Spoken Views photos by Cesar Lopez
Literary enthusiasts flocked to south of downtown Reno last weekend to celebrate the Nevada Humanities Literary Crawl, an event now in its 10th year. Poets, writers, readers, artists, and lit nerds participated in book talks, poetry readings, art projects, and workshops of all types.
When the crawl first took place in 2014, it was a small celebration held at the now-closed Sundance Books and Music. This year, it spanned several venues, including the Nevada Museum of Art, the Lake Mansion, Great Basin Community Food Co-op, 1864 Tavern, The Loving Cup, and the Downtown Reno Library.
New this year was a pop-up shop from the Radical Cat bookstore, which “took over” part of the Lake Mansion to host a sale of books by local authors on topics ranging from Indigenous stories to feminist poetry and everything in between.
Radical Cat, which regularly hosts the free Heretic’s Workshop, brought its pop-up bookstore “heretics,” December Cuccaro and Naseem Jamnia, for a workshop on “Building Inclusive Worlds” at the Lake Mansion. The pair discussed how to approach world-building techniques from an inclusive perspective.
While some might think of literature being a solitary event, Tsz-Kwan Lam said the crawl is about connecting people not only through books, but also ideas, conversations, art and play.
“Our Keynote Event this year kicked off the day with an on-stage conversation, and similar discussions became the highlight of the sessions throughout the rest of the day,” Tsz-Kwan Lam said. “This year, we concluded the Nevada Humanities Literary Crawl with two open mic events that opened the floor to anyone who would like to share their writing or stories; it’s part of our mission to amplify voices across Nevada and to connect people together through the power of the humanities.”
Doerr talks storytelling and climate change
The keynote speaker was author and Pulitzer Prize winner Anthony Doerr, who discussed his novels, short stories, and thoughts on the literary landscape with University of Nevada, Reno professor Chris Coake.
Doerr is the author of “All the Light We Cannot See,” which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2015, among other awards. It was recently adapted into a limited series for Netflix. His most recent novel, “Cloud Cuckoo Land,” was a finalist for the 2021 National Book Award for Fiction.
Coake and Doerr held a “conversation,” which in literary circles is something of an informal, public interview. Doerr spoke mainly about his most recent novel but also discussed writing, philosophy and parenting.
One question Coake asked was what draws Doerr to writing about younger characters. “I became a dad right around the time I started noticing that I was writing about young characters,” Doerr said. “My kids, especially when they were little, could bring wonder into your life so easily.”
He added that before having kids, going to the grocery store had become a chore. But with children, it becomes a magical experience because everything is new to them. “Imagine if you were a caveman, and you walked into Albertsons,” Doerr said. “It’s incredible. So much color and richness. That defamiliarization that young people bring to you is a technique I’ve used a lot.
“Tolstoy said, ‘If whole lives go on unconsciously, then such lives are as if they had never been.’ He believed, like many Russian formalists of his time, that the role of art, the role of a building like this, is to wake you up to the sensations of being alive so you don’t sleepwalk through life. That’s what great literature can do.”
Doerr also discussed ecology and climate change. A resident of Boise, Idaho, he spoke about how much of the world’s systems are intertwined. “Where I live, salmon used to flow up all these rivers,” he said. “They come up, mate and die, and it’s this incredible pulse of nutrients into all these rivers. It’s not just that bears would grab them, eat them and spread their nutrients, but also invertebrates would eat them. It fed so many things, including freshwater mussels.
“Some people think your mental health can be tied to your microbiome,” Doerr added. “We carry wildernesses inside us. We’re not just individual creatures who go outside for recess and come back in. We’re all connected to everything.”
Doerr also spoke about the importance of libraries—not only to curious children and readers, but to communities as a whole. He described “Cloud Cuckoo Land” as a “love letter to libraries” and said it wasn’t until his 40s that he learned not all communities have access to public libraries.
“I was like, ‘Oh wait, it’s a miracle that we have this system,’” he said. “Imagine going to the U.S. Congress now and saying, ‘I’d like to put a warehouse of books in every community. It’ll be free. It’ll be warm in the winter and cool in the summer. It’ll have internet too.’ Libraries are miraculous.”
Doerr added that for those who argue libraries are obsolete because the internet exists, the internet is much more than a place to search for knowledge.
“Have you ever tried to apply for a job if you don’t have the internet? Have you ever tried to use a bathroom without buying a $6 latte?” he said. “In places like Idaho, and I think Reno, where it gets cold in the winter, this is the last public indoor space you can enter for free. They’re much more than just storehouses of human wisdom, which is pretty important.”
Photos: Crawl features ‘Spoken Views’
The literary crawl also featured a spoken word showcase at The Loving Cup with the Spoken Views Collective. Poets included Iain Watson, Elisa Garcia, Griffin Peralta, Courtney Kelly, Jesse James Ziegler, and M. Colton Brodeur.
