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May 14, 2012 by Karen Jensen, MLS

11 months and counting…

May 14, 2012 by Karen Jensen, MLS   2 comments

Last year, I sat down at the Austin Teen Book Festival and looked around in complete awe.  Hundreds of teens, gathered together in one room excitedly tweeting and talking and making new friends…at a book festival.  The concept just blew my mind in a good way.                                                                          
 I wanted my teens, in my town in north Louisiana, to have that experience.  Driving 8 hours or more?  Not possible.  And why should they?  We have big towns like Shreveport and Monroe both with airports and nice convention centers.  I made up my mind that no matter what, I was going to make this happen.

And so the concept of a book festival was born.  Right now, we plan to make our debut on April 6, 2013 in the amazing town of Shreveport, Louisiana.  My co-chair, LeVette Fuller, is the Young Adult Coordinator of the Shreve Memorial Library system and along the way, we’ve picked up an amazing graphic artist, Angie, and a publicity char, Karen (from the TLT blog fame).

Immediately I knew that we had to give credit to someone who put North Louisiana on the map in the publishing field, especially since he was born and raised here.  So, Corey Whaley, a friend of mine from college, became our keynote speaker.  After all, we are trying to pay tribute to the state as well as literacy.  It was a match made in heaven.  And then, he won the Printz and the Morris Award so, from a festival director standpoint…HECK YEAH!!!  
In the past few months, we’ve added a website, a Facebook page, a Twitter account, and we’ve been soliciting sponsorships from local businesses and community foundations.  We have several authors signed up and we plan on releasing that lineup in the September.  
From time to time, I’ll do a festival update but just know that if you are in the vicinity, you better make plans to be there!  Please help us spread the word and we would love to have you follow us on Twitter or like our FB page!
So, 11 months to go…it’s gonna be a wild ride!

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About Karen Jensen, MLS

Karen Jensen has been a Teen Services Librarian for almost 30 years. She created TLT in 2011 and is the co-editor of The Whole Library Handbook: Teen Services with Heather Booth (ALA Editions, 2014).

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Comments

  1. Leah Rae Miller says

    May 14, 2012 at 4:21 pm

    Yay! Super stoked for this! You are awesome for putting it together 🙂

  2. fountainreflections says

    May 19, 2012 at 3:28 am

    This is so great! Houston has Teen Book Con that is usually in April (I think it's April 20 this year), and it is a fabulous event. This will be so great for LA!

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