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This announcement about the Sagebrush Award is passed along courtesy of ALAN:

“Did you bring books and young adults together this past year? Did you encourage the development of life-long reading habits? Are you a personal member of the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA)? Then you’re eligible to apply for the Sagebrush Award!

Not just for reading clubs! We’re looking for innovative new ways books and kids have been brought together.

The Sagebrush Award for a Young Adult Reading or Literature Program is designed to honor a member(s) of the Young Adult Library Services Association who has developed an outstanding reading or literature program for young adults. The award provides a grant of $1,000 to support the winning member’s attendance at the ALA Annual Conference.

The award is made possible through an annual grant from the Sagebrush Book Company, a division of The American Companies.

The deadline is December 1st, so apply now!

For more information, or to apply, check out the application at:

http://www.ala.org/ala/yalsa/awardsandgrants/sagebrush.pdf.

The Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA), the fastest growing division of the American Library Association (ALA), is pleased to announce over $30,000 worth of grants and awards available to YALSA members.”

I have a confession to make.

My name is Laurie and I am a political junkie. Reformed political junkie. When I was a reporter, I spent several fascinating nights at various county headquarters, covering races for President and Congress and school board and dog catcher. When I left the paper, I worked as a campaign volunteer and poll watcher. It was fun, but rather all-consuming and did not lead to much fiction writing. I swore off the hard stuff a couple of years ago when I decided there was more to life than stuffing fliers in mailboxes.

So I quit cold turkey.

Well, I fell off the wagon last night. Stayed up much too late watching returns. Found myself analyzing the numbers and poking through tea leaves trying to prognosticate about 2008 and debating the choices of tie colors worn by reporters and irritated that CNN could only find one female commentator. Hello? CNN? Girls vote. We have opinions, too, and some of us are wicked smart about it, and so please hire a couple more next time, OK?

Today I am climbing back into a state of political junkie sobriety. I vow not to track the minute-by-minute changes in the VA and MT senate races. I promise not to scan the Internet for Nancy Pelosi’s plan of action. I will focus on my art and my job and my mail pile.

(I am, however, still trying to find out the status of the proposed Mexico, NY water district. Does anyone know?)

More coffee, BH.

What are you doing tonight? Want to hang out? Meet me at Storer Auditorium, on the campus of my alma mater, Onondaga Community College, at 7pm. I’ll be the one up front, blabbing into the microphone. If you are an LJ-reader, please let me know.

BH and I voted at 8am this morning, in our town hall, in a small room filled with cheerful volunteers. The left side of the room was Precinct #1 and the right side was Precinct #2. It was probably the last time I’ll have a chance to use the old-fashioned voting machines, with levers and a big handle that went thuuunk to register the votes.

While choosing our candidates, BH and I whistled Revolution, by the Beatles.

I love voting.

I vote so my government hears me speaking up.

Why do you vote?
If you aren’t old enough yet, why will you vote?

The conference in Albany, organized by bookseller extraordinare Frank Hodge, was a memorable one. I met so many interesting teachers (a second grade teacher who keeps a therapy dog in her classroom, a fifth grade teacher who lived in my house in Pulaski after I moved out of it, English teacher and librarian from a school for deaf students, teachers from Florida who trekked all the way to Albany for the weekend) I can’t stop thinking about them.

Our name tags were futuristic plexiglass that glowed or blinked with blue lights. Frank knew EVERYONE there, and charmed and made us blush in equal parts. There was pumpkin cheesecake. (Hear that conference organizers: pumpkin cheesecake. Yum.) And the hotel had decent bran muffins, which I consider a badge of civility. The schedule allowed time to shmooze. On the gala night we enjoyed champagne and popcorn before dinner. It don’t get no better than that, friends.

Amtrak, bless its pea-pickin’ heart, was late as usual, which gave me more time to read the biography of Alexander Hamilton that is threatening to take over my life.

I came home to find my desk totally awash in mail again. Guess what I’ll be doing for the next two days?

No – wait – there is one thing I will be doing besides wading through the mail.

TOMORROW I WILL VOTE BECAUSE IT IS THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT THING AN AMERICAN CITIZEN CAN DO!

(warning – unabashed self-aggrandizement ahead)

The current (Fall 2006) issue of The Alan Review contains the speech I gave at ALAN/NCTE in November, 2005, and a wonderful article that compares student responses (both high school and college) to Speak and Fifteen, by Beverly Cleary. As if that wasn’t enough, it has a great article about teaching with Native American Literature, and the cover of the magazine shows Indian Shoes, by Cynthia Leitich Smith, and Tofu and T. Rex, by her husband, Greg Leitich Smith.

The issue is not online yet, but you can probably find a copy of it in your library. If your library doesn’t carry the ALAN Review, then allow me to tactfully suggest a subscription RIGHT NOW.

Remember me talking about a photo shoot in downtown Syracuse a couple weeks ago that involved dry ice, salt potatoes, and orange mittens? You can see the photos and a short essay I wrote about coming back home to the region in Central New York Magazine, on sale now.

I am out of here tomorrow, heading for Albany for the Got Books? Let’s Read Conference sponsored by the ever-wonderful Hodge-Podge Books. I’m taking the computer with me so I can KEEP WRITING!!!!