From the Director's Chair: Mission Accomplished!!

It’s good to be back!



After the Los Angeles Black Book Expo, I needed a break in the worst way! Thanks for all of you who showed up to attend our event but for those of you who weren’t fortunate to be there, here’s the rundown:

For the first couple of hours, it was set up time and high stress. The parking lot across the street was locked; several exhibitors got a bit testy over that ‘first come, first served’ table space, and yes, tempers were short. After repeated calls to Five Star parking, the gate was opened and exhibitors were finally able park their cars through the gates. Because of Pak Day on the neighboring South Lawn, many of the exhibitors were told to either pay at 4 PM when their festival began or move down to the mysterious Lot 4. We were in Lot 1. Fortunately, neither of that happened and several exhibitors who stayed the full time didn’t have to pay a dime. That didn’t take away what was a productive day.

I made my rounds making sure every exhibitor on the outside the ballroom was taken care of. It was hot outside, but the LABBX committee was prepared with an ice chest filled with cold bottles of water to hydrate our guests. I was feeling the heat too, sweating before our appointed time of 10 AM. It was all worth it though as we made an adjustment regarding the panel discussions by moving them up an hour, but when that matter was solved with the sound equipment, it was smooth sailing from there, or so I thought.

Two hours into the LABBX, the panel discussions had a crowd, our Spoken Words in the Courtyard flowed with passionate words of poetry and our Children’s Literary Zone wasn’t lacking for delightful storytellers and children’s book authors sharing their stories with the kids. Another major challenge happened in that our food vendor - bless her heart - was stuck on the freeway on her way to our event. That left it up to Team Chazz (mom, aunt and cousins) to take over the food portion of the expo. It was a good thing the food was left the night before or man, I would be underground for a long time to come, lol. Our exhibitors were treated to a healthy meal and were able to enjoy the rest of the day without any further incidents.

Overall, I’d say it was a good day for the revival of the LABBX. Of course, nothing is perfect, even for an event such as this. That’s good, it gives the committee and volunteers something to go on for 2008 when we plan to make the Black book expo bigger and better than this year. For a person without event planning experience or major organizing skills, I believe I did the best job I could under enormous obstacles facing our event. Never in my mind for a second would I even think of canceling this year and based on the many positive reactions via email or personally, we’ve given a whole lot of people something to look forward to next year.

I would like to thank the International Black Writers and Artists of Los Angeles for all of their support and assistance. They were instrumental in helping us get the word out about the revival of the L.A. Black Book Expo as well as our sponsors and local bookstores such as Smiley’s Books (hosting the Children’s Literary Zone) and Jaed’s Bookstore. I’m convinced the hard work of the LABBX committee paid off and we can’t wait until next year to do it again!

Unless, we have another book fair in December………

Stay connected with us to find out!

~ Chazz

P.S. Check out our write up in the L.A. Times! The L.A. Sentinel and L.A. Watts Times to follow this week!