Scene from last year’s W.Va. Book Festival, photo by Vic Burkhammer

Admission to the W.Va. Book Festival this weekend is free. Someone a little pinched for money asked me about that the other day.

It’s at the Charleston Civic Center, and of course, there will be plenty of opportunities to buy books, meet the writers, publishers and book store people. The festival promises to be a good time for people of all ages.

For a book festival overview and program schedule, list of program presenters and authors, all about the used book sale, and directions & accommodations, visit the festival home page online. The festival times: 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday, October 11, and from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. on Sunday, October 12. See you there. As I’ve said before, I’ll be in the VIP Room at 10 a.m. to introduce poet John Hoppenthaler.

Elsewhere around the festival, topics include writing about the Shakers, audiobook production, poetry readings including one by W.Va. poet laureate Irene McKinney, writing with children, concept imagery, Charleston Gazette Storybook Character Parade.

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From staff, wire reports
STOCKHOLM, Sweden  — Monsters and Critics calls him a “wayfarer through distant worlds.” Many have called him the greatest living French novelist. He has a poetic edge.

France’s Jean-Marie Gustave Le Clezio won the 2008 Nobel Prize in literature on Thursday for works characterized by “poetic adventure and sensual ecstasy” and focused on the environment, especially the desert.

Le Clezio, 68, is the first French writer to win the prestigious award since Chinese-born Frenchman Gao Xingjian was honored in 2000.

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Mark Brazaitis, associate professor and director of creative writing in WVU’s Department of English, is the 2008 recipient of the ABZ Press Poetry Prize for his manuscript, “The Other Language.”

As winner, the book of poems will be published in May.

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