Hello, Coppell!!!

Hello, Coppell!!

This week I visited three middle schools in Coppell, Tx while attending the Texas Library Association meeting in Dallas. Wednesday I visited Coppell Middle School West with librarian extraordinaire Rose Brock. My editor, Arianne Lewin, went along with (and was able to step in and advance the slides when the remote didn’t work). It was a great experience, the kids were so smart and well prepared—they had lots of good questions for me. Here’s a shout out to awesome Coppell West readers!

On Thursday, I visited two more Coppell Middle Schools. Coppell East librarian Virginia Greene picked me up in the early morning. Turns out Virginia is a fantasy fan, so we had a great time comparing notes. After two sessions at Coppell East, I traveled to Coppell North, where Lynn Chevron is the librarian. I’d already received emails from Coppell North students before I ever got there! I met lots of motivated young writers and fantasy fans at both schools. And it makes such a difference when students have prepared by reading the work. Then we can collaborate to make the visit successful, and it’s all good.
School visits are exhausting and energizing at the same time. How can that be?

Here’s a shout out to Coppell East and Coppell North, and thanks to Rose Brock for arranging all this.

Updates from the Texas Library Association

I'm just wrapping up an awesome week at the Texas Library Association meeting. These Texas librarians rock! On Tuesday, I was on a panel of YA fantasy authors, entitled “Strong Voices, Other Worlds” with fellow authors Libba Bray, Suzanne Collins, John Flanagan, Jacqueline Kolosov, and moderated by Rick Riordan. Such smart, witty people—I just wanted to sit back and listen myself.

Rick asked us why we write fantasy fiction and Suzanne had an interesting answer. She said that sometimes an author can address issues in fantasy fiction that are too intense to deal with in YA realistic fiction. The element of fantasy provides a bit of a buffer, in a way.

We were asked about series vs. stand-alones. Series novels are common in fantasy. After going to all the trouble to create a fantasy world and magical system, we authors want to work it for awhile. My Heir series takes place in Ohio, so I didn’t exactly have to create a world, but some of us also don’t like to let go of our characters. That was what happened to me when I finished Warrior Heir. It would just be a lot more convenient if I planned things out more. By the time I get to Book 3, I’m thinking, “Well, if I’d known when I wrote Book 1 that this was going to happen in Book 3, I’d have set it up better. But Book 1 is already in print. I want to go out to bookstores and put sticky notes in The Warrior Heir.

Libba discussed how she created the strong female characters in her Victorian fantasy series, set in a time when women had little power. I could listen to John Flanagan’s Aussie accent all day. And Jacqueline discussed her dual role as college professor and fiction writer. Rick did a fantastic job as moderator. He was clearly a home-town favorite among the librarians in the audience.

Wednesday morning I attended the opening session, with Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson. I just kept thinking, Thank God I don’t have to keep up with them! Dave Barry could read the phone book and it would be hilarious. I looked around the auditorium to see thousands of librarians in black pirate eye patches. I think I’m going to adopt Dave Barry’s method of disciplining teens through the strategic use of embarrassment.

I passed by the hundreds of librarians lined up for Dave and Ridley’s signing on the way to my own, in the author area of the exhibits. I had lots of fun, meeting librarians from all over Texas, including Nancy McGinnis from Killian Middle School near Dallas. I’ll be visiting Killian at the end of May for a One Book, One School event.

Wednesday afternoon and Thursday, I visited 3 different middle schools in Coppell, Tx. More on that in my next entry.

A Love Note

This is a love note. Or maybe it’s a fan letter. I’ve said it before, but it needs saying again.

Librarians are my heroes. Have been since I was 9 years old and my father was transferred and I had to go to a new elementary school, and the public library was two doors down from my school and I’d hang out there because I didn’t have any friends except books and the book lovers in the library.

These days, I’m hanging out with librarians once again—at library visits, school visits, and meetings like ALA and TLA (soon!) I feel so in context there—me and thousands of other lovers of the written word.

This is for the librarians who defend freedom of ideas and expression, even when it makes their lives difficult. Who don’t think decisions about access should be made at an administrative level. Who trust their patrons enough to set them free in the marketplace of ideas. Who don’t see danger between the covers of a book.

This is for the librarians who don’t have to bring authors in—but do it anyway. Even though it takes considerable time that they don’t have. Even though it means finagling and conniving and horse trading to find funding and get approvals and make it happen.

This is for the librarian who exchanged countless emails with me, arranged funding, presented book talks and book clubs and arranged for volunteers. She did all the ground work to plan a successful school visit—then was told by her principal that books with wizards in them were too controversial.

This is for the librarians who write grants and host bookfairs and otherwise raise money to supplement the funding that is never enough. These librarians find ways to get books into the hands of kids who have no books at home. Try to imagine accountants or pharmacists hosting bake sales to buy the tools of their trade.

This is for the librarian who gets a new book in and knows just who she’s going to give it to. And who after that, and who after that. Who models the love of books each and every day.

I just spent a day at O. Henry Middle School in Austin, with librarian Sara Stevenson. I presented three large programs and a writing workshop. The library was “closed” because of the author presentations, yet kids kept finding their way in. They couldn’t stay away. Her library is the heartbeat of the school. Running that library is like herding cats. The energy is infectious. I was exhausted and exhilarated after spending one day there. Sara is amazing. Her kids are lucky to have her.

It is so easy to get burned out in these jobs in a time when curricula and test scores have become straight-jackets that imprison flexible and creative educators. When it may be difficult to persuade teachers to send their students to the library and away from drills.

No one gets credit for instilling a lifelong love of reading in our kids. What a shame.

There was just a big debate on a writer’s email list I’m on about author visits. The question was, If I write for children and teens, do I have to do school, bookstore, and library visits?

Some authors love to meet the public, and others don’t. Either way, the potential for humiliation is great. I’ve heard a story about an author who came into a classroom and was asked if she was the substitute teacher. Clearly, the class had not been prepped for her visit!

The travel thing can be grueling and difficult to coordinate with other responsibilities. The hardest thing for me is when I'm being hosted by someone who is embarrassed about a small turnout. They keep apologizing and I'm like, Who can predict these things? I've spoken to groups that consist of the librarian and her sister and others where there are 150 kids (school visit or joint school-library program.)

I’ve had unexpected blessings. I once did a school and library program in this tiny town in southern Ohio. It was so small I had to stay across the river. The town was run by these six powerful sisters-one was a librarian at the county library, one was a librarian at the middle school, one was married to the high school principal, one was the English teacher, the sister in law was the library director. They were the literary and educational aristocracy in that town, and they were powerful. These women pre-sold scads of books, and the entire 6th grade had read my book when I arrived.

I did a writing workshop at a school in San Antonio, and those 6th graders could hardly stay in their seats, they were so excited about writing and sharing what they’d written. And I spoke at a library in Youngstown for Teen Reads Week to a huge crowd of students brought in for the occasion. The library staff made me feel like a celebrity. At a teen book club I spoke to a boy who was so excited about the new fantasy book he’d just read that he wanted to give me his copy so I could read it.

I did a bookstore visit in a nearby small town and a few of my friends showed up and a couple people I didn't even know who saw it in the paper. The store clerk seemed really pleased, so I asked how many people usually show for a booksigning, and she said, "None."

I was a reading nerd when I was a teenager, but I never got to meet an author. I didn’t know where all the authors lived, but I was sure it was nowhere near me. So I do like meeting kids who love books, and who want to write books of their own, because I see my 14-year-old self in every one of them.