Chappaqua Children's Book Festival 2023

Chappaqua Children’s Book Festival was the first book festival that I ever attended, and I returned in 2023 for my second time. They are so nice and make every children’s book creator feel special. They even dropped off a goody bag to my hotel the night before that had snacks and other treats!

It is always fun to see other KidLit creators, including ones that I fangirl but the highlight of this festival was meeting my agent in the flesh. Yes, we had never met face-to-face before. In fact, it was years before I even knew what he looked like!

We started working together on the book that he’s holding, Asian Pacific American Heroes. This was a project that he did for Scholastic and I was the hired gun to write the book. During this project, we talked on the phone but never via a screen.

It wasn’t until we met on a Zoom call for Boxer Baby Battles Bedtime! with the publisher at Eifrig Publishing that I actually saw what he looked like. He was much different than I had pictured but he said that I looked exactly how he pictured me!

And that is the beauty of book festivals. Not only do you get to meet parents, teachers, librarians, and especially kids, but you get to meet the KidLit community as well. This year, Chappaqua Children’s Book Festival had over 175 authors and 9,0000 attendees (despite the torrential rain the night before that caused massive flooding)!

A fun time was had by all and I look forward to it next year!