Plan your holiday festivities and literary-themed event ideas by using the idea suggestions in this blog post. Create or attend an authors’ book signing, book fair, or holiday literary festival, and make it a costume event.

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Holiday Literary Events

Discover holiday festivities by looking online for holiday literary events or literary festivals in your area. Find an event near you, or plan a fun vacation to one of the annual festivities in another state.

For example, Galveston, Texas is known for its Dickens on the Strand holiday festival held in December annually. Events include such as daily parades and a Victorian costume contest. The street festival features 19th-century Victorian-style entertainment with carolers, bagpipers, and jugglers.

Also, check for seasonal holiday literary festivals within driving distance from home or near where you’ll be traveling during vacations. Often in the fall, you’ll find fun harvest or halloween festivals as well as upcoming Christmas events to attend.

Holiday Festivals List in the U.S.

• Southwestern U.S.: If you live in the Southwest and like to go to book festivals, plan a trip to Tuscon Festival of Books or enter the Southern California Book Festival.
• See the List of Book Fairs and Book Festivals By State at Writers Digest website.
• Other literary festivals are listed in the “25 Best Literary Festivals in the United States” article at VacationIdea.
• Check out the “Fall Book Festivals for Every Reader” article by Vivan Hodges for literary festivals if you live in the South.

Holiday Festivities Dress Up

Look for holiday festivities to dress up in literary costumes, or create your own literary-themed holiday festivities and invite authors. Families often look for fun festive events to attend as well.

So plan an author event and advertise prizes for best literary costume. And to make it more fun, include your children or grandchildren in costume dress-up for fun literary festivities.

As you can see as shown below in her 18th-century costume, Author Elizabeth Pye enjoys festive costume dress-up.

Decorate for Fall Festivities

Many people, anxiously awaiting cooler days, decorate for fall festivities way before summer ends. As the fall includes harvest festivals, Thanksgiving family gatherings, and Christmas festivities, create a plan for a fall literary event.

For example, host an book event for authors or children in your community. If you need ideas, take a minute to view the author, book, and library event ideas listed below (after this section).

Like Halloween festivities? Illuminate pathways with lights for trick or treaters to fill their buckets with candy. As an example, see thor Elizabeth Pye’ s display of a lighted jack-o-lantern.

By dressing up in her Halloween costume and enjoying festivities with her “old friend”, Pye makes historical fiction feel real.

 

Event Ideas

Consider the following creative book launch ideas for your self-published book, literature festival, or other upcoming events. Be sure to advertise in your local newspapers once your event idea is planned.

Author Event Ideas

1. Hand out fiction prompt activities for authors to fill out as they arrive, and give away literary prizes to the winners.
2. Plan a literary-theme cuisine at a sit-down author event.
3. Do a picnic-themed event for author moms and little tots. Invite them to bring favorite lunches, blankets, and picture books. Let book author guests display their published children’s books.
4. Come up with your own literary festival and include a book scavenger hunt in your own city.
5. Find close author events to attend where famous authors plan book signings.
6. In marketing your own books and/or book series, contact independent bookstores. In addition, arrange to set up a booth at a literary festival.
7. See if there is a book festival in your area at a middle school or high school. This creates a great opportunity to speak to younger audiences about top tips on how to write fiction chapter books.
8. Set up a launch party for your new book.

Book Event Ideas

1. Hand out pumpkin buckets of journals, pens, and other author-related gifts at a harvest or Halloween book event.
2. Host a literary-themed event with best costumed-dressed attendee.
3. Start a virtual book club, and ask club members to vote on their favorite book to read and discuss.
4. Advertise a costume event for dressing up as one of your favorite characters from a book.
5. Share your love of books and joy of reading by planning an author reading at your favorite coffee shop.
6. Think of special events or fun book club activities for your next book.
7. Provide a craft table for book lovers to make book markers.

Local Library Event Ideas

1. Check with your local libary about hosting a children’s book event.
2. Contact friends of the library groups, and suggest book ideas for events like World Book Day.
3. Ask your local library if you can schedule a panel discussion by local authors.
4. Schedule a workshop on the writing process of fiction at a library, or use streaming services on social media.
5. Consider hosting an annual literary event, and invite writers to help organize author talks about creative writing.

More About Elizabeth Pye

Learn more about Elizabeth Pye and what inspires her as she writes fiction. Writers come up against writer’s block occasionally and need inspiration. Thus, Pye shows inspiring ways to write historical fiction in the “Write Inspiring Historical Fiction by Following These 4 Tips” article. Likewise, her “Tips on Visiting Places of Your Novel’s Setting” article offers additional help for writers.

Elizabeth Pye’s Historical Fiction Novels

Curl up in a cozy chair with one of Elizabeth Pye’s historical fiction novels. Imagine that you are tucked into a corner of a secret nook hidden inside a medieval castle tower.

As you read Elizabeth Pye’s novels, notice how she has an affinity towards French history, castles, culture, and decor. The French Connection books are particularly inspired by her own experiences in different visits to France with her family.

Order Elizabeth Pye historical fiction books on Amazon or click on the links shown below:

Silk or Sugar

Elizabeth Pye’s historical fiction novels began with the Silk or Sugar romance. The setting of the historical novel takes place in Napoleonic France and New Orleans during 1803.

Janine de Fleury sails from New Orleans to reclaim her dead parents’ estate, confiscated during the early days of the French Revolution. However, she discovers an imposter has taken possession of her ancestral home. In order to regain her inheritance, Janine relies on Etienne Tremeau for whom she holds a deep and secret affection.

Return to Chateau Fleury

The novel, Return to Chateau Fleury, covers two time periods. The story opens in 1998 in Paris with American Claire Bennett. Claire finds conflict and romance with the dashing French aristocrat, Marc-Claude de Laval. They are entwined in a shared past life together during the French Revolution.

Mon Amour, Friend or Foe

Eighteen-year-old American Paulette Rousseau arrives in Paris in 1939 to study at the Sorbonne. She joins a chemistry study group tutored by handsome and charismatic Guy de Laval. Paulette accepts Guy’s invitation to join the French Resistance in May of 1940 and becomes involved in nursing injured Allied airmen.

While Guy is away on one of his mysterious absences, she is arrested and imprisoned by the Nazis. She suffers brutal treatment and near starvation. The smitten German Colonel Lorenz Dietrich, however, claims to care about her well-being and releases her. He warns her not to harbor Jews or political fugitives again and suggests that de Laval is not what he seems.

Can Paulette’s love for and trust in Guy enough to protect her from the dark forces that surround her?