Raconteur gearing up for major festival BY JAY BODAS Correspondent METUCHEN - Literary enthusiasts, be ready, because the Raconteur Festival is coming to town. "You shouldn't miss the opportunity to see a man eating a light bulb in downtown Metuchen, or a woman swallowing razor blades," said Raconteur Bookstore owner Alex Dawson, who is organizing the May 10 event. "In addition to performers, it is also our first time doing an independent press book expo, with literary magazines and publishers fromManhattan, Brooklyn and New Jersey who will be setting up vendor tables," he said. "We will have about 30 vending tables set up. There will be literary magazines, small publishing houses, comic book shops, and cinema memorabilia." There will also be live music and readings by acclaimed writers, including Paul Watkins, Clay McLeod Chapman, and Samantha Hunt. "Many of our writers who will be reading their works are consistently well-reviewed by The New York Times, Vanity Fair, The Wall Street Journal, and the like, and who win awards but are not yet a money-maker," Dawson said. "That is a category of authors we are interested in." Musicians include the Dan Whitley Band and the Roadside Graves. Also performing will be members of the Bindelstiff Family Cirkus, which since 1995 has traveled the world, putting on a variety of vaudeville and sideshow acts. Novelist Paul Watkins, a Booker Prize finalist and author of 14 books, will read from his 1993 memoir, "Stand Before Your God." "One of the reasons that I admire Alex is that he is very old-school," Watkins said. "He is working against the crushing odds of these mega-industries, such as the big book sellers and the massive literary conferences, and there are so many enormous pressures which I am sure he must feel every now and then. He has a very loyal following, and I think he has a remarkable tenacity to do what he does." Also reading will be writer Clay McLeod Chapman, author of "Rest Area" and "Miss Corpus." "Alex goes out of his way to find readers who have not only made a name for themselves in the literary world but who can also strike the right chord with the audience in a live setting," Chapman said. "It is one thing to read these people on the page, but another to see them live and on stage." The trick is to build a reputation that means something, explained Dawson. "When I am inviting someone to an event here, it has my stamp on it," he said. "Last year we flew people in from Paris and California for other events, as I am into sussing out the talent in whatever medium and bringing that here." The Raconteur Festival will be held at 2 p.m. Saturday, May 10, in the Refectory Theater, 270 Woodbridge Ave., located next to the First Presbyterian Church. Parking will be available in the rear. The book expo portion of the event is free and open to the public. For tickets, which cost $15, call The Raconteur at (732) 906-0009 or purchase them at the door of the Refectory on the day of the event. For more information on the day's readers and performers, go to www.raconteurfest.blogspot.com.