Local authors: Garlic Festival book due out soon

Longtime volunteers, Gilroy publishers put together a coffee table book

By Staff Reports

Larry and J.Chris Mickartz have a long history with the Garlic Festival. J.Chris was on the first planning committee in 1979. Larry got recruited to work the second festival in 1980 and went on to committee chair and the board throughout the 1980s.

J.Chris and Larry met again while working the festival in 1996 and got married in 1997.

They just celebrated their 25th wedding anniversary. Their first issue of Gilroy Today featured the Garlic Festival and every year until they sold the magazine in 2019, they ran a special on the festival.

About 2012 they began gathering material for a book on the festival to be released with the 35th festival in 2013. That did not work out, obviously.  With COVID-19, the mass shooting, and the sale of gmhTODAY the time was right to try again. They had some great adventures gathering material from friends, photographers and contacts.

The Gilroy Dispatch archives at the Gilroy Museum and online were a treasure trove. The Gilroy Garlic Festival Association eventually gave them access to more than 100,000 slides from past festivals. They digitalized a few thousand and ended up with about 2,000 photos in the book.

The book itself is 248 pages with at least four pages for each year’s festival. There are additional pages on the founders (Rudy, Val and Don) and other people and events throughout the 40-plus years of the festival.

It is a table top book 9×12 inches hardbound with a jacket cover. They are taking orders for presale at $65. When available in late August-early September, it will sell locally at $75. ggfplaybook.com

They have scheduled a release party for Sept. 12 at the Milias Restaurant.