For the fourth year, I volunteered as an author panel liaison with the Ohioana Book Festival.
The one-day event took place April 20 at the Columbus Metropolitan Library and featured more than 110 authors who either grew up in or now reside in Ohio. Their work represented adult fiction, juvenile fiction, middle grade and young adult fiction, poetry and non-fiction.
My volunteer shift included three panels on young adult and middle grade fiction writing and illustrating. Among the authors I saw present their work and share their ideas were Tracy Subisak, Cinda William Chima, Margaret Peterson Haddix, and Andrea Wang.
Although I don’t read YA, I appreciated learning more about the process of researching, drafting, revising, and submitting manuscripts to publishers.
Memorable moments from Ohioana 2024
My favorite discussion of the entire festival happened during the Writing for Young Adult Readers session. Authors David Arnold, Chima and Mindy McGinnis answered audience questions about their writing practices.
While the panel was split on planning plots versus going by the seat of their pants, they did agree that thoughts about characters, plots and endings change as the writing progresses.
Chima has a general plan for her books and sometimes includes prologues to provide more information, while Arnold shared his experience with having the manuscript of his third book critiqued and choosing to keep it. McGinnis, never one to shy away from being direct, said she didn’t have a process and just sat down to write and made stuff up.
Additionally, the trio addressed how they write dialogue. All agreed that said is the best attribution verb because it’s clear and keeps the story moving. Arnold and McGinnis commented that they disliked chortled and murmured as ways of describing speech.
McGinnis also explained she leaves in filler words such as um, well, and so to be more authentic to the speech patterns of real people.
Thoughts on volunteering with Ohioana
As always, I left my Ohioana Book Festival volunteer experience brimming with respect for local authors and their contributions to libraries and bookstores and a profound appreciation for the work of Ohioana’s four staff members who make the festival possible.
I’m already looking forward to April 2025 when I will once again have the opportunity to give my time to such a wonderful cause!
