Standing in a line that wraps around the hall six times, waiting for the chance to see John Green speak, doesn’t surprise me, but it may surprise some people. I keep hearing and reading about how people no longer read. My teacher friends are hardly allowed to assign full books to their students. But as I stand behind a pack of high schoolers and look down into the atrium below, where families weave their strollers between info booths and event staff, I believe there’s more hope than the headlines like to highlight.

With Amy Coney Barrett’s appearance and the National Guard, along with ICE, deployed across the DC streets, I thought maybe attendance would be down this year at the National Book Festival. The administration fired the Librarian of Congress after all, usually the key figure at this annual event. But nothing has detected real readers this year.

The questions asked of genre fiction authors, Fiona Davis, Joe Abercrombie, and Shannon Chakraborty all begin with praise for the books the questioner has already finished and requests for info on stories to come or ways they too can write and contribute to the literary genre.

What can I read to be a better writer? What can I read to learn more? What can I read that you have enjoyed? If there is a plague of non-readers, it has not touched DC today. If there is a lack of interest in story, it’s not here. We can only hope the energy inside the DC convention center can wind its way back out through the streets and influence the few who school boards and clickbait headlines have been interviewing.

Seated on the floor, hardbacks, paperbacks, and kindles balance on knees of every age, filling the time between talking about reading with actual reading. The National Book Fest is like its own fantasy land. One that not everyone may currently believe in. But it’s real.

Don’t know what I’m talking about? You’re missing out.

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