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And here’s the official word on that new comic arts festival that people were alluding to at ICAF: Cartoon Crossroads Columbus or CXC, which will be a lot more than a CAF, really. The event will debut in 2015 as a two-day event (held October 2-3) and then grow into a four day festival in 2016. The show has a four person executive committee consisting of Cartoon Books’ Jeff Smith and Vijaya Iyer, Comics Reporter’s Tom Spurgeon and Billy Ireland Library founder Lucy Caswell. Smith is the Artistic Director, while Spurgeon will be the Festival Director. Can you say heavy hitters?

You can read more about the event in the PR below. Obviously using the Billy Ireland library for a CAF-type event is a no brainer and given the muscle behind the show, it sounds like it will quickly move into a pre-eminent spot on the calendar. But, there is still the crowded calendar to contend with. There’s an existing show in Columbus, SPACE, which, while small, has roots that go back to the birth of the CAF with the Spirits of Independence tour. SPACE has staked out the spring slot, leaving October for CXC. While that’s a very crowded time slot, CXC is well placed to take advantage of cartoonists who may want to continue their tour after SPX, and perhaps on to the revamped APE.

At any rate, given the massive comics related resources located in Columbus, this is an exciting development, and another step on the growing importance of the CAF circuit for comics.

A tumblr has been set up here.

The Columbus, Ohio based Cartoon Crossroads Columbus (CXC) has announced its formation and intention to stage a four-day, yearly comics festival beginning in Fall 2016.

The group also announced the CXC Launch Event for October 2-3, 2015. The CXC Launch Event will be a two-day show split between the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum (October 2) and the Columbus Cultural Arts Center (October 3). 

The October 3 portion of the event will be a one-day comics expo featuring up to 35 exhibitors.

The four-person Executive Committee for Cartoon Crossroads Columbus is:

* Lucy Caswell, Founder, Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum
* Vijaya Iyer, President and Co-Publisher, Cartoon Books
* Jeff Smith, Award-Winning Cartoonist and Co-Publisher, Cartoon Books
* Tom Spurgeon, Editor and Co-Publisher, The Comics Reporter

Smith will further assume the title of President and Artistic Director. Spurgeon will serve as Festival Director, and will relocate to Columbus in early 2015.

”We’re extremely excited to try and bring a first-class comics festival to Columbus, Ohio,” said Jeff Smith. “I’ve attended and enjoyed so many great shows over the years, and hope that CXC can take its place alongside them.”

”I share with the council members a belief in the comics art form and a love for the American Midwest as a great place for comics,” said Tom Spurgeon. “We also share a passion for the professional development and infrastructure issues facing so many cartoonists. We hope that CXC can become a positive force for a better community and more effective industry.”

The group’s organizational status, its advisory council members, its initial sponsorships, details on the 2015 Launch Event including exhibitor application information and initial plans for the 2016 Festival and beyond will be announced in early 2015.

A placeholder site can be found at cxcfestival.tumblr.com

A twitter account can be followed @cxcfestival.

In fourteen hundred ninety-two
Columbus sailed the ocean blue.

Scholastic News  2011

Last Wednesday, our Summer Literary Picnic season kicked off with a salute to Columbus in celebration of the city’s bicentennial. Here are some pictures of the evening:

Picnickers enjoyed a delicious dinner on a perfect Ohio evening.

The Thurber Chamber Theatre entertained the crowd with a tale of Thurber’s college days and a reenactment of one of his famous fables.

Thurber House Board of Directors President Barbie Tootle welcomed the crowd to our bicentennial celebration.

Joe Santry of the Columbus Clippers told stories of baseball’s beginnings in Columbus.

Columbus and Thurber expert Jim Tootle spoke about Thurber’s time at Ohio State University and his connections to Columbus.

Doreen Uhas-Sauer of the Columbus Landmarks Foundation shared her love of Columbus architecture and some stories behind famous Columbus buildings.

The speakers gladly answered Columbus questions from attendees.

Picnickers enjoyed our first evening of good friends, good food, and great books.

The U.S. Travel Association recently included the Thurber House Summer Literary Picnic series on their blog, SeeAmerica. Check out the link and see what they had to say about our summer plans!

At the Columbus Metropolitan Club Spring Reception, attendees were given the chance to “paint the town” of Columbus – and one of the artists included a Thurber tribute. Check it out:

Thanks to the anonymous artist who included James Thurber in this Columbus tableau!

School may be back in session, but that doesn’t mean our kids programming has slowed down. In fact, we’re gearing up to kick off a series of fall programs, including Pen and Tell It!, Ghost Writing Workshops and our Young Docents program.

As we’ve been planning these programs, we’ve been thinking a lot about what appeals to local parents. Of course, that means scoping out some of our favorite blogs written by local moms.

Columbus has no shortage of generous bloggers share their parenting knowledge, humor and perspective with their readers. Here are some of our local must-reads:

Cbus Mom

If you’re looking for kid-friendly activities in Central Ohio, this is your “go-to” resource! Kristen, aka cBus mom, covers and reviews all of the local, upcoming events, while balancing life with her husband, two young kids and two dogs.

Momo Fali

Diana, aka Momo, is what we like to call a mom-extraordinaire! We love reading about Diane’s adventures in parenting, life and raising her two kids. We don’t know how she does it all, but we do know that she is someone we can all relate to, as she’s not afraid to write what’s on her mind. In fact, she was recently named “Voice of the Year” by BlogHer.

Ms. Single Mama

Alaina is one of those moms who we can’t go a day without checking in on her blog to see what she’s been up to. She is brutally honest and isn’t afraid to share her feelings, hardships, and celebrations on life as a single mom raising her 4-year-old son.

Dear Crissy

Crissy is a self-proclaimed WAHM (work at home mom). On her blog she captures motherhood through her beautiful photos, stories of parenting her year old son and fun giveaways! We enjoy reading and seeing what she and her family are up to as they live life in Central Ohio.

A Busy Mom of Two

We can all learn a little from this mom who balances raising her 7-year-old son and 4-year-old daughter, being a wife to her husband of 12 years, and documents her adventures in saving money. This mom shares her money saving adventures, recipes and  … You’ll also want to stay tuned to her blog to enter in her frequent giveaways!

Classy Chaos

We admire Pauline, aka OHMommy, for how she juggles the busy schedules of her three active children, husband and daily blogging activities – all with a touch of class. There’s never a dull moment in her household and we love that she’s willing to share her tips and experiences with us!

Discovering Ohio

All around, this blog is a great resource for kid-friendly activities throughout Ohio! We particularly love following Lara Kretler’s picks and recommendations for places to check out in Central Ohio.

Dawn Friedman’s Work

Dawn is a local mom that inspires us so much! She shares her stories of raising her adopted daughter, and provides great resources for information on adoption. On top of parenting and writing, Dawn has also founded an organization called Open Adoption Support that’s for individuals and families who are committed to openness in adoption.

A Mommy Story

By day Christina’s a full time nurse, but by night she’s mom to her two children and an avid blogger. Tune in to her

On this day in history, March 19th, the American literary icon Philip Roth was born. I wanted to learn a little more about the man whose books have filled so many of my reading hours, so I used Oxford Reference Online which led me to the Oxford Encyclopedia of American Literature. The following excerpt, by William H. Pritchard, is just a small portion of the fascinating biography you can find in the Oxford Encylopedia of American Literature. Happy Birthday Mr. Roth!

Philip Roth’s literary career is extra-ordinary in a number of ways other than its continued production of surprising, vital, imaginative works. It began when his first book, Goodbye, Columbus, a novella and five stories, won the National Book Award for 1959; it reached a peak of notoriety ten years later when Portnoy’s Complaint became not only a best-seller but also a portent of the decay of American youth. (Students now came to college, declared Vice President Spiro T. Agnew, with pot and Portnoy secreted in their suitcases.) The career’s most recent stage, beginning in 1993, shows a writer in his seventh decade who brought out no less than six novels, all of them distinctive, three of them possible examples of masterwork. At his seventieth birthday in March 2003, he stood as a writer who has exhibited astonishing staying power, but also one who has deepened, extended, and invariably transformed himself.

It is not easy to name the qualities that most distinguish Roth’s work as a novelist. He has from first to latest shown a strong intelligence, fearsomely articulate in its ability to formulate positions, then argue with them by way of moving on to new ones just as temporary as the one abandoned. Everyone testifies to, even if they disagree about its ultimate value, his comic wit, often darkly sardonic but always incorrigibly playful. He has said that “Sheer Playfulness and Deadly Seriousness are my closest friends,” and it may be said of him (as Robert Frost liked to say about himself) that he is never more serious than when joking. Roth’s brand of serious play has been notably engaged in exploring, often in increasingly transgressive ways, the erotic life of American men and women in heterosexual relations that are usually combative, to say the least. One must speak also of what to some readers may seem nebulous: the auditory satisfactions of Roth’s narrative voices, whose lucidity and rhythmic movement are unsurpassed. Finally, and extending this remark about movement to the career as a whole, one notes with pleasure the way in which any book of his has succeeded its predecessor in a manner always surprising, yet somehow, upon thinking about it, inevitable. To describe the dynamic of that succession over the course of forty-four years is the burden of this account.

Early Life and Education
Roth was born 19 March 1933, the second son of Herman and Bess Finkel Roth; his older brother, Alexander, would become a commercial artist. His father was assistant district manager in the Essex, New Jersey, office of Metropolitan Life Insurance; his mother, as we might assume from Roth’s characterization of her in his autobiographical

<>Chris Columbus, director of the first two Harry Potter films, has given an interview to ScreenStar in which he discusses the comparisons between the Harry Potter films and his newest fantasy venture, Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief.  The interview, which can be read in its entirety here, poses the question if Mr. Columbus had any reservations taking on this project so soon ... Read the rest of this post

As part of the build up to the release of the much anticipated Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Ultimate Edition DVDs due next month, director Chris Columbus is the subject of a new feature in the LA Times Hero Complex blog. In this article, Chris Columbus reflects back on the casting of the Trio and remarks too at how far they have come since th... Read the rest of this post

Warner Bros has released two clips from the upcoming Harry Potter Ultimate Collector's Editions DVD. Now online at the official Warner Bros website is a new clip from the Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone DVD (the second clip) with director Chris Columbus on casting Ron Weasley (Rupert Grint) and Hermione Granger (Emma Watson). You can see new interviews with the two conducted while filming... Read the rest of this post

Happy Birthday wishes go out to Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban director Alfonso Cuarón, who is celebrating his 47th birthday today.  Many happy returns, Alfonso.  Cheers!