Despite living in Tucson for most of my life, I had never made it to the Tucson Festival of Books. Every March it fills the UA Mall for a weekend, and every March something else came up. This year a work opportunity finally got me there — I volunteered to represent my company at the Saturday morning session alongside my coworker Jay.
The morning was cooler than you would expect for a Tucson March. The Mall was already busy when we arrived to set up: rows of white tents stretching across the grass, a steady crowd despite the early hour. Authors, publishers, food vendors, nonprofits, and apparently every cultural organisation in southern Arizona all had a presence. The philosophy club had a tent pitched right next to ours.
Authors sell and sign books, and panels run throughout the day on everything from literary fiction to science communication. There are also food stalls, live music, and a lot of people.
Our booth was in the Everyday Life section of Science City, where we introduced kids to the physics behind things they encounter daily. Waves were the theme: geolocation, optics, sound, and basic circuits, each with a hands-on toy or puzzle. Explaining the direction of current flow to a six-year-old was harder than I expected. I couldn't rely on the usual technical terms, and sometimes I wasn't sure how else to explain it. Most of the kids were between four and nine. Some of their questions stumped me.
I was there from nine until noon, long enough to get a feel for the place but not long enough to actually explore it. The food stalls were something I would go back for — we were too busy to break away from the booth, and by the time we packed up I was ready to leave rather than navigate the remaining crowds.
I enjoyed volunteering, but I barely saw the rest of the festival. Next time I'd like to go as a visitor and have time to walk around.