New Voices New Rooms 2025 shines a light on the ongoing fight against censorship and book banning, an issue impacting every level of the book industry.

On Sunday, August 3 at 8:30 PM NVNR will host a special screening of the the award-winning documentary, Banned Together. The film follows three students from Beaufort, South Carolina, who joined forces as members of Diversity Awareness Youth Literacy Organization (DAYLO), and worked with their adult allies to reinstate 97 books suddenly pulled from their school libraries. As the students evolve from local to national activists–meeting with bestselling/banned authors, politicians, constitutional experts, DAYLO itself becomes a model for youth-led advocacy for literacy.

Monday's opening breakfast, at 8:30 AM on August 4, is Heroes on the Front Lines of Book Banning. Attendees will hear from authors, booksellers, and community organizers as they share their work and passionate advocacy during a time of ongoing challenges.

Emcee is Philomena Polefrone, PhD, Associate Director, American Booksellers for Free Expression (ABFE), the free expression initiative of the American Booksellers Association. 

Silas House, former Poet Laureate of Kentucky and author of the upcoming poetry collection All These Ghosts, will open the event with a poem.

Author speakers are Angie Thomas, author of Nic Blake and the Remarkables: The Book of Anansi and Nic Stone, author of Boom Town. Both authors’ previous books are among the most frequently challenged and banned in schools and libraries across the country. 

Bookseller speakers are Cristina Nosti, Director of Events and Programming at Books & Books in Coral Gables, Florida (SIBA) and Alison Rudolph, co-owner of Rudolph Girls in Westminster, PA (NAIBA). Nosti will share how Books & Books, located in the state leading the nation in book bans, works through their literacy foundation to provide free books to children, connect authors with schools, and defend freedom of speech and free expression. Rudolph will share how Rudolph Girls promotes the voices of women, people of color, and the LGBTQIA+ community through their inventory and social justice advocacy. 

Community Organizer Speakers from the Diversity Awareness Youth Literacy Organization (DAYLO) are Brea Parker, a rising senior at Beaufort High School in Beaufort, SC and Kate Selvitelli, a rising senior at Academic Magnet High School in Charleston, SC. Parker and Selvitelli will share their passion and activism defending the freedom to read for their communities and their fellow students.

Register for NVNR 2025