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A Whirlwind Trip to PLA 2014, “About the Girls,” + Other Musings

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I just got back from a whirlwind trip down to Indianapolis to present at the Public Library Association conference. When I say whirlwind, I really mean it. My plans went a little askew because of a winter storm, but in the end, we made it down to Indy Wednesday evening and I made it back to my house in Wisconsin on Friday morning.

PLA was too short for the amount of fun it was. And I think this is the first time ever that I’ve felt presenting at a conference was completely fun without some kind of attachment to it. I didn’t feel nervous like I have in the past. It felt comfortable and good, and both of those things coalesced into making the experience so enjoyable.

After arriving on Wednesday night, I got to see both Angie Manfredi and Sophie Brookover. Angie and I made a quick trip through the exhibit halls — where I got to surprise and be surprised by seeing a friend there when neither of us knew the other was going — and let me just say that PLA exhibits are fun, low key, and enjoyable. This isn’t ALA exhibit opening night. This opening night involved enjoying some pita, hummus, spiced chicken, baba ghanoush, and some dessert. We picked up a few galleys, chatted with the vendors, and had this excellent picture snapped and shared by Penguin:

We didn’t stick around long, and I went out to dinner with Sophie afterward to have a power chat and talk a tiny bit about our morning presentation on “new adult” fiction. We went back to our room after and shared some of Wisconsin’s finest beer (because when I can travel somewhere by car, I’m going to bring my state’s finest). 
The nice thing about an 11 am presentation was the luxury of being able to sleep in and take it easy in the morning, which we all did. But then we made our way over to the convention center to give our talk on “new adult” fiction. 

Sophie and I had our “new adult” presentation accepted as a conversation starter, meaning that rather than talk at the room for an hour, the audience in attendance would be participants in the discussion. This set up was marvelous and so insightful for me (and I’m assuming Sophie, too). We had a five-part plan of attack, where we would talk for a few minutes on an aspect of “new adult,” then have the attendees discuss a question relating to what we’d talked about for a few minutes. We’d reconvene and hear what they had to say. 
Our room was full, too.

This conversation starter was so fun. We knew what we had to say, and we were confident in the message we wanted to impart (that “new adult” can and should be something much bigger than what’s being sold and packaged AS “new adult”) was what attendees took away. We got to hear from a number of people who had been working with 18-26 year olds, including libraries doing programs and collection work for this emerging adult group and a university librarian who works with this group and helps them find pleasure reading. The mix of experience and knowledge was perfect. We took copious notes during the session, which we plan on typing up and posting in our “new adult” resources page on the readadv blog — and if you attended the session or are curious about “new adult,” you can find those resources right here.

I had a lot of fun giving this presentation and learning from everyone else in the room. I’ve never felt so CONFIDENT about giving a presentation before, and it was such a neat experience being on that side of the fear/anxiety/worry spectrum. I think a lot of it had to do with remembering while I’m at the front of the room, I’m also there to learn from those in the room — it’s a collaborative effort, even if I’m the one (with Sophie!) who has to get the conversation started.

After my morning presentation, I had lunch with a friend, and because I had so little time between sessions, I had to run out of lunch earlier than I’d like. Perhaps I was too casual, as I was the last one to arrive to the second session…and I was the one with the technology. But we got it together and were prepared well before the start.

The teen programming session, which was a traditional panel, included Andrea Sowers, Angie Manfredi, and Katie Salo. We’ve been collaborating together since early in 2010. I had a really bizarre moment while I was sitting up on this stage and this was my view:

Hold on. That doesn’t quite capture it. Let me borrow this photo from Jason Walters:

So the weird moment was that I was sitting in seats just like that only five years ago. I was attending sessions just like this one in hopes of figuring out the secrets of teen programming success. But here I was now, sitting at the front of the room, facing out, rather than sitting in the back. Kind of surreal. And it hit me when I had that realization that what I had to say wasn’t necessarily about how I do great stuff (because, honestly, I don’t make new worlds here) but it was about how important it is to build a network like the one sitting beside me and how important it is to try, fail, then try again.

During our panel, I think it became clear how much we all work to collaborate with one another. We’d set up the discussion like a Q&A, and Angie moderated, asking us to weigh in on a few questions. When asked about my most successful teen program, all three of my fellow panelists jumped in saying they’d used my program idea and modified it, then explained how they had succeeded or failed doing the very same things.

This panel was also a LOT of fun. The four of us have very different experiences, come from very different libraries, with very different needs and outcomes. Angie was able to work in her standard line about how today’s teens aren’t interested in Buffy and how important it is to just stay abreast of your local teens interests and cater to them. If you want to see what others had to say or share during our panel, there are a few tweets at the #teenprog to explore. I’m positive that the ladies I did this with will also blog about it and I’d be happy to round those up.

After the panel finished, we were approached by folks who wanted to ask questions to us directly, and I had the privilege of meeting people who read Stacked (!!!) and who were kind enough to say nice things about it. I also got to meet a local to me librarian, which is always such a joy to me. It was nice to bounce ideas and thoughts with people, and it was even nicer to remind people of that very revelation I had: I’m not an expert but a colleague who is happy to share experiences and ideas where they’re helpful and useful.

When the second session finished, I was back in the car and on the road home. It was a bummer not to see more people or sessions beyond mine, but I’m SO excited to dig into the PLA tag and discover more. What an enjoyable conference and enjoyable set of presenting experiences to have.

I’m going to be riding high on them for quite a while and I’m so grateful to everyone who came out, who interacted, and who (without being paid) said such nice things about my sessions and this blog (which will forever thrill me to the core).

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We’re at the mid-way point of our “About the Girls” series, and I just wanted to send a quick thank you to not just those who have taken part — and will be taking part — in writing the post. But I also wanted to send a huge thank you to those of you reading and talking about these posts. I’ve had some of the nicest comments recently from readers, and I’ve been able to see teachers who are using these posts and discussion fodder in classrooms. 
There is literally nothing that could excite me more than thinking about teens having these conversations about “unlikable” girls or female friendships in YA fiction. I love reading what you’re doing and sharing that, so yes! If you are having these talks or pointing people to these posts or writing about them yourself, keep sending them my way so I can enjoy and share them, too.
I will try to put together a roundup at the end of the series with all of your posts as well. 
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The voting for ALA elections opens next week, and I have an interview about my qualifications and experience over at YALSA’s blog. 

PLA Conference Excitement

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I’m really thrilled to announce that this year at the Public Library Association Conference, I’ll be presenting on two topics.

First, I’ll be presenting with Katie Salo, Angie Manfredi, and Andrea Sowers on the topic of teen programming. This will be a standard program session, but attendees will walk away not only with ideas to try for teen programming in the library (including on passive programming), but I think between the four of us, you’ll get a sense that not everything will be successful and that is okay.

Today I got news that my ConverStation — a fancy word for a Conversation Starter — with Sophie Brookover was accepted, as well. We’ll be talking about “new adult” fiction. It will not be a rehash of our ALA conversation, though some topics will lend themselves to discussion. Part of this is because “new adult” is a rapidly changing topic and we’ve been thinking and talking about this for months now. The other reason is that Sophie and I, along with Liz Burns, have authored an article to be published early next year in The Horn Book Magazine on the topic, and while working through the topic in print, we’ve had some real “ah ha” moments.

I’m excited to not only be able to have both of these opportunities, but because PLA is a much smaller, more focused conference than ALA is, I’m eager for really valuable discussion both about these topics and others. There’s also something really satisfying in being able to present with some of your core professional colleagues on topics you talk about privately on a regular basis. It’s never about the being on stage and presenting — it’s about the discussions that come after with other people who give you a lot more food for thought.

Some exciting news

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I have been sitting on a ton of really exciting news. At least, it’s news that’s exciting for me. I can’t say it’s exciting for anyone else. But now I feel like I can share them.

First, I’m beyond thrilled to share I’ll be speaking at the Wisconsin Association of Public Libraries conference (WAPL) in May down here in my own back yard at the Grand Geneva! I don’t know how many Wisconsin folks read this blog or will be attending, but I’m beyond excited. The Youth Services Section board actually reached out to me to talk about blogs and using them in library services. The presentation time isn’t quite set yet, but it has a title — The Buzz on Blogs: Finding, Evaluating, and Using Youth Services Blogs. If you’re going to WAPL, let me know.

I am probably way too excited about the fact I get to go to this conference and speak and then still sleep in my own bed at night.

Second is this…

I had no plans to go to BEA this year. None. I hadn’t even given it a passing glance. But, I was extended an amazing invitation to speak at the Book Blogger Con at BEA this year on a topic that I’m pretty excited about.

So I took it.

I’ll be attending BEA, and I’ll be speaking on Wednesday at the Blogger Con at the panel entitled Book Blogging and the ‘Big’ Niches. More specifically, I was asked if I’d speak to how to blogging niche has changed and where I think blogging will be heading in the future. Can you hear my laughter from there? I’m really excited and honored about this. If you’re going, the panel is on Wednesday, May 29th at 3:30 Eastern Time.

Of course, I’ll be around BEA, as well.

Finally — I said this was really exciting for me — I have a follow up to something I alluded to last summer, regarding a proposal for a panel discussion at ALA in Chicago. I will be on a panel with Liz Burns and Kristi Chadwick talking about my favorite topic: Advanced Reader Copies (ARCs) of books. I don’t have a time or a date yet, though I know it’ll take place in the convention center. The title of our program is All About ARCs: The Ins and Outs of Requesting, Using, and Abusing Advanced Reading Copies.

And this is separate from the “new adult” conversation starter that I would so love your vote for, too.

I’m beyond excited and completely humbled by all of these incredible opportunities right now, I can’t even express it. It feels weird to share it all at once and weird to share it at all, but I do hope to see familiar faces and I hope I get to meet new-to-me faces at any of these things, too. I may be an introvert, but I’m not shy about saying hello and hearing from people and talking with them!

If you’re going to any or all of these, I’d love to know! And if you have any thoughts on any of these topics, I’d love to hear them, too.

ALA Midwinter in Seattle: A Recap

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This last week’s trip to Seattle for ALA Midwinter was my third trip to Seattle and solidified for me that Seattle is an excellent place for a conference. Also, Seattle has some of the best food around, is easy to navigate, and I think it’s affordable. The photo above is from Pike’s Market at the fish throwing place — they welcomed the librarians with not only this, but one of the throwers stopped me and told me all about how much he knew about librarians (he knew there were tech people, archivists, school librarians, public librarians, and so forth).

I can’t think of a cohesive way to sort of talk about what happened at Midwinter, so here’s a day by day look at the excitement of sitting in meetings, of eating good food, and of celebrating good books and friends.

Thursday


After making it to Seattle on a very long flight, I took the afternoon to just veg in the hotel room. Liz, Sophie, and I had made plans to go to a tea shop and do a tasting, but Sophie’s flight was delayed and Liz felt similarly to me when she got in and just wanted to relax. We did that until we got a call from Jackie to join her and Colleen for dinner up near Jackie’s house. After seeing her adorable new house, we went to The Bottlehouse for a dinner of cheese, cheese, and a lot more cheese. And everything was delicious. To go along with cheese, Liz and I split a red wine flight, and then we each enjoyed a dessert. I picked a trio of small cheesecakes:

Friday


The first real day of conference began with a long chat between my roommates and myself about issues in librarianship and with gender — a lot of the things that Julie expressed in her blog post got us thinking about things we want to do in our own careers/lives. After that brainstorming, we made our way over to registration at the convention center bright and early.

After registration, we once again met up with Jackie and Colleen, and this time we took a hike up the hill to have lunch at a burger place that everyone was excited about (they had a veggie burger option for those of you playing along at home knowing I don’t do beef). We not only each had a burger, but we ended up enjoying french fries with milkshake to dip them in. And it was absolutely delightful.

My first committee meetings were on Friday from 1 until 5:30 pm. As admin on the Alex committee, I really didn’t contribute much to the meeting, and in fact, the first day I had nothing I could really do, so my chair kindly let me leave early. It’s tough to be in a committee meeting where the committee is talking about the books in depth and you can’t say a word because you’re not actually a member of it. But what I can say is I absolutely loved seeing the process on the inside — this meeting involved nothing more than talking about half of the committee’s nominated titles. They’d discuss merits, the appeal of the book, and all of the other elements that made them nominate it in the first place. I felt like in hearing a lot of their discussions, I added a bunch of titles to my own to-read list that weren’t ones that caught my eye when they showed up here through the last year.

I snuck out early to meet Liz, Colleen, Sophie, and Jackie for the opening night of the exhibits, and in the process, I ran into Lenore. I’m not going to lie: I was anxious about how the exhibits would be, especially on opening night. They’re always a bit of a madhouse then, since it’s about the only time everyone is free TO go, but I worried about other things to. Fortunately, even though it was busy, it felt sane, too. Lenore and I wandered around together, and then I decided to cut out after about 20 minutes. I think I picked up maybe 7 ARCs, and I asked about another one and was told it would be out Sunday (which made me then arrange to have Lenore pick it up for me since I’d be in committee meetings in the morning then, too).

There was indeed a dinner planned after exhibits, and the same group of us who’d gone out for lunch went out for Vietnamese food at Long. I didn’t have a lot of time before the YA Blogger meetup, and when the waiter knew about this, he did an amazing job getting my drink and meal out to me very quickly. I enjoyed a chicken satay and a fizzy rum drink of some variety before wandering down to the hotel for the meetup.

The blogger meetup was GREAT — I know people came and went, but all told, I think we had an easy 40 people over the course of the night, if not more. I’m really not great at mingling (to the point someone even came over and gave me grief about it . . . even though she didn’t even know who I was) but I was thrilled to finally meet Flannery of The Readventurer — we are pretty sure we’ve met before through a mutual friend we have, but it was nice to spend the evening chatting about books. There were a few other people I was finally able to put a face to who I knew through blogging or Twitter and overall, it was a nice, low-key event, with a mix of bloggers and authors.

Saturday


Saturday morning began really freaking early with a breakfast preview for Little, Brown. I love these previews because they not only give a good idea of what’s coming up in the next season (and beyond), but also because they always bring a guest to talk. This time it was Darren Shan. I’ve never read any of Shan’s books, but since I began working in libraries, he’s been a huge favorite of teens. Hearing about his series was fun, hearing about the horror movies that inspired him was fun, and he had a delightful accent.

After the preview, I wandered the exhibits briefly with Katie. And by briefly, I mean maybe 10 minutes. I asked again about the book I was curious about at one of the publisher’s booths, and was told again, Sunday morning it’d be out. I ended up going back to my room and picking up my computer and a few other items before heading to another hotel a few blocks away for a Simon & Schuster Luncheon featuring . . . Lenore! Can I tell you how neat it is when a person you’re friends with is the guest of honor? The only downside to the luncheon was that because it ran from noon until 2, and I had a committee meeting beginning at 1, I could only stay for about 30 minutes. But I got to eat and hear Lenore speak, which made it great.

The committee meeting on Saturday was even longer than the one on Friday, running for five hours. Like the meeting on Friday, it began with a discussion of all the remaining nominated books. But this time, when the session came into the final half an hour, I got to do the big and important role of tallying up the straw poll results. Everyone on the committee voted on their top ten books for the Alex, and I counted up and figured out what were the titles — at that point — which were the ten favorites. When that was calculated and shared, the committee members went home to think about the titles that didn’t make it so they could make last minute pitches for our meeting on Sunday, if necessary. I tried to tweet a little bit from the committee meeting on Saturday because I was so impressed with how impassioned people became when talking about their favorite books. Not only were committee members using appropriate vulgarity when necessary, but one committee member came near tears in defending her book. If anyone ever dares question the process behind these awards or selection lists, it’s a slap in the face for how hard these people work and how much they’ve invested in really thinking about, discussing, and fighting for books that represent The Best in whatever arena they’re looking at.

I had plans to attend a dinner with Little Brown on Saturday night, but after getting up early and spending a long time inside, in a small room in committee, I ended up going back to my room and . . . crashing. Hard. I was trying to do some catch up on email but literally fell asleep in the middle of doing that. I knew going out was not going to happen, so I ended up just laying low for the evening. The conference wall of exhaustion hit and hard.

Sunday:



Like Saturday, Sunday began with an early morning breakfast. This time, I met with Victoria and Liz for a calm breakfast in our hotel diner. I can’t even express how delicious that spinach/bacon/avocado omelet was. Between that and loading up on high-caffeine tea (they brought me a basket to choose my poison from), I was feeling pretty ready for the day, which began with another round of committee meetings.

So this round of meetings was where I got to play a bigger role! This time I got to count things again, and then my chair was nice enough to let me get a little power hungry on some other things. The meetings began with everyone making last-ditch pitches for the books they wanted to see on the top 10 list, and then they took one final poll. It was my job to do the counting and tallying of this final poll — these would be the books that would make the final Alex list. As I tallied, I had a little problem: the final results came up with 11 titles. There was a tie. When everyone came back into the conference room, I had to break the news that they now needed to hear 11 titles and come up with one from their lists to eliminate. When that was done, I tallied again, and this time we had a solid 10 Alex titles. You can read that list here.

But it wasn’t over for committee work yet! Once that list was made, the committee had to write annotations for each of the titles. And even when that was done? They had more work. The Alex awards also involves a vetted list of nominated titles that the committee members feel fit the criteria of the Alex but weren’t quite top 10 titles. This is where I got to have my power: I read the titles and told them it was simple majority. The votes happened pretty quick and the vetted list ended up with a little over 20 titles on it. But it wasn’t over then, either. They still had to go through and write annotations for those titles as well. As of writing this post, the list isn’t up on YALSA’s website, but it should be shortly.

As a thank you for my work, the chair gave me this really freaking awesome necklace.

Because the committee meeting ran super late this time around, I didn’t get a chance to eat lunch before meeting Lenore over at the exhibits again. She said she’d pick up the one ARC I was looking for from the publisher who’d assured me it’d be out Sunday. But . . . it wasn’t. Because the publisher actually put the books out on Saturday afternoon, as I was told somewhat rudely by the booth person. I was a little disappointed about this, especially since I was informed twice it would be out Sunday and I made arrangements to have someone pick it up for me since I was in meetings and unable to do it myself. I left disappointed, especially as I felt like the booth person was not kind about the manner.

After Lenore and I met up, we wandered over to my favorite thing about ALA: the teen feedback session at the Best Fiction for Young Adults committee meeting. These teens are brutal and honest and I love every second of it. It’s proof that teens do like a wide variety of books and that even among the different teens, titles can be hits or misses. I do think my favorite part of the entire BFYA session, though, was getting to go tell one of the teens that the author was so thankful for what she had said (I’d tweeted it and the author responded to me). The look on that teen’s face and her accompanying “IS SHE HERE RIGHT NOW?” were awesome.

Since I’d missed a real lunch, Lenore and I grabbed a slice of pizza in the convention center following the teen session and had our goodbye, since she was flying home early the next morning. But fortunately for me, it isn’t a long goodbye since she’s going to be doing a program for my teens at my library in the spring (how lucky are they?).

I went back to my hotel to relax after a super long day, but rather than do that as planned, I went out with Jackie and Sophie to Cupcake Royale. I’m not a cake or cupcake person, but they had the most delicious ice cream sandwiches. . . that I decided I couldn’t choose just one kind to try. I got myself a red velvet and a pumpkin cardamom one, and both were delicious.

It was an early night because of the Youth Media Awards in the morning, but Sophie and I spent a good chunk of our Sunday night discussing late 90s/early 2000s rap artists and critiquing the music videos from such legends.

Monday


You want to know what the best thing about being a part of an awards committee is? Reserved seating at the Youth Media Awards (YMAs). I got to sit front and center for the announcements. The picture on the right here gives you an idea of what 1/3 of the crowd looks like.

Of course, the energy in the awards room is crazy, and everyone’s nervous/excited/apprehensive about what books will walk away winners. I love the YMAs but they do stress me out just a little bit. It’s less from the perspective of what won and more from the perspective of, as soon as an announcement is made about an award, there is a flurry of “but WHY didn’t THIS book get picked?” rather than allowing for the celebration and surprise (the why can come later, privately). I think this is something that really came to me a lot as I sat in and watched a committee make their choices. I can’t articulate it as well as Marge can, so do go read her post.

There were celebrations. There were surprises. But that’s how it goes. The best part of the awards is what comes after: when you go out with your friends and talk about them privately, away from the event itself. I went with a handful of people to Pikes Market to enjoy tea and a crumpet and to chat awards. After our chatter, I wandered around the Market with Jackie and Sophie.

Gorgeous fruits and vegetables

House blend tea, along with a lemon curd and ricotta crumpet

We then finally got around to the tea shop, where the owner was able to give us a bunch of amazing tea tastings. I’ve never done anything like this before, and it was such a fun experience. I ended up bringing home a bag of Lichee tea, which might be one of my all-time favorite teas.

Once tea tasting was over, I wandered back to my hotel to drop off some stuff, and then I met with a friend I do some work for at the convention center. We were doing lunch plans, and we ended up actually coming back to the Market and eating so much food. We enjoyed grilled cheese and mac and cheese at the cheese store, Russian pastries, a sit down meal at a restaurant overlooking the water (wherein I had a delicious risotto with squash and zucchini), and then we went to the crumpet shop where, yes, I had another crumpet and cup of tea. It was fantastic.

So now stuffed to the gills on delicious lunch, I thought I’d be done. Done. Done. But no. Because I couldn’t stop enjoying how great Seattle was and how great the company was and how damn good the food was, I went out for one more dinner, this time at Tango, a tapas place. It was a great crew, including Jackie, Liz, Barry Goldblatt, and Sara Ryan. It involved a couple bottles of red wine, dinner I didn’t eat because I was full, and then my insistence on eating dessert (which was delicious, as seen to the left). A laugh or two may have happened.

I think without much doubt. this year’s ALA Midwinter was my favorite event so far. It was also so different from other ones I’ve been to because of how much time was spent in committee meetings. I think in total I spent maybe 45 minutes in the exhibits, and I got to do very little for myself, aside from the meals out with friends. And it was that time I really enjoyed because these are people I talk to all the time but only get to see once or twice a year. It’s the in-person stuff where real ideas are spun and discussed in a way that’s not quite the same via the internet.

I’m eager to see what Chicago has to offer this summer.

Some other things. . .


* Because I was unable to visit the exhibits for any length of time, there won’t be any sort of rundown of what’s coming out. But I am really excited to have had Lenore pick up both of Algonquin Young Readers first titles for their teen line for me. I wish I’d had a second to talk with them but it happens.

* The book I’m most excited about that I did get to pick up was the third and final book in Geoff Herbach’s Stupid Fast series, titled I’m with Stupid. The second most exciting book I picked up was Bill Konigsberg’s sophomore novel Openly Straight. I LOVED his first book so I’m eager to see where this goes.

* I thought it was pretty interesting that Amazon Publishing had a way better booth placement than Little Brown did. We’re talking entrance to exhibits row and can-hardly-find-it-because-it-was-shoved-in-a-corner row.

* It is AMAZING the amount I learned about committee work not just from being an admin, but also from hearing the stories of my friends who were also on committees. With that, I have really come to respect the process and have not come to judge what I may have in the past perceived as odd ball choices or left field choices on any award list. Likewise, the way that people have reacted to certain awards and certain books either being present or not present has made me a little indignant on behalf of those hardworking committees. No book DESERVES anything on principle, and those committee members are reading like mad and reading with a very critical eye.

* I learned a couple interesting things about a couple of the awards I did not know beforehand. First, the Batchelder Award, which is for best translations of a novel into English, ONLY takes into account books that are published for the under age 14 market. I thought that Antonia Michaelis’s The Storyteller would have no problem garnering this honor, but when I learned this fact, it made sense why the book did not. Second: the Stonewall Award is for books published between October 1 and September 30 of a given year — that means this year’s awards honored books published between October 1, 2011 and September 30, 2012. That means certain books that seemed to have been “shut out” or “overlooked” for this award were not, in fact, overlooked or shut out. They weren’t eligible yet.

* YALSA has decided to sunset both the Reader’s Choice Award and the Fab Film Committee. They’re also going to revisit the award/selection list being behind a login issue in March.

* Also, the best thing I purchased and packed for this trip is something everyone at the BFYA session was envious of: my backup battery charger. Here’s the one I bought, for those of you who want one for yourself.

KidLitCon 2012: New York City

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This year was the third year I’ve attended KidLitCon, and like years previous, it was a blast. But what I find so interesting and worthwhile about this conference in particular — aside from the fact it’s blogger-run, blogger-driven, and small — is that there always seems to be some sort of threads that weave through the day’s conversation. It’s never intentional, but it’s fascinating to see where the interest lies in blogging and kidlit.

I got into New York City pretty early on Thursday after the most painless flight experience of my life. My plane had over 100 empty seats at 6 am, and we got into New York City 20 minutes early. I made my way down to the shuttle area and even though I was told there was a 30 minute wait, they got me on a shuttle immediately. I was thrilled because I had plans to meet Melissa Walker for lunch at 11, and it was just barely 9 at that point.

Except the shuttle ride? It took longer to get me to my hotel from the airport than it took me to fly half-way across the country. I didn’t get to the hotel until after 11, and I had to grab a cab (with my luggage) to get to lunch at Alice’s Tea Cup. Liz told me to go there, and I’m so glad that was where we ended up meeting. Melissa and I shared a pot of Alice’s Tea, along with each enjoying some turkey chili, bread, and then scones. While the food and tea were delicious, the company was even better — and it was nice we made it work, despite the hiccups.

I made it back to the hotel and had to hold out for a while before getting into my room, ditching my luggage, and meeting up with Nova to work on our presentation. And eat gelato. Turns out that both of us are perpetually early people, and while we’d planned on meeting at 4, we met more like 3:35. After some delicious gelato, we put the finishing touches on the presentation then chatted for a couple of hours before she chaperoned me back to my hotel on the subway. Without laughing about my inability to function normally on foreign public transit, that is.

Liz and I made dinner plans, and we ended up meeting with Leila (pronounced Lee-lah, for the curious) and her friend Amanda for dinner down the block. We also met up with a dear friend who works for a publisher, and we all enjoyed some drinks, some dinner, and rousing book chat. There was a lot of discussion all day long about blog tours and the value they have, and it was an interesting conversation to continue on through the dinner. That’s a teaser for a future post, though.

After the dinner, we laid low at the hotel because Friday involved a day of publisher previews, as well as the official KidLitCon dinner. It’s possible we went to bed at 10 pm. Possible.

This year’s pre-con took advantage of being in the city and it was a series of publisher previews. A number of different publishers participated, and we were each assigned a set of them to attend. In the morning, I got to go to Simon & Schuster for their preview.

The preview began with a talk from Meghan McCarthy, who shared the process behind her forthcoming book about Betty Skelton. It was really interesting to hear about how she came to write the story — she had to do a lot of research to figure out where the conflict would be — and maybe more interesting to me was the process behind the art in her books. There was a bit of a discussion about digital and original art, and McCarthy is an original artist all the way.

When the talk was over, we got a nice preview of the spring 2013 titles from Simon & Schuster. Rather than write an insanely long post including the titles talked about, I’m going to share those in a later blog post. But we got to take home a bag full of forthcoming books, and I actually won a raffle prize, which never happens to me.

After the preview, Leila, Liz, and I dropped our stuff off in the hotel room, and we waited for Pam to arrive. She arrived and then we went to a sandwich/soup place for lunch. It was nice to touch base with three really intelligent ladies and to not only talk shop but to just talk personally. It’s much different face-to-face, even when these are people you talk to near daily online. We didn’t get too long to lunch though, since we were all off to a second preview in the afternoon. For me, that was a trip to Harper Collins.

I loved this preview and the way it was set up — we all sat around in a conference room (which feels somewhat more official, of course), but rather than have the publicity and marketing folks tell us about the books, we got to hear from editors of each of the imprints talk about the titles they’ve acquired. There’s something special about hearing the editors talk about that moment when they knew the manuscript they were reading was one they had to publish.

This particular session put so many new titles on my radar, too. Again, I’ll share them later, but there is a lot of really dark, gritty stuff coming out, as well as a number of contemporary titles. Like with the earlier preview, we were given a bag of titles to take home.

The picture on the right is the display case just inside the gates of Harper and features their best-selling titles.

We had some time to kill before dinner would happen, so Liz, Pam, Leila, Amanda, and I all went back to our hotel room to drop off our goods. We also did a little bit of this:

If it isn’t entirely obvious, we all dumped out what we’d gotten and made some trades based on our reading interests. The prize I’d won earlier at Simon & Schuster was a set of “Ready-to-Read” hardbacks which don’t have a real purpose for me — so I gave them to Pam in exchange for the forthcoming Gayle Forman book (which subsequently sent Leila into one of the most enjoyable fits I’d seen all weekend). Also, isn’t it impressive how much space there is in our hotel room? To my left is an entire kitchen, too.

Dinner at 7 was at a sushi bar a few blocks from the hotel, where we squeezed into a table way in the back of the room and got very comfortable with one another. I’m not a sushi eater, but I thought it was a heck of an impressive selection of food. And of course, it didn’t take me long to discover the ice cream portion of the sushi bar.

More important and interesting than the food, of course, was Grace Lin‘s keynote speech. She talked about being a classically trained artist and having eschewed her heritage growing up. After a year-long stay in Italy though as part of her art education, something inside her felt unsure and uncertain and she realized she didn’t know what she was making art for. It wasn’t coming from a place of the heart of her — and that’s when she made the decision to embrace her heritage and her interest in children’s art and fairy tales. This was a really nice way to officially kick off the conference, as it sort of played off the big themes I picked up on throughout the event.

After dinner, a bunch of us went to the hotel bar, did a round robin of who was who, and then I decided it was time to put the finishing touches on my presentation for the next day.

Kid Lit Con

Though the keynote speech for the conference was the last thing of the conference, two questions that came up at that point were sort of what I took as the overarching discussion: what am I doing and why am I doing it?


But before the conference began, Nova and I met up with the other folks giving presentations bright and early so we could check out the rooms we would be in and test out the technology. We had a minor glitch, fixed it immediately, and both of us had a sense of calm about what we were going to do. The room itself was an auditorium, but it wasn’t overwhelming in size, and Betsy was kind enough to tell us how many people signed up for our presentation.

It wasn’t a scary number.

Since we were done relatively quick with that and we had over an hour to kill before the conference began, Nova and I went for caffeine and sustenance, where we talked over our outline one last time. I think we’re both slightly panic-driven (in a good way, not in a bad way), but about that time I started feeling pretty confident about what we were doing. We made our way then over to register for the conference.

Kid Lit Con was held this year at the central branch of the New York Public Library which was crazy beautiful. I’m not a huge architectural person when it comes to library, but I was definitely impressed.

The presentation wasn’t for an hour, so I got to attend a session beforehand, and I went and listened to Sheila Ruth talk about balancing social media. While I feel this is something I have a good handle on, I did learn quite a bit about optimal posting times for different social media outlets (Twitter is 1-3 pm Eastern time Monday through Thursday and Facebook is 1-4 pm Eastern time those days as well, but Tumblr is most active Friday nights — when the other two are dead zones). Sheila talked a lot about designating times of day to do different social media related tasks. So, if you’re going to respond to emails, you can also respond to Twitter interactions, Facebook interactions, and so forth. If you’re going to read through your feedreader, then you just do that rather than do that AND respond to interactions you may get via Twitter or Facebook. She shared a number of interesting tools, too, I plan on looking into a little bit.

I’m so old school and feel it when I go to those things. I rarely ever pre-schedule Tweets (I find it weird to not do it myself) and I don’t bother with Facebook at all for the blog. I think I’m a little bit obsessive compulsive in making sure I’m doing it myself. However, Sheila made a good case for some of these tools and other social media outlets and I might explore the possibility of doing something elsewhere.

As her presentation round down, my anxiety ramped up nicely, especially since the room I was in was across the library. But I made it in plenty of time to settle in and review my notes once more (in the event everything had fallen out of my head by that point). If you missed it, you can see the presentation itself here, and I will write up my notes sometime soon. Before we dove in though, Liz was kind enough to capture the pre-show panic moments for us:

 
We had a nice turn out, and we covered about 90% of what we wanted to talk about — we ran longer than we thought, which is always a better way to be than running too short. We’d decided to let people ask questions as we talked, so some of our outline we ended up talking about differently, but in a way that worked out well since it let us answer the questions that people were most curious about. The questions we got were fabulous, too, and the audience was actually interested in what we were sharing. I guess that’s always my fear: is what’s interesting to me what’s going to be interesting to the people listening? But I think it was really successful, and it was really an honor to present with Nova, who runs some of the most amazing series posts in the blogging world. Truly. I feel like I learned a lot from her in the session. 
Bonus points to our presentation timing was that it was right before lunch, so there was a nice period of downtime before the next session. I was still mentally processing everything so I had about the saddest lunch ever. It didn’t matter though.
 
Do you know how hard it is to get six people to take a photo together and have everyone have their eyes open? This is the closest one we got. This was half of the lunch group in front of one of the NYPL lions — from left to right, that’s Jess Ferro (who gave a really well-received talk about illustrations in kidlit that was going on at the same time as my presentation), Amanda, Leila, myself, Liz, and Pam. 
Rather than have a series of sessions after lunch, there was one large panel to discuss critical reviews and the notion of “being nice” when it comes to reviewing books. It was an impressive lineup of speakers, too. Jen Hubert moderated, and the speakers included Betsy Bird, Liz Burns, Monica Edinger, Sheila Barry, Marjorie Ingall, and Maureen Johnson. After laying out the definitions of what a blog post and a blog review were, the discussion laid into what critical reviews are. Some of the takeaway gems from this panel included the importance of making disclosures where necessary (if you’ve got a “we’ve had dinner together as friends” relationship with someone whose book you’re reviewing, then you better mention it); know who your audience of readers is; and if you only ever post positive comments on books and offer little depth into what the book’s about or what makes it work or not work, then you’re not a reviewer. You’re a cheerleader. Most importantly, though, that doesn’t devalue your work. It just doesn’t make you a reviewer.
Perhaps the most insightful part of that panel though was when Maureen asked how many bloggers had received comments from authors when they’ve posted a less-than-positive review. The number of hands in the audience raised was not surprising to me in the least (and I thought quite low, actually) but Maureen’s face and shock was priceless. Then we swapped some war stories about the insane stuff we’ve heard as bloggers from authors, and it was at that point where it was suggested we develop a set of golden rules for behavior in the blogosphere. Here they are: 
  • If you’re an author, do not respond to reviews if you are unhappy!
  • If you’re a blogger and you get weird emails from authors after a review where they’re unhappy, follow up with their publicist — or as later suggested, maybe contact their agent.
  • Disclose information where appropriate. That includes whether or not you received a book for review and most importantly, your relationships.
  • Don’t marginalize the smaller books nor those authors who may not be on social media. 

It was also firmly decided that receiving ARCs does not undermine reviewing. That’s precisely their purpose, so if that’s what sways a review, then that’s not a review anyway. There’s also no obligation to review an ARC if it’s received.

The basics come down to this: remember people are people. It should be obvious, but sometimes, it’s not (and yes, I have a collection of those emails from less-than-happy people).

Following the panel discussion was the last set of sessions, and I stayed for a session I didn’t remember signing up for but was thrilled I did — “The changing relationship between reader and writer.” At the time, I don’t think it was mentioned this was actually an author session, and it was a discussion with Michael Northrop, Alyssa Sheinmel, Gayle Forman, and Adele Griffin. They took turns talking about how to be yourself on social media while also remaining a private person. Authors are expected in some ways to be on social media, and they each talked about what they do, how they do it, and what value it gives them.

I found it interesting food for thought even as a blogger/librarian — how much do you share that’s public and how much do you hold back? What kind of persona do you take on in your blog or your Twitter? It’s sort of tricky, but one of the answers I really liked about all of this was simple: be “professionally friendly” because we’re all people.

Blog tours came up in this discussion, too, and the authors were fairly enthusiastic about them. They thought, though, blog tours are most effective when the authors are actual blog readers themselves and know what’s out there. They’re tremendous work but they’re almost an expected part of publicity now. But most effective, they agreed, was when there are deadlines and when the ideas for guest posts or tour stops are good. 

The biggest take away, though, was that this is a community, and it’s important to keep it that way. We all can support and interact with one another and build those important relationships between readers and writers. 
This wins the award for most useless photo, doesn’t it? 
The final session of the day was the keynote with Maureen Johnson. Except, it wasn’t really a keynote by Maureen Johnson. Rather, it was a conversation between Maureen and Robin Wasserman (surprise!) which engaged us as the audience. Maureen told us to ask a question, and from there, the discussion spiraled out into the different hot topics that have emerged over the last few months in the blogging world. 
Even though we don’t think it’s the case, the kidlit world is an echo chamber. Things that get us worked up or things where we sigh and say not again aren’t necessarily well-known to everyone else. We have a weird responsibility to respond when criticism arises, even if it’s something we’ve responded to before. The reason these things come up over and over again is that we still such a small segment of knowledge and expertise. This resonated even more when the topic of the relationship between bloggers and publishers came up — it’s the same conversation that comes up at every single KidLitCon and there’s never an answer. That’s precisely because we’re still not sure of that and because it shifts and changes. 
What emerged though from what was easily the most bizarre and strangely charming keynote I’ve ever sat in, though, was that bloggers are important and valuable. Maureen said she credits bloggers and the internet for keeping her career going. So even though our role isn’t clear, we do have a hefty amount of responsibility on our shoulders to continue doing what we do in reviewing, in talking about books, in responding to what the bigger media outlets are talking about, and so forth. 
The last part of the discussion summed it up perfectly — everyone’s a person. It’s simple.
Maureen’s non-traditional approach to a keynote worked so well, I think, particularly seeing how the conversation of the day had swayed anyway. This conference isn’t about being buttoned up or about being an expert on anything. It’s about sharing individual experiences and stories and about putting those together in some sort of meaningful way for yourself as an individual. 
It comes back to those two questions Maureen brought up in her discussion that, I think, really nail it: what am I doing and why am I doing it? They’re questions we continue asking because we are still figuring it out as bloggers. There aren’t rules. There are only individual experiences and insights. 
After the keynote wrapped up, I said goodbye to Nova, my companion and wonderful presentation partner for the day, and then I went back to the hotel room with Liz, Pam, Leila, and a bunch of others before going to the official Kid Lit Drink night. Except . . . I left after only about 15 minutes because the noise and the crowd was a little much for my introverted soul, especially after a long and mentally engaging day. 
I had a few hours of downtime before Liz and Pam came back to the room, and the three of us sat to talk about what we thought of the event. Pam turned to Liz and asked her what her favorite part of the entire event was, and I have to repeat what she said because it summed it up so perfectly:

It’s seeing and spending time with people who get you and have the same interests and passions that you do.

That’s why we blog in the first place, right? To make those connections?

A huge thank you to Betsy and Monica (and Liz) who put the work into making this Kid Lit Con happen because it was — as it always is — a blast. I left totally energized and eager to write on so many different topics. A huge thank you, too, to Nova who was such a wonderful person to present with and who was just a blast to talk with and spend time with.