YALSA Coffee Klatch

You might remember that we went to the YALSA Klatch last year, and met some really great authors. This year we have to admit that we were highly disappointed with the fact that there was no food nor tea served, it really started the entire klatch off on the wrong foot. Sad. Now to the fun stuff, this year we met:

YALSA Klatch

Arianna and I decided to go to the YALSA hosted coffee klatch on Sunday. It's kind of like speed dating authors. We sat at a table and an author would come sit with us for about five minutes. The authors included:

Alden Bell, Ilsa Bick, Franny Billingsley, Selene Castrovilla, Lucy Christopher, Cassandra Clare, Amanda Cockrell, Matt Dembicki, Sarah Dessen, Beth Fehlbaum, Alex Flinn, Chris Grabenstein, Claudia Gray, John Green, Julie Halpern, Steve Hamilton, Jenny Han, Jeff Hirsch, Valerie Hobbs, Ellen Hopkins, Maureen Johnson, Brian Katcher, James Kennedy, A.S. King, James Klise, Cynthea Liu, Joe Lunievicz, Carolyn Mackler, Lish McBride, Catherine Gilbert Murdock, Lauren Myracle, Jim Ottaviani, Bobbie Pyron, Cheryl Rainfield, Leila Sales, Marcus Sedgwick, Medeia Sharif, Maggie Stiefvater, Paul Volponi, and Blythe Woolston

Anna makes an impression...

On Saturday I woke up with no voice, it was COMPLETELY GONE. This was quite a conundrum as Ari and I were supposed to be giving our presentation on Sunday. We tried not to panic and I because a mute for the next 36 hours.

We went to a session with William Joyce speaking, which Jamie is writing about, afterward we were given his new book and he signed it. I had spent the last eight hours mouthing words to Jamie, Alana, and Arianna. Or snapping, clapping my hands, tapping on tables, or trying to 'shout' psst at them to get their attention. So we waited in line, me with Arianna (who happened to be the worst at reading lips), and let her know prior to us getting up to William Joyce what I wanted to say. We get up to William Joyce and I wave at him and he gives me a strange look. So I start snapping at Arianna so she can translate. William Joyce then proceeds to giggle at me for the rest of the time that I am standing in front of him. I wish I can giggle with him, except for my vow of silence. All I can say is that I hope I was memorable for him.

I was super excited to have Gail Carriger sign my book. Once again, if you haven't read her series I strongly suggest you do . As in I am commanding you to stop reading this blog and get her books and read them until you are finished with them all and then come back to this post. Go. Ok so we got in line and one of the publishers remembered me and had talked to Gail about me! How exciting! I proceeded to mouth things to her, fortunately Alana was there to translate. She then told me that she hoped I found my voice, which I am sure is why I got my voice back in time for the presentation. Thank you Gail.

So at least my lack of voice made me memorable. Though it caused some undue stress and panic. William, Gail, and I are now BFFs. Kind of like how I am Lane Smith's biggest friend.

Science fiction and fantasy panel

LITA (Libraries and information technology association) hosted a panel with the theme of the role of technology in the future seen through the lens of fantasy and science fiction. David Weber, Bill Willingham, Carrie Vaughn, Jon Scalzi, Orson Scott Card, Jim Ottaviani, and Gail Carriger were going to be speaking. We were SUPER excited that Gail Carriger was going to be there, she was adorably outfitted and was a visual delight.

I'm going to go through the speakers as they spoke and give a quick overview.

MSLA Conference

Hello all! After a long day in Sturbridge, here's the lowdown of what I saw during the MSLA conference "Working Smarter."


Keynote: Michael Dahl

So after waking up at 5:30 this morning, and an hour and a half commute, Michael Dahl was the perfect way to wake me up. He's from MN, so bonus points there, and is a big supporter of graphic novels, so much like Lane Smith we're big friends. He works for Stonearch Books and has written several mystery books and a hi-lo series called The Library of Doom, which FYI looks fantastic. Most of his talk was about the influence of libraries and librarians on his life. How libraries "found (him), at the same time (he) was looking for it." He talked about how the amazing power of a story led to his future choice of career, and that books should always show that there was thought and effort behind them because kids can tell. Kids can pick up on the effort put in took to make it and it can increase their self-worth, and that librarians can guide them to those books. Dahl says that librarians help equate reading with pleasure, helping students plow through reading when it must be done for assignments.

"Save a librarian, save the world."