Last year, Scranton author Tara Conrad organized a romance book convention that attracted over 100 authors, other vendors and more than 500 customers.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt made people really happy for a few hours,\u201d Conrad said. \u201cThey got to meet their favorite authors, they found new favorite authors. So many friends were made, with each other. I loved watching people stand in line and, you know, start talking to the person behind them and then exchange social medias or phone numbers. It worked exactly like we wanted. We wanted a sense of family and community.\u201d<\/p>\n
Electric City Love Con Chapter II: The Red Thread is scheduled for next year, Aug. 6-7, 2027. This time it will be at the Hilton Scranton & Conference Center.<\/p>\n
More than a year in advance, tickets are already on sale and 100 authors are lined up.<\/p>\n
Conrad plans to repeat some events. A tattoo artist will be on hand and authors will hold a private dinner for readers.<\/p>\n
Last year, the Readers\u2019 Run was inspired by \u201cThe Amazing Race\u201d and sent people running around downtown. The next conference will feature something else with the same goal.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want people to get out and see Scranton,\u201d she said. The event is purposefully scheduled to overlap with part of the Scranton Jazz Festival, which will be Aug. 6-8, and the First Friday arts and entertainment walk in the downtown area.<\/p>\n
There is a new highlight. Festival authors are writing a novella anthology that will be sold only at the convention. \u201cIt\u2019ll be in pretty hardcover with sprayed edges,\u201d Conrad said. Proceeds will benefit the Lackawanna County Library System.<\/p>\n
The \u201cred thread\u201d referenced in the event\u2019s name is an allusion to a mythical symbol of togetherness.<\/p>\n
The authors\u2019 dinner will be Friday, Aug. 6, and is part of a $250 VIP package. General admission for the main session on Saturday, Aug. 7, from 1 to 5 p.m., is $35, with added VIP options available.<\/p>\n
Ticket sales and a list of authors are online at electriccitylovecon.com<\/a>. Conrad\u2019s own site is taraconradauthor.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n Romance books are a big business. Nearly half of romance readers burn through at least one book each week, according to a publishing industry survey.<\/p>\n MONDAY UPDATE<\/p>\n THEN: Over 500 readers visited Electric City Love Con, the region\u2019s first romance book convention, in Scranton in August 2025.<\/p>\n NOW: Scranton author Tara Conrad has just announced Electric City Love Con Chapter II: The Red Thread, scheduled for August 2027.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last year, Scranton author Tara Conrad organized a romance book convention that attracted over 100 authors, other vendors…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133252,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[201,182,28,178,180,179,289,181,729],"class_list":["post-133251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-lackawanna-county","tag-local-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news","tag-things-to-do","tag-top-stories-stt","tag-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133251"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133251\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}