Our aims with The Believer Festival are relatively humble. We’re not trying to change the world (although if that happens? Neat!). We’re just happy to have an excuse to spend a few days celebrating our favorite writers, artists, and thinkers against the beautiful and unconventional psychedelic trip of a backdrop that is Las Vegas. It’s a flattering surprise when people outside the city take note of what we’re doing. In last weekend’s New York Times, John Williams wrote a glowing report of what we’ve been up to out here, stating that we “have kindled an already present bookish community into a steadier flame.” Though we’ve been talking off the ears of anyone who would listen for years about the greatness of our adopted home, we’re excited to have more people pay attention. Read Williams’s profile here, and then scroll down to check out reflections on the festival from our editors and local writers.
We’ll also be devoting an upcoming issue to La Frontera, which was the theme of this year’s festival. You can make sure you don’t miss that issue by subscribing to the magazine here, and get updates for next year’s festival as soon as they’re announced by subscribing to the Black Mountain Institute’s mailing list here. Whew! Happy reading.
Thursday Evening
The Light
A few weeks ago, I was over a friend’s house in Las Vegas and asked an ill-conceived, Mezcal-fueled question. (Haven’t we all?) My friend and her partner own an impressive, if nascent, collection of neon signs. They recently bought a red-hot rectangle that hangs out near their kidney-shaped pool; it features the word “DIP” in the center of the square, framed by cascading diagonal lines. It’s like a mirage. In the slightly surreal, sign-lit evening light, I angled my head a few degrees, squinted, and asked, “What is that kind of light… like, incandescence?” My friend’s partner responded with a more sensible answer: “I think the word you’re looking for is ‘glow.’”
On the 25th of April, I was reminded again of that conversation, and glow, and searching for something I didn’t know but wanted to figure out, and trying to find words to capture the stark, ineffable imagery unfolding in front of me. “The Light,” the opening event of this year’s Believer Festival prompted an extended meditation on mystery, geopolitical borders, internecine struggle, death, memory, splendor, and the Las Vegas that lives in writers’ hearts. The evening featured Hanif Abdurraqib; Natalie Diaz; 2018 Believer Book Award winners Catherine Barnett, Rita Bullwinkel, and Meghan O’Gieblyn; Mira Jacob; Kiese Laymon; José Orduña; and Craig Winslow. The Neon Museum’s Ne10 workshop served as the venue. It houses their hidden collection of discarded...
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