News

Since its launch in 2015, Flame Con, the LGBTQ-themed comic convention created by nonprofit Geeks OUT, has had increasingly more to offer: a multitude of panels, several workshops, and an increasing number of vendors. Eager crowds from a variety of fandoms gathered on Saturday, August 17 and Sunday, August 18 for this year's event.

This year’s ThrillerFest, the 14th annual meet-up of authors, aspiring writers, readers, agents, booksellers, and thriller fans, was held (as it has been since nearly the beginning…) at New York’s Grand Hyatt Hotel, July 9–13.

The eighth annual Andrew Carnegie Medals for Excellence in Fiction and Nonfiction ceremony and reception, held during the American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference in Washington, DC, at the Renaissance Hotel, celebrated winning authors Rebecca Makkai (The Great Believers, Viking) and Kiese Laymon (Heavy: An American Memoir, Scribner).

Vendors at this year’s American Library Association annual conference in Washington, DC launched new products, debuted significant updates, and announced winners of grants and awards. Here are a few items that LJ had an opportunity to learn about in person.

Comics have long been a part of the fabric of the library, but it wasn’t until the early 2000s that they really started booming, said Robin Brenner, teen librarian, Brookline, P.L., MA, addressing a rapt audience at the very first “Graphic Novels & Comics Round Table (GNCRT) President’s Program—State of the Comics Union: Past, Present, Future,” held June 23 at the ALA Annual conference in Washington, DC.

In the 1970s, the celebrated cartoonist and tireless comics advocate Will Eisner (1917–2005) stood before the Library of Congress and asked that comics be shelved in the library, believing its acceptance of the medium would lead libraries across America to follow suit. Some 20 years later, in 1997, DC Comics became the first comics publisher to exhibit at the American Library Association (ALA) Annual conference.

At the American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference in Washington, DC, sessions relating to censorship and the First Amendment, hosted by ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom, drew librarians seeking advice on challenges to books, programs, and more.

Author, actor, and activist George Takei continued the American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference’s speaker series on Monday, June 24, in Washington, DC. Takei recalled the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II, which is also the focus of his upcoming graphic memoir, They Called Us Enemy.

Library legislation news has been tentatively positive, according to the panel discussion “173 Days of Congress: An Examination” at the 2019 American Library Association (ALA) Annual Congress in Washington, DC. Representatives from ALA’s Washington Office and the U.S. Copyright Office looked at the successes and challenges libraries have confronted during the first six months of the 116th Congress, and identified a number of upcoming issues that advocates will want to keep an eye on.