When was the last time your work felt like play? Cassidy Coles can help guide you on how to connect to your characters, storyline, and self through a series of creative games and exercises at this year’s Writers Conference. Do pencil sports, build a toy to compel you toward your vision, craft a musical playlist for a character, or try your hand at flash fiction to get those synapses firing! You can find Cassidy’s station with the other drop-in activity tables in the open space near the Carmack Community Room.
Cassidy Coles is a staff editor on the Johnson County Library's teen literary magazine, elementia. Her work in the Library has ranged from hosting weekly storytimes to providing Library services to incarcerated populations. A homeschooling parent with an elementary education background, she writes with her kids by day and spends the wee hours crafting her own poems and stories.
You can register for the 2023 Writers Conference here. Registration isn’t required but is appreciated, and your RSVP includes both days of the conference, Nov. 3 and 4. Sessions are available on a first-come first-serve basis. We will also be hosting a Writers Conference Kickoff on Thursday, Nov. 2.
Inspired by this year’s conference book, By the Book: Writers on Literature and the Literary Life from The New York Times Book Review, we asked Cassidy a few questions to get to know her better:
1. What's in your TBR pile?
If I Was a Horse by Sophie Blackall
The Librarianist by Patrick deWitt
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
2. What are you reading right now?
Ulysses by James Joyce
The Bartender's Tale by Ivan Doig
The Eyes and the Impossible by Dave Eggers
3. Do you have a favorite book you love to recommend?
Moby Dick by Herman Melville
4. Do you have a favorite bookstore?
The Raven Book Store in Lawrence, KS. And be on the lookout for The Rabbit hOle, coming soon to North Kansas City! This museum for children's literature will likely include a bookshop.
5. Answer the question you wish we had asked.
Favorite quote about writing? Joan Didion: “I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking.”