Just a heads up for anyone who might be interested, this weekend is the North Texas Teen Book Festival in Irving at the convention center. Its a one day event where 70+ Young Adult and Middle Grade authors come together for panels, discussions, workshops, and a large signing session at the end of the day. It's one of the biggest if not the biggest teen book festival in the country. They set up a Barnes and Noble inside the convention center with signed copies from all the authors at the festival and publishers will be giving away books all throughout the day. If you have kids (or yourself) that are readers, this is a pretty cool event right here in DFW. I should also add that the entire event is free. There is no charge for entrance, signing, etc.

Wristbands will be distributed for the signing lines of Tomi Adeyemi, Becky Albertalli, Tahereh Mafi, Raina Telgemeier and Angie Thomas at 8am for no charge. This is just to control the amount of time the have to spend signing books. There are also wristbands available for special publisher events(giveaways, free advanced copies, etc) and book speed dating. Book speed dating is where a volunteer/librarian will sit down with a teen and pitch them 3-5 different books in about 5 minutes. The teen will then be given a free copy of one of the books.

This is a really great event if anyone in your family reads Middle Grade or Young Adult books. I'd be happy to answer any questions y'all might have about the event.


When: Saturday March 23rd 8am-5:30pm
Where: Irving Convention Center
Cost: Free
Link to the authors that will be there
Program and schedule of events

That sounds really cool. Thanks for posting this.

How do they get the wristbands?

Wristbands will be released at 8am. People usually line up early though. Only one wristband per person so you have to pick between one of the authors, book speed dating, or a special publisher event. Last year one of the publishers had a mini panel and every kid that attended walked away with 3 advanced reader copies of books that weren't published yet.

If you get a book speed dating for 10 am you can use it at 10 or any of the other sessions 11 and 12 (single use).

I will say this is a big event. It's one the biggest if not the biggest teen book festivals in the country. Based on last year I'm guessing between 10k-14k people. So just be prepared.

Ok, thanks for all the info! That's very helpful.

Wow had no idea this is so insane. Was planning on going. My kid is hyped.

I was really impressed with this event. Took some real effort to get that together and I'm grateful my girls had the chance to go. Please pass on my thanks nai

I will. I'm actually on the board of the festival and it's always great to hear from people. We work year round to put it on and I'm glad to hear y'all had a good time.

I wish I would have seen this earlier. My 8 year old has always been a big reader and has been obsessed with writing short stories and comic books the last ~12 months. He would have absolutely loved to hear jr high and high school authors talk about their process or what drives them.

How often does this event happen and are there other, smaller events in Irving or DFW for young authors

It happens once a year and next year's festival is March 7th. The festival is the run primarily by a group led by a librarian at the south Irving library. That specific branch has tons of programming with authors throughout the year. In the Young Adult/Middle Grade world, the South Irving Library is the premier stop for authors when they come to the DFW area. They frequently do book launches, panels, and workshops at the library. So I would start there and I can post about upcoming events or releases around the area. I know they have two author visits in May and they usually do a big panel for their summer reading kickoff. My wife has a middle grade book that is coming out in October and she will do a book launch at the South Branch.