On Book Festivals

At the Bay Area Book Festival

My name is Mina Witteman and I am a children's author from The Netherlands, living in Berkeley, California. In The Netherlands, I have seven middle grade novels out, a Little Golden Book, and some forty short stories in magazines and anthologies. I'm honored to join the SCBWI blog for this month and to share some of my little corner of the children's book world. In this week's blog post I look forward to lifting a corner of the veil that covers book festivals for you. 

Because we are book people and we love everything books, from writing and illustrating to browsing bookstores to find old and new books, to celebrate visiting authors and illustrators, admire covers, feel the paper, and lose ourselves in words and pictures on the page. One of my absolute favorite pastimes is roaming book festivals, from small and delightfully intimate local gatherings where you can meet and greet, to elaborate multi-day festivals with thought-provoking panels and exciting interviews, with hundreds of our compadre authors and illustrators. Nothing beats the buzz of being surrounded by book people cheering each other on. And authors and illustrators love it when you are there to listen to their stories and to join in to celebrate their newest books.

For the longest time, I was just a visitor of these festivals. I’d listen to authors and illustrators, always getting inspired by their stories, and I would wait excitedly in sometimes sheer endless lines to get my personal copy of their newest book autographed. But ever since I debuted back in The Netherlands in 2015, I wondered: How do you get into these festivals? How do you get on stage? The answer to that question came when I joined the Bay Area Book Festival as their Youth Programmer. 

Founded in 2013 by Cherilyn Parsons, who learned the ropes at the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, the Bay Area Book Festival features both adult andchildren’s authors and illustrators. It was one of the most joyful and fulfilling jobs I’ve had. I mean, spending your days reading all these wonderful book offerings by all my peers from here and there and everywhere! Fabulous, just fabulous!

I quickly learned the ropes from all my colleagues at the festival and am delighted to share some pointers on how you can become a featured author or illustrator:

1. Read the festival’s nomination guidelines to check if your genre and your target age group is featured. Does your book fit the festival? The Bay Area Book Festival, for instance, looks for work that offers broad audience appeal, shows a connection to conversations larger than ourselves, contributes to their objective of representing numerous themes and topics, connects with other speakers’ works as they consider the makeup of particular panels, and work that dares to push boundaries.
2. Your book has been published within 12 months of the festival’s opening date and, usually, it needs to be available for a festival’s bookseller partners to order via their customary distribution channels or directly via the publisher. Most festivals open for proposals six to nine months before the festival’s opening date. 
3. If the festival is not local, check if with your publisher if they have a travel budget (or count your own beans!). 

Author/Illustrator Mylo Freeman

And most of all: never despair! The Bay Area Book Festival says it most encouragingly: “Your work has merit and we are honored to be considered. Please remember that if your work is not selected, it may not have been selected for any number of reasons and we encourage you to submit nominations again next year.”

A first step toward being considered for a festival is to investigate the festivals around you. During my time as Youth Programmer for the Bay Area Book Festival, I connected with programmers of book festivals all over the world. We love putting the limelight on authors and illustrators, and are always delighted to hear from you, authors and illustrators. I have gathered some of the most esteemed festivals from across the world for you to check out:

USA

• Montclair Literary Festival – Montclair, NJ
• Bay Area Book Festival – Berkeley, CA
• LitQuake and KidQuake – San Francisco, CA
• Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, Los Angeles, CA

ASIA

• Hong Kong International Literary Festival – Hong Kong, China
• Nami Island International Children’s Book Festival – Nami Island, South Korea

EUROPE

• Flic Festival – Tantagora, Catalunya, Spain
• Norsk Litteraturfestival – Lillehammer, Norway
• Festivaletteratura – Mantova, Italy
• Children’s Book Island – Vilnius, Lithuania

SOUTH AMERICA

• Filbita – Buenos Aires, Argentina

 

That was all for this week! Stay tuned for next week's post about exophonic writers (like myself). Meanwhile, if you like to know more about me, find me on minawitteman.com or follow me on Instagram.