THE (DOWNTOWN) OMAHA LIT FEST: INCITING ANXIETY SINCE 2005

Marge said she didn't care to go with them to San Remo. She was in the middle of a 'streak' on her book. Marge worked in fits and starts, always cheerfully, though it seemed to Tom that she was bogged down, as she called it, about seventy-five percent of the time, a condition that she always announced with a merry little laugh. The book must stink, Tom thought. He had known writers. You didn't write a book with your little finger, lolling on a beach half the day, wondering what to eat for dinner. But he was glad she was having a 'streak' at the time he and Dickie wanted to go to San Remo.

--From The Talented Mr. Ripley, by the nefarious Patricia Highsmith [note: Patricia Highsmith was infamous for bringing her pet snails along to cocktail parties; and when she was a child, her mother boasted that she'd tried to abort her by drinking turpentine. "It's funny you adore the smell of turpentine, Pat," her mother once remarked.]

Here's a picture of Patricia Highsmith:

While in San Remo, Tom Ripley fatally brains Dickie with an oar. Meanwhile, Marge continues to guzzle gin martinis in her rented villa, and effortlessly arouses interest from a publisher for her book about the little Italian town of Mongibello. ("Now if I can only finish the damn thing!" Marge says blissfully.)

Highsmith presents a precise and telling portrait of the writer's life (martinis at noon, extended Italian vacations, overwhelming unproductivity, compulsive acts of homicide), but an even more accurate one can be had at the (downtown) omaha lit fest, held annually in various venues. We've been whoopdeedooing it since 2005, and we're always threatening to quit. (They're idle threats, calculated to make us sound blissfully indifferent and sophisticatedly blasÈ.) Our first year, the loosely applied theme was banned books, and also included panels on crime writing, screenwriting, and telling secrets in memoirs; for 2006's festival, the theme was the literary fringe, with panels on blogging, literary sex, death on the plains, and stretching the truth in memoir, among others. We also saluted the vanished poet, cult figure, and Nebraska native Weldon Kees, and showed his rarely screened experimental short film, "Hotel Apex."

In addition to Nebraska authors, the fest has hosted novelists, short-story writers, nonfiction writers, and poets from New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Kansas City, Portland, Washington DC, and Topeka (and beyond). The (downtown) omaha lit fest has received mention in such international publications as Library Journal, Poets & Writers, and Prestige Hong Kong, and was spotlighted as "a particularly good time to visit" Omaha in the New York Times Style Magazine. The Omaha World-Herald cited the fest as "another strong indication of Omaha's continuous cultural growth and expansion of diverse activities" and an "impressive part of the landscape." Mentions of the lit fest's contribution to Omaha culture were included in profiles of noted Omaha sons Kurt Andersen and Alexander Payne in cover stories in The Reader. The (downtown) omaha lit fest is funded in part by the Alan and Marcia Baer Foundation.

above: Beloved and celebrated Omaha poet Todd Robinson reads at the 2006 (downtown) omaha lit fest, in the Gene Leahy Mall. (photo courtesy of charlene baumbich.)

Do not attend Lit Fest if you're hemorrhaging, cranky, prone to touching strangers inappropriately without an invitation, or wear large view-obstructing hats. Discontinue attending Lit Fest if any of the following occur: neck pain, neck rigidity, leukocytosis, cyanosis, edema, dehydration, hostility, false euphoria, "feeling drunk," conjunctivitis. Lit Fest has not been approved by the FDA, and may cause drowsiness in small children. Enjoy in moderation, but overindulge freely.