Rocktown Author Festival to connect readers with authors | Arts And Entertainment

Authors and readers will unite at Saturday’s fifth annual Rocktown Author Festival.

The Massanutten Regional Library will host the event, allowing local authors to meet and greet fans. The festival will also feature panels where some authors will discuss what they’ve learned on the job.

“We’re excited to be able to showcase this many writers from our area and show off how literary Harrisonburg and Rockingham County are,” said Zachary Elder, the Library Director at Central Library.

The authors will vary from children’s book authors to authors who write for an adult audience. The author meet and greet and book signings will be in the meeting rooms on the first floor, and the author panels will be held on the second floor.

The library’s new outdoor mural will have a grand reveal during the festival between 11:15 a.m. and 12:30 p.m.

The festival began in 2019 but was not held in 2020 and 2021 due to COVID.

“The neat thing about this year is we’re going to have more authors than ever,” Elder said. “We’re going to have 36 authors from all different types of genres and all different types of audiences as well.”

Denise Munro, the Head of Youth Services at Central Library, recruits the authors for the festival.

“I’m on the committee to help look at the applications and make some decisions as to who’s going to be represented, thinking about the panels, and who might fit the best on them, and what the panels will be about,” Munro said. “I’ve been involved since the start in 2019.”

Elder said it takes about a year to plan for each festival. Authors apply on the library’s website for the festival and are chosen during the winter. 

“We first check to see what went well this year and what we can change and even improve on for next year,” Elder said. “That starts with surveys we give out to the participants.”

One of the authors selected for the festival is James Blakey of Broadway. He has been attending the festival since 2022, but this will be the first year that he is participating as an author.

“I always wanted to be on the other side, and now that my book came out last year, I have a chance to be,” Blakey said. “I wanted to write ever since way back in high school. I always liked reading, and I thought, ‘I can do this too.'”

Blakey, who made writing his full-time job in 2021 and published a book last year titled “Superstition,” said he loves the freedom and flexibility that being a full-time author gives him.

He teaches a class on mastering self-publishing for the Lifelong Learning Institute at James Madison University.

“I got to meet all these other authors last time, but last time, I was a person wandering around. Now, I get to say, ‘Hey, you’re a writer, I’m a writer,'” Blakey said. “It’s going to be a lot of fun.”

There will be three main panels at the festival: one for publishing children’s books, the second for self-publishing, and the third for writing diverse characters.

“I’ll be moderating those panels, and we have four authors scheduled for each one,” Elder said.

Blakey will run a panel at 12:30 p.m. on how to self-publish and what to avoid. 

“I’m looking forward to sharing my knowledge on the panel because there’s a lot of scams and pitfalls that people can fall into,” Blakey said. “Looking forward to helping them save a lot of money and a lot of grief by imparting a little wisdom.” 

Elder said one of his goals is to make the Rocktown Author Festival a local destination every year.

“If you are an aspiring author, it’s incredibly valuable to know how to write and publish, to take your ideas from your head to the page,” Elder said. “For people who just love to read, it’s valuable to come to the festival to learn about authors writing in this area. Just learning what a vibrant, literary atmosphere Shenandoah Valley is.”

Munro said she loves showing the younger generations that there are writers in the community and that this could be a job they can have later in life.

“It helps the authors, giving them a chance to meet each other, but also to share their work and hopefully experience some financial benefit,” Munro said. “Giving the community a chance to learn about other people and resources in the area.”