Events

Author-speaker and writing-teacher event inquiries and invitations for Cynthia Leitich Smith should be directed to Carmen Oliver at The Booking Biz.

Cynthia actively supports equity and inclusivity in the world of books and beyond, and she enjoys participating in events created using the same approach. She is not available for any events that discriminate against marginalized or underrepresented people, either on the page or off. Please read the WNDB definition of diversity.

Non-Native schools/venues with “Indian” mascots should include that information in their invitation. Carmen is available to discuss how hosts can feature Cynthia while supporting books by local Indigenous authors, tribal libraries, and thematically-relevant books like MASCOT by Charles Waters and Traci Sorell (Charlesbridge, 2023).

Cynthia has been featured as a children’s-YA author/speaker at countless events, including the School Library Journal Day of Dialog, the National Indian Education Association “Meet the Authors” Webinar, Publishers Weekly Book Show, Kweli: The Color of Children’s Literature Conference, the Eric Carle Museum, the National Women’s History Museum, the Texas Book Festival, the Tucson Festival of Books, the Gaithersburg Book Festival, the Los Angeles Times Book Festival, the National Book Festival, the Virginia Hamilton Conference, the Association of Literacy Educators and Researchers (ALAN) Workshop, the Bank Street Book Festival, and the SCBWI Annual International conference as well as at bookstores, schools, public libraries (including the New York Public Library, Austin Public Library, and Chicago Public Library), numerous universities, and at conferences of such organizations as: PBS Books, the American Booksellers Association (Children’s Institute), the Kansas Association of School Librarians, the Massachusetts School Library Association, the Texas Library Association, the Wisconsin State Reading Association, the American Library Association, the American Indian Library Association, the International Literacy Association, the National Council of Teachers of English, and the Association of Writers and Writing Programs, etc.

She also has been featured as a children’s-YA writing teacher at the Association of Writers and Writing programs, Highlights Foundation workshops in Pennsylvania, the Asian Festival of Children’s Content in Singapore, the Writing and Illustrating for Young Readers conference in Utah, the Writing Barn in Austin, the Writers’ League of Texas Agents Conference in Austin, various SCBWI regional chapters, etc., and she served for about twenty years on the faculty of the MFA program in Writing for Children and Young Adults at Vermont College of Fine Arts. Currently, Cynthia is the program director of the We Need Diverse Books Native Children’s-YA Writing Intensive.