Category Archives: Issue #4

A Conversation with Reyna Grande, author of The Distance Between Us: How to Engage Your Readers

Reyna Grande, author of Across a Hundred Mountains, Dancing with Butterflies, and The Distance Between Us, is a sought-after speaker at middle/high schools, colleges and universities around the country. Born in Mexico, Reyna was raised by her grandparents after her parents left her behind while they worked in the US. She came to the US at the age of nine as an undocumented immigrant and went on to become the first person in her family to obtain a higher education. We spoke with Reyna about her most recent book, The Distance Between Us, and her thoughts about how to engage readers, particularly students.

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Featured Venue: The Evolution of Fairfax Reads

Ted Kavich, program and educational services manager for Fairfax County Library, takes All Fairfax Reads in a new and exciting direction!

BIC: The Fairfax Reads program was recently transitioned into a Book Club Conference model. What made you decide to make this switch, and how has the experience been so far?

TK: Actually, September’s Book Club Conference was just one of the new directions we hope to explore in the coming months/years. There are so many cool, “outside the box” kinds of events we’d like to coordinate, and of course our time and resources are limited. Thus, All Fairfax Reads (a successful program series for sure) was retired so we could move forward with some new and innovative types of events. The Book Club Conference was an amazing start to this effort – a hugely successful event with great turnout (250 attendees, our max capacity due to venue size), completely positive feedback, and an excellent keynote speaker (Will Schwalbe). We are so glad we reached out to book club members in our community – they came out in force to support an event geared to their interests and needs.

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Also posted in Andrew McCarthy, Authors, Common Reads Programs, Community Reads Programs, Newsletters | Tagged | Comments closed

Christina Baker Kline, author of Orphan Train, on the Power of Community Reading

We recently sat down with New York Times bestselling author, Christina Baker Kline. Her novel Orphan Train is about a young Irish immigrant who, as a child, is sent away from New York on a train that regularly transported unwanted and abandoned children from the East Coast to the farmlands of the Midwest. Moving between contemporary Maine and Depression-era Minnesota, Orphan Train is a powerful tale of upheaval and resilience. The novel (which is the authors fifth work of fiction) was selected as a Target book club pick, has held steady on 5 national bestseller lists, and has just gone to print for the fifth time!

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Featured Venue: SOKY Reads & Book Festival

Like many of our clients, Kristie Lowry, Library Outreach Coordinator the West Kentucky University Libraries and coordinator for the Southern Kentucky Book Fest, wears more than one hat! She shared some of her experiences in arranging events for a book festival, community reads program, and library author events.

BIC: Any idea about how many literary events / festivals you’ve done over the years?

KL: Counting the 2014 Southern Kentucky Book Fest that I’m currently planning, I’ve worked on six book festivals, six community reading projects, six used book sales, and countless other author visits. I also help with the administrative aspect of two literary awards-the Kentucky Literary Award and the Evelyn Thurman Young Readers Book Award.

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Black History Month: Celebrate with Award-Winning Authors

With February right around the corner, it’s a great time to think about adding an author event to your programming for Black History Month. Here are a few wonderful authors, with award-winning titles we’ve been recommending.

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In the Flesh or Between the Lines? The Benefits of Including the Author

As many all-campus and community reads organizers begin finalizing their decision for 2014 program titles, the account managers here at Books in Common often field an important question: why is it so critical for the author to participate, in person? We’ve worked with hundreds of event planners, on thousands of programs around the country. With nearly 100% agreement, the clients we work with say that having the author in the flesh dramatically increases the success of their programs.

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Also posted in All Campus Reads Programs, Garth Stein, Newsletters, The Art of Racing in the Rain | Tagged , , , , | Comments closed
  • Garth Stein: A SUDDEN LIGHT