True Lit: Writing Children’s Nonfiction

with Susan Campbell Bartoletti

Susan Campbell Bartoletti has published poetry, short stories, picture books and novels, but she is best known for her award-winning nonfiction books.

Bartoletti has been called a “fearless researcher.” She uses primary sources such as images, photographs, oral histories, interviews, letters and other archival materials to breathe the past to life. Her nonfiction subjects include child labor, the Great Irish Famine, Hitler Youth, the KKK, the woman who became known as Typhoid Mary and women's suffrage.

Her engaging work has received dozens of awards and honors, including the Newbery Honor, the ALA Robert F. Sibert Award for Nonfiction, the NCTE Orbis Pictus Award for Nonfiction, the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award, the YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Honor, the Charlotte Zolotow Honor for picture book writing, the SCBWI Golden Kite Award for Nonfiction, the Pennsylvania Library Association Carolyn W. Field award and the Children’s Book Guild Nonfiction Award.

Despite writing about difficult subjects, she insists that she has a good sense of humor, no doubt a defense mechanism developed as a result of teaching eighth grade for eighteen years. She holds a BA in English from Marywood University, an MA in English from the University of Scranton, and a Ph.D. in English from the State University of New York at Binghamton, where she won the Excellence in Research award. She lives with her husband and a dog named Charlie near Scranton, Pennsylvania.

 Books will be available for sale and signing following the event.

This event is part of the True Lit Fayetteville Literary Festival, now in its 9th year.  The festival is in collaboration with the Fayetteville Public Schools, Fayetteville Public Education Foundation, University of Arkansas Program in Creative Writing and Translation and Altrusa International of Fayetteville, Arkansas.

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