Empire State Book Festival: Programming Inspiration for Your Library

Empire State Book Festival

By Heather McCormack -- Library Journal, 04/01/2010

The inaugural Empire State Book Festival goes down April 9 and 10 in Albany, NY. You likely don't live within a stone's throw, but we're talking it up as a beautiful example of library-initiated book and literacy outreach. Presented by the New York Library Association and funded in part by a legislative grant from Sen. Neil Breslin, this free event boasts nuclear-inventive panels owing in large part to the efforts of Programs Chair Lauren Gilbert, information services manager at Cold Spring Harbor Library, NY, and a regular BookSmack! contributor.

I met recently with Lauren to find out how she put together such a hot slate—in brief, approach as many people as possible and believe in your vision. For more concrete input, feel free to email her. Below are my picks of the most enticing sessions, which you can use as inspiration for a festival of your own.

—Judging a Book by Its Cover, 10:45-11:30 a.m.
Moderated by graphic designer Jessica Loy, this panel addresses a question many of my friends and relatives have asked me: How do they decide what goes on the cover? I have no effing clue, so I'm bound to attend myself.

—Write What You Know, 10:45-11:30 a.m.
Take it from this book review editor—memoirs are bigger than fiction. And likely even more people will take a stab at articulating their life stories after attending this panel with Marion Roach Smith, one of the brains behind The Sister Project blog. See also "The Age of Memoir," below.

—The Age of Memoir, 11:45-12:30 p.m.
No joke: I have been bruised by memoir avalanches in my office. This book category is more plentiful than Lady Gaga ringtones. Here, Ben Yagoda (Memoir: A History) heads a conversation with memoirists including Julie Metz, author of Perfection.

—Get Graphic: A Graphic Novel/Comic Book Panel, 11:45-12:30 p.m.
The buzz around graphic novels and comics won't weaken. We're becoming only a more visual nation. Here, four comickers, including You Can Do a Graphic Novel author Barbara Slate, talk about the appeal of their format to children and adults.

—Get Real, 12:45-1:30 p.m.
Neil Gaiman and his ilk have made writing YA novels profitable and respectable. For insights into the form, listen to Daphne Grab (Alive and Well in Prague, New York), James Preller (Jigsaw Jones mysteries), and more.

—¡The Punctuation Show! (How To Use Tiny Symbols To Make Meaning Without %$^&#* Up), 2:45-3:30
If you're a book nerd, you're likely a grammar nerd by extension. Which means you don't want to miss the world premiere of what's being billed as "a one-woman punctuation show" with Jennifer Dziura, "New York's most grammatically correct comedian."

—Insider's Guide to Getting Published—Meet the Publishers! 2:45-3:30 p.m.
Every book fest should schedule one of these panels because there's a whole universe of people hungry for publication education. Big plus: the organizers have built in time for audience Q&A

—The Future of the Book, 4:45-5:30 p.m.
This one's for the Thinkers. If you've got ebooks, ereaders, and digital rights management on the brain, you'll find sage and unsugared insights from Andrew Albanese, features editor of Publishers Weekly; Ron Hogan, director of e-marketing strategy for Houghton Mifflin; and Guy LeCharles Gonzalez, "chief executive optimist" of Digital Book World.