Thanks, New Orleans

Well, we've all made it home.  We've had a fabulous time in New Orleans, not only at the conference itself, but also wandering around the French Quarter,

listening to jazz and Cajun music (this picture is from the piano bar at Pat O's),

eating interesting food (Steph is holding up her alligator sausage),

and getting to shake our heads in amazement while saying "Only in New Orleans."

 

Now we all need some time to recover and start reading.  Thanks for coming along with us, and you can expect lots of reviews of new and exciting books in the future!

Closing Session: Molly Shannon

The last day was yesterday! Kind of couldn't believe it. The only ALA event was the closing session, which was with actress, comedian, and now writer, Molly Shannon. The reason she was speaking at ALA is because she recently came out with a children's book called Tilly the Trickster. She didn't talk about her book right away though. First she just talked about her life.  Her mother and younger sister died in a car accident when Molly was very young, so she grew up with her older sister and her father.  She spoke very highly of her father, praising him for letting her be herself.  She had a love for singing and dancing and theater early on, and in 6th grade she joined a theater group.  She loved how affectionate the theater people were.

The Exhibits: Final Day

Oh I was good on Monday, the last day of the exhibits.  I didn't come back with a single book.  Not one!  We still saw a number of authors.

Lauren Myracle, author of many books for teens and tweens, including Love Ya Bunches.

Ingrid Law, author of Savvy and Scumble.

Waiting on Wednesday: Goliath by Scott Westerfeld

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Breaking the Spine to spotlight an upcoming release that we're excited about. This week I'm waiting on Goliath by Scott Westerfeld.

Alek and Deryn are on the last leg of their round-the-world quest to end World War I, reclaim Alek's throne as prince of Austria, and finally fall in love. The first two objectives are complicated by the fact that their ship, the Leviathan, continues to detour farther away from the heart of the war (and crown). And the love thing would be a lot easier if Alek knew Deryn was a girl. (She has to pose as a boy in order to serve in the British Air Service.) And if they weren't technically enemies.

The tension thickens as the Leviathan steams toward New York City with a homicidal lunatic on board: secrets suddenly unravel, characters reappear, and nothing is as it seems in this thunderous conclusion to Scott Westerfeld's brilliant trilogy.

So I'm not really waiting on this one, because I got the ARC from ALA, but I'm really excited about starting to read it!

Goliath comes out September 20.

The OTHER Science Fiction and Fantasy Panel

 So there were two science fiction and fantasy panels, and we went to them both.  The second one was with Brandon Sanderson and Nnedi Okorafor, who wrote Akata Witch, which I just read.  Susan Chang was moderating, and she started off talking about her personal experience with reading science fiction and fantasy and asked the writers if they thought the genre was a genre of outsiders.  Nnedi said she never thought about genre.  She read whatever was a good story.  She said she saw herself as a bit of a nerd because she liked to read so much, but she was also an athlete.  She moved between two worlds.  Brandon said he felt like an outsider until he found science fiction and fantasy and then he found a home.  He was a reluctant reader, but only because he hadn't found the right books yet.  Once he found books he loved to read, read he did.

Next the writers were asked if they thought that with the rise of Harry Potter,The Hunger Games and Twilight, were we currently in the Golden Age of fantasy?  Nnedi said it's always been the Golden Age of fantasy, but there is a strong trend right now.  Brandon talked about writing epic fantasy, and how that's actually been down while Harry Potter took off.  He hopes they'll be a rebound in epic fantasy at some point.  A reason epic fantasy might be on the decline is because it's become very generic.  It's white kids running around a sudo-medieval European country on some kind of quest.  He hopes to show readers that it doesn't always have to be the same story.

Megan asked about how heritage influenced their writing.  Nnedi grew up in the U.S. but is of Nigerian heritage and would visit Nigeria with her family.  When she writes, she writes from her roots.  Brandon tried to answer the question of why there are some many Mormon science fiction and fantasy writers.   He wasn't really sure.  He guessed that maybe it had to do with a science fiction class at Brigham Young University.  Many published science fiction authors came through Prof. Smith's class.  So perhaps it's less Mormon, but that many have this core class where there is a community of science fiction writers.

The author's talked about how libraries feature in their books, and what they're working on next.  Nnedi is working on an adult novel, two YA books, and a movie script for Who Fears Death.  Brandon is working on the final volume of The Wheel of Time series and a new YA series that will be coming out in 2012 or 2013.  I gave up on The Wheel of Time at volume seven, I think.  It started out so strong, but I felt it just got too meandery along the way.

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.