08/28/2026
📚🚗 Ellysa Stern Cahoy, Director, and Casey Sennett, Outreach and Social Media Coordinator, of the PA Center for the Book, traveled to Washington, D.C. last weekend to represent Pennsylvania at the National Book Festival!
Every year, all 56 Centers for the Book are invited to represent their respective state or territory in the festival’s Roadmap to Reading. Ellysa and Casey were joined at Pennsylvania’s booth this year by Cordelia Allen Jensen, author of Lilac and the Switchback, the 2026 PA Great Read for Young Readers, volunteers from the Junior League of Washington, Abby Rockovich, the Center’s former Digital Media Intern, and Cordelia’s husband Jon.
During the National Book Festival, Pennsylvania's team met over 4,000 readers and shared information about both the PA Center for the Book and the 2026 PA Great Reads! They also met passionate attendees who visited PA's table to cast their vote on a very important Pennsylvania question: Sheetz or Wawa? Wawa won with 519 votes to Sheetz’s 318 votes.
Casey and Ellysa also met other Pennsylvanians over the weekend, including two Academy of American Poets Laureate Fellows originally from Pennsylvania, nicole v basta and Raina J. León. Raina is the 2026-2027 Philadelphia Poet Laureate. Author Alex Aster, an alumna of the University of Pennsylvania, also visited Pennsylvania’s table!
Thank you to everyone who visited the PA Center for the Book at the National Book Festival! Also, thank you to Cordelia, Jon, Abby, and Pennsylvania’s volunteers from the Junior League of Washington, D.C.! The festival and our participation in it would not have been possible without you all!
Penn State University Libraries The Library of Congress The Academy of American Poets Univ Penn
