Author and podcaster Jermaine Fowler kicked off the first Heartland Book Festival with a talk at the Folly in 2023.
Kansas City is home to four professional sports teams, a ballet company, an opera, more than one world-class museum, a flourishing literary landscape and so many theaters and music venues one person can’t possibly take them all in.
But, until last year, a conspicuously missing element was a book festival. On October 12 at the Central Library, 14 W. 10th Street, the Heartland Book Festival fills that gap for the second year.
Along with Missouri Humanities and the Missouri Center for the Book — the state affiliate of the Library of Congress Center for the Book — the Kansas City Public Library hosts a day filled with all-ages panel discussions, author talks, activities, workshops and vendors.
Missouri Humanities Executive Director Ashley Beard-Fosnow says that one goal of her organization is to promote the state’s unique literary heritage as it’s represented by writers whose works reflect the heartland as a distinctive place.
“One of the best strategies we have found at Missouri Humanities for strengthening the exchange of ideas is hosting large-scale events,” says Beard-Fosnow. “It is a great privilege to partner with the Kansas City Public Library to offer the Heartland Book Festival.”
After Missouri Humanities became a designated affiliate of the Library of Congress Center for the Book in 2021, Beard-Fosnow’s team immediately began planning a literary festival. The first took place in Washington, Missouri, in 2022.
That effort attracted thousands of reading enthusiasts.
“As we kind of looked across the state of Missouri, we were thinking about what regions had the largest population and would be most in need of, or receptive to, a book festival, and we landed on Kansas City,” she says.
Kaite Stover, the library’s director of readers’ services — also a Center for the Book planning committee member — was thrilled when she heard from Beard-Fosnow.
Ideally, Stover says, every city would be home to a book festival. “It’s a beautiful thing to see writers from all over the place, who write in a bunch of different genres, interacting with each other and their readers under one roof,” Stover says. “That exchange of ideas is so energizing to be a part of.”
This year’s slate of authors is wide-ranging, from former Georgia state representative Stacey Abrams, the #1 “New York Times” bestselling author of “While Justice Sleeps” and “Lead from the Outside,” to graphic novelist Pedro Martín, author of “Mexikid.”
Martín, a retired Hallmark artist, won a Newbery Honor and the Pura Belpré Author Award and Illustrator Award honoring Latino authors and illustrators whose work best portrays, affirms and celebrates the Latino cultural experience in children’s books.
In June, Missouri Humanities and the Missouri Center for the Book selected “Mexikid” to represent the state at the 2024 National Book Festival in Washington, D.C.
“The more recent attention with all the honors and the awards and stuff has just been crazy,” Martín says. “It was a lot to load up, fill your heart with, because it was so much, and it was coming so fast.”
Also on deck for that day is British Columbia-based Taylor Swift Style blogger Sarah Chapelle (@taylorswiftstyled). She talks about Swift’s musical and fashion evolution spanning the last two decades just after the release of her book, “Taylor Swift Style: Fashion Through the Eras.”
“Now that Kansas City has adopted Taylor as one of our own, it seemed fitting to include her in the book fest,” Stover says. “Chapelle’s book about her is gorgeous, and we think the Swifties will be really excited to hear what she has to say.”
Beard-Fosnow has her eye on another program.
“One of our past board members, Deborah Taffa, is going to be in conversation with Tommy Orange. I’m personally very excited about that presentation,” she adds.
Orange and Taffa talk about their latest books: Orange’s “Wandering Stars,” a follow-up to the Pulitzer Prize finalist, “There There,” and Taffa’s “Whiskey Tender: A Memoir.” The authors share their perspectives on the Native American experience — past and present — as well as stories of identity, addiction, family and survival.
Beard-Fosnow says she loves that the festival will promote an appreciation of the state’s rich literary heritage and build awareness of Missouri authors, which are among her organization’s larger goals.
“But,” she says, “we also want to encourage reading for pleasure. A lot of times we can try to accomplish each of those aims privately as individuals, but when we convene as a community, it kind of amplifies all of those efforts.”
All photos are by Kenney Ellison
