A Tale Of Two Book Festivals

“For obvious cultural and plainly practical reasons, it runs counter to logic that Spokane should have a better literary festival than Seattle does. The disparity between what Get Lit!’s organizers have to work with and what Bookfest’s organizers have to work with is staggering. Bookfest has name recognition, a 10-year history, and a $600,000 annual budget. Get Lit! has hardly any name recognition, a six-year history, and a $180,000 budget. And don’t forget that it takes place in Spokane. So how is it possible that Bookfest fails on so many levels where Get Lit! succeeds? How can it be that Spokane, a city so putatively inferior, does this book-festival thing so much better than we do?”