Midwest Conferences

This past weekend, I had the pleasure of presenting with author Ashley Hope Perez at the McConnell Conference in Lexington, KY. I always enjoy this conference and this year was certainly no exception. OK, yes I was disappointed in the lack of diversity, both in terms of presenters and participants, but the librarians who attended did not hesitate in asking for titles for their students and patrons of color and in engaging in library and literary conversations. Yes, it was good to be part of the conversation about young adult lit.

No doubt, attending conferences is expensive! Living here in the Midwest, I don’t often have the opportunity to enter the varied discussions about young adult literature that take occur in places like New York and Los Angeles, but there are some more local opportunities that provide relevant opportunities.

If you’re an author, librarian or teacher in the Midwest who is looking for nearby conferences, I have the following.

(No, I don’t live anywhere Mexico City. IBBY is just the one I really want to attend.)

Northern Illinois University Children’s Literature Conference 15 March Tom Angleberger, Lisa Yee and David Lubar

Kent State University’s Virginia Hamilton Conference 4&5 April Angela Johnson, Gary Schmidt and Yuyi Morales

Children’s Literature Association Conference Biloxi MS 13-15 June

ALA Annual Chicago 27 June-2 July

Children and Young People’s Division of the Indiana Library Federation   Indianapolis  25-26 August

Indiana State Reading Association Fall Conference 29-30 September  Linda Hoyt, Cris Tovani, Barry Lane, David Greenberg

IBBY Regional Conference St. Louis, MO 18-20 October

Ohio Kentucky Indiana Children’s Literature Conference 2 Nov Candace Fleming and Steve Jenkins

IBBY Mexico 10-14 September 2014

 

 

 

 

Call for Papers: Children’s Literature Association Conference

40th Annual Children’s Literature Association Conference
Play and Risk in Children’s and Young Adult Literature and Culture

**DEADLINE: 15 January 2013

Hosted by The University of Southern Mississippi
June 13-15, 2013
IP Resort
Biloxi, Mississippi

The 40th Annual Children’s Literature Association (ChLA) Conference will address play and risk in children’s and young adult (YA) literature and culture. Much of John Newbery’s A Pretty Little Pocket-Book, one of the first books to mark the emergence of children’s literature as a successful commercial enterprise, is devoted to teaching the alphabet through play and games. Innovators of children’s literature have taken risks in building businesses or careers around the notion of pleasurable works for children, just as the scholars who gathered for the first ChLA convention in 1974 and those who followed have taken risks to establish the professional study of the “Great Excluded.” Thus, from its beginnings as both literary and scholarly enterprise, children’s literature has been linked with play and risk. Many classic and contemporary works for young people represent children or young adults entertaining themselves or taking chances. The March sisters put on plays in Little Women, and Beth risks her own life to care for the Hummel baby; Alice plays croquet in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and risks losing her head; Peter and Wendy play house in Peter Pan and risk being killed or kidnapped by Captain Hook. Play and risk are everywhere in children’s and YA literature and culture.

We invite paper or panel proposals on the following topics:

• Play and games in children’s and YA literature and culture
• Children’s games as texts
• Children’s theatre and drama or school plays
• Linguistic, stylistic, or formal play in children’s and YA literature
• Game theory or risk theory in children’s and YA literature and culture
• Role-play, performance, or performativity in children’s and YA literature and culture
• Childhood/adolescence as play, playing at childhood/adolescence
• Video games and/as children’s and YA literature
• Sports or competition in children’s and YA literature and culture
• Winning and losing in children’s and YA literature and culture
• Risk-taking in children’s and YA literature and culture
• Uncertainty or chance in children’s and YA literature and culture
• The personal or professional risks of studying, writing, or reading children’s and YA literature
• The disclosure of “at risk” youth
• How children’s and YA literature or culture put children at risk
• The risks of how children and childhood are constructed or experienced
• Playing with race, class, gender, or sexuality in children’s and YA literature and culture

The submission window for 300-500 word paper proposals will be open between October 15, 2012 and January 15, 2013. Please submit your proposal online at www.usm.edu/chla2013.

source

Calls

I recently read an article in the Journal of Children’s Literature by Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop in which she reflects upon her work analyzing African American children’s literature. Over time, she finds a continuity in this literature and she mentions linkages other groups of color have made to the traditions she cites in analyzing their own stories. What are the traditional/classic children’s books from Asian American, Latino/a, Caribbean, Native American and African American authors? And who is writing books today that will be classics tomorrow?

The theme for the 2013 ALAN workshop is “40 Years of ALAN: Celebrating Great Books for Young Adults”– Presenters are encouraged to revisit time-honored classics of young adult literature as well as “future” classics. Books that deal with hard truths and books that deal with fantastical worlds are welcomed as well as provocative discussions about the authors who write them, the librarians who nurture them, the teachers who teach them and the students who read them. This workshop will be a celebration of the emergence of young adult literature – both fiction and non-fiction – as a driving historical, sociological, literary and contemporary force in today’s culture.

The proposal form can be found here.

All applicants must be ALAN members. Electronic  submission should be sent to Jeffrey.Kaplan@ucf.edu Proposals are due no later than midnight of Friday, January 11, 2013.

ALAN membership is currently $20 and rises to $30 in January.

Registration Opened for International Reading Associatin Convention

Get Ready, Get Set, Get REGISTERED!

Registration for IRA’s 58th Annual Convention is officially open!

Join us in San Antonio, Texas from April 19-22, 2013 for four days of high-quality professional learning. Your registration grants you access to more than 500 sessions, including IRA’s widely popular Teaching Edge series. (Additional registration is required for the preconference Institutes on April 19th.)

You’ll also get:

• Admission to General Session speakers Rick Riordan, LeVar Burton, Debbie Silver (just added!), and Mo Willems
• Entrance to the Exhibit Hall—and the chance to get books signed by your favorite authors
• The opportunity to network with more than 10,000 reading professionals from across the globe

Don’t delay—register NOW to get the best rates. And, because housing is available on a first-come basis, early registration means you’re more likely to get your top choice.

REGISTER TODAY!

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Mention promotional code AC13106* when you register on or before February 15, 2013 and you’ll be automatically entered to win a tablet! Then, outfit your new gadget with an assortment of IRA’s bestselling e-books, courtesy of a generous Amazon.com gift card.

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*Prize package subject to change. Anyone who registers on or before February 15, 2013, 11:59 PM PST will be automatically entered to win. One winner will be notified by March 1, 2013.