On Saturday October 14, 2017, he appeared at Anderson’s Bookshop in Naperville, Illinois to discuss his new book and sign copies. The conversation was led by Baker’s colleague Giuliana Rancic, E! red carpet host.

Baker signing copies of his book. Photo Courtesy of Raymond Garcia

Around a dozen people attended the event which made the event intimate and allowed for deep discussion with the audience. Earlier in the week PL Online caught up with Baker to talk about his journey and his career in Hollywood. Baker spoke to Raymond Garcia via phone on October 12^th, 2017.

In the book, you explore various religious and spiritual practices including psychics, mediums, a class from the Church of Scientology. Was it hard to be open to trying all these new things?

I think being a journalist kind of gives you license and almost an excuse to try things that you otherwise might be too afraid to do. I went into journalism to have an adventure. I wanted to learn about life and other people and just have curiosity and use the world as this opportunity to learn and grow. Journalism has always been a great adventure so I think this (book) is the most significant, most important adventure and quest that I have ever gone on in my journalism career.

For me, I had just reached a point where being closed off to different practices or things that I might be uncomfortable to try, wasn’t really working for me. I was feeling spiritually malnourished.  I wanted to nourish myself in a way and that meant dropping my fears and dropping my ego and just diving in and giving things a shot with an open mind and an open heart, and that’s when beautiful transformative things happen. Beautiful transformative change doesn’t happen in your life by being afraid to go outside of your comfort zone it happens when you push yourself and go out on to the edge and you challenge yourself and your assumptions and your fears and your preconceived notions of what a religion is, that’s when you can really change and evolve.

What were the challenging parts about writing this book and going on this journey?

First of all when you are doing autobiographical writing, particularly in today’s day and age, you have to be willing to be really honest. You have to be willing to as I say, “Crack open your head and let everyone see the crazy inside.” Like My first memoir “Man Made” the first draft was a disaster, it was superficial and my editor would keep writing in the margins, “Go deeper, go deeper,” and I needed someone to give me license to say, “Yeah go to that uncomfortable place,” so I really learned that was important.

In any good story you need to show conflict because conflict is what drives narrative, it defines character. From a literary perspective, I had to really reveal the personal conflict inside of me and I think that’s always a challenge and I’m lucky that I’m in a place in my life and my career where I’m not too concerned with what people think about me.  I just want to tell an honest story and a real one. I think that comes with difficulty and I think that’s the biggest challenge when writing a book like this.

Has working in Hollywood help you become more open, especially in today’s day and age where many stars are more raw and open than ever before?

I think that Oprah in the late 80s really started to push and promote and encourage what we are seeing now, which is the confessional media culture where people go on and confess deep things about themselves and share. We see it in reality shows, we’re seeing it in literature, and we’re seeing it in celebrity journalism. So I blame Oprah for that matter. If you don’t like it you can blame her if you like it you can credit her.

My thing is I don’t want to be a hypocrite, I don’t want to sit here and say, “Oh celebrities are so fake, they just want you to know certain things about them and they are so manipulative.” If I’m going to be that person I have to walk the talk and I want to be accessible and relatable and real to my own audience and I think it’s important to be that way. I think it’s important to be like that in life, to be like that in your personal life and in your professional life. Be real always. I signed a book recently to a reader and I just wrote, “Be real always.” And I had never written that but I really think it summed up one of the things I learned from this book which is be real to yourself, to your spirit, to others, just try to be as real as possible. I think being authentic is important. We certainly live in a celebrity pop culture where “authenticity” is really the buzzword so if you’re trying to sell a product it’s got to be authentic and organic. We’re in the middle of that, and I think overall it’s a good thing as long as its done constructively with a purpose. As a writer and journalist, I also aspire to be authentic and not only is it personally healthy, its commercially where the audience is right now.

Toward the end of the book, you were reflecting about whether you can continue your work while being “loving, peaceful, and mindfully aware.” How has the journey changed the way you work as a reporter in Hollywood?

I think the sum total of all my experiences of having highs and lows, traumas and triumphs, of writing a confessional, contributes to my perspective and the perspective that I have is that I have more sensitivity. Even a guy like Harvey Weinstein, who I think pretty much everyone can agree was exhibiting monstrous behavior, I have learned, that even for someone like that, to have compassion and I think that’s something really important. It’s hard to articulate, because what I find is if I start exhibiting compassion for someone like that in what I do, I notice that the mass audiences will be like, “Oh he deserves nothing.” There’s so much vitriol. If we react to a monster in a monstrous way are we better? Or are we just on their level? Are we just exhibiting a similar pattern which is not being compassionate or loving toward people? As you read the book you’ll see that I become very attached to Buddhist principles. The number one thing is to act non-violently toward yourself and toward others. I think its hard in what I do because I have to take a position and have an opinion and a voice, I can’t be all wishy-washy because that’s not what the audience is looking for from me. So can I do that in a way that is nonviolent? It’s hard, it’s a minefield.

The context and the format of where I am expressing  myself is a very heightened, opinionated one so it’s difficult, it’s a challenging place to be. You know should I just run away to my cabin and just close off from society, and just be nonviolent with nature? Yeah I can do that, I can live the monk life there’s something to be said for that. I think what I’d rather do is engage with the culture and with people and with issues and that’s my calling I think is to share, I think that’s my dharma. That’s my purpose, it’s not everyone’s. In society, I think we all have to do our best.

After the self-reflection at the Lake Shrine Temple did you feel your journey was complete or do you feel like you’re still on it?

When I agreed to work on this project with Convergent Books, they really put me at ease and my editor said, “Don’t worry about having to come to some grand conclusion and reach the destination of your spiritual journey, just bring us along for the ride and tell us where you’re at right now, and if it ends with you becoming an atheist then fine follow your heart. If it ends with you smoking peyote on a mountain top with some celebrity, great. But just give us where you’re at at that moment.”

This book is really a snapshot of where I was at that time working on it and I’ve evolved and continue to work on myself. I was just meditating on the way in on the train, everyday poses different challenges but I think that that conversation that I am having with myself with God, whatever you want to call it, is meant to be vague because I think it’s all one in the same. I feel as though that conversation by the lake is really a cumulation of me turning over a lot of stones, kicking up a lot of dust, and it was all starting to settle. I was trying to figure out how to organize everything and that came from working on it and addressing it, and mediating, and contemplating, there was a real contemplative moment that I shared. I think that what I am dealing with, is what a lot of people deal with which is doubt. The Ken Commandments is a book about spiritual doubt. How can I believe this when I kind of believe that too? And I think that what I have come away with is more of a unifying theory, almost polytheistic. I am really reluctant to put a label on it because it is something that is ever-changing and evolving.  I think I have a lot more sensitivity and appreciation for all religions and spiritual practices. I’m not saying they are all great or for me.  Yoga, mediation, Islamic prayer, Christianity, bible study, whatever it is we are trying to communicate with that spirit that unifies and connects us all and that’s what I’m learning. I’m trying to tap into it, in between talking about Justin Bieber, Lady Gaga, Britney Spears, and Kim Kardashian. It’s a juggle, it’s a dance, it’s a challenge but its life and I’m super grateful for every bit of it.

The trip you took with your son to Iowa was a beautiful moment in the book. You visited the baseball field in “Field of Dreams.”

Yeah that was a really beautiful thing, it wasn’t really planned. It was a father/son bonding trip and we happened to watch “Field of Dreams” together and I was like “It’s really close, let’s go.” We had this really magical moment and the fact that I could share with my kids this journey, I just want my kids to look and say, “Dad is just real.” There’s a lot that they take away from seeing me because at some point they’re going to have spiritual questions and things are going to come up and I want them to have a good role model, someone who is open and seeking. I think we should all be seekers, on some level. I think when we stop seeking, we stop learning, when we stop learning, we stop growing, and when we stop growing, we really stop living.

After that trip you seemed much more at peace compared to the plane ride at the beginning of the book where you were anxious and having a panic attack. It came full circle.

I hope that people who read the book, realize that no matter where you are right now, you might feel spiritually bankrupt, you might feel psychologically and emotionally traumatized, you might have confusion; when you really put your heart out there in an open and honest way and start to engage in self-care on a spiritual level, you are capable of great things and great healing can take place. This book is a healing journey really, it’s like healing myself through exploration, spiritual exploration. The healing continues and I think we’re all trying to heal and we want to heal.

One of the big things that I learned is that I’m prone, maybe like a lot of people, to becoming overly attached and attempting to be controlling of things that are uncontrollable and it creates anxiety. And ultimately that’s death, we can’t control it, its happening. Coming to peace with your mortality and your death, I think for me is the key to really celebrating and enjoying life itself. I don’t see it as a morbid pursuit, I think when we deny it is happening and kind of run away from it. I think a lot of drugs, addictions, and other behaviors come up because we’re trying to escape the inevitable fleeting nature of our physical lives.

I feel as though I needed to get to a place where I had to treat my spirit. Why do I have so much anxiety? Why am I feeling depressed? I’m so uncomfortable with each passing moment. I’m feeling panicky because I can’t catch up to it. We all feel that way, we over-burden ourselves, fill our to-do lists. We are always in a rush to get from one place to another instead of just being present right now and enjoying the beauty. Its so hard to do but when you can capture it, and get into practice of it, it’s actually easy. I’m the number one guy who will be the ultimate hypocrite sometimes like, “Oh man I didn’t mediate yesterday damn, I didn’t have time.” I know my day would have gone a lot better if I just took the time to be present mindful, reflective, and reconnect with myself. I would love to see more people be that way and I think we’d all be better off.

One thing that has transformed me about my job is that I now will look at stories I am covering from a spiritual perspective. I look at the Harvey Weinstein thing from a spiritual perspective and think, wherever you see depravity, diabolical, and/or predatorial behavior, you’re typically going to see some one who is spiritually bereft, you’re going to see a void in a person — where they don’t realize how interconnected we all are and that harming others is harming ourselves, harming the planet is harming ourselves. And when we do connect we all become more peaceful, nonviolent toward ourselves and others and I see a lot of that in the world.

I feel as though a lot of the stereotypes of Hollywood are there because they’re true, of superficiality, narcissism, exploitation, and a lot of the ugly side that we see but one thing that is really heartening to me is that in my book, in writing this book and researching it, there’s a lot of people out there trying to change that and trying to change it on an individual level. I’m seeing it happen and if my book gives light to that then I think that’s a great thing because sometimes you can come into to work at E! and you’re talking about celebrities and it can sometimes seem really dark because you’re dealing with the dark side a lot.

What’s been the reaction to the book?

I had so many people say, “Oh my God this is like me! I feel the same way, I just want to understand my spiritual self and I feel like I don’t know enough — I need to explore more.” So I hope I can be inspiring in that way to other people.  The best way to inspire others is to pursue things in a pure way and I think people ultimately want to be good and they want to be better people and I think that it takes the individual to make that choice. The celebrity reaction has been really positive.

I believe we’re in a time where people want their beliefs reinforced. My book is counterintuitive. When you think of spirituality you don’t think Hollywood. It’s important to challenge people’s assumptions and provide an alternative view because there’s a narrative out there that Hollywood is void of spirituality and while I found that there is some of that, a lot of it isn’t — let me show you what I found.

This interview has been edited and condensed.

The post Be Real Always: A Conversation with Ken Baker first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

Public Libraries: Librarians probably know you best from your work writing and illustrating children’s books, but you have also illustrated jigsaw puzzles, birthday cards, a box of fish sticks, and an iPad popup book. Can you tell us about some of your most unusual work assignments?

Troy Cummings: One of the coolest projects I’ve ever worked on was a series of lightly animated illustrations for an opera—Maurice Ravel’s L’enfant et les sortileges (The Child and the Spells). I designed crazy animals/characters/monster clocks/etc. to be projected onto a screen to coincide with the nightmare fantasies of the protagonist (who was a naughty little kid.)

PL: How is writing for kids different than writing for an adult audience?

TC: I’m not entirely sure — I haven’t written for adults yet! I think, when writing for kids, I need to try to avoid references to things that they may not have experienced yet. And for early readers, I try to steer clear of vocabulary/syntax that’s complicated to decode. But on the same hand, I never want to “dumb down” anything. Even if these young readers are just starting out, they’re still smart. They want to be surprised, and they want funny jokes.

PL: The book you illustrated, Little Red Gliding Hood written by Tara Lazar, came out in October. How is it different illustrating someone else’s work versus illustrating your own work?

TC: The cool part is that the book ends up being something entirely different than what either of us would have cooked up on our own. (SELFISH BONUS: It ends up making me look smart, even though Tara’s done the hard part of creating a fantastic world full of funny characters.) And if I’m doing my job right, I’ll draw things that reinforce/complement her text, without being redundant and stepping on toes…

PL: How did you come up with the idea for Notebook of Doom? Did you ever imagine that you would be about to publish book #9 in the series?

TC: I think the original idea for Notebook of Doom goes back to 5th grade or so… I would draw these crazy monsters on my long bus ride to school, and make up little stories to go with them. And no: I can’t believe how lucky I am. (I’m actually making plans now for books 11, 12, and 13!)

PL: Rumble Of The Coaster Ghost comes out in early 2016, correct? What can you tell us about it? Did you have to do any “research” at an amusement park?

TC: Coaster Ghost takes place at an amusement park called “Safety Land”, which is the safest place on Earth. All of the rides are extremely safe, to the point of them being no fun. (For instance: The Barely-go-round is a horseless carousel. You sit on benches with seatbelts and airbags, while the ride slowly rotates.) The kids are bored at first, but then danger comes to Safety Land when a ghost seems to be on the loose.

My kids helped me do extensive research for this book by dragging me to a couple of real amusement parks. (Oh, the sacrifices we make in the name of writing!)

PL: What other projects do you have in the works?

TC: I’m illustrating a picture book series called Mighty Truck, written by Chris Barton. (A friendly, muddy work-truck turns into a superhero monster truck when lightning strikes a car wash at bath time.) The first book comes out March 29. I’m also working on a few jigsaw puzzles for Crocodile Creek, and some illustrations for Highlights High Five.

PL: This blog is going to be seen by lots of librarians, many of which will be interested in having you visit their libraries. Do you do a lot of visits to schools and libraries and if so, what is the best way to arrange a visit with you?

TC: I love visiting schools and libraries! Currently, the best way is just to email me at troycummings@gmail.com. (I’m working on a SCHOOL VISITS page for my website, www.troycummings.net , but it’s not up yet.)

PL: What tips can you give public librarians to help them work with authors and ensure a successful author event? Or what are some things that they should avoid doing?

TC: Author events go best when the students already “know” the author beforehand, so anything the librarian can do to introduce that author ahead of time is super helpful. Maybe read a couple of the visiting author’s picture books at story time. . .Or even activities connected to that author’s books. For instance: since a lot of my books are about monsters, maybe have an activity where readers make up their own crazy monsters the week before I arrive. Younger readers can just draw monsters, and older readers can write small descriptions, or even stories. Then when I roll into town, the readers are already invested—they’ve put work into this! And we can start from a point of talking about that work.

The post An Interview with Troy Cummings first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

It was surprisingly easy to bring this international festival to Colorado.  A Boulder resident, Jessie Friedman, had attended the flagship JLF in India and wanted to bring it back to Boulder.  She got in touch with the company that runs the festival, Teamwork Arts, and found that they already been looking for a location in the United States.  After considering cities across the US, the company decided on Boulder for the festival location.  When Teamwork Arts approached the Boulder city government in the fall of 2014 about participating, Director of Library and Arts David Farnan said, “We have to do it.”

Over the course of the next year, Farnan and two staff members – the library’s program coordinator and head of public services – put in hundreds of hours of work on the festival.  They helped put Friedman and the team from the JLF in touch with organizations who could provide money for the festival, whether directly or through grants.  The library team also hosted parties to get individuals interested in funding the festival and its programs.

For next year’s festival, Farnan will be looking for more corporate sponsorship in addition to the individual and nonprofit sponsorship and grants from this year.  Nearly 80 percent of this year’s budget came from grants.

The festival was held on the grounds of the Boulder Public Library and Civic Lawns, in one large and two smaller meeting rooms inside the building, as well as on the park grounds outside the building.  Except for computer access, which was limited when they emptied the large meeting room of its public computers, the library operated as normal throughout the festival.

Farnan said staff members were excited about hosting the festival at the library, which was probably helped by the fact that most of the planning and executing were done by Teamwork Arts.  Staff members who were scheduled to work the days of the festival were given the same volunteer training as other festival volunteers so that they would feel confident in helping visitors navigate the festival, but otherwise they worked their regular jobs and shifts.

Overall, Boulder’s JLF saw 8,000-10,000 attendees at all programs during the two-day festival.  Of those “butts in seats,” Farnan estimated that there were about 2,000-3,000 individual attendees.  He hopes that when the festival comes around again next September, they will triple both of those estimates.

The JLF brought in regular library users, brand new attendees, and even some long-awaited returning customers.  “We were pleasantly surprised by the number of people who came to the festival who hadn’t stepped into the library in thirty years,” said Farnan.

To other libraries thinking about putting on a similar event, Farnan said, “Take a risk.”

Sources

Farnan, David. Interview by author. October 9, 2015.

Hoffert, Barbara. “Jaipur Literature Festival Comes to Boulder Public Library.” Library Journal. Accessed October 9, 2015. http://reviews.libraryjournal.com/2015/10/prepub/jaipur-literature-festival-comes-to-boulder-public-library

JLF @ Boulder. Accessed October 12, 2015. https://jaipurliteraturefestival.org/boulder/

The post Boulder Goes International with Jaipur Literature Festival first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

“The gate count is over 1,000!”

On August 8, 2015 we were two hours into our library’s first ComiCon and attendance was surpassing anything we had imagined. By the end of our four-hour event, over 1,700 had come to share their love–correction, passion–for everything that the heroes and villains of Sci-Fi, fantasy, comics, games, graphic novels, and gaming meant to them. Community “geeks,” obsessed with their hobby, had discovered our library!

How did four young library staff members, who share their love of geek culture and the literature that inspires this fandom, manage to stage such a fantastically successful event? Never have I met committee members on any project who spoke in such concert, who agreed on their goals from the start, and who never faltered in what they hoped to achieve. What follows is their collective voice relating how they brought the first Electric City ComiCon to our library. Perhaps the specific details and the actual process they went through will inspire you to host a Comic Con at your library.

OUR MISSION
We are fascinated with the geek culture, especially when fans bring their favorite characters to life from literature. We all promote literacy and already had formed a bond through social media. When we found out two years ago that the 2015 theme for Summer Reading would be “Heroes,” it hit us that a comic convention or Con would be the ideal way to culminate the program. Some of us had been to Cons and were already familiar with how they worked, but they were more adult-oriented. We wanted to offer a safe place to our library patrons in real space for their passion and interests, and what place better represents a safe haven to our community than our library! And, more importantly, we wanted to focus on our younger patrons, our Tweens and Teens. We wanted parents to come with their kids to find out what we have to offer, and we insisted that our Con be “family friendly.”

PERMISSION AND PLANNING
We pitched the idea, first, to the Head of our Children’s department. She gave us overwhelming support, became part of the initial planning stage, and was integral throughout the process. Next, we had to convince our library director, Faith Line. She was reluctant to let us hold such a venue without a lot more research on our part. Did we really know what we were getting into? As we worked on gathering more information, she took a leap of faith and gave us the go-ahead. She was a very exacting mentor, and we learned to think more from her position as director and to consider all the issues involved: Library Board approval, security, staffing, and a hundred logistical matters. Well in advance of our Con we had to write our photography policy and post it publically. We wanted to have those who attended in costume have the opportunity to be photographed digitally against the green screen with the background of their choice. Those photographed were advised that their digital photo might be posted on any of our social media sites.

Our learning curve was huge and the planning took us over a year to complete. We deeply appreciate the guidance Faith gave us and the hard work she put in with us, right up through the day of our event.

FINDING FUNDING, PARTNERS & SPONSORS
Faith sent some of us to Spartanburg, SC, to attend their SpartanCon. Their organizers graciously shared all their planning notes with us, but it was obvious from their event that they had a substantial budget while we had zilch to spend. We concentrated on where to find funding. Friends of the Library gave us money and we wrote an LSTA grant tied into the Summer Reading program to help pay for publicity. The Children’s department purchased a green screen for us to use for the photography part of the venue.

This was a brand-new library event and we had no track record to convince potential partners or sponsors. We developed a sponsorship packet, which didn’t turn out as effective as we wanted because we started too late in the year to approach big corporate sponsors. We had no way to judge how popular our ComiCon would be, so we couldn’t make solid projections or promises of return for their participation or advertising. We did a lot of pleading to our sponsors,and they too, had to take a leap of faith.

Books-A-Million and Planet Comics agreed to be our major partners. Smaller local businesses donated gifts for the panelists or food for our Green Room. The Independent-Mail, the local newspaper, provided free ad space. An up-scale downtown inn, The Bleckley, provided lodging for one of our guest panelists. People’s Bank, BlueRidge Security, Forx Farm, (ever taste goat’s milk fudge? Wonderful!), and the SC  State Library sponsored us in significant ways. We were fortunate that, as we evaluated the costs, we only had to use library funds for prizes for the FanArt and Cosplay contest.

PLANNING PROGRAMS
As lead-ups to our ComiCon, we engaged regional artist Enoch Vaughn to hold three Super Hero Creation workshops aimed at teens to adults. We also decided to sponsor a FanArt Contest, which we initiated two months ahead of the Con. FanArt is a huge part of the geek culture, as you can see when you go to Instagram and Tumblr and search the hashtag #fanart. Artists are constantly reimagining characters or placing characters in weird worlds and having character cross-overs. Although FanArt contests are not typically held at ComiCons, we used the contest as an inexpensive way to advertise our Con and to get our community engaged in the world of heroes. We were hoping it would appeal to our teen demographics; however, our contest was open to all ages. Entries would be judged on the day of the ComiCon. Two weeks before the Con, we only had a dozen entrants and we were worried that it wasn’t being well-received. In that last week the entries flooded in and we were blown away by their quality, in all age divisions.

We weren’t sure if the patrons understood what “cosplay” was—that it’s a combination word: costume + role play, not intended for a stage production. Our director bought a dozen or so books on cosplay topics and we set up a display. Those books were checked out immediately! To heighten interest we contacted Sybil Todd of White Knight Cosplay—who knew we had such an expert in our own backyard?–and she presented two “Getting Into Costuming and Cosplay” workshops for teens in early July.

GETTING PANEL PARTICIPANTS
Since our ComiCon was the culminating event of the Summer Reading program, we planned two sessions for our local young heroes in the Children’s Department on “How To Be a Hero.” These were presented by Heroes in Force, a regional group specializing in motivational activities for kids. Thanks to them, Batman made an appearance at our Con and wowed the kids. We scheduled their programs so that panel sessions would not be competing with them.

We sought experts for the authors, cosplay, and artists panels who understood heroic characters for young adults, and we wanted local or regional authors and artists. We also wanted artists of comics and graphic novels who could speak to young people about combining art with words.

We contacted local cosplayers to talk about cosplay etiquette, how to approach weapons and mask making, what steampunk costuming is, and what cosplay design involves. We already had been going where authors, artists, and cosplayers were appearing—the DragonCon and AnachroCon in Atlanta, SC Comicon, and other regional Cons—in order to make personal contact with them. We attended book signings. We sent them brief inquiries via email and told them what we were planning. We also sent out letters and made myriad phone calls inquiring whether stated fees could be waived. We worked on the philosophy of “why not ask?” and took a chance. Our mantra became, “They can’t come if you don’t invite them.” The trick was to get them all to come for free!

One of the most pleasant surprises was to find out how willing authors, artists, and cosplayers were to work with us once we told them our objectives. Those who responded “yes!” are great advocates of libraries and literacy and we were thrilled to have them as our panelists. We owe special thanks to David Weber, Megan Shepherd, Delilah S. Dawson, Robert Venditti, Tara Lynne, George Farmer, Allen Swords, Marla Roberson, Gypsey Teague, and Amanda Finley for their support of our event. On the day of our Con, we were very disappointed when Robert Venditti cancelled due to illness. Enoch Vaughn agreed to substitute and the panel went on as planned. ComiCon people do form a very cooperative community.

STAFFING AND DIVISION OF RESPONSIBILITIES
We shared the responsibilities and all of our decisions were made by consensus, although we each had specific tasks we worked on. We didn’t move forward until we all agreed that what we were going to do met our basic goals. And we also knew that there was no way our library could hold this event without the help of staff.

The Summer Reading/Electric City ComiCon staff T-shirts were designed by Sara Leady. With special ALA approval, she modified the official library logo by dressing the Big L in a green superhero cape with mask. Each staff member who worked our Con wore a special T-shirt, with the same logo on the front as the Summer Reading T-shirt, but with the logos of all our sponsors on the back, a salute of thanks to them for their support.

VENDORS
You can’t have a ComiCon without vendors, but we had to get Library Board approval to waive the rule of no commercial activities in our library. We started looking for potential vendors almost two years ago. We visited vendor booths at all the major Cons, craft fairs, and through location-based searching on the internet. We narrowed our list of over one hundred down to thirteen—the number determined by our space limitations. One advantage for the vendors was that we did not charge a booth fee. The authors had booths and their books were available for purchase and autographing. Some of the cosplay panelists had booths dedicated to costume accessories. Our IT department installed an additional access point to our Wi-Fi so that vendors had internet access from their locations.

MAPPING THE FLOW
We mapped what we thought would be effective crowd flow. We had no idea how many people to expect and how much open floor space in our two-level library we would need for crowds. We wanted everything located in logical, accessible places, with freely-flowing traffic between events, without blocking the day-to-day routines—we performed normal library operations during our Con! For weeks prior, we posted signs throughout the building warning our patrons to expect a lot of noise on Con day.

We debated how we would set up the vendors and eventually agreed to assign them all to one space to allow equal access to the attendees. We had to deal with the main stairway and elevator ingress/egress to the upper level when locating the FanArt display, the panel tables, and audience seating. We were concerned that the activities in the Children’s area on the main level would be overlooked by those immediately going upstairs to the panel presentations and the gaming stations in the Teen Center. Our fears were unfounded. The huge attendance meant that all areas were visited by large numbers of people.

SECURITY
One major concern, of course, was security. Since our building is County-owned, our director arranged for two additional county deputies (three in all) to be on duty throughout the event. One deputy manned the main entrance as a weapons inspector. In cosplay many participants come with prop weapons as part of their costume, and we did see several really convincing Uzi’s in the hands of storm troopers! The deputy inspected and tagged each one to reassure us that they were not real.

The other two deputies circulated through each level during the event. They commented how well-behaved the crowd was. We understood why. For the most part, those who attend Cons come seeking others to bond with, to meet up with others who they may have already communicated with via various social media avenues. We saw several teens from several different schools laughing and talking with each other about their costumes. After all, a Con is a community of fellow-fans geeking together. We also planned a combination vendor supply room and public first aid/lost and found station adjacent to the vendor area and near the main entrance.

FOOD & REFRESHMENTS
We discussed having a public food concessions but our director nixed the idea for valid reasons. We had already bitten off a big hunk of this Con to manage, and having to deal with food, inside or out, would add another responsibility or headache, not to mention burden the clean-up crew. We decided that a Green Room for panelists and vendors would be sufficient for this year.

POST EVENT ANALYSIS
For us, the Electric City ComicCon was a mind-blowing success! We already have our second Con calendared for August 6, 2016, from 10-5. We learned a lot about how to improve our event:

HOURS AND ADDITIONAL PROGRAMMING

• Add three more hours to avoid overlaps in the schedule and provide more time between panels.
• Relocate the panel stage to avoid crowd noise and traffic.
• Add a steampunk panel.
• Have an Artists Alley with prints and posters for sale.
• Host more lead-up events for Tweens and Teens.
• Provide more cosplay workshops.
• Have more comic books for sale.
• Readdress the location of photo station and traffic flow by it. It was such a popular activity that traffic got jammed up and blocked access to other areas for children.

STAFFING

• Involve more geek volunteers. (We had one enthusiastic volunteer this year.)
• Involve more staff in the preplanning.

PROMOTIONS

• Create a brand for our Con that is used on all our advertising and everything we print, display, or digitally broadcast.
• Consider selling Con T-shirts. Many, many attendees wanted to buy our staff T-shirts.

FUNDING

• Start early to solicit corporate partners and sponsors for next year. Funding will always be the big issue, but fortunately we’ll have this year’s impressive gate count to entice more sponsors for 2016!

OTHER ISSUES

• Consider shuttle buses to and from city parking lots to address limited parking issue.
• Investigate providing ATM access.
• Print more programs. We only printed 500 and had to run off copies on-the-fly.
• Encourage survey returns. We had a survey on our website and included a printed survey in the tri-fold program. Although the survey results were overwhelmingly positive–Bigger! Longer!–we didn’t get back a significant percentage of them.

We overheard one of our attendees say enthusiastically, “The library is interested in what I’m interested in!” That’s why we held our own ComiCon, not only to have people come through our doors, but to shift the attitude held by so many of what they think a library is into what we know it can be for them…to see the possibilities of libraries…the possibility of their library. For more information, contact us at: electriccitycomicon@andersonlibrary.org

Resources:

Banaszak, Mark. “Library Articles. Convention Development: Creating A Mini-Con At The Library.” Diamond Bookshelf. January 20, ? http://www.diamondbookshelf.com/Home/1/1/20/181?articleID=130000 (accessed August 28, 2015).

Cruz, Rebecca. “Comics, Super Heroes, Pop Culture, and Libraries.” Public Libraries Online. August 17, 2015. https://publiclibrariesonline.org/2015/08/comics-super-heroes-pop-culture-and-libraries (accessed August 28, 2015).

Hamdan, Kate Denwiddie and Kareemah. “We Put On a Comic-Con (And So Can You!).” Virginia Libraries. July-September 2013. http://scholar.lib.vt.edu/ejournals/VALib/v59_n3/pdf/denwiddie.pdf (accessed August 28, 2015).

Lynne, Tara. “Introducing Electric City Comic Con!” The Geekiary. June 3, 2015. http://thegeekiary.com/introducing-electric-city-comic-con/25050 (accessed August 31, 2015).

MacDonald, Heidi. “How to Throw a Comic Con at Your Library.” Publishers Weekly. April 18, 2014. http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/comics/article/61940-how-to-throw-a-comic-con-at-your-library.html (accessed August 31, 2015).

Anderson County, SC website: http://www.andersonlibrary.org/

Electric City ComiCon Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/electriccitycomicon

Spartanburg, SC Spartancon website: http://www.infodepot.org/zReaders/Spartancon.asp

David Weber’s website: http://www.davidweber.net/

Megan Shepherd’s website: http://meganshepherd.com/

Delilah S. Dawson’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/DelilahSDawson

Robert Venditti’s webpage: http://www.dccomics.com/talent/robert-venditti

White Knight Cosplay: https://www.facebook.com/whiteknightcosplay

Heroes in Force website: http://www.heroesinforce.com/

Enoch Vaughn: https://www.facebook.com/enoch.vaughn

George Farmer’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/ArtofGeorgeFarmer

Gypsey Teague’s website: http://www.gypseyteague.com/

Amanda Findley’s Facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/AmandaFinleyCrafts

AnachroCon, Atlanta, GA: http://www.anachrocon.com/

DragonCon, Atlanta, GA: http://www.dragoncon.org/

The post Geeking @ the Library: Con is Community! first appeared on Public Libraries Online.

Teamwork
This author event was achieved with the help of a large number of people. Ally Condie’s visit was the first author event that I have planned. As the Teen Services Coordinator, I was in charge of the event, but I didn’t do it alone. Thirty-two staff members from the Teen Services Team, Community Engagement and Outreach Office (public relations), Facilities, and Security made this day go smoothly. We also had 20 teen volunteers.

Funding
The Kirkpatrick Family Fund sponsored Condie’s fee for the day with a very generous grant, which we applied for with the help of the PPLD Foundation. Once we received the grant we had one year to find an author and plan the event. Additional funding was donated by the PPLD Foundation to, in part, pay for buses so students from area schools could join us. One teacher commented in a survey, “Thanks so much for providing the transportation. Without that, my students could not have attended.”

Schedule and Statistics:
9 am student presentation: 281 students and adults

11 am student presentation: 311 students and adults

6 pm reception: 24 winners and guests

7 pm public presentation: 417 patrons

8 pm book signing only (just waited in line; didn’t see the presentation): 75 (many more people had their books signed!  Condie signed books for 2.5 hours!)

We had 1,108 people attend the five programs associated with the event!

Promotion:
School visits for booktalks and resource classes provided us with a captive audience to promote the author event.

Partnership with Barnes & Noble: They sold books at the event, so they were willing to put bookmarks and posters up. Independent book stores also helped us promote by putting up posters, but selling books at the event wasn’t something they could do.

One of the local newspapers (The Colorado Springs Independent) had an article about the event.

PPLD’s one book, one community program is called All Pikes Peak Reads. Matched was the teen selection. This synchronicity provided another way for the event to be promoted.

Word of mouth was very important. Staff members were excited, so it was easy for everyone to talk about it. We also used social media to get the word out on Facebook and twitter.

Feedback
I put together a survey for the teachers. The comments were wonderful! Here are a few:

“Great presentation, and very motivational and engaging.”

“The day went exceedingly well. Our students enjoyed the presentation very much. Condie was well prepared for all of the questions and gave many helpful tips to aspiring writers.”

“My students liked the personal nature of her remarks. Several of them talked about wanting to write books. I think hearing her, they realized that they could write too.”

When I started planning this author visit, I was quite intimidated. To prevent myself from having a nervous breakdown, I took a lot of deep breaths, created checklists for every aspect of the day, and got help from a lot of people. Amazing things are possible and, as Condie’s characters frequently remind each other in Matched, “Do not go gentle”[1].

The line at the Ally Condie book signing (Click to expand):

Photo by Tori Sparrow

Works Cited

[1] Thomas, Dylan, “Do not go gentle into that good night,” Poets.org, Nov. 29, 2014, http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/do-not-go-gentle-good-night.

Cover Photo Credit: Jeffrey Beall CC BY 3.0

The post Ally Condie Visits Pikes Peak Library District first appeared on Public Libraries Online.