If you were not able to come to the 2024 Kansas Book Festival and if you would like to hear the talk by our keynoter, NYTimes Bestselling Crime Writer Sara Paretsky, then click here. She regales the audience with personal stories about her early life in Lawrence and the recent loss of her husband, describing how such factors influence what she writes in the popular series featuring detective V.I. Warshawski, including the recent novel Pay Dirt.
Kansas Book Festival is being honored by ArtsConnect with the 2023 Literary Arty Award for their “commitment to providing access to authors, educational opportunities and more that would not otherwise exist in Topeka.” The award will be presented on December 6 (6 pm) at the Beacon in Topeka, when all Arty Award winners will be recognized. This year the literary award goes to the Festival because, as ArtsConnect states, “Events like this are critical in the arts ecosphere because they give Topeka writers access to renowned authors and experiences, fostering their growth and development as writers.” If interested in the award winners and/or attending, go to the ArtsConnect website: https://artstopeka.org/artyawards.
Humanities Kansas recently awarded $9,630 to the Kansas Book Festival to support the annual Topeka event that promotes literacy, encourages life-long readers, and supports libraries and inspiring writers. Tim Bascom serves as project director.
The Kansas Book Festival will take place on Saturday, September 24th, 2022, from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM. There will be over 50 outstanding authors giving presentations. Authors include Congresswoman Sharice Davids (Sharice’s Big Voice), New York Times Bestselling novelist KJ Dell’Antonia (In Her Boots), social commentator Randal Jelks (Letters to Martin), and many more. The festival also includes 30 exhibitors with books for sale, a children’s activity area, musical performers, and food trucks!
“Literature is at the heart of the humanities, and we are pleased to see a festival for aspiring Kansas poets and authors, as well as for those who love to read,” said Julie Mulvihill, Humanities Kansas Executive Director.
About Humanities Kansas
Humanities Kansas is an independent nonprofit spearheading a movement of ideas to empower the people of Kansas to strengthen their communities and our democracy. Since 1972, HK’s pioneering programming, grants, and partnerships have documented and shared stories to spark conversations and generate insights. Together with statewide partners and supporters, HK inspires all Kansans to draw on diverse histories, literatures, and cultures to enrich their lives and to serve the communities and state we all proudly call home.
Visit humanitieskansas.org
Every year for the last decade, the Kansas Book Festival has granted funding to Kansas libraries seeking to improve their book holdings or technology, distributing $10,000 in total. This year’s grants, just released, will assist five selected libraries, including Quinter High School Library in western Kansas, Circle Oil Hill Elementary School Library in southern Kansas, and Lebanon Community Library in north Kansas.
Needs vary. At Circle Oil Hill Elementary School, in El Dorado, the student population has become more diverse, and an $800 grant will help to provide books that appeal to kids from multiple cultures. Jonna Garbee, the library media specialist at Circle Oil Hill, says, “It is important for our students to learn about history and the many injustices suffered by people of color, but I am realizing that many of the books in our library focus only on suffering and not on everyday living. I want to provide books that show children of all races and cultures solving mysteries, having adventure, and laughing with friends.”
At Lebanon Kansas, where 28% of the patrons are over 60, there is a need for large-print books. An $800 grant will help Lebanon Community Library to provide 30 new large-print novels.
Some of the annual grants from the Kansas Book Festival go to technology instead of books. Quinter High School is committed to creating an innovative learning lab, where students can collaborate and create using 21st century tech tools. According to Valerie Brown-Kuchera, the K-12 Library Director at Quinter, this lab will include a podcast booth, a recording studio, 3D printing pens, a poster printer, and other devices that will inspire students to imagine and invent in contemporary ways. A $1000 grant from the Festival will help to purchase some of the required technology.
This year, two other libraries have been selected to receive funding from the Kansas Book Festival. Lincoln Junior Senior High School Library will receive $800 for the purchase of graphic novels and updated nonfiction, and Twin Valley Schools will receive $1600 for replacement of failing computers.
The Library Grant Program of the Kansas Book Festival, begun by former First Lady Mary Brownback when she brought the Festival to Topeka in 2011, is dependent on the generosity of donating individuals and agencies.
KJ Dell’Antonia was, for years, living in New England and editing Motherlode, a column for the NY Times, but when she decided to write a novel, she drew on her childhood experience in Kansas. The Chicken Sisters is about a stormy, often humorous relationship between siblings who find themselves championing competing fried-chicken restaurants in the little town of Merinac, Kansas, putting their whole family at risk of imploding. When that debut novel came out in 2020 it climbed into the bestseller ranks and was picked by Reese Witherspoon for her influential book club. Now, two years later, KJ is back with a second novel–In Her Boots–which clearly draws on personal experience too. The main character, Rhett, is a fiction writer who has written a bestseller under a pseudonym. Panicked by a broken romance and a tragedy back home at the family farm, Rhett convinces a friend to pose as the author of her new bestseller, only to find that her mother is more impressed with the fake author than herself. How can Rhett prove herself to the distressed mother as she decides to sell the beloved farm? Come hear KJ September 24th, 2022, at the Kansas Book Festival, when she talks about the search for happiness and learning to live authentically in one’s own boots.
Interested in books and Kansas? Here’s a video about our most recent Kansas Book Festival, which featured 50 authors with wonderful new books, including Angela Cervantes, author of the new novelization of the blockbuster Encanto, plus the amazing Aimee Nezhukumatathil with her inspiring book World of Wonders, a Barnes and Noble Favorite for 2021. The next Festival will occur September 24, 2022, at Washburn University in Topeka. Come if you can! We will host a novelist who was a Reese Book Club pick–KJ Dell’Antonia–and a finalist for the National Book Award–Lucas Bessire! To watch the video click here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRH5ZGuVkdU
Every year the Kansas Book Festival helps the State Library of Kansas to honor their selected Kansas Notable Books. We are delighted to announce the newly selected 2021 prize winners. Come to the 2021 Festival–on Saturday, September 18–to see the award ceremony and to hear from actual winners! In the meantime, you can click on the following link to learn more about each of these remarkable books: https://kslib.info/1465/2021-Notable-Books
The Kansas Book Festival began in 2011 with the start of our one-day festival in September. Shortly following the festival, we opened up our first grant cycle and received a great response from libraries across the state that needed financial help. Our first grants were awarded in 2012 and since then, we’ve been able to give more than $58,000 to 42 school and 34 public libraries across the state. We want libraries to know that we are committed to helping them reach their goals and in turn fulfilling our mission of promoting literacy and a life-long love of learning to the people of Kansas.
Many of the libraries who applied for grants have materials budgets in the hundreds of dollars, not the thousands or tens of thousands of dollars. We’ve received applications that detail how a particular library doesn’t have a single computer for patrons to use, libraries that have average copyright dates that go back to the 1960’s and libraries that are trying desperately to engage their reluctant readers and are even struggling to keep their doors open. That’s why it’s so important for foundations like the Kansas Book Festival and our corporate sponsors to help support these libraries in their efforts.
The libraries receiving grants for 2016 are as follows:
Technology
Blue Rapids Public Library
Liberal Memorial LIbrary
Moundridge Public Library
Peabody Township Library
Seaman High School Library
Weir Public Library
Books
Dixon Township Library
Eisenhower High School Library
Goodland Jr/Sr High School LIbrary
Lincoln Elementary Library (El Dorado)
Lincoln Elementary Library
Medicine Lodge Grade School Library
Morton County Library
Olpe High School Library
Paul B. Cooper Elementary (Wichita)
Washington Public Library
Wichita County Library