Big Stories for Little Readers
Brand Strategy, Cultural Event Development, Strategic Partnerships, Community Engagement
Organization: Orlando Family Stage
Role: Senior Director of Strategic Initiatives & Marketing
Project: Florida Children's Book Festival (2026)
Partners: Writer's Block Bookstore, WUCF
Overview
What does it take for a child to start thinking of themselves as a reader?
Sometimes it is meeting the person who wrote their favorite book. Sometimes it is discovering a character who looks or feels just like them. Sometimes it is simply finding a story so exciting they cannot wait to turn the page.
That was the opportunity behind the inaugural Florida Children's Book Festival.
As Orlando Family Stage celebrated its Centennial, our leadership team saw an opportunity to create an entirely new cultural experience that would expand our community engagement, strengthen our position as a champion of literacy, and introduce new audiences and funding opportunities to the organization.
I led the festival's overall experience design, strategic partnerships, brand positioning, and marketing, working alongside Writer's Block Bookstore, WUCF, and the Orlando Family Stage team to transform our theatre campus and surrounding Loch Haven Cultural Park into a celebration of books, imagination, and storytelling.
The result was a two-day festival featuring approximately 30 celebrated children's authors and illustrators and welcoming thousands of families.
Our ambition was not simply to put more books in children's hands. It was to help more children see themselves as readers.
The Challenge
Launching a new children's book festival meant building an experience from the ground up, without an established event model, audience, or operational infrastructure.
It also meant balancing two different definitions of success.
For Orlando Family Stage, the festival was a mission-driven opportunity to engage families, advance literacy, build children's identities as readers, and establish new relevance beyond our traditional theatrical programming. Long term, it also offered opportunities to diversify funding and develop new institutional relationships.
For Writer's Block Bookstore, success depended on strengthening author and publisher relationships, delivering a credible literary experience, and generating meaningful book sales. Neither set of priorities could be an afterthought.
An event focused exclusively on book sales risked becoming a commercial marketplace rather than an accessible community celebration. One focused only on free entertainment risked overlooking the business realities that make author appearances and bookselling partnerships sustainable.
We also needed to introduce an unfamiliar festival concept to Central Florida, coordinate multiple venues and partners, and build an experience that would appeal to children with different ages, interests, reading abilities, and relationships with books.
The challenge was to make reading feel irresistible to children while creating a model that worked for every organization making the experience possible.
Strategy
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I approached the festival's experience design from the perspective of the child, rather than starting with the traditional structure of a literary conference or book fair.
What would make a young visitor feel welcome, curious, and confident in a space devoted to books?
The answer was to create multiple points of entry into storytelling. Author conversations, book signings, theatrical performances, creative workshops, and interactive experiences offered different ways for children to discover a connection with reading.
For children who already loved books, the festival offered opportunities to meet the people behind their favorite stories. For those still discovering their interests, it created an environment where reading could feel social, imaginative, and fun.
The underlying strategy was to help children develop a personal relationship with books, one that could become part of how they understood themselves.
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The partnership between Orlando Family Stage and Writer's Block Bookstore required a festival model that served both community engagement and commercial outcomes.
I led the overall design with an emphasis on making these objectives complementary rather than competitive.
Free author presentations and accessible public programming could attract families and encourage discovery. Those experiences could also introduce children to new authors, inspire purchases, and create opportunities for meaningful connections with booksellers.
The more successful we were at engaging children with stories, the stronger the opportunity for authors and publishers to connect with their readers.
This approach allowed each partner to contribute its distinct strengths. Writer's Block managed author relationships, bookselling, and signings. WUCF brought educational media expertise and PBS KIDS experiences. Orlando Family Stage provided the creative and operational infrastructure, with our team executing the festival.
My role was to connect those contributions through a cohesive festival experience, public identity, and marketing strategy.
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The festival needed to feel bigger than a collection of author presentations inside a theatre.
I led the overall experience design to activate Orlando Family Stage and the surrounding Loch Haven Cultural Park as a destination for families to explore.
The event combined indoor programming with outdoor activities, a book marketplace, creative experiences, and live performances. Visitors could encounter stories through conversation, performance, art, movement, and play.
Creating that experience required developing a new event framework, coordinating partners and programming, navigating park use and permitting, and translating a complex production into an accessible public experience.
The goal was to make the festival feel intuitive and welcoming for families, even as the operational demands behind it grew increasingly complex.
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For nearly a century, the organization had helped children encounter stories through live theatre. The Florida Children's Book Festival extended that mission into a new format, positioning the institution as a convener of authors, educators, artists, and families.
I led the brand positioning and marketing strategy to establish the festival as a cultural experience with its own identity while strengthening the institution behind it.
Rather than simply promoting another weekend of programming, we were introducing a new reason for families to engage with Orlando Family Stage.
The festival also created a platform for partnerships and funding conversations that extended beyond traditional performing arts support into literacy, education, publishing, and childhood development.
Results
The inaugural Florida Children's Book Festival took place February 20–21, 2026, with an school-visit focused opening day followed by two days of public programming.
The festival featured approximately 30 children's authors and illustrators and drew an estimated 4,000–5,000 attendees, establishing a substantial new community event during Orlando Family Stage's Centennial season.
Its achievements extended beyond attendance:
A new signature cultural event: Created a dedicated children's book festival bringing nationally recognized authors and illustrators together with young readers across Central Florida.
Expanded institutional positioning: Strengthened Orlando Family Stage's public identity as a leader in literacy, creative learning, and community engagement beyond theatrical productions.
A new model for partnership: Aligned nonprofit community engagement goals with the commercial and professional priorities of authors, publishers, and booksellers.
Accessible literary experiences: Offered free festival admission and author programming, with additional ticketed experiences, creating multiple opportunities for families to participate.
A platform for long-term growth: Established a new cultural product with the potential to expand audiences, partnerships, sponsorships, and philanthropic support.
The festival's continuation was announced as part of Orlando Family Stage's 2026–2027 season, establishing a foundation for a new annual tradition.
For me, the most important achievement was creating an experience in which the interests of children, families, cultural institutions, and commercial partners could reinforce one another. We did not need to choose between community impact and a viable bookselling experience. We needed to design a festival where both could succeed.
And at the center of it all was a simple idea: when children begin to see themselves as readers, an entirely new world of stories opens up.
A Big Weekend for Little Readers
I led the experience design, brand positioning, partnerships, and marketing for the inaugural Florida Children's Book Festival, aligning nonprofit community engagement with the goals of authors, publishers, and booksellers. The result brought approximately 30 authors and thousands of families together to celebrate the joy of reading.
Skills Demonstrated
Brand strategy and institutional positioning
Cultural event and product development
Strategic planning and implementation
Experience design and creative direction
Cross-sector partnership development
Stakeholder alignment and relationship management
Integrated marketing and public relations
Community engagement and audience development
Cultural destination development
Complex event and project leadership
Nonprofit sustainability and funding strategy
Literacy advocacy and arts-based learning
