All panels will occur in the Washburn Library, which is located in the Plass Learning Resources Center, with the exception of the Keynote, which will take place in the Bradbury Thompson Alumni Center.
9 AM
Washburn Library
Poets in Public
Room 221
Huascar Medina, former Kansas poet laureate, and Linzi Garcia, Publicist and Poetry Editor of Meadowlark Books, dive into the role of poet as public figure, and how their external roles have influenced their internal work. Moderator: Poet Melissa Fite Johnson
Women on a Mission
Room 118
Elyssa Gavin (Junko’s Climb) and Lindsay Metcalf (Footeprint) compare notes on researching the real lives of two remarkable women, and how their stories were shaped for young readers: one illustrated, one in verse. Moderator: Historical Novelist Jillian Forsberg
Daring Detectives
Room 119
Find out what makes a kid a great investigator in middle-grade mysteries from Angela Cervantes (The Mystery of the Stolen World Cup Trophy) and Alex Ott (The Wish Ring Cipher). Moderator: TSCPL Youth Librarian Rain Schultz-Pruner
“If I Was a Man Then I’d Be The Man”
Room 120
Join hosts Sonja Czarnecki and Dr. Vanessa Eicher for a special live edition of their podcast In Walks A Woman, featuring a conversation with Margaret Kelley (A Gun of Her Own) and Misty Heggeness (Swiftynomics) on how 21st-century women–with the help of firepower and Taylor Swift–are finding unexpected sources of agency.
10 AM
Washburn Library
Childhoods of Creativity and Courage
Room 221
Picture book authors Giselle Anatol and Jenn Bailey share books about legendary African American author Zora Neale Hurston (born 1891) and famous French pantomimist Marcel Marceau (born 1923). Moderator: Children’s Librarian Alice Reinert
If Trees Could Talk
Room 118
Anthropologist firefighter Jordan Thomas (When It All Burns) warns about why forest fires keep intensifying, while environmental author John Price (Goethe’s Oak) honors a single oak that stood in the Buchenwald Camp during the holocaust. Moderator: Dr. Melinda Adams, KU Professor of Geography, Atmospheric Science, and Indigenous Studies
Kiss, Merry, Killed
Room 119
In Megan Bannen‘s The Undercutting of Rosie and Adam, Sarah Henning‘s Such a Witch, and Amanda Sellet‘s Flirting with Murder, love and death go hand in hand. Moderator: LPL Youth Librarian Margo Moore
Creepy Small Towns
Room 120
Explore the mysteries of the small towns of Alex Grecian‘s Rose of Jericho and Chase Dearinger‘s This New Dark, where weird is normal, the dead don’t die, and evil forces lurk around the corner. Moderator: Max Wirestone, Director of the Tonganoxie Library
11 AM
Washburn Library
The Love of Sport
Room 118
Chelan David (Stories from the Phog) and Tim Bascom (The Boundless Game) talk about KU basketball, growing interest in American soccer, and the international appeal of both sports. Moderator: Bulgarian author and athlete Ivo Ivanov
What a Ride
Room 221
Join Washburn graduate, now Stanford writing teacher Shannon Pufahl, and her former creative writing professor Tom Averill, for a discussion of her novel On Swift Horses and the process that brought it to film. (Streaming on Netflix.)
Rewriting the Rules
Room 120
Daniel Atkinson (The Rediscovery of George ‘Nash’ Walker: The Price of Black Stardom in Jim Crow America) and Debra Goodrich (From the Reservation to Washington: The Rise of Charles Curtis) tell the stories of men of color who navigated the complications of the public eye post-Civil War. Moderator: Washburn Assistant Professor of History Bruce MacTavish
The Art of Romance
Room 119
Ever been curious about how romance writers build the heat in intimate scenes? Hear it from the experts: Lisa Rayne (Never Cross a Highlander), Adib Khorram (It Had to Be Him), and bestselling writing partners Julie Murphy + Sierra Simone (The Fundamentals of Being A Good Girl). Moderator: TSCPL Program Services Coordinator Autumn Friedli
12 PM
Bradbury Thompson Alumni Center
Keynote Speaker: Ben Lerner on Transcription
Bradbury Thompson Alumni Center
Ben Lerner, our keynote speaker, is a poet, novelist, critic, and native of Topeka. The recipient of fellowships from the Fulbright, Guggenheim, and MacArthur Foundations, Lerner’s work has been a finalist for the National Book Award for Poetry, the National Book Critics Circle Award in fiction, and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. His latest work, Transcription, is named a Best Book of the Year by The New York Times. Moderator: Washburn Professor of English Eric McHenry
1 PM
Washburn Library
Sunlight Finds You
Room 119
Renowned novelist Laura Moriarty talks about writing novels, including her latest, a love story set in mid-century Florida. Moderator: Kim Gronniger
The Bakery Dragon
Room 118
The Emporia State University Teachers College presents Devin Elle Kurtz, winner of the Bill Martin, Jr. Picture Book Award for The Bakery Dragon, in which a tiny fire-breather learns the value of sharing. Moderator: ESU Professor Dr. Heather Caswell
Making the Turn
Room 221
Kansas Poet Laureate Emerita Wyatt Townley shares the panel stage with artist Hong Chun Zhang, her collaborator for Making the Turn, exploring the poetry of life’s turning points. Moderator: Sarah Stepp, Academic Curator at the Mulvane Art Museum
From Cynicism to Citizenship
Room 120
Lindsey Cormack (How to Raise a Citizen) and Matt Beat aka YouTuber “Mr. Beat” (The Power of Our Supreme Court) sit down with Kansas Supreme Court Chief Justice Eric Rosen to share wisdom and hopes for the next generation of civic leaders.
2 PM
Washburn Library
Connecting the Dottes
Room 221
Wyandotte County is often disparaged, and Kansas City, Kansas, has even been called the “armpit of Kansas City.” But authors Phyllis Becker, Kathy Allen, and Pat Lawson find much to appreciate in their fellow Dottedwellers.
Family Research and Remembrance
Room 120
Two Western Kansas writers, Dennis Garcia (Las Madres: Latinas in the Heartland Who Led Their Families to Success) and Melanie Bonner Thomas (The Old Man of the Fossil Beds) tell the journeys of family members, showing us the importance of ties to family history and to place. Moderator: Denise Low
Finding a Home
Room 119
Daniel Miyares (How to Say Goodbye in Cuban) and Jane Kurtz (Oh Give Me a Home) speak about the true stories behind their cross-continental journeys for young readers and the friends (and selves) found along the way. Moderator: KSU Associate Professor of Children’s Literature Anuja Madan
Editors Tell the Truth
Room 118
Jeff Shotts, Executive Editor of Graywolf Press, and Alec Loganbill, editor for Plainspoken Books, the trade imprint of the University Press of Kansas, talk about what it means to be an editor, what they’re looking for from writers, and the importance of publishing nonfiction in a post-truth world.
3 PM
Washburn Library
The Anti-Narrative
Room 120
The rules of narrative are meant to be broken. Poets Denise Low (House of Grace, House of Blood), Gary Jackson (Small Lives), and Jennifer Maritza McCauley (Neon Steel) speak on what drew them to hybrid forms of storytelling. Moderator: Kansas Public Radio’s Kaye McIntyre
Burn It Down!
Room 119
Novelists Tessa Gratton (The Moon Heresies trilogy) and Becca Coffindaffer (The Bloody and the Damned) discuss love, magic, and the fight against the rotten systems at the heart of their latest epic fantasies.
The Big Short
Room 221
Andrew Farkas (Movies Are Fine for a Bright Boy Like You: Fictions) and Nicholas Claro (Sedgwick County) discuss the expansive possibilities of the short story. Moderator: Cote Smith, Novelist and Washburn English Lecturer
Why UPK: University Press of Kansas Celebrates 80 Years
Room 118
University Press of Kansas Director Kelly Chrisman-Jacques explores what makes a small, independent press like UPK special–-and resilient-–in an ever-changing world. Featuring Bill Kurtis (Whirlwind), Chelan David (Stories from the Phog), Tai Edwards (Lyda Conley and the Fight to Preserve Huron Indian Cemetery), Clay Wirestone (Opinionated), and Thomas Fox Averill and Leslie VanHolten, co-editors of Kansas Matters: Twenty-First-Century Writers on the Sunflower State.
Kansas Book Festival 