I've just come home from my first International Reading Association convention, an annual event that draws teachers, librarians, and other bookish types to discuss literacy and teaching methods. It was a wondrous time!
Uma Krishnaswami, Kimberley Griffiths Little, Carolee Dean, Kersten Hamilton, Carolyn Meyer, Esther Hershenhorn
Lisa Schroeder, Caroline Starr Rose, April Halprin Wayland
On Sunday I was a part of an institute -- an intensive session that lasted from 9-5. The title of our panel was
Rekindling the Reading Fire - Using the Story Strategies of Professional Authors to Inspire a Love of Reading and Writing, headed up by
Carolee Dean. The session included panels on magical realism; plot, setting and story; verse novels; and historical fiction.
I also had the opportunity to meet fellow
Project Mayhem author, Hilary Wagner, and my dear, dear author friend,
Sheila O'Connor.
It was lovely to meet Random House Children's Books tireless sales and marketing team and a number of literature-loving educators as well as dozens of other authors I'd up to this point only known on-line or through their books.
My only regret is not having more pictures to share!
What are your thoughts on the Accelerated Reader program? Are you familiar with this system many schools use to promote reading? Stop by Project Middle Grade Mayhem today, and join the discussion.
For those of you participating in the free, at-home writing conference WriteOnCon, be sure to stop by tomorrow at 5:30 EDT to see a video on publishing put together by The Class of 2k12!
Here are a couple of ways you can help those whose communities were devastated by storms last month:
Help Write Now is a writing community auction to benefit southern storm relief. Along with four other Project Mayhem members, I've donated a critique for a middle-grade novel. See more here.
All 4 Alabama is an auction aimed at helping Alabama specifically, the state most severely hit by the storms. I'm offering a picture book and verse novel critique. Follow this link to learn more.
I'm proud to be a part of the community of children's authors so willing to help those in need. Thanks to all of you who participate.
There are a lot of book blogs devoted to young adult novels, but not many I've found that focus only on middle grade.
That why I'm so excited to share that I've been invited to be a part of Project Mayhem, a blog devoted to all things middle grade. The blog is headed up by NIGHTSHADE CITY author, Hilary Wagner, and includes authors Rose Cooper, Timothy Power, Dee Garreston, Jen K. Bloom, Dawn Lairamore, and Marissa Burt, as well as fellow new additions Michael Michell and Yahong Chi.
Click over to read my first post, which ran yesterday.
If you're looking for other middle-grade blogs, try these:
MiG Writers
From the Mixed Up Files
Any other middle-grade blogs you know of?
Be sure to stop by next week when I run March's One-Sentence Debut Reviews and enter to win Elevensie and 2k11 bookmarks.
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I'll head over and check out her post! I love the looks of this book.