The Betsy-Tacy Society

09/06/2026

We are thrilled to reveal the first section of our Betsy-Tacy Pipeline, representing NINE new young BTS members!

Each graphic on the pipeline represents a different mentor, role model, or wise older guide in the series – and that is what we especially hope our current members will be for all the potential young members out there.

If you know a young person who might enjoy a BTS membership, please give them one during our Membership Drive (September 1–13) – or purchase a gift membership and have us make the match. Either is wonderful!

https://shop.betsy-tacysociety.org/shop/membership/2

Welcome to our newest nine! Let's keep this pipeline GROWING 🌹

09/05/2026

TWO QUICK NOTES FROM JEN

(Busy day! I just matched my first new YA member with a gift membership and am feeling quite delirious 🥰)

1️⃣ BTS members, I emailed all Adult/Senior/Lifetime members on Sunday and Monday and am now learning that my lovely info-packed notes went into many spam folders – likely as a result of our email snafu earlier in the week. Please check your spam! But if you don't see either, let me know and I'll send you a link. (They're titled "Late August Updates" and "Rush Week 2026.")

2️⃣ I just posted my 13th YouTube video as part of my All Books Lead to Betsy series, on a book I LOVED by Lorna Landvik. I hope you love it too!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mqpXa4zroHg&list=PLKY5De5L5Mh1bZwZ5Wo7RWME4QWOtB3br&index=12

Memberships are simply rolling in today, such fun!!!

🩷 Jennifer D-K
BTS Exec. Director

Executive Director Jennifer Davis-Kay talks up a ...

09/05/2026

A NOTE FROM JEN

Drat! I still can't post the first filled-in section of our graphic.

Folks are busily renewing their memberships (thank you!) and taking advantage of the two free months we're offering through September 13, but we don't yet have quite enough new BTT Club, YA, and New Adult memberships to move the needle.

But it's early days – and as my wise friend and sister Board member Lani pointed out, Labor Day is crazy late this year; many folks are relishing the last days of summer vacay and are not quite ready to return to business as usual.

And I have a few more outreach tricks up my sleeve – we'll just see. This morning, for example, I asked the Sunday school director at my church to recommend some kids he thinks of as bookworms, and I just wrote a note to their parents asking if a gift membership might be welcome. If you like that idea, feel free to borrow it!

What we know for sure: Kids LOVE getting something in the mail. Even when (as much as it pains me to write this) they're less interested in reading and rereading the BTs, they want to keep their BTT Club membership because they like the newsletter so much. Something to keep in mind!

https://shop.betsy-tacysociety.org/shop/membership/2

Just this morning on Maud-L, Maddi M wrote, "I met B&T when I was 5 years old, through my own Miss Sparrow at the San Leandro Library. She handed me 'this other Betsy series' and set my lifelong love affair with the Tomes in motion."

YOU could be Miss Sparrow for a young person – whether it's someone you know personally or someone you ask us to find for you. We'll be happy to make that match!

It also occurred to me: While the rush-rush-deadline-NOW! feel of a membership drive is quite thrilling, "Building the Betsy-Tacy Pipeline" is a wonderful goal for the entire year. OF COURSE we would love to meet our goal and add 90 new young members by the end of next week! But we're not going to stop trying to beef up these numbers even if we DO meet that ambitious goal.

The only way to keep this organization surviving and thriving is to continue to bring in young people, new ideas, fresh voices.

So. We're trying!

Won't you please help us?

A Gift Membership starts at just $10!

https://tinyurl.com/2v7cn6m9

(With just two more new memberships, I can finally display the first section of the graphic!)

Thank you!

💜 Jennifer D-K
BTS Exec. Director

09/02/2026

It's Day 2 of our annual membership drive, and while we can't make any updates to our cool graphic yet (we'll need nine new BTT Club, YA, or New Adult members, and we're not quite there yet), nonetheless, many of you have taken advantage of our sweet sweet offer (two additional months of membership!) and are joining or renewing. Thank you!

You can purchase memberships here:

https://shop.betsy-tacysociety.org/shop/membership/2

We wanted to mention just a few things:

▪️We're planning quite a few changes to our membership levels. We introduced the New Adult membership level (for ages 20–25) now because it fits so nicely with our theme of Building the Betsy-Tacy Pipeline. But in January, we are raising the cost of most memberships by $5 (largely due to the increase in paper and postage costs), and we are raising the age of Senior membership to 65 (from 62). You might want to lock in your membership now at the current rate, whether it's time to renew or not!

▪️All of our memberships are age-based, which means that we need to know your birthdate – particularly if you want to be sure you're purchasing a membership at the lowest rate possible! If you're not sure if we have your birthdate, please email Jen ([email protected]) or Kat ([email protected]) with this info.

▪️For YA and Adult YA members: We've decided that 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑺𝒐𝒄𝒊𝒂𝒍 𝑹𝒐𝒐𝒎 newsletter will be print only from now on – three issues per year, coming to you in the mail!

We love seeing new, renewing, and returning lapsed members, and we want to say a special welcome to our newest Senior member Sandy, and our first international YA member, Emily in Ireland! We are simply thrilled to have you with us. ❤

The membership drive runs through September 13. Please consider purchasing a gift membership for a young person you know (or one you'd like us to choose for you)! Think of yourself as Miss Sparrow, introducing a world of reading to young Betsy Ray. This is how we'll build the Betsy-Tacy pipeline: one young bookworm at a time.

https://tinyurl.com/33x536e7

Thank you for your support!

If you are purchasing a membership for someone specific, please complete a membership form for that person. If you are donating a membership for the BTS to give as needed, skip this step and add a note that this is your intention.Thank you for your generosity!Notes:The membership form will open a ne...

09/02/2026

A NOTE FROM JEN

BTS emails are working again! Ugh, it was just 48 hours, but I felt like I had both arms and a leg tied together.

Thank you for your patience!

09/01/2026

RUSH WEEK 2026

It's time for our annual membership drive!

From September 1 through September 13, everyone who buys a new membership or renews an existing membership or "reawakens" a lapsed membership gets an additional two months added to their membership "year" – such a deal!

This year we are especially focusing on the youngest members among us. Right now we have 120 members at the BTT Club and YA levels – about 12% of our total membership. We would love to raise that number to 200! And that's where you come in.

Betsy was surrounded by many wise and warm mentors, role models, and guides throughout her life. Could you be that wise and warm older person for a new young member? Do you know any young readers who might enjoy a gift membership to the BTS? If so, please purchase one for them!

https://shop.betsy-tacysociety.org/shop/membership/2

Or, if you love this idea but don't know any young people, purchase a gift membership, and we will make the match for you.

https://tinyurl.com/ympzbpcw

Our goal is to attract 81 new members at the BTT Club, YA, or New Adult level by September 13 – and each time we bring in 9 new members, we'll start filling in the pipeline linking the nine illustrations of various mentors we meet throughout the series.

(We so wish that Vera Neville had illustrated Miss Fowler – who was such an important mentor to both Betsy and Emily – and Miss Salmon, Carney's particular inspiration!)

"New Adult," by the way, is a new membership level. We're trying to make the jump from the YA level ($15) to the Adult level ($25) a little less onerous, so we're offering this new membership for people ages 20–25 (which means that Adult membership now starts at age 26).

So, again, our focus is on the younger members – but *any* new membership or membership renewal during Rush Week is a wonderful help to us!

It will be such fun to see the pipeline fill in as the memberships mount up – and it will be *thrilling* to welcome all these new young faces to our group.

Please join, renew, and/or give a gift membership today!

https://shop.betsy-tacysociety.org/shop/membership/2

09/01/2026

A NOTE FROM JEN

Folks, something is wrong with my email account – messages sent to [email protected] or [email protected] aren't getting to me right now. I am working on this but it may take a minute. If there's something you need urgently, please call our main number, and Kat or I will get back to you.

507-345-9777

Thank you for your patience!

~ Jennifer D-K
BTS Exec. Director

08/27/2026

A LITTLE MORE INFO ON THE BT AUDIOBOOKS

This is the release schedule:

October 13: Betsy-Tacy and Tib
November 3: Betsy and Tacy Go Over the Big Hill
November 17: Betsy and Tacy Go Downtown
December 1: Heaven to Betsy/Betsy in Spite of Herself
January 5: Betsy Was a Junior/Betsy and Joe
February 2: Betsy and the Great World/Betsy's Wedding
March 2: Carney’s House Party/Winona’s Pony Cart
April 6: Emily of Deep Valley
April 27: The Betsy-Tacy Treasury

The Treasury will combine the currently available "Betsy-Tacy" (read by Sutton Foster) with the next three titles read by Mara.

The BTS is exploring a partnership with libro.fm, which would allow purchasers to support local bookstores (you can imagine that we love this idea!!) – stay tuned for more details as we learn more.

And that is all we know for now. We'll share any news we get as soon as we get it!

08/26/2026

08/26/2026

A NOTE FROM JEN

It's a day of thrilling announcements!

First, and truly most amazing: ALL the Betsy-Tacy books are being released as audiobooks! Starting in October, a new book will be released each month through April 2027. And they will be read by the marvelous Mara Wilson, our last Convention keynote speaker, who is a true fan and will do a simply smashing job.

This is the solution to the puzzle I've been tantalizing you with – I didn't want to say anything official until the books were ready for preorder. Which, to my understanding, they weren't supposed to be yet, but it looks like you can preorder them in some places.

If I could ask you to hold off until I learn more from HarperCollins, that would be grand. The first title (𝑩𝒆𝒕𝒔𝒚-𝑻𝒂𝒄𝒚 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑻𝒊𝒃) won't come out till October anyway.

Just FYI: 𝑩𝒆𝒕𝒔𝒚-𝑻𝒂𝒄𝒚, which is already available in audio, read by the luminous Sutton Foster, will not be re-recorded by Mara.

I don't know if Mara was already on HarperCollins's radar or if my little whisper to them post-Convention had any effect, but I am strutting a bit nonetheless. 😂

I wish I had more info (one reason not to announce prematurely), and I'm sorry that I don't, and I promise to fill you in as soon as I have more details. 🙏🏻

And here's the second big announcement: The BTS has a new website! It is a thing of BEAUTY, and I hope you will check it out right away:

𝐛𝐞𝐭𝐬𝐲-𝐭𝐚𝐜𝐲𝐬𝐨𝐜𝐢𝐞𝐭𝐲.𝐨𝐫𝐠

Our designer was Hayley Luther of Mankato's AdMfg (https://admfg.com/), and she was a joy to work with. Even better: She's a niece of Kelly Reuter, one of our founding members! I adored that BT connection.

And she did an absolutely fabulous job. I told Hayley that I wanted to combine a dreamy, romantic, vintage feel with crisp modern capability. I wanted the site to be searchable, well-organized, engaging, and gorgeous – and I think she knocked it out of the park. Let me know what you think.

And please let me know immediately if you spot any errors or if a link doesn't work. Hayley spent several hours teaching non-techie me how to make changes and updates, and my goodness I'm practically ready to go pro.

I've been holding all this news for so long now, I've felt like a shaken-up can of ginger ale! What a joy to finally be able to bubble over and share it with all of you. ❤

There's also 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 happening in Betsy-Tacy Land. Stay tuned for the next installment!

❌⭕️ Jennifer D-K
BTS Exec. Director