This year’s Trinity Author Fest invited over 40 young adult authors to engage in a hybrid event of both an in-person meet-and-greet and virtual panels for students, teachers and parents.
Florida native and New York Times Bestselling author James Ponti was featured as the middle school keynote speaker with celebrations and games in the quad themed around his new book “City Spies.” Ponti is a returning author to Trinity’s Author Fest and has had the opportunity to speak in person in previous years when the festival was fully in person.
“[Ponti] is really, really generous, always willing to come, and he’s awesome,” English teacher Georgia Parker said. “He’s just a really dynamic speaker, [and] I’m sure some of y’all have heard him.”
Eighth grade student Peyton Keith was one of the middle schoolers who attended Ponti’s speech. Keith has attended two other presentations by Ponti and has read a few of his books. He said that the experience meeting with authors makes the reader feel more connected to the stories and the processes behind their creation.
“When meeting authors, I really like being able to talk to them and get inspiration on their stories,” Keith said. “[The authors] help inspire you to write stories or come up with your [own] ideas to write.”
As the organizer and head of Author Fest, Parker is typically able to recruit authors through building relationships with certain authors who then spread the word to even more authors that are willing to come share their expertise to the attendees of the festival.
During a previous visit to young adult book festival YALLFest, Parker visited author Nic Stone for the first time when her book, “Dear Martin,” was recently released. Parker got to speak with Stone for half an hour all by herself, eventually becoming friends and inviting her to Trinity’s own Author Fest.
Parker became interested in the connections between “To Kill a Mockingbird” and Stone’s novel which led to them both traveling to a national conference for teachers and presenting the two books together.
“‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ is considered a classic, and sometimes people don’t think about teaching newer books in the classroom the same as they do the classics,” Parker said. “It’s nice to be able to pair something old and something new to give that unique perspective.”
The online author keynotes, discussions, and panels, available on the Trinity Prep youtube channel, feature the majority of the authors who participated this year. Parker said that while this is mostly due to COVID-19 restrictions, it may also become a permanent feature. This is due to the wider outreach that Author Fest has gained over the years, drawing in authors from all over the country.
“This year there are nine New York Times bestsellers, one Newbery Award winner, and I believe three National Book Award finalists,” Parker said. “I don’t know that we would have been able to have that many big name authors if we had been in person.”
One of the online presenters that Parker particularly enjoyed watching was Muslim American writer Semira Ahmed. In her keynote on YA literature, she answers questions from Trinity students about various topics from writing preferences to stereotypes and even the creative design on book covers. Parker had the opportunity to meet Ahmed by recognizing her in person on her way to a conference.
Although there are benefits to having mostly online author events, Parker said that she misses the in-person conversations that do not get to occur while authors are not physically present. She hopes that in future Author Fests, Trinity will get to experience the same large turnout of authors on the physical campus.
“For the authors, I know they miss looking at your faces and seeing your expressions,” Parker said. “It’s just not the same interaction, and so in that way we’re missing the human to human interaction.”
