ALA Part 1

Should that be "Part I?" I don't care.

I am sitting on my couch right now feeling a tad cruddy cause I had a HUGE fight with my sister today. I should be on my way to the public library to work on my next novel (I went yesterday for the first time this summer for my two hour window in the Group Study Room where I like to write my books). But I'm a little late already. Glug. Yesterday went pretty well, and I like the way the novel is going. But I don't know if I'm up for it today. We'll see. [I am writing the second half of this blog in the evening, and I did go to the library and wrote for two hours. I now pat myself on the back.]

So now I'll make my first post about the ALA conference in Washington DC. It was so amazing and overwhelming. I don't think they've ever had so many YA authors (for those out there who don't know, YA means young adult or teen. It is a term that librarians and booksellers use frequently, but I don't know if it has worked it's way into the mainstream). The author I spent the most time with was Jack Gantos. I didn't really know too much about Jack, except the Joey Pigza books, but it turned out he was this fascinating, charming, hilarious man. I first saw him speak at the YALSA Sins of YA Lit pre-conference. Then he spoke on a panel about YA audiobooks (along with Judy Blume! It was so cool!). And finally I had dinner with him. Not just the two of us, of course; Listening Library took the members (myself included) of the YALSA Selected Audiobooks committee out to an absolutely fabulous and fancy dinner. We ate outside at a beautiful table at the Morrison-Clark restaurant. It was lovely. And it was fun chatting with the L.L. people about the process of making audiobooks (and the dream of one day having an audiobook of my very own).

I met a few authors as they autographed their books (which I don't love to do because I always feel so rushed to get out everything I ever wanted to tell the authors, but I don't want to be the obnoxious person who holds up the line). I was very disappointed when I learned that E.L. Konigsburg cancelled due to illness (I hope she is OK) because I really wanted a signed copy of From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. I had Rachel Cohn and David Levithan sign a copy of Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (and tried to tell both of them how much I love them, and then babbled to David about how my editor is his friend and how they were in this horrible car thing with a jackknifed truck together. And then I blathered on about cicadas! LOSER.). Hmmm... Who else?I bought copies of Bloom by Elizabeth Scott and Story of a Girl by Sara Zarr and got them signed for my students (both were lovely and nice). Once I get my massive box of books shipped back to me in the mail, I can see who else I met.

Since this is already too long, I will wait until next time to talk about the hilarity of the Young Adult Author Breakfast (You think I'm rambling now- you should have seen me chatting up all of the authors).

Until next time- good night.