Dear WinkWorld Readers,
Tucson Festival of Books, 2025: 1o0,000 of my best friends, and more books than I will ever be able to read. Readers and writers in every direction. Families reading together. Children running and squealing with glee. What is not to love?! The photo below from a previous year gives you and idea of what it looks like.
A Celebration of Literacy
Every year all of these readers, writers, and families suddenly show up on the grass in the middle of University of Arizona (known as the mall) campus to celebrate literacy.
So many books, but I will choose two to highlight
Octavia Butler: Time to reread her prophetic words.
Banned Books: Trying to read as many as possible.
A highlight of my visit to Tucson: Dr. Adelberto Guerrero
We went for a great walk in a shopping mall with my favorite professor ever, Dr. Guerrero (a.k.a., Beto), who had never met Dawn, nor heard her native-like Spanish. He is now 95-years-old. Below I am posting a photo of Beto, his friend, Mary, and me on our walk. To the right of that is a pix of Dawn, Dr. Guerrero, and Dr. Macario Saldate chatting in Spanish with Dawn.
Previously, I had written about Profe Beto being my all-time favorite teacher.
Always a highlight of our time in Tucson: Mary Ann, my friend
Mary Ann and I met each other in 1975. Wink, kids, and I were in Tucson on a very hot day and decided to go find a church. We got lost looking for the one I had considered, but found another, Rincon Congregational, U.C.C. Mary Ann and her three daughters, whom we had never met, greeted us at the door. Bo, age 4, ran off to a Sunday school class with Mary Ann’s, youngest, Wendy and Amy, age 4. Our Dawn Elizabeth, age 7, ran off to another classroom with Mary Ann’s Dawn Elizabeth, age 7. We have all been fast friends since that day. In addition, we all still attend that same church, when we are here.
We walked miles in the mornings. Here we found tiles on a wall which had images representing various chapters in Don Quijote.
We visited our favorite neighborhood library.
We visited another favorite spot on the University of AZ campus, Women’s Plaza of Honor.
Best of all, we walked Sabino Canyon. A year ago, I could not even dream of ever being able to walk this canyon again. We went almost 4 miles up hill and down hill without trouble. It was so affirming of my consistent exercises for the past year. Here we are taking a little break, after a particularly steep incline.
Previous Tucson Festival of Books can be found in WinkWorld: Just use the Search button over on the left of joanwink.com
In addition YouTube has various videos from the 2025 Festival.