One of the surprising gifts of author travel is that you get to experience cities that you might never have chosen as a destination in your personal life. It’s almost always a wonderful surprise.
I’ve been lucky enough to visit splashy places like New York City, Los Angeles, and Chicago for conferences and events. But book travel has taken me to quieter places, too, like Syracuse (NY), Kent (Washington), Lake Charles (LA), and, most recently Columbus (OH)
I’ve discovered that what small and mid-sized cities lack in allure, they more than make up for with hospitality. Columbus is a good example. Columbus Public Schools invited three authors from the Author Village to help launch their summer academy all over the city. As one of the selected authors, I was hosted by their Spanish Immersion program, which offers a sampler curriculum of various languages for their summer students. It was hot (remember the heat dome?) but I still enjoyed meeting the kids and the teachers who were so passionate about using language as a connector.
When time allows, I also love visiting indies in these far-flung places. This time, I visited Cover to Cover, a legacy bookshop. I got to chat with Bryan Loar, their new manager, whom I’d met at ABA’s Children’s Institute in New Orleans. We sat on the comfy reading couch and talked about book events and how they curate their shelves. We shared ideas for bringing teens into the shop. I took lots of photos of this beautiful place, including these of window displays at just the right eye level for little ones.
All to say, book travel doesn’t have to be glamorous to have impact. All of it connects us to new friends and gives us a glimpse at unfamiliar places. Maybe that’s not so different from what we want our own books to do for the kids who read them.
Meg Medina is currently scheduling both in-person and virtual school and library visits and conference appearances for the 2024-25 school year. If you’re interested in hosting her and would like more information, please contact The Author Village.