Sharp Words Book Fair Q&A with Noelle Allen

On Saturday February 25, 2023, Hamilton experienced its very first book fair. The fabulous and free event was presented by SuperCrawl and was hosted at Bridgeworks, an ideal community arts venue located at 200 Caroline Street North in Hamilton. Book lovers from Hamilton and beyond perused a market area with a large variety of vendors including independent presses, self-published writers, and letterpress artists; were entertained by engaging author panels; attended online events; and enjoyed the musical stylings of Hamilton’s multitalented writers at an evening literary cabaret.

Noelle Allen, owner and publisher at Wolsak & Wynn is the fair’s founder and organizer, and we wanted to hear some of her thoughts on how the event went, its importance to the city and the literary community, and her future plans for Sharp Words.

What made you decide to create a book fair for Hamilton? What is the importance of an event like Sharp Words for the city’s literary community?

I decided to start Sharp Words because I felt Hamilton was a city that loved books and would enjoy a book fair that mixed together small publishers, chap book makers, letter press artists, comic book publishers and a more. I wanted to share the wonderful diversity of those of us who work with books and words with the general public and with each other. Often these kinds of book fairs highlight just one kind of publisher, or as in the case of of Word on the Street Toronto, are wonderful but a bit overwhelming. I wanted people to find books they’d never even considered existing before at Sharp Words.

This kind of event is a great way for people in our literary community to mix and mingle, to meet new readers, get to know their fellow writers and generally have a great time. The Literary Cabaret in the evening was a spectacular party with people enjoying themselves and really having a wonderful time on stage. But the whole day showcased how vibrant and varied our writers, publishers and artists are.

What did the planning for Sharp Words entail?

This year was the first year for the fair, so we kind of figured out what we needed as we went along. As I have a long relationship with Supercrawl, a lot of the logistics were taken care of by them. They provided the space and technical help to keep things running smoothly, which made things much easier. That left three components to the day that needed to be organized. The actual book fair, the programming during the day and the evening event. Luckily Nathan Whitlock stepped up and took on the Literary Cabaret, which left me organizing the other two. It was quite easy to find vendors. We put out a couple of calls for people to attend, and soon had more than enough vendors. Towards the day of the actual event I did have to turn a few folks away. Finding a balance between in-person and online events during the day was a bit more tricky, but it all came together nicely in the end.

Were you happy with the outcome? Was there anything in particular that stood out for you as a highlight of the event?

I was thrilled with the outcome of the fair! Up to the morning of the event I was worried we’d not get the people out but Hamiltonians love their books. I was particularly delighted with how many books and how wide a variety of books were sold. Every vendor was happy with the day, many said right away that they’d love to come back next year. In fact, that was the overall response to the whole day. People in our panels wanted to come back next year, people attending the cabaret asked us if we were doing this again next year. The general response seemed to be people really enjoying themselves at Sharp Words and wanting to do it all again.

Do you expect that Sharp Words will be an annual event? If so, do you have any plans you can share yet for next year?

We are definitely making this an annual event, and it’ll be around the same time and in the same place with the same mix of book fair, daytime programming and an evening party. Other than that, we’ll have to see.