By By JONATHAN CLAYBORNE
jonathan@wdnweb.com
Staff Writer
The inaugural Washington Book Walk invites bookworms of all kinds to visit downtown Washington from 10 a.m. until 7 p.m. Saturday.
The event, initiated by the owners of I Can’t Believe It’s a Book Store, involves 10 to 12 other businesses plus the Turnage Theater, Friends of Brown Library, RiverWalk Gallery and other groups, said Gary Ceres, who co-owns the book store with Richard Snow.
“We just want more people to come downtown,” Ceres said.
During the appointed hours, locally or even nationally prominent authors will be positioned inside participating businesses for book signings, readings or other types of authorial presentations.
Widely known golf writer James Dodson will be on hand at the Turnage, as will children’s writer Nannette Smyre, according to Scotty Henley, executive director of the theater.
Other participating writers will be author-historian-researcher Kevin Duffus, who will be stationed at the Inner Banks Artisans’ Center, along with novelist and historian Richard Folsom and poet Ann Bell.
Henley lauded the book store’s owners for pulling together disparate elements for this first-ever book walk.
“I think they should be applauded for that,” he said.
That sentiment was echoed by Joey Toler, executive director of the Beaufort County Arts Council.
“I think it’s great when a business or an individual comes up with a wonderful idea like this and runs with it and gets the participation it looks like they have gathered,” Toler commented. “It’s not an easy thing to do.”
Among the Book Walk’s authors will be playwright-singer-actor Stuart Aronson, who will read scenes from his play “The Last Showboat” at 4 p.m. Saturday at RiverWalk Gallery.
Aronson wrote the outdoor drama “Blackbeard: Knight of the Black Flag,” which ran for many years in Bath during the 1970s and 1980s, and was revived for Bath’s Tricentennial celebration a few years ago.
At 6:30 Saturday evening at RiverWalk, Aronson will sing some of the songs he sang Sept. 18 at the Turnage during the variety show “A New Vaudeville Revue.”
“It seems very ambitious,” Aronson said of the Book Walk, “but it seems like Washington is evolving into a place to be, to go to, to visit, and this is just another step along the way.”
For more information on the Book Walk, call I Can’t Believe It’s a Book Store at 946-0855 or see the store’s fan page on Facebook.