Untitled Town, a program that promoted Green Bay area writers and organized several successful reading and writing festivals, is trying to reorganize after the pandemic shut down its efforts.
The question is whether it can regain the number of volunteers needed to promote reading and writing and whether it can once again secure enough grants to play host to a festival that, as recently as 2018, drew more than 5,600 patrons.
There is “a huge docket of active writers, presenters, and artists who are eager to get back to sharing their wisdom with writers and readers,” said Wendy Wimmer, one of the co-founders of Untitled Town. Yet, the program has struggled to find enough manpower. Sherrill Revolinski, the President of the Board of Directors of the Friends of the Brown County – the nonprofit group that Untitled Town is a program of, stated, ““It’s been difficult to get volunteers after the pandemic. A lot of people are not quite ready to get back into it. They got used to staying at home. I see that with a lot of the organizations that I volunteer with also.”
Untitled Town began in 2016. According to the media kit published in 2017, it stated that it was originally incorporated in October 2016, and the concept of “…UntitledTown was born in a coffeehouse.” Wimmer, a published author with a Ph.D. in English, was the co-founder with Alex Galt, the owner of Kavarna Coffeehouse. Wimmer stated that the inspiration behind Untitled Town was that she “…wanted to connect with poets and fiction writers and people chasing down literary aspirations while holding down a full-time day job like I was.”
From there, Untitled Town began its’ journey as a nonprofit with the collaboration of 10 volunteers, ranging from Rebecca Meacham, UW-Green Bay’s Creative Writing Director, to Matt Bero, artist, and designer, to Amy Mazzariello, owner of Lion’s Mouth Bookstore. Meacham, who would become president and co-president in the 2018-2020 board, stated, “This annual festival was a truly collaborative effort to create, run, and manage…”
In its debut of 2017, according to a grant, the Book and Author festival attracted a crowd of 4,000 to the 80+ events that occurred in the three days. In 2018, 5,600+ attendees attended 180+ events, keynote speakers, and various workshops, the 2018 impact report stated. The strongest pull is from L.R. Stine’s reading and questions and answers for “1,746 elementary students” in the local areas.
By 2019, the festival had “3000 attendees to 108 events in 5 Downtown Green Bay Venues,” according to the annual press report released. Several names, like Jamie Ford, Andrea Gibson, and Rebecca Makkai, attended. It was also the launch of a new book, THE FIRST WINTER, which was written by The United ReSisters, “a group of Green Bay-area Somali refugee girls and women ages 15-25.” From all accounts, it appeared that Untitled Town was on the rise, continuing to expand and grow, readying for April 24-26, 2020. According to a grant requesting funds for 2020, a tentative schedule centered around the theme “Community” mentioned a line-up of Peabody Award-winning for NPR Lulu Miller, children’s author Rosemary Wells, and Jonah Larson, a 14-year-old (then 12 years old) crochet master with his own books.
Then Covid-19 happened. Wimmer stated, “Covid lockdown happened roughly a month before the 2020 festival was intended to go, and the board at that time determined that it would be on hold. Like most people, they assumed they could pick everything up in the fall, but then as we know, hundreds of thousands of people were passing away, and we were in no shape to connect indoors safely.” Thus, the Book and Author Festival 2020 was canceled for the time. Internally, the 2018-2020 board was faced with several issues, coming to the ultimate decision to dissolve their nonprofit organization and give all assets to the Friends of the Brown County Library nonprofit, one of the early supports of Untitled Town. Friends of the Brown County Library would make Untitled Town into its’ own program.
There were several reasons behind this move. First: the landscape to obtain funds and grants for hosting the festival had significantly changed since it started, Meacham stated, “…coincidentally, the fundraising picture had changed dramatically since our first festival in 2017, in various ways (and we weren’t yet “old enough “as a nonprofit to qualify for some grants that could have helped)…. [it was] harder to raise money for a book festival during or after Covid, when so many community granting organizations already (pre-Covid) were supporting more dire and needy causes.”
There was also the mental and emotional strain being placed upon the Board members themselves. Meacham, the president at the time, mentioned, “It was an all-consuming endeavor because right when one festival ends, you have to power up to plan another, and it’s so much management, in every way, especially if you are a small volunteer working board without paid positions or staff, like UT (UntitledTown). Those at the top work the most and hardest. They did.”
Now, coming to the present day, it is quite difficult to find any information on Untitled Town. Their website just redirects to their Facebook page, and their Facebook page updates sporadically with zero event page. During the time of writing this article, the last time it was updated was back in January.
The Facebook page, while having two thousand followers, has not updated since Jan. 6 at the time of this article. Screenshot taken by Elsie McElroy.
Yet, Wimmer and the others involved in the Untitled Town program are working on an entire docket for bringing Untitled Town’s events back around. Revolinski mentioned that anyone interested in joining could email, even if you don’t think your skill, “If you are in Marketing, we could definitely use you!” Revolinski stated.
For more information or to volunteer, one can contact the Friends of the Brown County Library’s email address info@browncountylibraryfriends.org
