I’m writing from the Six Bridges Book Festival.

I’m a long way from France now, back home in the Natural State, and I can’t help but make comparisons.

I keep trying to imagine that I’m French. It’s my first time in the states. My plane lands at the Bill and Hillary Clinton National Airport. I deboard and find myself in a clean, well-lit terminal. David Bazzel, Roger Scott, and DJ Williams grin down at me. I don’t recognize them. I don’t know the first thing about American football.

From there, though, things get more familiar.

After a short rideshare into the River Market, I find myself staring up at a library, a colossal, five-story building with a gleaming glass façade. The location, the size, the scope — it’s obvious that this place is important. It means something to the people who live here, the people who are waiting inside.

They aren’t at all like what I’m expecting. I’m French, remember? All I’ve ever heard of Arkansas comes mostly from the internet, along with a few stray movies and books. But these people are wearing shoes! They have teeth!

Even more surprising — they love books!

Their love of literature is astounding. It’s in everything they do, everything they say. I stumble into an auditorium where two bald men are receiving prizes.
 

The first, shorter, bald man is named Jeffrey Condran. He reads from his work in progress, a stirring reimagining of Frantz Kafka’s final days. The next bald man is taller and bearded. He reads a football-focused excerpt, which, of course, I don’t understand, but then he starts thanking his mentors, and the pure love translates.

He tells a story about a professor named Johnny Wink, and how Dr. Wink led him to Jack Butler and Greg Brownderville. He quotes a line of Greg’s masterwork, a poem called “Mystery.” He mentions Charles Portis (I know him!) and his brother Jon and a kindness they once offered the young writer at the start of his career.

The list goes on and on, and though I don’t recognize all the names, I know the feeling. Yes. This is familiar. This is the current that connects France to Arkansas, Paris to Little Rock. I know this place, these people, and the festival’s just getting started.

Over the next two days, I’m awash in a sea of curiosity. The discussions are thought provoking. The questions considerate. I sit in on panels featuring world-renowned authors like Ariel Lawhon, Deesha Philyaw, Ben Fountain, Ayana Gray, Jordan Harper, SA Cosby, and more.

So much more.

And then, sadly, the festival is over. It’s time to go home. Back to the airport, past the sports-themed advertisements that make a little more sense now. Yes, I’m starting to understand this place called Arkansas, this beautiful little state tucked away in the heart of America.

It’s not at all what I thought I would find, nothing like what I’d read, what I’d heard.

You have to see it to believe it.

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