ArLA 2026 Annual Conference

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11:00am CDT

Campfire Conversations with Arkansas Authors

Saturday October 17, 2026 11:00am - 12:30pm CDT

In a small departure from previous years, we’re thrilled to host a panel of authors in conversation with one another as they discuss their work, impacts of libraries and archives, and intellectual freedom. The slated panel includes Alice Driver, an award-winning investigative journalist and J. Anthony Hopkins Award winner for her book Life and Death of the American Worker; Dr. Cherisse Jones-Branch, dean of the Graduate School and professor of History at Arkansas State University, author of Better Living By Their Own Bootstraps: Black Women’s Activism in Rural Arkansas, 1913-1965; and Olivia Paschal, Arkansas native journalist, historian, and author of the forthcoming book Something in the Water. Box lunches provided.

Moderators

Erin Shaw

Speakers

Cherisse Jones-Branch

Dean, College of Liberal Arts and Communication, Arkansas State University

Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Communication at Arkansas State University. 2021-2022 American Council of Education (ACE) Fellow. Former ACE Women's Leadership Program mentor, an ACE Council of Fellows Board member, part of the inaugural cohort of the America Council of... Read More →

Olivia Paschal

I'm a journalist, historian, and editor based in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Right now, I'm writing a book for Farrar Straus & Giroux about the history of northwest Arkansas—the region that incubated Walmart, Tyson, J.B. Hunt, and Bill Clinton—as an origin story for American neol... Read More →

Saturday October 17, 2026 11:00am - 12:30pm CDT
Exhibit Hall D

General Session