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ALA 2013: Odyssey Award Presentation

Published July 16, 2013

odyssey award seal Every time I attend ALA there is one event that sticks out from all the other amazing happenings and goings-on. Three years ago it was the Newbery-Caldecott Awards Banquet. And although it can’t match that event in pomp, the 2013 Odyssey Award Presentation will prove just as memorable.

The Odyssey Award is given to the producer of the best audiobook for young and adults and children that’s available in English. Each year a selection committee made up of YALSA and ALSC (Association for Library Service to Children) members chose a winner along with honor titles they feel are deserving of being named as the best in audiobooks. The Odyssey Award presentation is a chance for the Odyssey Award Committee to present the winner and the honor recipients with their awards and to allow the narrators being honored an opportunity to speak and the audience a chance to hear a selection of the honored audiobooks.

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ALA 2013: How a Book is Saved

Published July 15, 2013

P1020523 On Saturday, June 29, a panel of librarians presented a session on book challenges at ALA 2013. Their message was that most challenges were from parents and involved material for children and young adults.

Panelists

Emily Knox, assistant professor in the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Kristin Pekoll, young adult librarian at the West Bend Community Library
Suellen Reimers, co-president of the Helen Matthes Library Board
Nanette Perez, Program Officer, ALA

What Motivates People to Challenge Library Material
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ALA 2013: Bleak New World: YA Authors Decode Dystopia

Published July 15, 2013

Dystopian societies remain a popular topic for young adult fiction, and the first panel I attended at ALA this year brought together some of the best authors in the genre to discuss their own works and the wider implications of dystopias in young adult fiction. Despite being held in the evening on the first night of the conference at a hotel that was quite a distance from the convention center, this event was packed. The larger hall that it was held in was standing room only even after the hotel staff brought in additional chairs (which brings me to my disclaimer that some quotes may not be entirely accurate since I was trying to quickly take notes while standing at the back of the room). And, given the line up of speakers, this is no surprise: The event brought together Lois Lowry, Patrick Ness, Veronica Roth, and Cory Doctorow for a conversation about their books, why they choose to write dystopias and why they think that dystopias are popular with teens.

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ALA 2013: YALSA YA Author Coffee Klatch

Published July 12, 2013

2013 YA Author Coffee Klatch via YALSA's Facebook Page — 2013 YA Author Coffee Klatch via YALSA’s Facebook Page

Although ALA 2013 wasn’t my first ALA Annual Conference, I missed out on attending YALSA’s YA Author Coffee Klatch the first time around and I wasn’t making that mistake again.

The YA Author Coffee Klatch is a unique session at ALA, where, for an additional paid ticket, conference attendees can meet and connect with YA authors, from new writers to industry superstars whose books appear on YALSA’s selection lists or awards. Around four to seven attendees sit at a table, and every few minutes authors rotate to visit the tables and chat books and writing and sometimes pass out goodies. Here’s a sampling of some of the amazing authors that visited my table.

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ALA 2013: Alex Award Presentation

Published July 11, 2013

Alex-AWARDSWinner_lowres One of my favorite things about attending ALA’s Annual Conference is all the fantastic author events that are available, and 2013 in Chicago did not disappoint. I went straight from YALSA’s YA Author Coffee Klatch (awesome) to the 2013 Alex Awards Presentation. This was the first time I had attended this particular program, and it was a great way to hear directly from some of the winning authors about their books and the experience of winning the award.

First up was comic artist Derf Backderf (whom we interviewed back in March), whose chilling memoir, My Friend Dahmer, chronicles his high school friendship with a classmate who would later become one of America’s worst serial killers. Backderf shared a number of images from high school that seemed freakishly prescient; one of his drawings showed Dahmer stuffed into a grocery bag, an image that meant nothing at the time but in retrospect was just, in his own words, “incredibly creepy.” Yearbook photos from which Dahmer was also blacked out of yearbook photos after a prank to sneak him into group photos was discovered — which all too clearly paralleled the neglected teen and his feelings of isolation as he became increasingly marginalized during his senior year. It was a very powerful presentation, and there were many questions from the audience, including a woman who asked Backderf’s opinion about a forthcoming YA title seen in the exhibit hall in which a teen named Jeff Jacobson realizes he has been cloned from Jeffrey Dahmer’s DNA (you can’t make this stuff up, folks).

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ALA 2013: New Adult Fiction: What Is It, and Is It Really Happening?

Published July 9, 2013

On Monday at ALA, I attended the conversation starter about New Adult fiction. The term, first coined by St. Martin’s Press in 2009, refers to a category of literature aiming to fill the perceived gap between books for teens and books for adults. It’s generally understood to be about and for 18- to 25-year-olds who are dealing with college or first jobs, first serious relationships, and other trials of young adulthood. The session was led by Sophie Brookover, Kelly Jensen, and Elizabeth Burns.

Need some more background? Take a look at how the session started, with a song about NA. Also, check out this Goodreads list of NA titles, New Adult Alley‘s explanation, or St. Martin’s original contest that inaugurated the book category. Or read on.

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ALA 2013: Teen Tastemakers Reception

Published July 9, 2013

On Friday, June 28, Simon and Schuster held what it hoped would be the first of many “Teen Tastemakers” receptions at ALA in Chicago. The first guest of honor was Ellen Hopkins, who was there to promote her book Smoke, the sequel to her 2006 book Burned. Before the event, all the teens in attendance were given Burned to read so they would be able to ask Hopkins questions later in the evening.

When the event started, teens and their librarian advisors were given passports. The passports were stamped while teens mingled, enjoyed appetizers and drinks, and spoke with each other and Hopkins. The teens learned about PulseIt, were given five free books (Smoke among them), watched the City of Bones trailer, received movie paraphernalia, and voted on book covers.

After mingling, Hopkins went to the front of the room to talk about her writing process, what she was working on, and her charity Ventana Sierra. Continue reading ALA 2013: Teen Tastemakers Reception

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ALA 2013: The Bloggers’ Summit

Published July 6, 2013

On Friday, June 28, I had the pleasure to moderate one of the panels at YALSA’s YA Bloggers’ Summit preconference. The only blogging I do is here on The Hub, but all the panels offered useful advice.

The first panel (the one I moderated so my notes are nonexistent) was “Reviews and Blog Features” with Sarah Flowers, Gillian Engberg, and Sarah Bean Thompson. All offered very good insight into how and why they blog. One of the standouts in the conversation was the difference between negative and critical reviews. All panelists were in agreement that it is okay to not like a book as long as you are respectful and explain what elements about it didn’t work for you as the reviewer. It was also very refreshing to hear that both Sarahs used the library as a source to get their books for reviewing.

The second panel, “Marketing Your Blog,” had The Hub’s own Gretchen Kolderup and Emily Pukas. One major thing both panels mentioned was social sharing: Twitter, Facebook, and Pinterest are a great way for a blogger to connect with their readers. Emily mentioned that a giveaway is almost a guarantee to gain new followers but should also connect giveaways with bloggers to raise your visibility. Make sure you keep the content up to date and do more than one thing. Participating in features that are done on other blogs is a great way to become part of the community.

After a quick break the session was back with a panel of authors featuring Holly Black, Sarah Dessen, Laurie Halse Anderson, and Gene Luen Yang. Most of the authors have been blogging for more than 10 years, but Yang described his blog style with the quip, “I’m the kid who’s only nice to you when you have a birthday coming up,” meaning he only blogs when he has a new book out. Black likes using Twitter as a way to connect with other writers and opening up the process to readers. Dessen treats Twitter as her water cooler and says she has readers of her blog who have never read her books. Anderson uses blogging and Twitter as a mean to discuss anything from the banning of her books to showcasing rural life. Authors admit that they are trying to navigate blogging as much as bloggers are; Dessen called it the Wild Wild West.

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ALA 2013: Margaret A. Edwards Award Luncheon

Published July 5, 2013

Edwards1 2013 marks the 25th anniversary of the Margaret A. Edwards Award, which honors an author who has made a “significant and lasting contribution to young adult literature” and is awarded annually by YALSA and sponsored by School Library Journal. This year’s winner, Tamora Pierce, was honored specifically for her Song of the Lioness series and Protector of the Small quartet, both of which show that girls can kick butt just as well as boys. As I have been a fan of Tamora Pierce for many years, there was no way that I was going to miss out on the chance to see her presented with this prestigious, and well-deserved, award at the Margaret A. Edwards Award luncheon in Chicago this last weekend.

Upon arriving at the room where the luncheon was held, which was kind of hard to find because the McCormick Place Convention Center in Chicago is massive, I found that there was already a line of exited people waiting to get in. Though I have met her in the past, I must admit to feeling a little giddy when Tamora Pierce was escorted inside ahead of us. The room was already set for lunch, and dessert was taunting us from the moment we sat down. Everyone in attendance also received a paperback copy of Alanna: The First Adventure with its brand new cover. The room was filled with lots of conversation, and I had a good time talking with my newly made friends at our table until it was time for the Edwards Award presentation.

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ALA 2013: Ten Years of YALSA’s Teens’ Top Ten

Published July 5, 2013

I just got back from the ALA Annual Conference in Chicago where I had a great time at the Ten Years of YALSA’s Teens’ Top Ten (TTT) preconference program. This jam-packed half-day program included everything from a short explanation about the program to tips by former and present TTT teen book club advisors on how to run a program.

The Teens’ Top Ten is a “teen choice” list, where teens nominate and choose their favorite books of the previous year. Nominators are members of teen book groups in sixteen school and public libraries around the country. Nominations are posted on Celebrate Teen Literature Day, the Thursday of National Library Week, and teens across the country vote on their favorite titles each year. Readers ages 12-18 vote online between August 15 and September 15; the winners are announced during Teen Read Week.

Another portion of the program also included tips on how to use technology to make keeping track of the many books the teens receive and review easier. As attendees, we also got to participate in a brainstorming session to offer suggestions on how to improve marketing and promotion of the TTT. We also received a bound copy of all the TTT titles that included not only the selected top ten titles from 2003-2012, but also useful fun facts and read-alikes for many of the titles.

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