Neev Literature Festival 2024

    Welcome back to my blog. Today I am going to be talking about a readers haven for bookworms from all of India. A place for you to meet your favourite authors. A place where you can draw with Illustrators. A place where you can see your favourite authors talking to each other. A place where you are never denied your reading rights. A place where reading is celebrated like no other, The Neev Literature Festival.  On the 28th and 29th of September 2024, The Neev Literature Festival was held in Bangalore. It brought authors from all around India and even famous authors from US and Australia. These authors came here to share their experience about writing to kids and also for them to sign their books and give book reading sessions to children. I went to the Neev Literature Festival for the 5th time in my life(I went in 2019,2021,2022 and 2023 before this year) and I could say  without doubt that this was the best one in all the ones I've gone. I have many reasons for this but the most important and biggest one is that I met my favorite author Adam Gidwitz who came to Bangalore all the way from Brooklyn. 

He is my favorite author because he wrote some of my treasured books such as the Inquisitor's Tale and The Unicorn Rescue Society. I had read these books just 2 weeks before the festival and I was on cloud 9 when I found out Adam Gidwitz was coming. I was so excited and I jumped up and down and my friends next to me thought I had gone mad. Ok, but lets get back to the point. The festival was as grand as usual and hosted around  500 to 1000 kids(I Guess) and their parents over the two day weekend. On the 28th the first session I attended was called Mystery Maze by an Author called Pika Nani who wrote the book The Egghead Detective Agency. The session was interactive and we got to solve many puzzles and mysteries which I gotta admit was pretty cool. Next I went to a session by Priyadarshini Gogoi who wrote the book When We Are Home. She taught us to use the show don't tell technique and also to write your sensory observations into the story. After that, I attended a session by Arundhati Venkatesh on her new book Petu Pumpkin Freedom Fighter. In the start I wasn't sure where the session was going as she kept talking about democracy making me wonder whether this was a boring civics lesson or a cool writing class  but I ended up enjoying it a lot. The last session I attended on day 1 was called Animals through the ages by an author called Nandini Sen Gupta and it was marvelous. It was about famous animals in history who were popular because of their owners. This session was mainly audience based and included Q&A's and some crazy facts you would never believe. I relished every second of this session. After the session, we took some pictures outside and left after waiting for what seemed like forever for a taxi.

    Day 1 was amazing but Day 2 was way better and made me overwhelmingly joyful. So After Day 1 I decided that I should write a letter to Mr. Adam Gidwitz saying what I loved in his books and also to express my gratitude to him for coming all the way from the US. So here is the letter which I gave him.

                              

 

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                So in the morning after attending two book reading sessions I decided to wait outside the classroom in which he was giving a session to the adults so I could give the letter to him. When I gave him the letter I felt like I was being hit with bullets of happiness. Next was the moment I had been waiting for the whole weekend, the session by Adam Gidwitz. The session  was the best I had over the weekend. It was about how to speak through your authentic voice while writing. The session was hilarious and I enjoyed hearing how some of my favorite books were made. After the session I purchased his book Max in the House of Spies and completed it immediately. The book ended with a cliff hanger so I persuaded my mother to get me the next book in the Duology. I opened amazon and became pretty frustrated when I found out the next book hadn't come out. Finally, I attended a session by Marc Aronson and Marina Budhos on how to write great non-fiction and it was very interesting and useful.Overall, This was the best Neev Literature Festival ever.