Monthly Archives: October 2010

Where are you going and where have you been?

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My last blog post was on the 1st of October, which seems like a lifetime ago. Saundra Mitchell actually checked in to see if I was okay, which I thought was very caring. I am okay, just very busy. My library is hopping, which is awesome. I have a toddler who is also awesome and hopping. And I’ve been working on some projects whose awesomeness is TBD. Since I’m an inconsistent and ambivalent blogger as it is, it was easy to let this go by the wayside.

However I wanted to check in because less than two weeks from now I will be Albuquerque, New Mexico for the YALSA Teen Lit Symposium! I am going to be a part of two author panels, one on LGBTQ lit and one on Body Positivity and Fat Acceptance. I am very, very excited about these, not the least because the other authors are so awesome. For the LGBTQ panel: Malinda Lo, Kirstin Cronn-Mills, Lauren Bjorkman, and Michael Cart; this is part of the pre-conference On Beyond Stonewall, organized by Cart and Christine Jenkins. For the Fat Acceptance panel: Madeleine George, Susan Vaught, and Allen Zadoff; that one will be moderated by Angie Manfredi, a fantastic librarian from New Mexico.

And then, to cap it off, this introvert is going to speak in public one more time:

Malinda, Kirstin, Lauren, and I will be joined by Alexandra Diaz to speak about LGBTQ issues with teens at Alamosa Books.

Then I will curl up and sleep for days. No! Then I will enjoy the rest of the conference which sounds like it is going to be so cool. What I’m most excited about it is meeting other librarians and authors — the ones listed here, the ones presenting other sessions, and the ones in attendance. There’s something energizing about being around so many other people who are excited about YA lit.

I hope that some of you can make it to New Mexico, and I will see you there.

Banned Books Week: Around the Web

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Here’s a roundup of some of my favorite posts about banned books week:

  • Jennifer Hubbard looks at the SLJ article I mentioned earlier in the week in her post on Silent Censorship. Also check out her post Glass Houses about times she considered challenging a book to be a rational idea.
  • The always-eloquent Sara Zarr sums of intellectual freedom quite nicely:
  • “At a more basic level: I’m not going to pretend that there aren’t some books I wouldn’t be that excited about defending. But the thing is, intellectual freedom is like justice, and must be executed blindly. In our justice system, that sometimes means guilty parties go free. Likewise, sometimes books that we may not feel merit defense will be on shelves.”
  • Over on the YALSA Blog, the teen blogger reacts to the Speak/Slaughterhouse 5/Twenty Boy Summer controversy in Republic, MO:
  • “On her blog, Laurie Halse Anderson asked her readers to post about what Speak means to them. For me, it has always been about using your voice when it matters and learning to speak up for yourself when it’s clear that no one else will. Speak is about everything, in my opinion, that book banning prevents.”