian Kemp’s strategy and something Tom Fiscus and I are continuing to talk about, is where we can take the festival from here. There are lots of interesting and exciting ways that the festival can grow and change,” said Treneer.

“What distinguishes OILF is that it will be in a much more intimate setting. It may be that those who attend are aspiring writers, maybe not, but they come to see the book authors and poets and have special interactions with them through readings, panels and other events.

“We’re looking to other partners to help continue to grow this into something that is both an inclusive event that allows Orcas Island to show the best it has to offer from a literary standpoint and also brings an exciting international literary presence to the island. The real thrust of what we’re doing is bringing world-class authors to Orcas Island to share their wisdom and work and — along with local authors — to share their love for the culture of the book.

“That’s the motivation behind Lit Fest. One of the things I think about is culture is something that needs to be cultivated, it doesn’t grow in a bare field. Orcas Island is a great place to have a book fest because it’s already a place so rich in the arts.

“But I don’t think that culture happens without investment and support. We want to balance in creating an event that is self-sustaining and try to produce as much free content that we can share as we can. That’s always going to be part of our approach.” Jule speaks passionately of OILF’s mission: “to build a fest that’s really great, that’s inclusive; and to help author the culture of the book on Orcas Island.

“Culture doesn’t happen in a vacuum, you have to cultivate it.That’s what a book festival can be. We all love this magical art form that creates alternative universes and that’s the kind of magic we hope to create with the festival.

“We want to thank all the people who helped get this off the ground, our early sponsors and allies and boosters. We got enormous and heartwarming support in the LTAC process — Orcas Center, Island Stewards and the Chamber of Commerce — and thank all the sponsors who stepped up. Above all I’d like to thank the board members — our board has dedicated a lot of time to this with their wonderful skills; we’re really working collaboratively –.and our volunteers.”

Scott Hutchins is a creative writing professor at Stanford University and is the OILF Co-founder, Vice President and Secretary. In 2006 and 2010, he was an artist-in-residence at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, where he met Jule Treneer.

“The real thrust of what we’re doing is bringing world-class authors to Orcas Island to share their wisdom and work with local authors to share their love for the culture of the book. What distinguishes OILF is that it will be in a much more intimate setting,” with hundreds rather than thousands of attendees.

Scott Hutchins

Hutchins has organized previous literary festivals, along with readings associated with his job at Standford. While there are a number of writers’ conferences in Washington, “the closest thing to what we’re doing is WordStock in Portland; and in Spokane they have Get Lit. They are generally events for readers, people who love and appreciate writing.”

What makes the Orcas Island Lit Fest unique, says Hutchins, is the island itself: “There’s something very exciting about coming physically [to the island]; to move yourself intellectually and experientially; to have a connection with these writers; about going to the island and being there in this beautiful magical space where we can be up close and personal. At the same time, the islands are not just a backdrop and that’s why the presence of local writers such as Urban Waite, Kim Fu, and Tara Conklin is important.”

Hutchins challenges the vision of reading and writing as isolating. “We tell a story about writing, the lone genius in the woods who comes back years later with a masterpiece. It’s a story I see my students struggling with.

Writers are constantly in conversation with friends; there’s much more community in the writing process than we think of. There’s something about getting together with people who like to read and talk about books that is a really worthwhile culture. We hope to preserve that culture and present that conversation at OILF.”

Hutchins has found Lit Fest a challenge, “inventing everything from the ground up, designing the structures, inviting people and lining it up and getting them here … the logistics have been incredibly complex, involving details you never would have dreamed you’d have to come up with.”

For Hutchins, the greatest “kicks” of Lit Fest have been two-fold: “working with people I’ve met through this process; Orcas Island residents wanting to make this beautiful thing happen and pulling together a first-rate fantastic list of authors. We asked and got a great group. (Darvill’s Bookstore has all their books.)

“Sometimes visiting writers get worked like horses; we give them time to breathe and enjoy the island, the most beautiful place in the world,” Hutchins says. Those authors are top-selling, prize-winning, emerging, local and sometimes all three in one, such as Board member Sam Gailey, author of the novel Deep Winter.

Sam Gailey

Gailey, who with Hutchins has led the charge in programming for the OILF, says what makes this new literary festival unique is its “intimacy. It’s the type of festival where readers can meet authors.

“Lit Fest’s approach was to invite diverse authors and poets who were Pulitzer Prize winners or national bestsellers; or emerging voices, like Kim Fu who wrote  Lost Girls Camp Forevermore; and regional authors such as Iris Graville, [also on the OILF board], Urban Waite and Thor Hanson. Many who couldn’t come this year are excited to come next year, ” Gailey says.

“Lit Fest is author-driven,” he says. “The island itself is really a selling point among the eclectic, diverse authors in different genres, [generations] and ethnicity.”

Sam, who has been to many writers’ workshops and literary festivals, says OILF’s programming mission is “to have it be, for the most part, free and inclusive to the community.” To that end, all Friday’s events are free, including the Lit Crawl at Enzo’s, Darvill’s Bookstore, Emmanuel Parish Hall, Outlook Inn, Sea View Theatre, the Kitchen and Doe Bay Wine Company.

The Saturday “Family Fest” events are also free at the Public Library, starting at 10:30 a.m. Award-winning local nature author Thor Hanson will present his children’s book Bartholomew Quill: a Crow’s Quest to Know Who’s Who.

On Saturday, there are simultaneous presentations going on at Orcas Center’s Main Stage and Black Box, with a Book Fair happening in the Center Lobby and Madrona Rooms. Lit Fest Board Members will moderate some panels, while others are self-moderating. OILF panels will continue on Sunday until 2 p.m.

Gailey speaks to the habits of book lovers, readers, writers, and festival-goers: “The social nature of reading has evolved. People share online what they’ve read with hundreds of people; and the social nature of reading has grown. At this festival, authors who love to read rub elbows with readers who love to talk about the books they’ve read.”

Ayn Carillo Gailey is the author of the “memoir-ish” Pornology: A Good Girl’s Guide To Porn  and the blog The Honest Woman. She has edited critically-acclaimed books and written for magazines, such as Elle, Cosmo, Alegria and Documentary. She and Sam conduct Novel Lab on Orcas, a coaching service for writers. On the OILF Board of Directors she is hard at work and branding Lit Fest with “the look and feel of the festival” and outreach.

Ayn, who has an MFA in screenwriting from UCLA and started the screenwriting showcase there, will moderate the Sunday panel “Book to Film” and also the Saturday panel “The Evolution of Love, Identity and Relationships in Modern Fiction” on Center Stage.

She sees Lit Fest as “an important world class event,” and hopes to create “a legacy event for Orcas Island.”

The Gaileys want to acknowledge the help they’ve been given by Donna Laslo who has “gone out of her way to help us — learning from mistakes, following in her footsteps see something beautiful to bring to the island and apply our skills, inspiring future writer here. She’s been really generous.”

Jill McCabe Johnson

OILF board member Jill McCabe Johnson is the author of Revolutions We’d Hoped We’d Outgrown and Diary of the One Swelling Sea and of the nonfiction chapbook Borderlines. She and her husband Charles Toxey are also owners of Kangaroo House B&B and the founders of the nonprofit Artsmith, providing artist residencies, a reading series, workshops, and other educational events. Currently Jill teaches creative writing at Skagit Valley College in Friday Harbor.

Jill holds up the administrative end of the first Orcas Lit Fest, following through when a stitch has been dropped to ensure a smooth-running yet fun Festival. “We have a fabulous writing community here, and such a beautiful setting. As much as I can bring the world to enhance our local community and connect to the greater writing world, I’m all in favor of LitFest. Plus it’s a lot of fun!”

‘We’re all better writers when we are broader readers. Look at the number of book clubs whose book choices line the shelves of Darvill’s. It’s kind of a bell-wether for how well-read we are. We like to – and benefit from — engaging in conversation about good literature. Lit Fest brings the opportunity to expand that to talk to writers, and make that experience blossom. ”

Jill too finds a challenge in bringing a new event such as Lit Fest to life. “Everything is new; establishing processes and reputation. All of us are putting the puzzle together; we’re all taking some leads but we’re all collaborating together.”

That starts with reaching out to authors to join Lit Fest and participate on panels; on evaluating the proposals; meeting with Orcas Center and Darvill’s to negotiate key partnerships; reaching out to sponsors and Book Fair participants; facilitating meetings; tracking tasks, getting volunteers, “The Chamber Music Festival and the Film Festival have been really helpful for us in how to make a festival,” says Jill. “We’ve all been kind of heads down, crossing our fingers and knocking on wood.

“We owe a big “Thank you” to the community for helping to put this festival on; it’s not just individuals, most community organizations and businesses are helping one way or another, there has been so much generous sharing of time, expertise and resources.

“There’s no way a small group of people could pull this off,but with people believing in this new venture and giving themselves to make it happen…  Seeing how the community has come together to support this is an absolute thrill, it’s heartwarming.”

Theresa Harris and Shannon Borg are also on the OILF board. Look for future articles about Lit Fest in coming days.