KidLitCon 2014 Focuses On Diversity

This year, the 8th Annual Conference of, by and for people who blog about children’s and young adult books (including librarians, authors, teachers, parents, booksellers, publishers, and readers) will be gathering October 10th and 11th at the Tsakopoulos Library Galleria in Sacramento, CA.

Organized by Sarah Stevenson and Tanita Davis from Finding Wonderland and Jen Robinson from Jen Robinson’s Book Page, the conference theme is "Blogging Diversity in Young Adult and Children’s Lit: What’s Next?" The program, coordinated by Charlotte Taylor of Charlotte's Library, is of high interest (and enormous synergy) for those of us who write and illustrate works for children.

As they say on the KidLitCon splash page at the Kidlitosphere,

"What we would like to do with this year’s KidLitCon (along with our usual goals) is discuss what book bloggers can do to make a meaningful difference in increasing diversity in children’s and young adult literature. This year’s keynote speaker will be Mitali Perkins, an author whose focus has long been on “books between cultures for young readers”. Among other things, Mitali will talk about how bloggers can be agents of change in the conversation about diversity in children’s and young adult literature. Shannon Hale, who has written eloquently on the need for writing non-neutral characters, and who helped launch the Great Green Heist Challenge, is also expected to participate in the conference via Skype.
  We will talk about other issues of interest to children’s and YA book bloggers, too. But it is also our hope to make a bit of noise on behalf of diversity in children’s literature. It is past time for that."

You can find the schedule of keynotes and panels here, along with registration info at this page.

Illustrate and Write On,

Lee