By Javacia Harris Bowser | For The Birmingham Times
With over 1700 attendees registered, K. Reshay Williams is gearing up for one of her biggest events — and that’s saying a lot given that she is already host of one of Alabama’s largest book festivals.
Williams has always been an avid reader, so starting Me Time Book Club with a group of friends back in 2011 just made sense. But today that book club is a nonprofit organization and host of Behind the Ink, one of Alabama’s largest book festivals, set for Sept. 13, that will feature New York Times best-selling author Kennedy Ryan.
“[Ryan] has never done an event in Birmingham,” Williams said, stressing the significance of Ryan’s visit.
Since 2021, Behind the Ink has welcomed authors, entrepreneurs, and lovers of literature to a one-day event that celebrates the power of storytelling.
It’s only grown since then. For 2022, Behind the Ink, which is free for attendees, made its way to The Harbert Center in downtown Birmingham and generated headlines by bringing in New York Times best-selling author Zane, who’s known for her erotic fiction, as the featured author. By 2023, the event had 60 vendors and over 300 attendees.
But Williams had dreams of Behind the Ink being even bigger.
“This year’s event is the vision,” she said. “When I first went into the Harbert Center, I said I want to fill all three levels. The goal was for us to try to bring in the biggest author that was within our budget to see if their reader base would be able to drive the vision.”
It looks like Ryan will do just that. The wildly popular romance writer is best known for her Skyland Series, which includes the titles “Before I Let Go,” “This Could Be Us,” and “Can’t Get Enough.” A television adaptation of “Before I Let Go” is in the works at Universal TV and Peacock. Several dates on Ryan’s book tour for “Can’t Get Enough” were sold out long before the book’s May 13 release date and on August 1, Ryan announced that she was canceling all travel and book events for the fourth – making her stop in Birmingham a can’t-miss event for local fans.
Not Your Basic Book Club
In the summer of 2011, Williams decided she wanted to share her love of reading with others by starting Me Time Book Club.
“I just started jotting down people that I knew,” she recalled. “I didn’t know if they read books or not, but I was like, ‘Okay, I’m gonna start a book club, and y’all are gonna be in it.”
The book club held its first official meeting in November of 2011 at an Olive Garden in Tuscaloosa. “It started out as a basic book club,” Williams said. “We were just reading books and meeting at each other’s homes to discuss them.”
But soon the book club became much more as the group started taking on community service projects. The group collects books for a Little Free Library in Tuscaloosa at Bowers Park. They donate “Blessings Bags” to homeless shelters in Birmingham and surrounding areas. They have also donated time and resources to the Salvation Army, the Lupus Foundation and Grace House Ministries, which provides housing for Alabama girls in foster care. Because of the group’s focus on community service, Me Time Book Club took steps to become a nonprofit organization in 2023
“It grew from 10 basic rules to bylaws, community service, and book festivals,” Williams said. “It just took off.”
The Vision
Williams not only enjoys reading books, but she writes them too. She describes her latest book “Committed” as a psychological thriller. It was her writing aspirations that led to a dream for a book festival.
“When I first got started, I was trying to get my name and my books out there and I noticed that I was always leaving Alabama,” Williams recalled. She felt Alabama authors deserved a large-scale book festival close to home.
The first Behind the Ink book festival was set for April 2020. Then the COVID 19 pandemic thwarted those plans. Delayed but not denied, Williams and the Me Time Book Club hosted its first Behind the Ink event in 2021 at Stillman College in Tuscaloosa with 20 authors and entrepreneurs who signed on to be vendors.
Williams admits that she thought she’d be “one and done” with the festival.
“We weren’t even looking at doing it again,” she said with a laugh. “We just wanted to see if we could do it.”
But authors and attendees were eager to know when the next event would take place. “So, I said, ‘I guess we’re doing it again!”
Just Go For It
For Williams, 43, her love for books is connected to her love for her family. Before starting Me Time Book Club, the Starkville, Mississippi, native who currently lives in McCalla, would discuss the books she was reading with her mom. And when Williams became an author and began to travel to spread the word about her books, she brought her two sons along for the ride.
“They’ve been on the road with me so much that they were like, ‘We want to do this. We can write our own books.’”
So, her sons DJ, 16, and Brandon, 12, started writing a series of children’s books tackling tough topics such as bullying, homelessness and more. Her boys are currently working on two new children’s books and a coloring book.
For anyone of any age who wants to start writing, Williams’ advice is simple: “Follow your heart,” she said. “If there’s a book or an idea that you want to pursue, go ahead and pursue it!”
She also stressed the importance of connecting with others for help along the way. “Reach out to people who are doing what you want to do,” she said. “It can be a little intimidating at first, but I’ve found that people are willing to share what they have learned with you.”
It was by building connections at events like the National Book Club Conference in Atlanta that Williams has been able to bring big names like Zane and Kennedy Ryan to Birmingham. “Reach out, research and just go for it,” Williams said.
In addition to Ryan’s appearance and a variety of vendors (including authors, small business owners, and community organizations), attendees at this year’s event can also look forward to panel discussions on topics related to writing and entrepreneurship.
There will also be giveaways and line dancing. “We wanted to make it a little more fun this year,” Williams said.
Behind the Ink is set for Sept. 13 at The Harbert Center, located at 2019 4th Ave N, Birmingham, AL 35203. For more information and to register to attend, visit https://metimebookclub1.weebly.com/behind-the-ink.html.
