By Michelle Lecumberry, Design Editor
Untold stories are the ones that haunt us.
Bayou City Book Festival was presented by Lone Star College from April 3-8, 2017. The main day was conducted on the LSC-Kingwood campus.
On April 8 during the Book Festival in the Performing Arts Center building, the Comic(al) Biographies conference was taking place.
Joe Ollmann and Peter Bagge thrive on untold stories.
Peter Bagge’s “Fire! the Zora Neale Hurston Story” on sale in the Bayou Book Festival at Lone Star College-Kingwood, Apr. 7. Photo by Keyla Lerma.
Bagge is the author of “Fire!!: The Zora Neale Hurston Story”. In the comical biography, he tells the story of Zora Neale Hurston who challenged the norms of what was expected of an African American woman in early 20th century society. She was the fifth of eight kids from a Baptist family in Alabama.
Hurston arrived in New York City at the height of the Harlem Renaissance. Her love for dramatics compelled her to become friends with Langston Hughes and Wallace Thurman.
“The Abominable Mr. Seabrooke” by Joe Ollmann on sale during the Bayou Book Festival at Lone Star College-Kingwood, Apr. 7. Photo by Keyla Lerma.
Ollmann wrote the story of Journalist William Buehler Seabrook, who participated in voodoo ceremonies, riding camels cross the Sahara Desert, communing with cannibals, and ultimately becoming one.
Seabrook was a barely functioning alcoholic who was deeply obsessed with bondage and the so-called mystical properties of pain and degradation.
His life was a series of traveling highs and drunken lows; climbing on and falling off the wagon again and again. Something Ollmann could relate to being an alcoholic himself.
Ollmann said, “Seabrook was extremely famous during his life but his downfall was becoming a cannibal which made people want to forget about him.”
Due to his second wife burning everything, Ollmann spent 10 years looking for his story and more details about his life.
Both Ollmann and Bagge agreed and said that even if the process of creating a Comical Biography is “hell” and sometimes “they question why are they doing this,” but in the end when there is a finished product, it is worth it.
Authors Joe Ollmann and Peter Bagge with Lone Star College-Kingwood faculty moderator in Performing Arts Center building on Apr. 7. Photo by Keyla Lerma.
