The drive from the Prescott Public Library to Abra McAndrew’s childhood home in Chino Valley was only 23 miles, 35 minutes door to door, but that was plenty of time for her to dive headlong into one of the books now scattered across the back seat of the family car.
Oh, did she love those weekend trips to the library.
“On the way in, I would wonder what kind of books I would find this time. On the way home, I couldn’t wait to start reading them,” she recalled.
Books have been an important part of McAndrew’s life ever since, which is one of the reasons why — no doubt the biggest reason why — that same girl from Chino Valley is now the executive director of the Tucson Festival of Books.
McAndrew became the festival’s fourth director on Aug. 5, and it’s a good thing she was ready to hit the ground running.
Abra McAndrew is the new executive director of the Tucson Festival of Books.
Even then, preparations were well underway for the next festival, March 15-16, 2025, and the pace has been quickening almost every day since.
“I’ve just been trying to learn how everything works, and helping where I can,” McAndrew said. “It’s amazing how many streams of activity are going on, and how much of that work is being done by volunteers. It’s a lot, and it’s all the time.”
There aren’t many jobs like this one. In addition to managing an annual budget of $1.25 million, McAndrew is ultimately responsible for some 2,000 volunteers, more than 100 of whom work year-round.
Volunteers engage festival sponsors, solicit donors, sell exhibitor space on the mall and recruit all the authors. A small army of volunteers does everything from setup to clean-up the weekend of the event.
Somehow, it all works. The Tucson Festival of Books has become one of the largest literary events in the world, attracting more than 300 writers and 125,000 readers a year to the University of Arizona.
“My first week here, I met Helene Woodhams, one of our original volunteers,” McAndrew recalled. “She compared the festival to a bumblebee. Scientifically, it’s impossible for a bumblebee to fly, but somehow it does anyway. I hear the ‘Flight of the Bumblebee’ in my head all the time now.”
Books have been constant companions throughout McAndrew’s life.
While in high school, she babysat the children of her English teacher, Scott Shoop. “He’d have us read all these great books in class, and if I saw more in his personal library he’d lend me those to read, too.”
While an undergraduate at Smith College, she changed her major from chemistry to comparative literature.
“Do your parents know about this?” the counselor asked.
Still, it would be stretching a point to suggest the plotline of the Abra McAndrew story runs straight from Prescott Library to the book festival office in Tucson.
During those 40-plus years in between, McAndrew worked for a major East Coast law firm specializing in international trade; taught English as a second language for three years in Chile; and spent two decades serving in executive positions at the University of Arizona.
When she left the UA in July, McAndrew was an assistant vice president who managed programs for underserved students transitioning into college and on to their chosen careers.
Through it all, though, there were books … and one of them proved pivotal last year.
“It’s funny that it was a book that got me more involved with books again, but last year I read ‘Four Thousand Weeks‘ by Oliver Burkeman,” McAndrew said. “I was feeling a little slumpy at the time, so I was listening when he said life was short. Instead of trying to more-more-more all the time, he suggested we find five things that really matter to us and focus our time on those five things. Focus our energy on those five things.”
In narrowing her own list, McAndrew soon remembered the sense of joy and adventure she had always found in literature. She remembered that little girl in the Prescott library.
Last January, McAndrew launched a weekly blog called The Booktender on Substack.
Less than three months later, she saw the book festival’s ad for an executive director.
“I wasn’t looking for a job at all,” McAndrew said, “but I’d just decided books were important to me. I had just started focusing more on reading. When I saw the ad for the book festival I said, wow, maybe this is something I should think about.”
Thank you, Oliver Burkeman!
With less than five months remaining until the festival this spring, McAndrew’s to-do list is still very much under construction.
She will be looking for new sponsors and additional donors, determined to keep the festival free. She will be recruiting new volunteers to keep the “Tucson” at the heart of the Tucson Festival of Books.
Most of all, she will be reminding us the door to the festival is open to everyone.
“The festival is not just for early readers or all-along readers, people who read a lot and keep up with all the latest,” McAndrew said. “All it takes to enjoy our event is a little curiosity. There is so much to see and so much to do, if you come with a little curiosity you’re going to have a great time at the Tucson Festival of Books.”
FOOTNOTES
- Western Romance author Lyla Sage will launch her new novel, “Lost and Lassoed,” Nov. 6 in Oro Valley. Stacks Book Club is staging the event, which starts at 5 p.m. at Steam Pump Ranch, 10901 N. Oracle Road. For more information, visit Stacksbookclub.com/events. Tickets include a pre-signed copy of the book and range from $27.99 to $60.
- Make Way for Books is among 10 organizations nationwide that will receive a grant from Writing Change, an initiative founded by poet Amanda Gorman and underwritten by Estee Lauder. Make Way’s Executive Director, Yissel Salafsky, said the funding will help the organization expand pre-kindergarten reading programs throughout Arizona.
- Roger Reeves, a finalist for the 2022 National Book Award with “Best Barbarian,” will appear Nov. 7 at the University of Arizona Poetry Center, 1508 E. Helen Street. The free program will begin at 7 p.m. For more, visit poetry.arizona.edu/events.
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