River Valley
Literary Society
our mission
Our mission as
The River Valley Literary Society
is to connect and empower readers and writers in our community.
events
&
projects
Over the past few years, RVLS has brought award-winning authors to the River Valley for community and school visits, awarded scholarships to area teachers, and provided summer camps for young writers.
Author Visits
The River Valley Literary Society holds an annual event open to the community as well as author tours to area schools. In 2024, New York Times bestselling author and Edgar Award winner Kate Milford visited Fort Smith through RVLS as a special guest lecturer at Bookish where she held a special talk and book signing. The following day Milford toured local schools including Immaculate Conception, Christ the King, Kimmons, and Fair View. Bookish sold 300 copies of The Raconteur’s Commonplace Notebook for the event. Amina Luqman-Dawson, Newberry Award winner and Coretta Scott King Award, visited in spring of 2025. She spoke about her book Freewater and signed books at a free community event hosted by Bookish as well as school tours. Through donations and grants, RVLS purchased 400 books and was able to gift every attendee a free book.
Our 2026 prospective guest author will be Kate Milford as she releases her newest novel, Rialto.
Camp Fiction
Camp Fiction is a week-long summer series of workshops and mini lectures for children and teens. This camp teaches the writing process, the fundamentals of story-building, and editing and revision skills. Participants engage in unique activities, peer review, and optional author talks by award-winning published authors. Our 2025 Camp Fiction featured virtual author talks and Q & A sessions with Kate Milford, Amina Luqman-Dawson, and Greg Karber. All campers submit a complete short story produced during the camp for publication in an anthology. Campers and their families attend a fall release party to retrieve their copy of the anthology and sign books!
If you have an interest in registering your child or teen for Camp Fiction, look for updates on social media, the website, or sign up for our newsletter!
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donate
If you would like to support our annual author visits or Camp Fiction,
scan our PayPal or Cash App codes below:
Thank you to our generous donors for our annual 2025 author visit!
