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INSPIRE: Toronto International Book Festival, Part 1 – The Quick Highlights

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There’s not any possible way to boil down the last few days in Toronto for the INSPIRE: Toronto International Book Festival into a single post. Between the tour of bookstores, the festival itself, quality time with fellow book bloggers, and some of my own explorations, this was a really special and exciting experience. For the first time in a while, I walked away feeling refreshed and so excited to talk about books and reading.

Rather than try to cram everything I want to say or think about into one massive post, I’m going to spread it out over the next couple of weeks. I’ll hit some of the sites I saw, the events and talks I attended, and wrap it all up with a big post on what INSPIRE did right and what could make it even better the next time around.

Today, though, I thought I’d do a quick run through of the highlights of my trip.

Wednesday 


I’ve never flown internationally, so it got me a little nervous. I know going to Canada is no big deal, but I got to the airport early and everything worked out just great. Since I had gotten there so early, I stopped into the bookstore at Milwaukee Airport, Renaissance Books. The store is outside the security gates, so you can really only stop in if you plan ahead for it or don’t go through security really early. Renaissance is different than most airport bookstores in that it’s all used and rare books, rather than new or best seller-y titles. I took a picture of the Cherry Ames nurse novels for girls, which I’ve only ever heard about and never seen. You’d never find this in another type of bookstore in an airport:

My flight only had 21 people on it, meaning that there was plenty of room to stretch out and actually enjoy the one hour trip to Toronto. When I got to customs, I had my first book interaction — the customs agent asked what I was doing in town, and when I told her I was covering the book festival, she immediately asked me for book recommendations. I asked her what she liked reading and she pulled out Megan McCafferty’s Perfect Fifths from her bag, and we bonded over our shared love of the Jessica Darling series.

My original flight into town was supposed to give me the entirety of Wednesday to myself, but the week before, it got changed. Rather than landing at 10 am, I wasn’t getting in until almost 10 pm. I’d booked a room in Chinatown at the Super 8, thinking it would be an ideal spot for wandering, and it would have been, had the flight worked out. But when I got there, the hotel upgraded me to a huge suite. That, coupled with the free continental breakfast, made up for the loss of a day.

Thursday


Part of why I decided to stay in Chinatown was that it’s not far from downtown. But the walk from the hotel to the Renaissance, which is attached to Rogers Stadium and next to the CN tower, would have been easier and smarter when it wasn’t cold, snowy, and I had a 40 pound suitcase to drag with me. Alas, it was an excellent workout and reason to room service a second breakfast:

Thursday evening was when festivities began, and I got to find out all of the other bloggers who were invited to attend INSPIRE. It was a small and amazing group of women: Ana and Thea from The Book Smugglers, Jane from Dear Author, Liz from Strange Horizons and Tor, and mother-daughter team Mary Ann and Gabi from Chapter by Chapter. We got the chance to meet the founders of INSPIRE and hear why they created the event, as well as what their vision of it was.

After we toasted to it, all of us bloggers were invited to explore the show floor before the event opened. We got to see the booths, as well as enjoy some finger foods. One downside, though, was that our night of exploration involved no complimentary drinks — free food, but no water or anything to wash it down. When Liz asked how much a cup of pop would be and we heard $6, Ana, Thea, Liz, Jane, and I decided we were going to go grab drinks and food at the Library Bar, just down the street. Interestingly, I read another blogger’s take on opening night and discovered people got free drinks when they entered. That wasn’t the case for us.

The Library Bar is what it sounds like: a library-themed bar. It was here I enjoyed a Douglas Coupland Pop Culture cocktail, as well as my first poutine. Despite having been to Ontario a few times, it was my first time trying the dish, and it was . . . okay. Maybe if were a bigger fan of gravy, I’d have felt differently, but I am glad I gave it a try.

Friday


It was an early morning on Friday, as we met with Dominique, our hotel representative, as well as Vanessa and Zena from Tourism Toronto, for a welcome breakfast. The breakfast was delicious and included eggs benedict, banana bread french toast, bacon, fruit, potatoes, and more. We got to hear about the restaurant itself, which overlooks Rogers Stadium and from which you could watch a Blue Jays game.

When breakfast ended, we loaded into a small bus for a tour of Toronto’s bookstores. The tour guide was writer Michael Kaminer, who wrote about these stores in a piece for the Washington Post last year. I’ll talk about this in more depth in a later post, but it was neat to see inside so many stores, though by store 4 or 5 of 8, I reached bookstore burnout.

We were dropped off at the Book Festival after the tour, wherein I went to one panel before deciding it was necessary to crash in my hotel room for a bit. As it turned out, the other bloggers did almost the exact same thing, so we hopped onto Twitter and made some more plans.

That night, Ana, Thea, and I were hitting up the CN tower, then meeting up with Liz and Jane for more drinks afterwards. The trip up the tower was great, and it was absolutely beautiful to see the city all light up on a clean night from that vantage point.

Going back for drinks was maybe one of my favorite parts of the night. I was so exhausted, but listening and talking about blogging, about books, and about what we are doing and thinking when it comes to those things was so nice in such a small group. There’s been a lot of strange things going on in the blogging world, and having an opportunity to talk about it in a small setting with knowledgable, thoughtful people was great.

Saturday 


I skipped out on the festival on Saturday to instead take the train to Kingston and see my friend. We had a wonderful day of bookstore shopping (it’s hard to be burned out with good company), playing glow-in-the-dark mini golf (I am terrible at it), and enjoying some peanut butter cheese cake after dinner.

It’s probably not fair to point to something as my favorite part of a trip, especially when it wasn’t part of the trip’s purpose, but this was my favorite part of the trip. It’s always refreshing and energizing to spend time laughing with people you know well and who know you equally as well.

Sunday


My entire day, sans an hour or two when I went to the tea shop, were dedicated to the sessions and events at INSPIRE. I got to sit in on some really excellent panels and I bought a pile of books, all of which I’ll talk about in more depth in the next couple of posts. Here’s a peek at what I ended up buying:

After a full day of panels, I went back to my hotel, ordered room service, then fell into a deep sleep after writing down some of the things I walked away thinking about and wanting to think about some more.

My Monday morning, prior to my flight home, involved returning to the hotel restaurant for a full order of banana pancakes, then tracking down a cafe from which I could do some writing.

Interestingly, I did almost no reading while here. I decided before leaving home I would pack only two print titles, as well as my ereader. I knew I’d buy some books, and I didn’t want the added weight. This ended up being a smart move, since I had no time or energy to read anyway. The walking, the dining, the conversations, and the event itself zapped me of leftover energy everyday, but in a really good way. The hotel was comfortable and I got solid sleep — something I tend to have a problem with when I travel.

This was an experience I really appreciated and cannot believe I had the chance to have. It was nice to put faces to names I knew and to do so in a way that allowed us to talk about INSPIRE as much as other book- and book blogger- related things.

Stay tuned next week for an in-depth look at INSPIRE, the bookstores of Toronto, and more.

Toronto Bound: See You At INSPIRE!

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By the time this post goes live, I’ll be wandering through the streets of downtown Toronto. It’ll be my third time in the city and the second time this year alone. Thanks to the folks at Knot PR, I’ve been selected to attend the Inspire! Toronto International Book Fair as an international blogger, which kicks off tonight and runs through Sunday evening.  
I’m really excited to check out this book festival, and the panels I’m going to be attending look pretty excellent. There’s a really nice array of different topics and a huge range of speakers attending, which you can check out here. Here’s a peek at what I am looking at going to and who will be talking:
Human Rights Books for Young Readers with Karen Levine, Rosemary McCarney, and Margie Wolfe
I Don’t Give A Damsel: Writing Strong Young Women with Gayle Forman, E. Lockhart, Sarah Mlynowski, and Meg Wolitzer (If ever a panel sounded like one that was up my alley, here it is)
Love to Read: How Reading Programs Lead to Success with the Ontario Library Association and Toronto Public Library
The Haunting: The Legacy of Shirley Jackson and the Authors Who Came After with Chizine Publications
Books By Their Covers: Redesigning Classics with Elly MacKay, Debbie Ridpath Ohi, Cybele Young
I’ve got a few other interesting panels and programs on my need-to-attend list, including seeing Leonicka Valcius talking about diversity. I’ve been reading her writing for a while now and so appreciate her perspectives on diversity. 
I’m also looking forward to some time to explore the city a little more than I have in the past. Both times I’ve been to Toronto in the past have been pretty quick. This time, I have almost a week, which includes a 3-hour city-wide bookstore tour that I’m really looking forward to. 
Over the next couple of weeks, I’ll be writing a bit about the book festival, as well as about the city, both here on Stacked and over on Book Riot. I’m also hoping to talk a little more about it on Tumblr (you can follow me over there, if you want) and I’ll be posting pictures on Instagram. 
If you’ve ever wondered what Toronto looks like from the top of the CN tower, here you go. At least that’s what it looked like in summer 2011.  

I’m looking forward to this writing vacation, though I’m thoroughly prepared for some snow and cold. It is mid-November in Canada. That’s…pretty much the exact same expectation I have for Wisconsin this time of year.

Good Girls, Bad Girls, Real Girls: WLA Presentation

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Yesterday, I presented with author Carrie Mesrobian at the Wisconsin Library Association’s annual conference up in the Dells. We talked about teen girls in YA fiction and in the library to a full room of librarians who were really excited to talk with us about this topic. We started out asking for names of strong female characters in YA and got a nice response — then we flipped the switch and asked what the hell “strong female character” even meant. We had a great conversation about how we define strong female characters in YA and how names of heroines in fantasy or science fiction come to mind quicker than those in realistic YA.

Perhaps the best quote was one Carrie tossed out when we were talking about how today’s teens read and how they think about their reading: where we as adults are trying to program the VCR, today’s teens are already streaming the content they want and like.

Rather than try to box teens in, it’s our job as adults who work with teens or who care about them to continue giving them diversity and to quit thinking about them and their interests in binary ways. They don’t think that way, and we shouldn’t either.

For those who attended and asked about our presentation — or those who are interested in it — here’s a link to the Prezi. The books we talked about are included with covers, and you can zoom in as much as you need to to grab titles/authors. There are links to a couple of surveys of teen girls, as well. I’m happy to answer any questions or for those who attended and can’t remember the name of one of the books we talked about, I’m happy to help out.

Kid Lit Con 2014, Sacramento: The Recap

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Last week, I headed out to Sacramento to attend the 8th annual Kid Lit Con. It was my fifth time going, which is hard for me to wrap my head around. I got out to Sacramento mid-day on Thursday after what felt like a never-ending flight (it was a completely fine flight, just long) and spent two full days attending sessions, catching up with long-time blogging friends, and meeting new people. 

Pictured above are the view from my hotel room (on the left), which looked out over a park and Sacramento’s City Hall. On the far left of the picture is the Sacramento Public Library, which is where the event was held. The photo on the right is from the lobby of the hotel, which had a vintage library feel to it. It ran both sides of the lobby and onto the second floor. 
This was the first year that Kid Lit Con had a theme, which was diversity. Most of the sessions focused on some aspect of diversity, from how to be conscious of portrayals of diversity in what you’re reading to why an author would want to have as diverse a cast of characters in her novel as possible. 
Friday, the first full day of sessions, the first program I attended was about finding and reviewing the best in diverse kid lit. The speakers were good, and they shared a couple of blogs I hadn’t been aware of before. For the most part, it was a session about why blogging about diversity and diverse books is important. 
Immediately following that session was my own presentation on using social media effectively. Here’s the Prezi for those who couldn’t attend or who did attend and wanted a copy of it. A couple of questions that aren’t addressed on the Prezi itself: to turn on Twitter Analytics, go to analytics.twitter.com, and you can see them there. I mentioned you’d have to go to ads.twitter.com to see them, which is true, but it looks like they’re not in the Analytics dashboard itself. The thing people were most interested in during the session was my plug for Diptic, an image collage app/program you can get for $1. I highly recommend spending that single dollar, since it’ll let you create collages, as well as put text overlays onto those collages. The image I pulled with the Facebook section on the Prezi was one I made with Diptic. I also spent a bit of time talking about how to use Tumblr to re-promote backlist posts you’ve made, in order to take what you already have and make it new again. I think the rest of the Prezi is self-explanatory, but if anyone reading this wants more information or has questions, let me know and I’m happy to answer. Photo on the left is courtesy of Melissa Fox. 
I had a great lunch with a pile of long-time blogging friends, and then attended a session with Hannah Gomez, Jewell Parker Rhodes, and Edith Campbell called “Getting Beyond Diversity and Getting to the Story.” I loved how energetic a speaker Jewell was, and it was maybe this session from which I took the most away. Hannah talked about how, when she went through the roster of Kid Lit Con attendee blogs, she noticed three types of bloggers: bloggers who talk about a wide variety of topics and books are just part of their blog; bloggers who are “greeters” of sorts and who post short reviews and participate in memes on a really regular basis and who tend to keep things short; and finally, bloggers who are more analytical and tend to write longer posts, with less frequent reviews. I thought about this breakdown all weekend and think it really impacted how I took in some of the other sessions. Not in a bad way, though.
When that session wrapped up, there was an author meet-and-greet. I don’t know how many authors were there, but it was a nice number. I spent part of the event talking with Stephanie Kuehn, and I convinced her to join everyone for dinner afterward. 
Everyone at Kid Lit Con went out to dinner that night, then because of some inconsistent dessert service, I went out with Leila Roy, Hannah Gomez, and Faythe Arrendondo for dessert and drinks at the hotel restaurant. 
Saturday began early, as I met with Hannah and Faythe to talk about our presentation later that afternoon. We had a solid breakfast, and we talked a bit about what we hoped to accomplish, and then we spent a good amount of time talking about how excited we were to meet and present with our fourth panelist, Summer Khaleq. 
The first session on Saturday was the keynote with Mitali Perkins. She was a great speaker, and she offered up a 10-point checklist for seeing and thinking about diversity, race, and culture in kid lit. I thought that was one of the best take aways from the event. 
Pam Margolis was the second speaker of the day, and she talked about how to reach readers in a very digital environment, beyond your blog. I loved Pam’s style and enthusiasm in presenting, but a lot of what she’d suggested is stuff I probably wouldn’t do, though I appreciate when other people do them. During her session, I kept thinking about Hannah’s blogger breakdown, and Pam really hit it hard for the first two types of bloggers, especially those who are eager to take pictures, to be bookstagramers, who want to hop on YouTube, and who are excited about using tools like Vine. While I enjoy bloggers who do that — and I do! — I’m not the type and I don’t think I would ever be. Part is discomfort, part of not having patience with technology, but the biggest part is that for me, blogging is about writing. It’s an outlet TO write, so playing with YouTube or Instagram for blogging/book related purposes doesn’t suit my needs. And what’s great is…it’s okay. This session made me further appreciate those bloggers who do do those things, since there is time, effort, and bravery in putting yourself out there like that. 
Shannon Hale was the second keynote of the day, and she Skyped in. She talked about why she writes diverse characters, and at one point, she got so choked up about seeing the type of girl she’d hoped she’d depicted in her book, that I almost got a little choked up myself. 
I skipped out on lunch Saturday since I’d been hit by jet lag bad and wanted to be fresh for the second half of the day. The session I’d been looking forward to the most was next, which was the #WeNeedDiverseBooks panel, featuring S. E. Sinkhorn, Mike Jung, Karen Sandler, and Martha White. They talked about how the campaign came together, the projects they’d worked on so far, and what was in the works. We got a sneak peek at the now-live diverse YA reading flowchart, which you can see, print, and share here. The session was great, and I was really excited to meet both Mike and Stephanie after their panel. I’ve been reading and following them both for a while now, and it’s always nice when you get to put a face in person to a name. 
Photo by Guinevere Thomas
The very final session of Kid Lit Con was the panel I was a part of, along with Faythe, Summer, and Hannah. Faythe and Hannah are both librarians, and Summer, second from the left, is a 16-year-old YA reader who is so thoughtful and articulate. It was an honor to be on a panel with all three of these ladies. We called ourselves the downer panel, since our session was far less about making people feel good and more about putting to action the things we’d talked about all day. We talked in depth about how diversity is more than race or culture — it includes body image, socioeconomic status, and more. We talked about how you have to call things out when they’re being done poorly and how you should point to examples where things are being done well. Since it’s hard to summarize what a panel discussion talked about in depth, it’s probably more useful to offer up the downloadable brochure than Hannah created for our panel about how to read and blog diversely. Looking for diverse blogs to add to your reading diet? You’re going to find them there. 
When our session wrapped up, it was on to a banquet dinner at the hotel. It was a nice time for decompressing and catching up with friends, old and new. I didn’t stay the entire four hours, since I had a very early flight to catch.
While I wish there had been more talk of actual blogging at Kid Lit Con this year, I appreciated how diverse the diversity discussion ran throughout the two days. More, as Hannah noted, it was nice to be at a small conference where diversity was well-represented among attendees, too. It was amazing to look out at a crowd while presenting and see people of all different colors, shapes, and backgrounds. That doesn’t happen as much as it should at bigger conventions like ALA or BEA. It was nice to meet new people, as well as reconnect with old ones. Spending three nights with Leila was a blast as always, and it was really nice to be on the same page with our jet lag and exhaustion by the end of the weekend. 
Next year, Kid Lit Con hits Baltimore, and I’m already looking forward to it. A huge thank you to the coordinators of this year’s program — it was well-run and really enjoyable. 

On Girls, Girl Reading, and Girls in YA Fiction Beyond STACKED

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I’ve been talking a lot about girls and girls reading, as well as girls in YA fiction, over the last year. And while talking on the blog is important, I also think it’s important to take these conversations to other venues in order to keep the discussion fresh, vibrant, and engage new voices and ideas. 

So with that, I’m really excited to share two pieces of news. 
First, I will have an article in August’s issue of VOYA all about girls and girls reading. In it, I talk about why having this discussion is important and how as youth advocates, we can be better leaders and facilitators of girls reading. It includes a look at ten titles out in the last year that feature really interesting female main characters. I love all of the books I got to talk about and think they offer some really great ways into the conversation about girls, about female characters, and about girls and girls reading. 
My second piece of news is one I am also extremely excited about. 
The call for conference proposals for the Wisconsin Library Association meeting went out a few months ago, and I knew it was time to propose something for my own state’s meeting. The event’s only about a 2 hour drive, and I have never presented in my own state (a scheduling snafu last year meant the plans to do one before didn’t work out).
But this year, I’m presenting, and I am thrilled to be co-presenting with author Carrie Mesrobian.
We’ll be presenting on Wednesday, November 5 in the late afternoon and the title of our presentation is “Good Girls, Bad Girls, Real Girls: Teen Girls in YA Lit & In Your Library.” 
If you’re around the Dells area or you’re going to WLA this year, I hope you come and hear us talk.