By Kathy G. Short, University of Tucson, Tucson, AZ
The authors and illustrators who create children’s and young adult books love connecting with readers and telling the stories behind their books. The Tucson Festival of Books is an exciting opportunity to meet authors of old favorites and grow a stack of new books and emerging authors to follow. The festival has 325 authors across multiple genres and 135,000 attendees. 65 of those authors are picturebook author/illustrators, middle grade authors, graphic novel creators and young adult authors who share in 100 sessions. Many sessions are in rooms that seat 40-50 people to allow for more intimate interactions with authors, instead of only large auditoriums. This WOW Currents highlights the sessions and some of the authors who are coming this March. Go to the festival website for a full list of authors and sessions for the entire festival. A list of the children/teen authors and illustrators can be found here.
Recent award-winning authors and illustrators at the festival include Daniel Nayeri, National Book Award winner for The Teacher of Nomad Land, and Cynthia Leitich Smith, Printz award for The Legendary Frybread Drive-In. Other notable award winners are Zeke Peña for Sundust, Hailey Alcaraz for Rosa by Any Other Name and Angeline Boulley for Sisters in the Wind.
The College of Education hosts sessions with children’s authors and illustrators. Room 211, the Kiva auditorium, highlights authors with strong popular appeal who pull larger audiences, including R.L. Stine, John Patrick Green, Shannon Messenger, Erin Entrada Kelly, Katherine Applegate and Raúl the Third. One special session is the 100th anniversary celebration of HarperCollins Children’s Books. Two “speed dating” carousels with middle grade and young adult authors involve authors moving every 7 minutes to a new table to share their newest book. The final session on Sunday is the popular Illustrator Draw-Off, moderated by Adam Rex, where illustrators compete at easels in the front of the room and children use small whiteboards to draw along with the illustrators.
Panels of middle-grade authors include Daniel Nayeri, Jasmine Warga, Sara Pennypacker, Tracey Baptiste, James Ponti, Karina Yan Glaser, Ernesto Cisneros and Ruchira Gupta. The panels focus on topics such as time travel, magical worlds, animal rescue, WWII, high-stakes action and facing adversity. One special session is a fun-filled interaction for Warrior Cats fans.
Picturebook authors/illustrators include Deborah Marcero, John Parra, Kadir Nelson, Monica Brown, Yuyi Morales, Brittany Cicchese, Brian Lies and Zeke Peña on panels about the wonder of the natural world, home meets heart, loss and resistance and flights of imagination. The new movie “Pout-Pout Fish” is released at the festival by the author, Deborah Diesen, on Saturday at 4:30PM.
An especially strong group of Indigenous authors and illustrators are woven across panels, including Carole Lindstrom, David A. Robertson, Steph Littlebird, S.D. Nelson, Pasha Westbrook, Cynthia Leitich Smith and Angeline Boulley, including a special panel on Indigenous representations. A local press, Desert Ink, shares their initiative to publish books about Tohono O’odham culture and life.
Book Biz sessions are scheduled for adults so that authors and illustrators can share their insights on topics, such as writing middle grade novels, creating engaging nonfiction, selling your book, writing a picturebook and alternative routes to publication. In Illustrator Studios, adults interested in illustration observe demonstrations by illustrators of their use of a medium like acrylic, oil and ink, and techniques like shape, color and mold making. An overhead camera allows attendees to view the illustrator’s process of creating an illustration. Illustrators providing these studios include Yuyi Morales, Kadir Nelson, Ellen Heck, John Parra, Brian Lies, Steph Littlebird and Zeke Peña.
A strand of sessions for parents and educators highlights book recommendations and strategies to engage readers. Sessions this year focus on award-winning books, including Notable Books for a Global Society, Orbis Pictus nonfiction, Notable Children’s Books in the Language Arts, Notable Poetry and Verse Novels, Outstanding International Books and the Middle East award. In addition, there are sessions on fostering hope and persistence through story and engaging children as readers.
Authors and illustrators also offer drawing and writing workshops for children, including cartooning with Lars Kenseth, discovering your superpower with Tracey Baptiste, drawing a world on your head with Scott Campbell, designing a dragon with Mari Mancusi, playing with riddles with Megan McDonald and creating a luchador with Raúl the Third. Additional activities for children occur outside the College of Education in the Tent for Tots and Creativity Corner and free books are available at the Book Give-Away Tent. The Children’s Stage offers entertainment by musicians, theatre groups and storytellers, while authors and illustrators read aloud their books and interact with children at the Story Blanket Tent.
The Teen Area is located at the University of Arizona Library. The YA Author Stage is an outside stage with panels of YA authors, such as Neal Shusterman, Tiffany Jackson, Adib Khorram, Kat Cho, Lynn Painter, Angeline Boulley, Stacey Lee, Sunya Mara, Autumn Krause and Sasha Peyton Smith. The panels focus on dark fantasy, romcoms, an unfair world, thrillers and romantasy. A special session at 4PM on Sunday is a showcase of youth poets. Inside the library are YA workshops on topics such as, writing retellings, spoken word poetry, cartooning, magic systems and writing a “meet-cute.” Small groups of teens also meet with an author to record an audio interview that is edited into a podcast to post online. Outside is a Teen Activity Tent and Teen Book Give-Away Tent.
And then, of course, there are stacks and stacks of books to purchase at the bookstore and opportunities to get signatures at the book signing booths after each session. Another 200 authors and sessions can be found in the adult genres of current events, literary fiction, nonfiction, sports, romance, mystery, poetry, a Western Parks Stage and the Nuestra Raices stage. The center mall is full of booths, Indie Author Pavilions and lots of food options.
Throughout the day on Saturday and Sunday, every time slot from 10AM-5PM is full of options, so making decisions about where to spend your time will be a major problem. The schedule for the entire festival is posted on the festival website, but the children/teen schedule is available HERE for those who want to make their selections ahead of time.
The festival is my favorite place to interact with authors whose books have been my favorites and gain insights into the stories behind their books and writing/illustrating processes, while also being introduced to emerging authors and adding them to my stack of “to read” books. Authors and illustrators become people I know rather than just a name on a book cover, and I read their books with greater insight and connection. Make plans to join us on March 14-15, 2026.
WOW Currents is a space to talk about forward-thinking trends in global children’s and adolescent literature and how we use that literature with students. “Currents” is a play on words for trends and timeliness and the way we talk about social media. We encourage you to participate by leaving comments and sharing this post with your peers. To view our complete offerings of WOW Currents, please visit its archival stream.
- Themes: Kathy Short, Tucson Festival of Books
- Descriptors: Books & Resources, WOW Currents