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This weekend, the St. Louis County Library and The Novel Neighbor bookstore are bringing their first free, in-person book festival celebrating teen readers to Ladue. On Saturday from 1-5 p.m. the St. Louis Teen Book Festival will take over Ladue Horton Watkins High School, bringing with it book talks, author signings, and meet-and-greet opportunities with 16 young adult authors from a wide variety of genres. Featured authors include Jenna Evans Welch, bestselling author of Love & Gelato, which was made into a Netflix film this past year; Kiera Cass, the New York Times bestselling author of the The Selection series; and Dustin Thao, author of the debut novel You’ve Reached Sam. Local authors such as Jody Feldman, author of No Way Home, and Samantha Markum, author of This May End Badly, will also be on hand to discuss their own experiences and their published works.
“This is the largest collection of in-person authors that we’ve hosted exclusively in the young adult teen author market,” says Emily McIlvoy, team services coordinator for the St. Louis County Library. While the library and the Novel Neighbor partner regularly on events, the two organizations have never produced a large-scale, in-person book festival for young adults.
“We’ve always wanted to do something on a large scale,” McIlvoy says. “I started in youth services about eight years ago, and it’s always something that I’ve wanted to do, because I’ve seen festivals all across the country, like YALLWEST [a book festival with acclaimed young adult and middle grade writers, as well as TV, film, video game, and comic creators] in California… those are on such a large scale and have been happening for years and years.”
Last year, SLCL and the Novel Neighbor hosted a virtual version of the St. Louis Teen Book Festival with 40 authors and various online panels. This year, there will be two blocks of author panels with several different breakout sessions. The panels will be themed around various genres and subjects, including “Screaming, Crying, Perfect Storms: Books that Make us Cry,” “Fighting Dragons with You: Epic Fantasy and Magical Moments,” and “Still Writing Pages: Our Favorite Tropes and Why They Work,” among others. Each panel will have a moderator that will ask a few questions, and guests may have the opportunity to ask questions to the authors.
After the panels, attendees can head to the school’s cafeteria for a book signing with festival authors. Books will be available to purchase via The Novel Neighbor at the event, including some special event bundles exclusive to the festival.
The Saint Louis Teen Book Festival runs from 1–5 p.m. on December 3 at Ladue Horton Watkins High School (1201 S. Warson). The event is free.
A previous version of this story misstated the last name of SLCL team services coordinator Emily McIlvoy. SLM regrets the error.
