Showing posts with label library conferences. Show all posts
Showing posts with label library conferences. Show all posts
Saturday, March 19, 2011
My Great Plan Has Potential
Do you remember back when I had time and actually posted on this blog and I had My Great Plan? The one where Mari Mancusi and Liz Maverick wear costumes to TLA and then Judy Blume comments here on how it's totally inappropriate? Well guess what: Mari Mancussi is going to be at TLA this year. It's only been four years, but now she finally has the opportunity to pull out the scandalous clothes and diminsh the respectability of YA authors everywhere (hey, she should take this opportunity to go shopping and buy some NEW scandalous clothes! I know I would.). I'll be there with students (covering their eyes, of course). But mine will be wide open, just waiting for scandal to erupt! I'm also hoping a swan hat will be involved.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
ALAN
I attended the ALAN workshop at NCTE this week. I took notes on all the speakers and was going to recap each speech, but since there were more than 30, I decided I'm too lazy. Here are a few of my personal highlights:
1. Teri Lesesne had so many great things to say, but one that struck a cord with one of my current issues is that we have to defend YA as having equal quality as "the classics." I am dealing with this fairly often because I have one teacher who requires their students to only read "adult" books for SSR. I think this is a poor distinction since "adult" doesn't make it "good," and many YA books are much better "quality" than most of the adult books they're choosing. Plus, I am definitely of the opinion that we should just be encouraging students to read what will give them enjoyment. I think there's a good debate to be had about introducing them to books they might not pick up on their own or choose for themselves that they'd like or get a lot from, but that isn't really the point of SSR (in my personal opinion). The other thing I keep coming back to is that many "classics" would likely be published as YA if they were published today, so why not consider that today's YA could have as much literary merit as those "classics?"
2. M.T. Anderson gave a speech about how all children's lit is necessarily political to some extent, whether it's intentional or not. There are encoded messages about how one has to act to be successful in this world, and that's political, even if it's not overt. I liked his points about how to act as if books are politically neutral diminishes the power of literature. Also, often authors, librarians, teachers, etc. will claim that reading "bad" things in literature won't cause kids to go out and do bad things, but on the other hand, they'll laud how transformative the "good" literature can be.
3. Read John Green's entire speech. It was excellent! He saved me from having to highlight by posting it all online. (Can I repeat what I've said before about how awesome JG is about writing speeches directed at his audience? He's talking to a bunch of English teachers, and he makes his speech related to that. The former speech teacher in me loves this.) One of his points was that, yes, he does intentionally put "English stuff" like figurative language in his writing. I appreciate that he says this because I remember as a student thinking that authors probably didn't intend all this crap we're assigning to it in English class, but then I read a Toni Morrison interview where she was talking about one paragraph she wrote. For about two pages, she described how and why she wrote that paragraph the way she did. There's no way I would EVER have gotten even half of what she was saying from my own reading, but it was (1) very illuminating and verified that authors do put this much intentionality into their work, and (2) I appreciate the work so much more when I can see beyond the initial surface. I know a lot of students think analyzing literature "ruins" the experience for them, and I'm not going to refute that if it's true for them, but I'll say that for me, analyzing literature can make me enjoy it a lot more. Hemingway, for example, I don't think I'll ever like, but analyzing it can make me at least appreciate it.
1. Teri Lesesne had so many great things to say, but one that struck a cord with one of my current issues is that we have to defend YA as having equal quality as "the classics." I am dealing with this fairly often because I have one teacher who requires their students to only read "adult" books for SSR. I think this is a poor distinction since "adult" doesn't make it "good," and many YA books are much better "quality" than most of the adult books they're choosing. Plus, I am definitely of the opinion that we should just be encouraging students to read what will give them enjoyment. I think there's a good debate to be had about introducing them to books they might not pick up on their own or choose for themselves that they'd like or get a lot from, but that isn't really the point of SSR (in my personal opinion). The other thing I keep coming back to is that many "classics" would likely be published as YA if they were published today, so why not consider that today's YA could have as much literary merit as those "classics?"
2. M.T. Anderson gave a speech about how all children's lit is necessarily political to some extent, whether it's intentional or not. There are encoded messages about how one has to act to be successful in this world, and that's political, even if it's not overt. I liked his points about how to act as if books are politically neutral diminishes the power of literature. Also, often authors, librarians, teachers, etc. will claim that reading "bad" things in literature won't cause kids to go out and do bad things, but on the other hand, they'll laud how transformative the "good" literature can be.
3. Read John Green's entire speech. It was excellent! He saved me from having to highlight by posting it all online. (Can I repeat what I've said before about how awesome JG is about writing speeches directed at his audience? He's talking to a bunch of English teachers, and he makes his speech related to that. The former speech teacher in me loves this.) One of his points was that, yes, he does intentionally put "English stuff" like figurative language in his writing. I appreciate that he says this because I remember as a student thinking that authors probably didn't intend all this crap we're assigning to it in English class, but then I read a Toni Morrison interview where she was talking about one paragraph she wrote. For about two pages, she described how and why she wrote that paragraph the way she did. There's no way I would EVER have gotten even half of what she was saying from my own reading, but it was (1) very illuminating and verified that authors do put this much intentionality into their work, and (2) I appreciate the work so much more when I can see beyond the initial surface. I know a lot of students think analyzing literature "ruins" the experience for them, and I'm not going to refute that if it's true for them, but I'll say that for me, analyzing literature can make me enjoy it a lot more. Hemingway, for example, I don't think I'll ever like, but analyzing it can make me at least appreciate it.
My favorite quotes from the conference:
"And another thing, you bastards, I fucking love the harpsichord." -M.T. Anderson
"If they are reading books you think are crap, get over yourself." -Walter Mayes
"I've always wanted to be twittered by Walter Mayes." -David Levithan
Also, my new author loves are Lauren Myracle and Matt de la Pena. Loved them. Can't wait to hear them speak again.
Saturday, July 21, 2007
A Great Plan!
I guess I don't need to explain to my 2 readers that this blog is basically read by the three of us, a couple of our friends on occassion, that person who runs Safe Libraries, people who stumble upon specific posts when Googling, and the YA authors who Google themselves. Honestly, I like it this way because I don't know if I'd enjoy writing for an actual large reader base. However, if we ever want to really increase our traffic and our comments here on ATR, I've got a great idea based upon the The Great Sartorial Debate™ going on at Smart Bitches Trashy Books where more than 500 people have commented so far on this one thread. It is based slightly upon the issue of non-writers like readers and bloggers/reviewers attending the RWA's national conference and mostly upon the issue of whether it is "appropriate" for Marianne Mancusi and Liz Maverick to wear these "costumes" during an RWA author signing event and for Sherrilyn Kenyon to wear this hat.
So here's the plan:
At the next library conference (ALA would be preferable but TLA would do in a pinch), we'll get Stephenie Meyer to wear a big ugly swan hat. I was thinking that Scott Westerfeld could wear some face tattoos and a grey silk suit or maybe John Green could wear a Brotherhood 2.0 shirt that mentions his pants or something, but while I still like those ideas, I think we need a female element. And a short skirt. A short skirt is key because we need to bring in feminism and the possibilty of child sex slavery and pornography (read the comments if you don't know what I'm talking about). So maybe Melissa de la Cruz could come wearing a kind-of short prep school outfit to promote her books, or Maureen Johnson could wear a bathing suit to promote hers (I think she might be open to costumes so this might be a good one to try). Then, we'll need to get Judy Blume to comment here about how it's inappropriate to wear such costumes to an author signing event at a professional conference because the media will focus on these anomalies and have further evidence that YA lit isn't to be taken seriously, something JB has been working for years to try to dispel. JB will post constantly about this issue in response to various reader comments, and even Meg Cabot or Laurie Halse Anderson will chime in for a comment or two. I realize the hard part will be getting everyone to agree to this, especially the costumes, but hopefully we can do it. Stephenie Meyer will probably be the most difficult to convince, so maybe Melissa de la Cruz could be the Ugly Swan Hat backup.
So here's the plan:
At the next library conference (ALA would be preferable but TLA would do in a pinch), we'll get Stephenie Meyer to wear a big ugly swan hat. I was thinking that Scott Westerfeld could wear some face tattoos and a grey silk suit or maybe John Green could wear a Brotherhood 2.0 shirt that mentions his pants or something, but while I still like those ideas, I think we need a female element. And a short skirt. A short skirt is key because we need to bring in feminism and the possibilty of child sex slavery and pornography (read the comments if you don't know what I'm talking about). So maybe Melissa de la Cruz could come wearing a kind-of short prep school outfit to promote her books, or Maureen Johnson could wear a bathing suit to promote hers (I think she might be open to costumes so this might be a good one to try). Then, we'll need to get Judy Blume to comment here about how it's inappropriate to wear such costumes to an author signing event at a professional conference because the media will focus on these anomalies and have further evidence that YA lit isn't to be taken seriously, something JB has been working for years to try to dispel. JB will post constantly about this issue in response to various reader comments, and even Meg Cabot or Laurie Halse Anderson will chime in for a comment or two. I realize the hard part will be getting everyone to agree to this, especially the costumes, but hopefully we can do it. Stephenie Meyer will probably be the most difficult to convince, so maybe Melissa de la Cruz could be the Ugly Swan Hat backup.
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