Our lineup for the 2013 festival is filling up fast! This year’s speakers will include a writer that channels his inner ghost, the creative force behind a teenage ‘firecracker’, a short story author who provides a view on being born and many more to come. These authors and speakers cover a wide variety of genres and tracks including Home & Family, California Voices and Chapter & Verse. We can’t contain the excitement any longer, so here it goes.
David Iserson works as a film and television writer and most recently wrote for Fox’s New Girl. His first young adult novel, Firecracker, introduces readers to Astrid Krieger, an unusual teenager who lives in a rocket ship in the backyard of her parents’ estate. The Goodreads community has given this debut four out of five stars and the Los Angeles Review of Books says readers young and old can enjoy Astrid’s confidence and wit.
Derek Taylor Kent is known to most of his readers as Derek the Ghost, an eleven-year-old ghost who haunts the halls of Scary School. Scary School is the scariest school on earth where just making it through lunch with all your limbs is considered a good day. The series recently won an award for “Funniest Chapter Book of 2011” by Children’s Literature Network, and has become one of the most popular new series for middle-readers.
Kevin Fagan is the creator of the nationally syndicated comic strip, Drabble, telling the stories of the Drabble family and their wacky friends and neighbors in more than 200 newspapers across the U.S. Kevin has also published 8 Drabble books. The most recent is Wally’s Weinerful World of Golf, a hilarious look at golf from a dog’s perspective. Everyone in the family will want to spend some time with Kevin and the Drabbles.
Ramona Ausubel‘s first novel, No One is Here Except All of Us, was awarded Best Book of the Year by the San Francisco Chronicle and the Huffington Post. Her new collection of stories, A Guide to Being Born, was a New York Times Editors’ Choice and the Star Tribune says “The need to love, and the fear of love, permeate these odd and touching short stories.”
We’ll be announcing more authors and speakers in the coming weeks so keep checking in, and let us know who you’re looking forward to seeing.
