Festival celebrating Ohio authors pledges to boost diversity

Associated Press

COLUMBUS

Organizers of a well-established book festival featuring Ohio authors say they agree with concerns that the event lacks diversity and they plan to do something about it.

The Ohioana Book Festival made its pledge Friday on Twitter after receiving complaints that the event includes too few authors of color and from the LGBTQ community, The Columbus Dispatch reported .

“We hear your concerns and we completely agree that we can, and will, do more to celebrate and promote authors of color, LGBTQIA+ authors, authors with disabilities, authors of every type of background,” Ohioana tweeted.

Only about 10 percent of authors at this year’s event, held Saturday at Columbus’ main library, were from minority communities, according to David Weaver, executive director of the Ohioana Library Association, which hosts the event. He said that included two black, two Hispanic and a number of LGBTQ authors.

The Ohioana Library noted in a tweet that the festival is an application-based event whose simple application providing biographical and book information is posted online for seven months of the year.