Utah adventure

(Pre-post entertainment. Are you following the results of the Top 100 YA Novels poll over at Persnickety Snark? Check it out!)

What with all the new website hullaboo, things have been not quite as serene as normal, so I am way behind on telling you about the BYU Children’s Literature Symposium.

(Thank you, by the way, for all the kind comments about madwomanintheforest.com)

First things first – did I mention that the conference

was in Utah? Do you even know how gorgeous Utah is?

Not only is it gorgeous, but it is filled with some of the nicest people in the world.

like Kristen Chandler, author of WOLVES, BOYS AND OTHER THINGS THAT MIGHT KILL ME, who was my gracious host during the conference. She helped me track down a rather important cord that I forgot to pack, and also made sure I was able to sample regional cuisine:

fry sauce

and something called an iceberg shake.

I was at the conference with old friends Elizabeth Partridge and Kadir Nelson, and new friends, Brandon Mull and

David Shannon, who is a very funny man.

Elizabeth put together a great blog post about the whole conference, BTW.

One of my favorite activities was that we each had 4 30-minute sessions that were lightning round Q&A. I loved those. Only wished they could have each been an hour long.

On the last night we drove up even farther into the mountains and had a magnificent dinner in one of the most beautiful places in America.

Thank you to all of the teachers, librarians, and readers who came out to the conference. You were amazing.

If you ever get the chance to go to Utah – take it!!

Batting Monday Clean-up

You know the sound a car engine makes at the RPMs are climbing and you are preparing to shift into the next gear?

Make that sound in your mind right now.

I’m getting ready to shift gears and go full throttle on a number of projects.

Before I can do that, though, I have to clean off a couple of desks and check off the last items on a few to-do lists. And close a bunch of tabs that have been open for weeks while I wait for the right moment to blog about them.

Here’s a short article about a recent Skype visit I did with 6th graders who had read CHAINS.

CHAINS also made the "A More Perfect Union" Bookself, a program sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities. The chosen books will be distributed to 4,000 school (K-12) and public libraries. Why? The NEH says "As the American people begin observing the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, NEH seeks to promote reflection among young people on the idea of the United States as a “union.”" I was excited to see that my friend Pam Muñoz Ryan’s book, When Marian Sang: The True Recital of Marian Anderson, is also on the list. I was honored that W.E.B. Dubois’s, The Souls of Black Folk, is on the list, too. Be sure to check out the whole list!

Over at YA BookSelf, they’ve posted an article comparing rejection letters to SPEAK. What do you think of it?

At last, but certainly not least, Wendy at SimpleThrift (a terrific blog about living a frugal and creative life while raising kids) has been naming her chickens after her favorite authors. She just posted a short and fun Good Egg Interview with me because….

  (photo credit Wendy Thomas)

she named this little girl "Laurie Halse Anderson."

Brilliant Win of Kate Messner

I don’t have much time this morning, but I wanted to post a quick video from last night. This is for Kate Messner, who couldn’t be here at BEA because she is a dedicated teacher and she is teaching this week.

That did not stop her book, The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z, from winning a big honking award last night.

Rochester-bound & chicken moment of zen

(Zen can be found at the bottom of this post.)

A couple of people have written to ask how our dog, the Creature With Fangs, is taken the arrival of the baby chickens. (The CWF is a large, neurotic German Shepherd.)

We have not made the necessary introductions yet. There is a very good chance we never will. Some dogs take well to having chickens around. Other view them as a combination toy/snack.

And then there is the tennis ball problem. The CWF loves to chase after tennis balls, grab them in her mouth, and gnaw on them.

I am not sure the CWF would see much of a difference between a tennis ball and a five-day-old chicken. We are not going to test those waters quite yet.

Garden update: we’re still have frost in the morning, so I dare not transplant the veggies that like it hot. But they’ve all outgrown the little containers (also known as old egg cartons) that I started them in. So this morning I transplanted them to bigger pots of dirt. Another week or two and I hope they can go outside. Maybe I’ll just stick them out there sooner, and dress them in a jacket and scarf.

In between gardening, chicken-sitting and fussing over the compost heap…. oh, and writing; I do that, too, I am packing for this weekend’s trip to the ab-fab Rochester Teen Book Festival. You should join us!!!! It is the best, rockingingest YA book event east of the Mississippi River and it is FREE!!!!!

I’ll be there giving presentations, hanging out, signing sneakers, and laughing too loudly along with Holly Black, Coe Booth, Robin Brande, manga writing duo Lindsay Cibos and Jared Hodges, Marissa Doyle, Simone Elkeles, Ellen Hopkins, James Kennedy, A.S. King, Daniel Kirk, Alisa Libby, Barry Lyga, Mari Mancusi, Lisa McMann, Ben Mikaelsen, Alyson Noël, Sarah Ockler, Matt de la Peña, Amy Kathleen Ryan, Lisa Schroeder, Jennifer E. Smith, Terry Trueman, Vivian Vande Velde, and Martin Wilson.

Can you freaking believe that line-up?

You know you want to join us. Come on, it’s Saturday. You don’t have baby chickens to take care of. Come hang out with us!!

My chickens said I should post the following picture for those of you who are feeling a bit stressed. They meditate quite a bit, my chickens, and I think it is the secret to their happiness.

Moment of zen.