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.

Love v. Romance

I am in the midst of TLA and thought I'd post about one of the author sessions I saw. It was Margo Rabb, Cassandra Clare, Nancy Werlin, Justine Larbalestier, and Patrick Jones. Patrick Jones was moderating and trying to get some discussion of gender issues going. Somehow the issue of YA being devalued in comparison to adult lit was raised, and Nancy was commenting on how the same is done to romance books even though they are the largest percentage of book sales. Justine was then saying that she thinks all books are love stories. Whether or not that is true, I think a love story is not necessarily a romance. If you look at the definition from RWA, a "romance" makes a love story central to the plot and has an emotionally-satisfying/optimistic ending. Certainly not all books meet that definition. I'm bringing this up because of another tangent that followed closely on the heels of this discussion. The panelists went on to talk about how guys will read books not only with female main characters but also with romance. My personal take on this is that guys will indeed read books with love stories or romantic elements, but they must also include action (like the Uglies example that Justine gave or like Cassandra's Mortal Instruments series). If there is little action and/or a focus just on the emotional struggles and interior character angst, guys are not into it. "Boy meets girl" stories aren't very popular with guys at all.

TLA Dreams

I'm going to the Texas Library Association conference tomorrow. It's one of (or maybe the?) the largest state conferences. First, a list of some of the YA authors I know I'm excited to see:

Joan Bauer

Meg Cabot

Cassandra Clare

John Green

Justina Chen Headley

Justine Larbalestier

Cynthia Leitich-Smith

Melissa Marr

Walter Dean Myers

Judson Roberts

Neal Shusterman

Nancy Werlin
Scott Westerfeld

Sara Zarr

I'm also excited to see authors I don't even know I'm excited to see! Here is the complete list. One session I was interested to see was the Readergirlz one with Dia Calhoun, Lori Ann Grover, and Justina Chen Headley. But it's scheduled at the same time as Teri Lesesne who is booktalking new YA titles, and her session is always huge. Not good timing.

I love TLA. It makes me excited about librarianship all over again, and I usually get at least one or two really helpful ideas. The vendor area is at least as important as the sessions. I have several booths I know I want to visit to ask some questions about reference titles and databases for next year. Then, of course, there are the publisher booths and ARCs. I can't wait to see what new titles they are promoting! Off the top of my head, the two books that I'd most like to get ARCs of (that I think are realistic hopes anyway) are Matt de la Pena's We Were Here and Frank Portman's Andromeda Klien. Any others I should be on the lookout for?

TLA Recap

Holly and I had a blast at TLA last year. I was very bummed that she didn't get to come with me this year, but it was still fun. No one took our suggestions for panel ideas, but there were still some good YA author panels. However, it was the enormous amount of cheap and free books and ARCs that really made the experience for me this year. Last year, I think I maybe picked up like 3 or 4 ARCs, but this year, I actually have regular student patrons and book club members to share ARCs with, so I was a crazy person, running around to each of the publisher booths, going back every hour or so to see if they had new/different ones out. I felt ridiculous. It was very uncivilized, and I was embarassed. The last day when the publishers give away and/or sell their last remaining copies, people really get crazy. It was like those clips of women lining up for wedding gowns at Filene’s Basement, except with books. My friend made me feel better, though, by pointing out that at least I was doing this over literature, not something like Jimmy Choos. It was all for the children.

Here are a couple of pictures of me with Libba Bray and Maureen Johnson. Naturally, my camera battery went dead by the time I got Brent Hartinger's autograph, so no pics of him (his panel on boys reading literature was very interesting, though). My face has been blocked out to protect our readers' sensitive eyes.

You can't really tell from this picture, but Maureen Johnson's dress was super cute. I got a free copy of Suite Scarlett because I was one of the first 20 people there. They also had these cute little Suite Scarlett eye cover thingys (like what you wear to sleep--don't know their technical name).

Now I have soooooooooo many books to read, I hardly know where to begin. Let me tell you one last embarassing story. At 5:00 on Wednesday when the vendors were closing, my coworker and I were casually strolling by the Penguin booth, and I pointed out Oh.My.Gods. to her. The nice Penguin rep said, "Oh, would you like a galley?" "Sure!" we said. Then my coworker noticed Joan Bauer's Peeled and asked if she had any for sale. She didn't, but she did have galleys that she gave us. "What level are you?" she asked us. "High school," we replied. So then she pulled out a couple more ARCs from under the tables. Then she sort of glanced sideways at us and said, "Well, if you're high school level, then you might be interested in this," and she pulled out two copies of Paper Towns. We literally both squealed/screamed with excitement. It was embarassing. And we were giddy.

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!