Category: KidLit Events

2024 KidLit Events: VA, MD, DC, and Beyond

12/9/2023

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2024 Kidlit Events
Virginia, Maryland, DC & Beyond

January

Roanoke Regional Writers Conference at Hollins University

February

SCBWI Winter Conference
Williamsburg Book Festival

March

CityLit Festival, Baltimore, MD
Virginia Festival of the Book, Charlottesville, VA
Virginia State Literacy Association Conference, Norfolk, VA
Washington DC Awesome Con, DC
Women’s Storytelling Festival, VA

April

Annapolis Book Festival at Key School, MD
Annapolis Comic-Con, MD
Color of Children’s Literature Conference
Black Child Book Fair, Charlotte, NC
Frostburg University Spring Children’s Literature Festival, MD
State of Maryland Literacy Association Conference
Royal Book Bash in the DMV, Woodbridge, VA
Sound of the Mountain Storytelling Festival, Fincastle, VA
YAVA Awards & Celebration, Richmond, VA

May

Baltimore Book Festival, MD
Gaithersburg Book Festival, Gaithersburg, MD
Maryland Librarian Association Conference
Tidewater Comicon

June

ALA Annual Conference & Exhibition, San Diego
Chesapeake Children’s Book Festival
Fredericksburg Independent Book Festival
Hollins University Kidlit Summer Symposium
Shenandoah University Children’s Literature Conference

July

Kweli International Literary Festival

August

National Book Festival at the Library of Congress, DC

September

Baltimore Comic Con, MD
Capital Book Fest
Carolina Mountains Literary Festival, Burnsville, NC
Latinx Virtual Kidlit Book Festival
Literary Hill Book Fest, DC

October

Black Authors and Readers Rock Conference (BARR), MD
Children’s Africana Book Awards & Festival, DC
Fall for the Book, George Mason University, Fairfax, VA
James River Writer's Conference, Richmond, VA
Old Dominion University Literary Festival, Norfolk, VA
Virginia Children’s Book Festival, Longwood University, Farmville VA
Virginia Literary Festival, Richmond VA
West Virginia Book Festival, Charleston, WV

November

Hampton Roads Writer’s Conference
NCTE Annual Convention, Boston, MA
Texas Book Festival
Virginia Association of School Librarians (VAASL) Annual Conference
YALLFest Charleston, SC

Find a comprehensive list of Book Festivals compiled by Publishers Archive HERE.

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Welcoming Leah Henderson

2/22/2019

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Welcome, Leah! Thanks for stopping by!

Nice to be here, Dionna!

Do tell a little about the Kweli conference, and how you found your way onto the planning committee.

Kweli--The Color of Children’s Literature Conference--is a wonderful day-long kidlit writers and illustrators event (with optional Masterclasses on Friday). This year it will be held Saturday, April 6, 2019, at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York. In 2014, after reading author Walter Deans Myers op-ed piece "Where Are the People of Color in Children's Books?", Laura Pegram, editor-and-chief of the Kweli Journal and Kweli conference founder, decided to create an event that is exclusively for Indigenous people and persons of color who were writers and illustrators. As she puts it, “we honor Walter Dean Myers' legacy with a conference that celebrates and supports our voices, our stories, our truth.”

In 2016, I stumbled across a post for an upcoming Kweli conference that was happening that weekend. I didn’t do much thinking, I just sent an email to inquire if walk-ins where permitted and once I got a "yes" back, I booked a train ticket. There was no way I was going to miss it! I had never been to a children’s writing conference where Indigenous and persons of color were the majority. It was a wonderfully refreshing experience to see and hear from creatives who had many of the same concerns as I do. But it wasn’t just about the struggles. Kweli is also a celebration of our many successes. After that first year, I was hooked and about a year later, when Laura asked if I was interested in becoming involved, I was honored to be a part of it all.

What do you love about working behind the Kweli scenes, creating a lineup that is both rich culturally and holds promise of a real educational experience for attendees?

I go to a number of conferences and retreats and it’s nice to create programming that I hope to see. Also, I love that Kweli is a good mix of new and established voices.

Share one or two of your most memorable experiences while either attending or planning for the conference.

Kweli is a very unique experience. I will never forget the welcome I received during my first conference. It’s hard to explain, but when you are used to being one of the only people of color in a room, it was nice to see and meet so many other POC creatives in one space. They were doing so many amazing things in their work and were just as curious and eager as I was to learn more about craft and the business-side of writing.

May people from any background, not just persons of color, attend the conference?

Kweli is a conference exclusively for Indigenous and POC creatives. It’s an opportunity for this community to come together to speak about issues and concerns that are unique to our experiences as well as general discussions on craft and the ins and outs of publishing. Kweli’s aim is not to exclude, so the organization does offer a literary festival during the summer that is open to anyone interested in attending.

What is the process for a published author or illustrator who would like to be considered for the Kweli faculty?

At the moment, the planning committee creates most of the sessions offered, reaching out to people we feel will work best for each panel or session. Since we want to highlight newer voices on the publishing side of the table as well, we often get recommendations from IPOC editorial assistants, designers, or marketing experts. Everyone, especially Laura, does a pretty good job of knowing which authors and illustrators are coming out with new work that can be highlighted each year.

Leah Henderson is the author of the middle grade novel One Shadow on the Wall, an Africana Children’s Book Award notable, and a Bank Street Best Book of 2017. Her forthcoming picture books include Together We March, Day For Rememberin’, and Mamie on the Mound. She also has a new middle grade novel The Magic in Changing Your Stars on the horizon.

Raised in Andover, Massachusetts, Leah has fond memories of getting up to all kinds of shenanigans that often made for great tall tales told late into the night. Growing up in a family of curious travelers, she has always known where there is adventure, there is story. Through seeing the world, Leah has witnessed the richness that can be found within everyone’s individual story. That is why writing the world she sees is so vitally important to her. These days, when she’s not off exploring, you can find her writing, laughing, or playing soccer at midnight with her dog, Boston, in Washington, D.C. Learn more about her and her books at leahhendersonbooks.com.

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Kidlit C'Ville Blog Party-A Festival of Fun!!

3/15/2016

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Celebrating the Virginia Festival of the Book

Twenty- one years ago, I was elated to hear of Charlottesville's inauguration of the Virginia Festival of the Book. I decided to attend a daytime event, a luncheon with Judith Viorst, author of Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. How I enjoyed myself, even though I had to hurry back to a baby sitter that was charging by the hour. Every year since, I've looked forward to March with its promise of spring and the arrival of the VABook.
Over the years, I've collected some truly interesting VABook experiences, like the time I was telling an agent how much I enjoyed her presentation. (It was a very small Society of Book Writers and Illustrators event in a coffee shop and no one else was around, so I had her undivided attention.) She asked me what I wrote and I couldn't remember. Or the time I sat crisscross on the floor, squeezed next to a (now award-winning) author and we whispered to each other the entire time. (We should have been paying better attention to the presentation!)
Then there was the time my first page was being read aloud to a packed room, and both the audience and panelists responded so favorably that afterward I spun the page into an entire middle-grade yarn (and just last year got an agent with it, too!) But one of my most memorable VABook experiences was when I heard Rita Dove reading her poem about biracial violinist George Bridgetower. And when Boyd Tinsley of the Dave Matthews Band played his violin--WHAT MAGNIFICENCE THAT!
I've laughed. I've listened. I've learned A LOT about writing and the world of publishing from the wide variety of presenters that the VABook brings to this part of Central Virginia.
To celebrate this year's VABook, I decided to host a KidLit C'Ville Blog Party, in which during the duration of the VABook, March 16-20, I will be interviewing ten published children's book writers and illustrators who call Charlottesville home. They are KidLit pros across the genres, creators of children literature from picture books to young adult tomes of the highest caliber. It's no wonder they've been VABook presenters over the years.
I hope you will stop by each day and say "Hey!" to these lovely ladies and gents who ooze joy and enthusiasm for all things KidLit!

Illustrative sketches of Downtown Charlottesville featured during this KidLit C'Ville Blog Party are used with permission of Scott DuBar, graphic designer and illustrator, of Scott DuBar Illustration. Accompanying author-photos with a photo credit of Jen Fariello are used with permission of award-winning Jen Fariello Photography.

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Virginia Festival of the Book 2014

3/30/2014

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What the panelists liked:

Upbeat and positive tone

Active verbs

Touches all senses

Creates mood

Establishes setting

Opens with action

Voice that drew the reader in

Great humor

Charming

Opens with an emotional center

Sentences have cadence

Rich images

Beautifully written

Engaging

Succinct

Unique phrases

Supercharged

Suspenseful

Connected to character

Want to find out more about the character

Clever opening

Ominous opening

Great first lines

What the panelists disliked:

Nothing unique

Typos

Redundant language

Too dense with description

Does not open with a
character doing something

Opens with a prologue

No orientation--don't know where we are, where we're going, or what is happening, confusing

Too much telling

The main character is not named, though his horse is

Begins with back-story without "earning" the "right" for it

Uses three words in a sentence when only one is needed

Reads like an essay

Stock opening, with the character waking up

Unneeded information about setting, not enough about the character

Too many unneeded words--it, the, at, an…

Too cryptic

Too many names

Passive construction

Passive voice

Paragraphs too long

Sentences need punch

Over the top emotion--"My heart began bravely beating."

Clichés--phrases with no energy, nothing new

Every year, since it began in beautiful Charlottesville, Virginia, I have attended the Virginia Festival of the Book--a five-day literary event that gathers authors, agents, publishers, and other professionals from across all genres. Most of the events are free and open to the public. Each one has proven to be a great learning experience, a reason to laugh my socks off, and motivation to keep on writing!
This year, I enjoyed three events: The Agents Roundtable, A First Pages Panel, and a literary conversation with Lois Lowry. (WOW!)
Thought I'd share my notes from the first pages' panel.

EVENT NAME: Off to a Good Start: How to Hook an Editor on the First Page

WHEN: Saturday, March 22nd, 2014

WHO PARTICIPATED: Writers Jennifer Elvgren, Deborah Prum, Fran Slayton, and Andy Straka.

WHAT: After Fran Slayton read aloud the first 100-words from manuscripts submitted by the public, either via email before the event or by hand during the event, panelists discussed what did and did not work for them.

FROM MY NOTES:

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2024 KidLit Events: VA, MD, DC, and Beyond

2024 Kidlit Events
Virginia, Maryland, DC & Beyond

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

Welcoming Leah Henderson

Kidlit C'Ville Blog Party-A Festival of Fun!!

Celebrating the Virginia Festival of the Book

Virginia Festival of the Book 2014

About Me

Archives

Categories

2024 KidLit Events: VA, MD, DC, and Beyond

2024 Kidlit Events Virginia, Maryland, DC & Beyond

January

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

Welcoming Leah Henderson

Kidlit C'Ville Blog Party-A Festival of Fun!!

Celebrating the Virginia Festival of the Book

Virginia Festival of the Book 2014

About Me

Archives

Categories

2024 Kidlit Events
Virginia, Maryland, DC & Beyond