TLA Authors!

Holly and I had a fantastic time at the Texas Library Association conference last year in San Antonio, due in large part to the incredible lineup of YA authors they had. This included (but was not limited to): Stephenie Meyer, John Green, Scott Westerfeld, Justine Larbalestier, Avi, Darren Shan, Laura Whitcomb, and Melissa de la Cruz. For some reason, the authors were never at the signing tables when our schedule said they would be, though. We did stumble onto John Green signing with no line at all, but then later we walked past him signing at a different publisher's booth with a line wrapped around the corner.

So anyway, I have really been looking forward to this year and to the announcement of who would be presenting. Jenna Bush is one of the featured speakers, so that has been posted for a while now, but that doesn't excite me. But now that the daily schedules are up, I am now excited about the authors coming! Here is who I am most excited about, although there are other YA authors coming and possibly some I missed in my frantic excitement:
Libba Bray
Brent Hartinger
Maureen Johnson
Gene Yang
Neal Schusterman
Jordan Sonnenblick
Catherine Gilbert Murdock
Perry Moore
Gail Giles
Susan Bartoletti

(One drawback to the lineup of YA authors: I don't think we'll be able to implement my plan.)

However, I am distressed about two things. First, Libba Bray is speaking on Tuesday, and I wasn't planning to get there until Tuesday night (I mean, that is three days out of school right there). Second, Brent Hartinger and Perry Moore are speaking on a panel with Steven Berman about GLBT YA literature during the same time that Joyce freaking Valenza is talking in another session about designing school library websites. Anyone who works with me knows that I simply cannot miss Valenza's session because I am totally into the design and maintenance of our library website and it is JOYCE VALENZA. The good thing is that Brent Hartinger is on like 20 different panels, so I can see him talk at another one. But I'd really like to hear the other panelists and that particular topic. Why do the conference planners do this to me?

Last year, when we got back home from the conference, Holly had all these messages from her friend who is a publishing rep. Holly had spoken to her at the conference, and the friend was trying to get in touch with Holly to invite her/us to a dinner with a bunch of authors like Holly's boyfriend (aka John Green). And we missed it! Is that not incredibly sad? So if any authors want to have dinner this year, let me know. I will not miss it, I promise! Also, I am "a blast!" Oh, and if you are a YA author who lives in NYC, I will be there in March, just in case you want to get together. I promised I would let you know.

Holly, I know you're not librarianing right now, but you should come with me!