Derry Author Fest takes on a practical theme
Elizabeth Ives was a long-time supporter and trustee of the Derry Public Library, and she had a dream, said Erin Robinson, Reference Librarian and coordinator of the Derry Author Fest.
“She was great. She’s since passed away, but she wanted to have an Author Fest that would have MFA-style classes and would be beneficial for people who want to become writers and authors and illustrators. The idea was that they wouldn’t have to jump through a lot of hoops or pay to go to a conference. She wanted it to be free and open to the public.”
“So,” Robinson continued, “year after year we’ve held the Author Fest here at the Library. It was a little messy at first — you know, everything takes a little fine-tuning — but now we have it down to what we really want it to be, which is focused on writing and publication and a very straightforward one-day series of lectures. Each year we have a different theme, and this year’s Fest is Pathway to Publication.”
This year’s presentations will be geared toward the practical steps of producing a book, Robinson said.
“We’re going to have a publishing panel that tells us what happens behind the scenes,” she said. “We have an executive editor from Harper Collins and an agent from Calligraph [literary agency]. We’ll have someone from the Public Relations and Marketing department at Penguin Random House, specializing in young readers. They’re going to demystify the process of publishing for us. We also have a creative panel where people are going to talk a little bit more about just being creative, but also what that entails, how they carve out structure in their day, do they have a day job? That sort of thing. We’ll have an illustrator, a picture book writer, and a YA writer on that panel. We’ll also be talking about niche publishing — what is it like to work with small presses as opposed to going for a big, traditional press? What’s the difference? Finally, Rebecca Allen is going to talk to us about finding a community that can help you succeed, finding critique partners, and how you can encourage each other to make your work better,”
“It’s going to be a full day,” she said.
The keynote speakers will be mother and daughter New Hampshire writers Rebecca and Adi Rule.
“They both have very interesting backgrounds because they write very different things,” Robinson said. “Becky’s writing is very regional. Adi writes children’s, middle-grade and YA fiction. They are going to talk about publishing over decades and generations. That should be a really interesting conversation to kick off the day.”
Robinson said that in past years the people attending Author Fest have been writers in a wide variety of genres.
“It’s hard for us [when we plan the conference], because we have to decide, ‘Do we want to lean more into the adult writers and do we want to get more for the kids? We have a sprinkling of nonfiction writers. We try to even the day out — some people write for adults and some for kids. People don’t have to stay all day, so some people will come and they will stay all day because they are going to gather something from every lecture regardless and they’re happy to be here and learning, but some will pick and choose. During lunchtime we try to split up the groups. If people want to stay and hang out during that block, we have tables where people can gather together by genre or subject or interest, so we have like our nonfiction writers table, or our children’s book writers, and they can all group together and connect. It depends on the year,” Robinson said.
In addition to the day of speakers and panels, the library will host a book sale throughout the day provided by Gibson’s Bookstore, according to derryauthorfest.wordpress.com where you can see the full schedule and links to register.
2026 Derry Author Fest: Pathways to Publication
When: Saturday, April 18, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Where: Derry Public Library, 64 E. Broadway, Derry, 432-6140, derrypl.org
More: derryauthorfest.wordpress.com
Featured photo: Courtesy photo.
