ALA! Pt. 2
A continuation from the previous post. The YALSA YA Breakfast and the Newbery/Caldecott Banquet.
YALSA YA Breakfast
On Sunday my traveling companions and I went to the Young Adult Author Breakfast, sponsored by YALSA. We had no idea what to expect and as we entered we saw that each table had two spaces with signs that said "Reserved For Author." There were about 300 people there, I'd guess, and the YALSA folks explained that it would be sort of like speed dating. An author (along with, in many cases, their trusty advisor/protector, of which the lovely-haired sdn was one) would sit at a table for 15 minutes or so, then would switch to the next table so attendees could meet lots of authors. Not too good for their digestion, though I'm sure they really didn't have time to eat at all. Not the point of the whole breakfast. All the authors had won either a Printz or Margaret A. Edwards award, I believe.
We ate first, and the food was pretty skimpy. Strangely enough, there were 6 empty glasses at the center of each table, along with a liter bottle of water. Now, there were 8 or 10 people at every table, so it was like musical glasses, and musical water. And musical coffee, for that matter. This got us off to a bad start and folks started clamoring right away for more coffee. Hotel workers rushed to set up a couple of stations for coffee to calm the angry librarians.
Then the program started. They announced the authors, and which table each would start at. We were to have Nancy Garden, who wrote Annie on My Mind. They started. No Nancy Garden. We sat and watched the other tables enjoying themselves. It was time to switch. Again, no author. Switched again--and no author. By now, Small But Mighty traveling companion had had it. She swept up to the podium and had an animated discussion with the head YALSA lady, who had been watching our table nervously. She promised she'd get us "someone good" right away, and sure enough, next round we had M. T. Anderson, author of The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation: Vol. 1, The Pox Party, at our table.
He said, "Hi, I'm Tobin Anderson," and was so very cordial and down to earth. He was only able to stay a couple of minutes before he had to move on, just long enough for a quick photo. Next, we were fortunate enough to to have Gene Yang, author of the Printz winner, American Born Chinese. How old is he, 12? He patiently answered our questions about how long he's been drawing comics and how he designs the art vs. text. After he left we talked to Carolyn Mackler, who wrote The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things. She was serene and poised, and talked about her new baby and how it has impacted her writing.
All in all, a great breakfast, though we were gyped a bit in our author quota.
Newbery/Caldecott Banquet
That night I went to the Newbery Banquet alone, since my friends didn't want to spend the money. No matter. The evening started with cocktail time and the crowd was friendly, with lots of people there by themselves, so within half an hour I had four new friends, including a children's librarian from the downtown Columbus Public Library and a library student from UCLA. We sat together amid the couple thousand people. The dinner was excellent.
The speeches went on for a looong time. David Wiesner, who won the Caldecott Medal for Flotsam, gave a speech that was pretty dry, and he described how his books grow and change as he writes. The chair of the Newbery committee had a voice that was so grating, and she was so dramatic, that I badly wanted to chuck a dinner roll at her. Susan Patron (Higher Power of Lucky) surprised me. Being a librarian, she had some "inside" jokes and poked fun at herself. She seemed very relaxed and self- possessed. She had a good sense of timing and could pause at exactly the right place when making a joke. Many of those jokes involved the word scrotum. Only the winners got to speak, not the honor book authors, or we'd have been there all night, since the Wilder Award seemed to go on forever. Maybe it was just me, but three hours had gone by at that point and enough is enough.
I saw Kathleen Horning in line for the bathroom and wanted to tell her that I enjoyed her book but decided that after two glasses of mediocre, overpriced wine that is never a good idea. She had a deer-in-the-headlights look, maybe someone had already caught her or maybe she'd had three glasses. Who knows.
Oh, and the dessert was awesome. Then I went back to my hotel room and hacked into an unsecured wireless network. Take that, Hilton!
Next post: The highlight of the conference, the Printz Reception.