SPEAKERS

John Chrastka

Successful advocacy starts with an understanding of how your audience will listen to - and react to - your stories. If your story assumes the wrong frame of interest or isn’t sensitive to what people believe or feel about your topic, you may not activate them into action. Likewise, if you ask for the wrong action from your audience you will always receive the wrong outcome from your advocacy. Join John Chrastka, Executive Director of EveryLibrary, for a keynote focused on learning how people are wired to talk about libraries, taxes, and donations to take home actionable insights for your board, staff, and community.

John Chrastka is executive director of EveryLibrary, the first nationwide political action committee for libraries, and the EveryLibrary Institute, a nonprofit focused on research and training to stabilize and extend library funding. Since 2012, EveryLibrary has helped over 115 library communities in the United States with ballot measures for funding, operations and buildings, winning more than 80% and securing over $328 million in funding on Election Days. EveryLibrary runs the SaveSchoolLibrarians.org initiative, a digital advocacy site focused on preserving budgets and positions for school libraries. A long-time library trustee, supporter and advocate, Mr. Chrastka is a former president of the Board of Trustees for the Berwyn (IL) Public Library (2006 – 2015) and is a former president of the Reaching Across Illinois Libraries System (RAILS), a multi-type library system. Prior to his work on EveryLibrary, he was a partner in AssociaDirect, a Chicago-based consultancy focused on supporting associations in membership recruitment, conference, and governance activities, and was Director for Membership Development at the American Library Association (ALA).  He was named a 2014 Mover & Shaker by Library Journal for his work with EveryLibrary.  

Mark T. Sullivan

Mark Sullivan is the acclaimed author of more than twenty novels, including the #1 Amazon Charts, Wall Street Journal, NYT and USA Today bestseller Beneath a Scarlet Sky, which has been translated into thirty-seven languages and will soon be a limited television series starring Tom Holland. Mark also writes the #1 New York Times bestselling Private series with James Patterson.

 An avid skier and adventurer, he lives with his wife in Bozeman, Montana, where he remains grateful for the miracle of every moment. 

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From the author of the #1 bestseller Beneath a Scarlet Sky comes a new historical novel inspired by one family’s incredible story of daring, survival, and triumph.

In late March 1944, as Stalin’s forces push into Ukraine, young Emil and Adeline Martel must make a terrible decision: Do they wait for the Soviet bear’s intrusion and risk being sent to Siberia? Or do they reluctantly follow the wolves—murderous Nazi officers who have pledged to protect “pure-blood” Germans?

The Martels are one of many families of German heritage whose ancestors have farmed in Ukraine for more than a century. But after already living under Stalin’s horrifying regime, Emil and Adeline decide they must run in retreat from their land with the wolves they despise to escape the Soviets and go in search of freedom.

Caught between two warring forces and overcoming horrific trials to pursue their hope of immigrating to the West, the Martels’ story is a brutal, complex, and ultimately triumphant tale that illuminates the extraordinary power of love, faith, and one family’s incredible will to survive and see their dreams realized.

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