ReedPop Announces BookExpo Online & BookConline 2020

ReedPop announced today that BookExpo and BookCon, which were to be held the last weekend in May at New York City’s Javits Center before being canceled due to the current global situation, will be going virtual! BookExpo Online and BookConline will off a full slate of online programming, available free of charge, during the events’ originally scheduled dates.

BookExpo Online will kick off on Tuesday, May 26 with Librarians’ Day, a full day devoted to content geared towards librarians. A list of sessions will be made available sometime in the coming days.

Following Librarians’ Day will be the Adult and Children’s Book & Author Dinners on Wednesday, May 27 and Thursday, May 28 respectively. Usually these highly-anticipated events are breakfasts that help start a day of programming off with a bang. They’ve been moved to the evening to accommodate viewers in different time zones.

Hosted by MSNBC political analyst and and SiriusXM radio personality Zerlina Maxwell, the 2020 Adult Book & Author Dinner will feature Poet Laureate Joy Harjo, Carmen Maria Machado, Rep. Ilhan Omar, and Rebecca Roanhorse taking the virtual stage to discuss their upcoming works. The Children’s Book & Author Dinner will bring together several of literature’s most esteemed children’s and young adult authors, including Judy Blume, Natalie Portman, Marie Lu, Raj Haldar, Misty Copeland, and Kwame Mbalia.

Friday, May 29 is BookExpo Buzz Day and will host the Adult, Young Adult, and Middle Grade Editor’s Buzz panels, along with the New Picture Book and New Graphic Novel Showcases. The Editor’s Buzz panels, which traditionally have just featured the selected books’ editors (thus the name), will be presented in an updated format bringing together the editor and author for each featured title.

BookExpo Online will also hold an additional day of programming in late July that will include education sessions, speed dating, UnBound content, and publisher showcases. More details will be announced later.

BookConline will take place Saturday, May 30 and Sunday, May 31 and offer fans a virtual gathering place to interact with their favorite authors and publishers. The two-day event will feature a bevy of Q&A and panel discussions with over 100 best-selling authors, including Cassandra Clare, Zoraida Cordova, Jenny Han, Judy Blume, Jodi Picoult, Nic Stone, and Mike Curato. The new age of super heroes, LGBTQ+ characters in young adult and middle grade literature, and social justice are just some of the discussion topics that will be covered in the event’s programming.

Jenny Martin, Event Director for BookExpo and BookCon, said, “We know how valuable it is for our community to gather and we felt it was important to reimagine the experiences you look forward to each year at BookExpo and BookCon to fit our current reality. We are excited to bring you BookExpo Online and BookConline this year, two unique digital events that will certainly be one for the books!”

As for me, I’m excited to dive into the BookConline programs. The panels have always been my favorite part of BookCon, as the show floor gets very overwhelming for me. I was supposed to moderate two panels at BookCon this year, and I don’t know if that’s still happening because of the format change (note to organizers: still interested, still available!). But even so, it’s great that ReedPop has made this change and will still give the fans something, even if they can’t hold the event as usual.

I’m also a little disappointed because my main quest at BookExpo is not the programming but the books! Hundreds of ARCs get dropped at BookExpo every year, and that’s usually how I get my reading list and the advance copies that I review. Now what will I read?

All programming for both BookExpo Online and BookConline 2020 is open to the general public and presented free of charge. The full schedule will be revealed in the coming days. All BookExpo Online programming will be viewable on the BookExpo Facebook page and all BookConline programming will be viewable on the BookCon Facebook page and BookCon Facebook group.

Please visit BookExpoAmerica.com for more information about BookExpo and BookCon.com or BookCon’s social media pages (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram) for more information on BookCon.

Source: press release

Author: Jamie Sugah

Jamie has a BA in English with a focus in creative writing from The Ohio State University. She self-published her first novel, The Perils of Long Hair on a Windy Day, which is available through Amazon. She is currently an archivist and lives in New York City with her demon ninja vampire cat. She covers television, books, movies, anime, and conventions in the NYC area.

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