For all you bookworms out there, here’s an event you won’t want to miss!

Tomorrow, September 28, is the 5th Annual Austin Teen Book Festival. The festival is free and open to the public. From 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at the Austin Convention Center, there will be 41 awesome authors signing books, including Maggie Stiefvater, Holly Black, Sarah Dessen, Rob Thomas, PJ Hoover, Marissa Meyer, Robin LaFevers, Mari Mancusi, and Lauren Myracle. For the full list of authors, click here.

Stiefvater is the author of “The Raven Boys,” the newly completed work about the practical daughter of the town psychic who will die if she kisses her true love. If you are interested in fantastic mythical stories, consider picking up Black’s “The Coldest Girl in Coldtown.” And if you are a realistic fiction meets romance meets “finding yourself” enthusiast, Dessen just wrote “The Moon and More.” A popular book many teens are picking up is “Scarlet,” written by Meyer, about the continuing saga of the Lunar Chronicles.

At the festival, you can buy books and get them signed (or you can bring your own copies). There will also be food sold at the festival in case you get hungry. To see the menu, click here.

One of the main attractions of the festival are the panels of authors, who will be speaking about writing. They are grouped based on the genre of their most recent book. The panels are Powers Strange and Perilous, Into Hearts of Darkness, I Made You a Mixtape, Tales of Tomorrow, Truth and Consequences, Fierce Reads, and Dark Days. To see the schedule, click here.

In addition to the panels, authors Maggie Stiefvater, Sarah Dessen, Rob Thomas, and Holly Black are this year’s individual speakers; Maggie Stiefvater is the opening speaker, Sarah Dessen and Rob Thomas are the lunch speakers, and Holly Black is the closing speaker.

New to the festival this year is Badgerdog’s Creative Writing Summer Camp end-of-summer reading and anthology-release party.

Badgerdog’s Creative Writing Programs “invite writers of all age and skill levels to examine the techniques of literary artists and experiment with language to communicate experience and meaning.” Its Creative Writing Summer Camp is a three-week long program that takes its participants through each and every stage of the creative writing process. Students work with a professional writer and create their own work, which they publish in a “professional-quality anthology.” Starting at 11:15 a.m. in Meeting Room 9, selected Badgerdog writers will share a piece they authored during the summer camp. Afterwards, there will be a reception and autograph party in the Convention Center palazzo, where Badgerdog’s newly published authors will sign copies of their published work.

 

It’s sure to be an exciting event, so drop by! For more information, visit the official website: www.austinteenbookfestival.com