First Annual Unified Voices Summit for Educational Freedom

We are coming together for the first annual Unified Voices Summit: Protecting Educational Freedom in Florida to celebrate our educators, protect public education, and speak out in one voice to defend our rights of free speech and free expression. We will unite to end education censorship and book bans, and to support our teachers, public education and our core constitutional liberties. The Summit is brought to you by a nonpartisan coalition of organizations, including PEN America, National Coalition Against Censorship, Florida Freedom to Read Project, Interfaith Alliance, and PRISM. We will convene in Orlando, Florida on July 12-13th, 2024.

Please use the links below to see the full schedule (including Author Signings and KidLit Readings), list of participants, and Calls to Action.

FULL SCHEDULE CALLS TO ACTION PARTICIPANTS DONATE

Online registration is now closed. For questions, please contact Katie Blankenship ([email protected]) or Sophia Brown ([email protected]).

MISSION

Florida now ranks first in the nation, banning more books in public school classrooms and libraries than any other state. Teachers and media specialists are being threatened with loss of their careers and liberty, under threat of criminal prosecution. Florida laws have created the greatest crisis of book banning and educational censorship in K-12 public schools ever seen. Books about race and by authors of color, along with books mentioning sexual orientation and gender, are being ripped from shelves. Students are being robbed of the diversity of ideas and perspectives they need to thrive.

But all is not lost. Florida will not go quietly into the dark night of censorship. This wave of censorship and denial of free speech is making Floridians stronger and more resilient. Across the state, local groups are organizing, mobilizing resistance, and protecting our constitutional rights and public education. There is a movement in Florida and we need you. We must work collectively to protect our teachers, our students, and our public education system.

Featured Participants

See full participant list here.

Jodi Picoult, Author | Keynote Speaker

Jodi Picoult is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of 28 novels, including Mad Honey, Wish You Were Here, The Book of Two Ways, A Spark of Light, Small Great Things, Leaving Time, The Storyteller, Lone Wolf, Sing You Home, House Rules, Handle with Care, Change of Heart, and My Sister’s Keeper, and, with daughter Samantha van Leer, two young adult novels, Between the Lines and Off the Page.

Picoult’s books have been translated into thirty-four languages in thirty-five countries. Four novels – The Pact. Plain Truth. The Tenth Circle. and Salem Falls – have been made into television movies. My Sister’s Keeper was a film released from New Line Cinema, with Nick Cassavetes directing and Cameron Diaz starring. Mad Honey is currently in development for a series/film. Small Great Things has been optioned for motion picture adaptation. Picoult also wrote five issues of DC Comic’s Wonder Woman. Picoult is the co-librettist for the stage musical adaptation of her two young adult novels, Picoult’s two young adult novels, Between The Lines and Off The Page, co-written with her daughter Samantha Van Leer, which premiered off-Broadway in Summer 2021 and will be licensed through Music Theatre International during the fall of 2022. She is also the co-librettist of the musical Breathe, which was inducted into the Library of Congress’s Performing Arts COVID-19 Response Collection; and of the musical adaptation of The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, which will play at the Coventry Belgrade and the Leicester Curve in the fall of 2023.

Picoult is the recipient of many awards, including the New England Bookseller Award for Fiction, the Alex Awards from the YALSA, a lifetime achievement award for mainstream fiction from the Romance Writers of America, the NH Literary Award for Outstanding Literary Merit and the Sarah Josepha Hale Award. She holds honorary doctor of letters degrees from Dartmouth College and the University of New Haven. She is a patron of the Carole Shields Prize for Fiction which is awarded to female fiction writers.

Picoult lives in New Hampshire with her husband. They have three children.

Stacey Abrams, Lawyer, Activist and Author | Speaker (via pre-recorded video)

Stacey Abrams is a political leader, business owner and New York Times bestselling author. A tax attorney by training, Abrams served eleven years in the Georgia House of Representatives, seven as Minority Leader, and became the Democratic nominee for governor of Georgia in 2018 and 2022. Over the course of her career, she has launched multiple organizations devoted to democracy protection, voter engagement, tackling social issues, and building a more equitable future in the South. Committed to the pursuit of equity, she works to break barriers for young people, people of color and the marginalized through her work in the public, nonprofit and corporate sectors.

She currently serves as the Ronald W. Walters Endowed Chair for Race and Black Politics at Howard University and is a senior counsel to Rewiring America. Abrams is also the CEO of Sage Works Productions, Inc., an entertainment production company.

Abrams sits on both nonprofit and corporate boards, and she is a lifetime member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She has received degrees from Spelman College, the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, and Yale Law School.

Lauren Groff, Author | Featured Author

Lauren Groff is a three-time National Book Award finalist and The New York Times–bestselling author of the novels The Monsters of Templeton, Arcadia, Fates and Furies, Matrix, and The Vaster Wilds, and the celebrated short story collections Delicate Edible Birds and Florida. She has won The Story Prize, the ABA Indies’ Choice Award, France’s Grand Prix de l’Héroïne, and the Joyce Carol Oates Prize, and has been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her work regularly appears in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and elsewhere. Her work has been translated into thirty-six languages. She lives in Gainesville, Florida.

George Emilio Sanchez | Speaker

George Emilio Sanchez is a writer, performance artist and social justice activist. He was born in Los Angeles, raised in Orange County, California, and became a New York transplant in 1978. He began making original pieces in 1992 and has continued making performance work and social justice projects to this day.

George’s work has been presented by theaters and museums in over 25 states and has received support from National Performance Network, the Fulbright Program (Peru), New York Foundation for the Arts, the Jerome Foundation, and the Rockefeller Foundation. George has been an artist-in-residence at Brooklyn Arts Exchange, Abrons Arts Center, Dixon Place, Dance Theater Workshop, Pergones Theater, The MacDowell Colony, Tigertail Productions (Miami), Dance Umbrella (Austin), Centro Cultural de la Raza (San Diego), and Guadalupe Cultural Arts Center (San Antonio).

Sponsors and donors

Special thanks to: David Baldacci, Terry Brackett, Hachette Book Group, Tom Healy, Caren Lobo, Macmillan Publishers, Penguin Random House, Jodi Picoult, Alix Ritchie, Anya Salama, Shelly Saltzman, Felice Schulaner, Spencer’s Gifts, and Suzy Wahba.

exhibitors