St. Petersburg Times Festival of Reading

The St. Petersburg Times Festival of Reading was held on Saturday October 22, 2011 at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg (USFSP). This was the sixteenth year for the annual festival.


The Festival of Reading, 2nd Street South at 6th Avenue South




Festival of Reading, 6th Avenue South at 2nd Street



This year's featured authors included Bob Graham (Keys to the Kingdom), Ray Arsenault (Freedom Riders), Laurens Grant (PBS Documentary Freedom Riders Producer), Connie May Fowler (How Clarissa Burden Learned to Fly), Tony Silvia (Power Performance: Multimedia Storytelling for Journalism and Public Relations), Julie Buckner Armstrong (Mary Turner and the Memory of Lynching), Herb Snitzer (Glorious Days and Nights), and Martin Dyckman (Reubin O'D. Askew and the Golden Age of Florida Politics). (A complete list for authors can be found at: .)


Connie May Fowler, signing copies of her latest book


Bob Graham, former Florida Governor and Senator, entered the USFSP Student Activities Center through the main entrance, stopping to talk with several people in the crowd before speaking about his book Keys to the Kingdom. (Disclaimer: I was one of the people Senator Graham spoke with on his way into the Student Activities Center; his listening abililty and unpretentiousness, so lacking in many elected officials, were no doubt part of his popularity as senator and governor.)

Ray Arsenault, Julie Buckner Armstrong and Tony Silvia are all professors at USFSP. Arsenault is the John Hope Franklin Professor of Southern History and is part of USFSP's Florida Studies program. His book Freedom Riders was turned into a PBS documentary, which went on to win three Emmys. Armstrong is an associate professor at USFSP and is the editor of The Civil Rights Reader: American Literature from Jim Crow to Reconciliation (Georgia). Besides being a faculty member of USFSP's Department of Journalism and Media Studies, Dr. Silvia is a former news anchor and is the author of five books.

Over the years, Connie May Fowler has been associated with the University of Tampa. Her book Before Women Had Wings was turned into television film (1997), featuring Oprah Winfrey.

(Some of the information on the above bios was obtained at the Festival's website. These, as well as the other authors' biographies, may be found at .)

There were also many book sellers and exhibitors.