the essential
After Saint-Papoul, two years ago, Fendeille, last year, here is the 3rd edition of the Book Festival which will take place, on June 8, the pretty village of Pomarède.
The initiative for an event around books comes from the Castelnaudary Lauragais Audois community of communes with its public reading network and supported by its director Emmanuelle Massart. “With the book festival, our objective is to bring culture closer to the inhabitants in the heart of our territory,” presents President Philippe Greffier. He evokes the territorial network in terms of public reading around the “flagship” that is the intercommunal media library, a network of libraries and media libraries which is growing. Labastide-d’Anjou is a good example” and welcomes the commitment of volunteers. “We wanted to go further with an event which aims to tour our territory with, each year, specific themes. Taking our media libraries outside their walls is a strong political will even if it is not an easy task since it requires a massive mobilization of services,” continues the elected official.
Nadine Rostoll, mayor of the pretty town which is hosting the event, is absolutely delighted and overwhelmed since it has already aroused the enthusiasm of the village associations and their volunteers who are fully involved.
In the castle courtyard and communal rooms
The book festival will therefore take over the courtyard of the castle. The municipality also opened up all the rooms it has: council room, classrooms.
“This meeting is an opportunity to go to towns where we do not have a media library. We can clearly see that culture unites around a great event. Furthermore, the theme – travel and adventure, is entirely appropriate for this place”, comments Nathalie Naccache, vice-president in charge of culture at the community of municipalities. “We now have authors who take our event into account in their agenda. We invite all the inhabitants of our territory to come and meet them.”
The population, in fact, responded last year and participation is even increasing.
A rich program throughout the day
From stories, conferences, manual activities, there will be activities for all ages and all audiences throughout the day. During the lunch break, the music school will offer a concert.
Ten authors were invited for this edition. “They will be at the center of the event with, at the same time, formal interventions but not only since workshops, conferences, meetings and also time, in a bookstore space”, underlines Emmanuelle, the head of the media library. She continues with the workshops which will be offered in connection with the theme at the same time as with the book and printing. This is the case, for example, of the proposal from the Audoise association Grains d’art “which combines both artistic practice and environmental education”, she quotes. “Another association will come and host role-playing games.” In short, a whole program. “This event is the culmination of the season. Further upstream or just before, we associate other actions. There will be two workshops this week with one of the authors, Marie Caudry who will speak to the classes of La Pomède and from Puginier, we offered other activities for leisure centers and another for the general public, with Léa German, a comic book author. There is a great opportunity for children to experience this time. of creation with the authors but they will also, therefore, be a hook to encourage them to come to the event with the families. Their creations will in fact be presented that day.
All that remains is to hope that the good weather will finally arrive. We believe in it, assure the organizers.
