Abstract
Amid the success of the global Book Town Movement, Frank draws attention to book towns that have not achieved sustainable outcomes. She applies A.V. (Tony) Seaton’s critical book town success factors to the failed projects of Blaenafon in Wales and Atherstone in England, as well as highlighting the case of Graiguenamanagh in the Republic of Ireland, an emergent book town experiencing financial hardship despite possessing other desirable attributes. Frank outlines a range of economic, political, social and book industry-related issues that threaten to render book town futures uncertain. The chapter examines challenges that book towns encounter in their establishment phase, but also the difficulties encountered with relation to leadership and succession with the inevitable ageing of entrepreneurs who created and sustained book towns.
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Notes
- 1.
It has since been reported that Hanna was arrested on his return to America, facing numerous counts of rape and sexual indecency, and has now been imprisoned (Sanders and Gaskell 2013, p. 1).
- 2.
While Roberts explained there is still no progression to a permanent town of books, he believes the 2016 event was the strongest yet. Positively, the current Book Town Committee has undertaken to share more of the burden of responsibility for administrating the annual festival between its members. Roberts was more optimistic about reports of reduced reliance on Kindles and other electronic reading devices, and buoyed by evidence of a resurgence in paper book sales (personal interview 2017).
- 3.
Anselot gives an account of his book town journey in a bibliomemoir about Redu, published in 2004 to mark the community’s twentieth anniversary as a book village. The organizers combined the twinning celebration with Europe’s first ‘space film’ festival, in homage to the European Space Agency satellite station, also located in Redu (‘Belgium’s Book Town’ 2004).
- 4.
The initial cultural exchange was centred on a project featuring the work of Clunes-born photographer George Rose (1861–1942), who took a series of ‘historically potent streetscapes of Korea’ in 1904. The photographs have since been exhibited in both book towns. Korean artists and authors also attended Clunes Booktown Festival in both 2014 and 2015: http://clunesbooktown.com.au/international-program
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Interviews
Booth, Richard MBE. Hay-on-Wye, Wales, 20 September 2011.
Chambers, Joanna. Abergavenny, Wales, 20 September 2011.
Edmondson, John. Graiguenamanagh, Republic of Ireland, 17 September 2011.
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Muller, Laurie. Brisbane, Queensland, 17 August 2010 and 7 September 2010.
Nelson, Carole. Sedbergh, Yorkshire, United Kingdom, 9 September 2011; phone interview, 29 March 2017.
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Yates, Carolyn. Wigtown, Scotland, 4 September 2011.
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Frank, J. (2018). Occasional Errata: Book Towns That Fail or Falter. In: Regenerating Regional Culture. Sociology of the Arts . Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-65036-4_6
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