The Tinos International Literary Festival and Me.

Today is the third and final day of the 4^th Tinos International Literary Festival held on Mykonos’ neighboring Aegean Greek island of Tinos. 

The harbor of Tinos is nine miles northwest and virtually equidistant from the old and new ports of Mykonos. How long that trip takes depends upon whether you travel by freighter, ferry, or fast boat.  Since I brought my car, I went by ferry, and shall return the same way on Sunday.

Almost every regularly scheduled commercial passenger vessel in or out of Athens’ port cities of Piraeus and Rafina that stop on Mykonos also stop on Tinos. That’s not just because Tinos lacks an airport, but because it serves as home to the Lourdes of Greece—The Church of Panagia Evangelistria—and the extraordinarily influential earthly power behind it, The Panhellenic Holy Foundation of our Lady of the Annunciation of Tinos, better known simply as The Evangelistria Foundation.  Not surprisingly, the Evangelistria Foundation is one of the sponsors of the Festival, along with the Municipality of Tinos and The Tinos Cultural Foundation.

The Festival takes place in three unique locations on the island, and is described by its organizers as aiming “to present the various cultural sides of Tinos while making the island a reference point and meeting place of international contemporary literature. The program includes public speeches, readings, discussions, roundtable meetings between the public and the writers, in combination with local music and dances. Authors and poets will read their work in their native language, while the texts will be available in Greek and English translations."

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My involvement in all this stems from an invitation I received from Dinos Siotis, Artistic Director of the Tinos Cultural Foundation.  He was familiar with the Andreas Kaldis novel I’d placed on Tinos (#4 Target: Tinos) but did not realize I lived on Mykonos. Imagine his great joy upon realizing the travel costs I’d just saved him.

As it turns out, I’m the only USA attendee and only mystery writer among a handful of non-poets. In fact, I’m the only native English-speaking participant, the rest hailing from Greece, Albania, China, Croatia, Cyprus, Denmark, Kurdistan, Mexico, and Slovenia.  In deciding what to read (and have translated into Greek) I originally went with a lengthy funeral lamination poem I’d composed for my new Kaldis novel coming out in October.  Don’t worry; I won’t saddle you with any of that here. I’ve already covered that ground elsewhere.

US-China relations poetically at work

But on reflection I decided to avoid competing with such extraordinarily talented, well-recognized international poets, and played to the local audience by allowing them to hear how a non-Greek mystery writer described their island’s most hallowed institutions and landscapes.  I delivered that address at the opening ceremonies Thursday night, and I’m still breathing and out of custody.

Blending in with the audience.

Today I participate with my new-found colleagues is a round table discussion open to public participation, titled, “The Writer in an Era of Crisis.” We’ll see how I fare in that. 

Below are some photos of the events and venues, capturing at times some of the participants, namely:

Yiorgos Blanas / Greece

Xenophon Brountzakis / Greece

Stratis Haviaras / Greece

Christos Ikonomou / Greece

Laurie Keza / Greece

Elsa Korneti / Greece,

Kleopatra Lyberi / Greece

Yiorgos Rouvalis / Greece

Klety Sotiriadou / Greece

Minas Vintiadis / Greece,

Ardita Jatru / Albania

Maja Klaric / Croatia

Hiwa Panahi / Iranian Kurdistan

Evridiki Periocleous-Papadopoulou / Cyprus

Enrique Servin Herrera / Mexico

Jeffrey Siger / USA

Nicolaj Stockholm / Denmark

Natassa Svikart Zumer / Slovenia

Mindy Zhang / China.

Dinos Siotis, artistic director of Festival and his wife, Barbara

Our chaperone, Xenophon

Checking in...

Checking out...

The pool area

Poetic inspiration in a bottle

Our limo

Taking our show on the road

Croatia and China

First night line up, China, GR, US, GR, Mexico, GR

Yes, she's reading poem composed on her fan!

Preparing for after party

Dinner

Me. 

It’s been a remarkable experience.  And with any luck I’ve convinced some of my newfound colleagues to do guest spots on MIE, though considering their preferred literary form, I think it more appropriate to label their contributions as “PIE.”

Jeff—Saturday