After last year’s successful debut, The Buffalo Small Press Book Fair is returning to Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum this Saturday, March 22. Event founders Chris Fritton and Kevin Thurston are looking to build on the support they received for last year’s event, which included 65 vendors and over 1,000 attendees. This year’s fair has expanded to include over 80 vendors from all over the Northeast including Toronto, Boston, Baltimore, Washington DC, NYC and Philadelphia, and stretching as far west as Ohio. Hoping to improve on last year’s format, the readings and discussions that correspond with the event have been moved upstairs to open up more space for vendors.

“There were a number of amazing things about last year’s Fair—the turnout, the work, giving the authors and artists a place to interact—but the thing that sticks out most in my mind is the atmosphere,” says Fritton. “Everyone at the Fair was so excited to be there, everyone was smiling, and the positive air just seemed to snowball as the event went on.” This year he is looking forward to seeing new work from vendors who attended last year as well as what first-time vendors have to offer. “The Fair has already become the impetus for a lot of creative output—I can’t count the number of people who’ve told me ‘I’m making new things just for the Fair!’”

So what can one expect to find at the Small Press Book Fair? If last year’s vendors are any indication, you can expect a range of items produced by a diverse cross-section of cultural workers and enthusiasts. Last year’s goods ran the gamut from small press poetry and fiction, print-on-demand novels and non-fiction, local interest, letter press and book art, comics, antique collector’s editions, zines, gig posters and other book related items like binding equipment, bookmarks and bookplates.

Justin Sirois, an editor of the Baltimore-based experimental publishing collective Narrow House, is a return participant and will have available for sale books and projects that fuse audio and print, like the recently released cd and book project Annotated Articles from the Doubles Museum by Ric Royer. Sirois commented, “Both the impressive attendance of last year’s fair and the diversity of the crowd brought us back, as well as the professionalism of the organizers. We had a great time trading and selling books, but also enjoyed getting rowdy afterwards at the performances.”

While agreeing it would be nice to see the number of attendees double from last year’s event, Thurston will be pleased if this fair is just as successful. “My mom, who volunteered last year, said she was talking with people her age who attended and they’d remarked that they had no idea this type of thing was even happening. That’s one of the best parts for me, as so often these communities are isolated from each other and the public at large.”

This simple act of bringing people together lies at the center of the Small Press Book Fair. The Fair creates a venue for exchange, a place where people can gather to share their ideas, showcase their art and sell their wares. “As a whole, the Fair comes together as a highly concentrated visual and literary event,” commented another return participant, Kemeny Babineau of Southern Ontario’s Laurel Reed Books. “This year I’m anticipating another energetic event and look forward to seeing old and new friends from Buffalo, Toronto, and elsewhere. The other great thing about a fair like this one is that even though it only lasts a day you get to take home a box full of new books, many of which are written by people you met.”

The Small Press Fair is taking place on Saturday, March 22nd from noon to 6pm at the Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum, Porter Hall (453 Porter Ave., Buffalo). Full event information, including a schedule of readers and performers, is available online at www.buffalosmallpress.org. This event is free and open to the public.