Doylestown Bookshop’s author expo grows to 12 writers

The Doylestown Bookshop will host a free Local Author Expo inside its store at 16 South Main Street on Saturday from 1 to 3 p.m., bringing 12 local authors together to sign copies of their latest books. The event began as a Local Author Spotlight program, according to a Patch report on the expo. Organizers later rebranded it as an expo because it had grown in both quality and quantity over the years. The bookshop says everyone’s voice should be heard, regardless of publishing path. It supports writers working with small presses, self-published authors and those published by larger or more traditional houses. The shop describes the gathering as a large group signing event designed to connect local writers with the local community. The same expo is also being expanded into Lahaska Bookshop’s store. The Lahaska page says the move is meant to accommodate more local authors, and that the shop is also celebrating writers local to the Lahaska area who are not necessarily Pennsylvania residents. Moravian Book Shop in Bethlehem has said it will no longer carry books that rely on AI in writing or cover design, and trade manager Gail Schoepple has said the aim is to protect the integrity of creative work and support human authors, editors and artists. She said the shop has already turned away multiple titles after learning AI had been used. A Portland-led coalition of bookstores has also circulated a letter opposing AI-generated books, with KOIN reporting that nearly 100 bookstore owners, employees and customers had signed on after the document first spread on May 14. Separately, the Authors Guild published updated AI best practices on May 11, saying generative AI has become ubiquitous, that the risks vary by use, and that directly copying AI output into text presented as human-authored carries the greatest ethical concern.