For more details about the 2023 Kansas Book Festival, click here or on the program cover to the right.

Panel Schedule for Kansas Book Festival, September 14-16, 2023

Pre-Festival Presentations Thursday, September 14 7 pm   No Longer Separate —White Concert Hall, Washburn University Lawrence Goldstone, acclaimed author and NPR commentator, addresses the American struggle against racial segregation, based on his book Separate No More: The Long Road to Brown v. Board of Education. Friday, September 15 4 pm Resurrection City—Mabee Library Lounge Catherine Browder, winner of the 2023 Hefner Heitz Kansas Book Award, shares from her collection of stories Resurrection City, which takes us back to the 2011 triple disaster that devastated Northeastern Japan—earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear meltdown. Browder’s stories illuminate the heartbreak, resilience,  , and love that exist underneath all the statistics and soundbites.  

Main Festival Presentations Saturday, September 16

9 am

• Celebrating Seventy Years of the Best Children’s Books—Memorial Union, Kansas Room

Beverly Buller, chairperson of the William Allen White Children’s Book Award, headquartered in Emporia, introduces this state prize, a winning author, and how kids can help choose future winners.  

• Kansas Notable Books—Mabee Library Lounge

15 Notable Book Awards are presented to standout Kansas authors by State Librarian Ray Walling, including fiction, poetry, nonfiction, and children’s books.  

• Literature of Crisis—Mabee Library, Room 300

Fiction thrives on conflict, but when set during times of crisis, character is doubly tested. Join K.L. Barron (Thirst, Africa, political violence), Catherine Browder (Resurrection City, Japan, earthquake/tsunami/nuclear meltdown), and Susan Kraus (When We Lost Touch, United States, Covid) for a discussion of writing that grows out of extreme conditions. Moderator: KSU English Prof, Michele Janette.

• Poets In Praise of Prairie—Mabee Library, Room 303

Wild Words, a chapbook by Humanities Kansas, reconnects Kansans to the prairie through poetry. Join editor Megan Kaminski in conversation with poets Canese Jarboe, Aubrey Streit Krug, Huascar Medina, Janice Northerns, and Wyatt Townley. Moderator: HK Director of Grants, Leslie VonHolten.

10 am

• Why We Travel—Memorial Union, Washburn Rooms A & B

Pulitzer finalist Chloe Cooper Jones (Easy Beauty) talks with veteran travel writer Rolf Potts (The Vagabond’s Way) about the philosophical underpinnings of taking journeys, and how travelers might endeavor to seek “difficult beauty” on the road.  Moderator: Travel writer Jon Arlan.

• Childhood through a Different Lens—Memorial Union, Kansas Room

Jenn Bailey, author of popular books about a boy with autism (A Friend for Henry and Henry, Like Always), talks with parents and kids about how children can cope with mental health difficulties and support peers who struggle.  

• First Books for First Readers—Mabee Library, Room 300

Three authors of books that introduce the alphabet (Yanfei Gao, ABC Dinosaurs), space travel (Stephen T. Johnson, My Big Silver Rocketship), and the changing seasons (Sue Gallion, Our Seasons) talk with parents and children about tangible learning.  Moderator: Angie Grau, Owner of Paper June Bookstore

• Strangers at Home—Mabee Library, Room 303

James Davis (Club Q) is a gay poet from a conservative Christian family. Jesse Nathan (Eggtooth) is a poet of Jewish and Mennonite parentage who grew up in Berkeley, California and a farm in south-central Kansas. Both have Kansas roots but can feel estranged.  Moderator: Former Kansas Poet Laureate: Eric McHenry. 

11 am

• Shaping a Book with a Shovel and Ruler—Memorial Union, Washburn Rooms A & B

Mike Ciccotello, winner of the 2023 Bill Martin, Jr. Picture Book Award, talks about the journey of Beach Toys vs. School Supplies from idea to book.  Moderator: Emporia Education Professor Heather Caswell.

• Suicide in our Midst—Memorial Union, Kansas Room

Two respected authors talk about the alarming increase in suicides from a personal perspective, having survived actual attempts (Clancy Martin, How Not to Kill Yourself) or having lived under the shadow of multiple suicides (Juliet Patterson, Sinkhole). Moderator: Poet Michael Kleber-Diggs.

• Land and Legacy—Mabee Library, Room 300

Two writers talk about Kansas communities with different legacies. Kate Benz (Nothing but the Dirt) reports on Courtland, a north-central community unwilling to give up on itself. Raylene Hinz-Penner (East of Liberal), describes a southwestern Mennonite community still coming to terms with tensions between land ownership and former inhabitants. Moderator: Joshua Falleaf, Lenape Citizen, Lawrence Chamber of Commerce

• Poetry, Collaboration, & Therapy—Mabee Library, Room 303

Poets Dennis Etzel, Jr. (Everything is Ephemera), Jericho M. Hockett (In the Bodies), and Annie Klier Newcomer (Comets: Relationships That Wander), plus artist Barbara Waterman-Peters, discuss the therapeutic benefits of creative collaboration, particularly with the anthology Kansas Speaks Out: Poems in the Age of Me, Too.  

Keynote Presentation (Memorial Union, Washburn Rooms A & B)

12 pm

• Imagination Set Loose: Ling Ma’s Prize-Winning Speculative Stories

Ling Ma, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction, shares from her acclaimed collection—Bliss Montage—and discusses why she is drawn toward stories that don’t conform to the rules of realism.  Moderator: Kaye McIntyre, Kansas Public Radio

1 pm

• Why We Love Baseball—Memorial Union, Washburn Rooms A & B

Baseball gurus Joe Posnanski (Why We Love Baseball: A History in 50 Moments) and Bill James (The Bill James Handbook 2023) converse about their favorite subject and why it is their favorite subject! Moderator: Brad Allen, Lawrence Public Library

• Stranger than Reality—Memorial Union, Kansas Room 

A Turkish garbage collector rescues throwaway musicians and forms a clandestine orchestra.  A volcano erupts in New York’s Central Park, impossible to ignore as it towers higher.  Hear two rising fiction writers—Kenan Orhan and JES (John Elizabeth Stintzi)—discuss the power of speculative storytelling.   Moderator: fiction writer Andy Farkas.  

• Girl Go-Getters in Middle Grade Novels—Mabee Library, Room 300

The author of a historical novel set in Kansas (Kathleen Wilford, Cabby Potts, Duchess of Dirt) compares notes with the Kansas-based author of a contemporary fantasy (Sarah Henning, Monster Camp) written for the same age group, 8-12 year olds.  Moderator: award-winning storyteller Priscilla Howe 

• Crafting Community Through Poetry—Mabee Library, Room 303

How is community created and supported through poetry? Poets laureate from Kansas (Traci Brimhall) and Missouri (Maryfrances Wagner) will discuss their experiences as state laureates, workshop leaders, and event organizers, also their involvement with literary centers.  Moderator: Award-winning poet Michael Kleber-Diggs

2 pm

• Seeking the Source—Memorial Union, Washburn Rooms A & B

Bestselling author Candice Millard (Destiny of the Republic) talks about her latest work of history, River of the Gods, which follows three 19th-century explorers on their harrowing search for the headwaters of the Nile.  Moderator: Historian Sonja Czarnecki.

• New Takes on Two Classics—Mabee Library, Room 300

Having published YA novels that get us re-thinking the classics Little Women and Anne of Green Gables, Amanda Sellet (Belittled Women) and Julie Sellers (Ann of Sunflower Lane) discuss why they have dared to return to those standard-bearers from new vantage points.  Moderator: Children’s author Roderick Townley.

• Black Leadership and Influences—Mabee Library, Room 302

Maryemma Graham (The House Where My Soul Lives: The Life of Margaret Walker) and Margie Carr (Kansas City’s Montgall Avenue) explore the traditions and the lives of leaders instrumental in creating social, literary, and cultural institutions supporting Black communities. Moderator: Darren Canady, KU English Department.

• Small-Town Kansas Re-Imagined—Mabee Library, Room 303 

In a murder mystery set along the dried-up Arkansas River, Charles Jones defies the stereotype of small-town simplicity, while DeMisty Bellinger depicts three distinctive women, living in the same town but decades apart, who must fight for their own love and agency.  Moderator: Cheryl Duffy, Director of Writing, Ft. Hays St. University

3 pm

• Ice and Us—Memorial Union, Kansas Room

Amy Brady, Executive Director of the popular environmental magazine Orion, talks about her new book–Ice: From Mixed Drinks to Skating Rinks, a Cool History of a Hot Commodity.  How has the consumption of ice evolved and what are the possible consequences?  Moderator: Rex Buchanan, Director Emeritus, Kansas Geological Survey

• Literary Gymnastics for YA Book Lovers—Mabee Library, Room 300

One gymnast tries out new sports and falls in love (It’s All in How You Fall by Sarah Henning).  Another discovers she can vault right out of the present moment (Vaulting through Time by Nancy McCabe).  Both authors describe why sports figure heavily in their YA novels. Moderator: Margo Moore, Teen Librarian at Lawrence Library

• Sustaining the Small Press—Mabee Library, Room 302

Editors Maureen Carroll (Anamcara Press), Dan Hoyt (American Buffalo Books), and Jason Ryberg (Spartan Press) talk with Brian Daldorph (Coal City Press) about the aspirations, frustrations, and joys of the small literary publisher.

• Well-Baked Words—Mabee Library, Room 303

NYTimes Bestselling author Erin Jeanne McDowell (Savory Baking), Traci Brimhall (Kansas Poet Laureate), and Marcia Cebulska (Lovers, Dreamers & Thieves) discuss food and food culture from the perspectives of the cookbook, the poem, and the memoir. Come hungry, leave hungrier. Moderator: Tom Averill, Washburn Professor.

Book Art Exhibitions Entrance of Mabee Library—You Are What You Ate: Food in Memoir Author-illustrator (and former pastry chef) Marilyn Pollack Naron explores how we see, read, and taste the stories we tell. Back wall of Mabee Library—Art and Books: A Kansas Conversation