10 Cult Literary Traditions for Truly Die-Hard Fans

Sometimes you love a book — or an author’s body of works — so much that you need an outlet that allows you to express that love. Sure, book club might help a little, but if you’re a truly die-hard fan, you might find that you need a little more tradition (or maybe full-on period costumes) to really inspire you. After all, nothing makes literature come to life like actually incorporating it into the modern-day world, whether by holding nonstop readings, visiting grave sites, or carrying around special tokens of appreciation and winking at other insiders. So if you’ve wondering how best to salute your favorite authors and novels, click through to read up on a few literary traditions ripe for the joining, and let us know if we’ve missed any of your favorites in the comments!

The Poe Toaster

For 60 years, every January 19th, on the anniversary of Edgar Allan Poe’s birthday, a mysterious figure would visit Poe’s grave in Baltimore, pour himself a glass of cognac, raise a toast to the author, and leave three red roses and the rest of the bottle of cognac at his gravestone before vanishing into the darkness. A tradition grew for local Poe fans to gather to watch the shadowy figure (or figures — common wisdom is that the tradition was passed from father to son), and read the cryptic notes he sometimes left behind. Sadly, this January 19th has come and gone for the third time without the appearance of the “Poe Toaster,” so by all accounts this tradition has come to an end. Unless, that is, we can entreat any enterprising Poe fan to take up the mysterious mantle next year.

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How could you leave out Burns Night? The piping in of the haggis, marched around for all to admire, the poetry readings, songs, bawdy stories, not to mention the single malt scotch...this is a wonderful tradition!

There is the Sutree walk in Knoxville, Tennesee which celebrates Cormac McCarthy's 1979 Magnum Opus. I beleieve it is held in October.

If we had the ffunds my husband and I would join other ffans of Jasper Fforde in Swindon (home of his heroine Thursday Next) for the annual Fforde Ffiesta.

You missed the Slickman A4 quotation Event (SA4QE), the February 4th event honoring Russell Hoban (people show their appreciation by leaving quotations from Hoban’s novels on sheets of yellow A4 paper, a Hoban motif, in public places for people to find).

What a great way to bring the stories of our favorite author to life again. See you there:)

Yup, a marathon reading of MOBY DICK and a party devoted to James Joyce are surely on the same level as confused teenagers carving swastikas into their foreheads. On the other hands, "cult members" are known to have more sex and greater fun than those like Ms. Temple who enjoy enforcing their boring mainstream values.

You forgot the classic "Stella!" shouting contest held every year at the Tennessee Williams Literary Fest in New Orleans.

You missed the Julio's Cortazar tomb in Paris. His fans use to leave a hopscotch drawed in a paper.