Do you ALAN?

I’ve written quite a bit about attending the ALAN conference, but never about ALAN.

ALAN is the Assembly on Literacy for Adolescents.

The Assembly on Literature for Adolescents is an independent assembly of NCTE. Founded in November 1973, ALAN is made up of teachers, authors, librarians, publishers, teacher-educators and their students, and others who are particularly interested in the area of young adult literature.

ALAN offers a wealth of opportunities to anyone interested in young adult literature. Our memberships is made up of teachers, librarians, professors, authors, publishers, agents, and anyone else who loves YA!  On the sidebar is a list of docs describing our mission, our outreach programs, our grants, our membership benefits, and our publications.

At the conferences I’ve attended, I’ve met academics, public librarians, lawyers who write YA, storytellers, teachers, publishers and authors. While I’ve been dismayed by the lack of people of color at the events, I have been impressed by their commitment to diversity.

During the conference, the following points were made.

• ALAN is looking to grow their membership. Currently, you can join for the ridiculously low fee of $20. Members receive copies of The ALAN Review.

• ALAN is looking for state representatives to work locally with members.

• There is a need for more people to review books for ALAN. The reviews appear on the ALAN website and/or in the journal.

• ALAN is making efforts to do more work with middle and high school teachers. You could be a teacher, publisher, author or student who has ideas on how this organization can provide resources for this endeavor.

ALAN maintains an online community which anyone can join. Log it, join the discussions, share your ideas and let your voice be heard! Think about going to the conference next year (Have I mentioned that you’ll receive 30 books when you attend??). Consider applying for a grant. Join! Give a friend a membership for Christmas! If you, like me want to see more books for teens of color, we both have to be more active in the YA community.

Do at least follow ALAN on Twitter and on FB

ALAN 2012

I had high expectations for ALAN because I had such a fantastic time last year. I wasn’t so sure as things began. Things began to feel so different from last year! I wasn’t ever excited about the idea of Vegas for a YAlit conference and even more so after getting here. The overpowering smell in the lobby made me sick and the walk to the convention center was too long and unnecessary. Once over there, the only amenities available were the restrooms.

I didn’t like my box of books, too much gore and romance. Too much centered on death. I had to ask myself why it’s so much easier for white readers to embrace books about serial killers rather than those by or about people of color.

I was so disappointed to see fewer than a dozen people of color in the audience and it seemed that even fewer authors were there as well.

I didn’t see anyone I knew and wasn’t connecting with anyone on Twitter. But then, @YABookBridges , someone I’d tweeted with since the last ALAN, contacted me to meet up for lunch and it was nothing but uphill from there.

I had so many wonderful encounters with authors! Because of this blog, those I connect with most are authors of color, however please do not think that I was not impressed to be in the same room with Lois Lowry, Sonya Sones, Blue Balliett, Anita Silvey and Lauren Myracle. Yes, I continue to be impressed by the strong presence of the many voices created for young women in YA, this year particularly through Raina Telgemeier and Faith Erin Hicks. I want to be more like Patricia McCormick, Deborah Ellis and Eric Walters. Sure, it would be wonderful to be able to tell other’s stories with such eloquence, but I’d settle with having their drive to make a difference.

Mike Mullin and Isamu Fukui spoke about empowering students to become writers by letting them write whatever they want. And, that’s what someone did for Gaby Rodriguez. Through her senior project, she went from being a young girl who was afraid she’d never amount to being anything to being a young woman so in control of her own destiny that she became an inspiration for others.

Interestingly, the most diverse panel was “Dystopia” with Isamu Fukui, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Mike Mullin and Marie Lu. I had to smile when Johnson said her book was inspired by Bahia, Brasil because my blog banner is from a quilt shop there.  I did get a copy of her book and plan to review it and hopefully interview her soon.

Sharon Flake was there when the announcement was made that Pinned made it to Kirkus’ Best Children’s Books of 2012 list.

My first breakout session explored the literary aesthetic in Indian, Black and Latino literature was… interesting. My mind couldn’t get much past hearing someone say she was going to describe the aesthetics of Black literature having no had no personal with the culture, but having read one article.

I could have listened to Ann Angel, J.L. Powers and Varian Johnson for hours more. They come from places of authentic interactions with people who are culturally different from themselves but they see and dwell in the similarities. They write to overcome barriers. For Powers, its in stories of war, for Angel its biographic narratives and for Johnson, its sexuality. It was all about social justice.

I’m still in Vegas doing the tourist thing!

This past year, I’ve noted a rapid decline in the number of books published by YA authors of color while the number of YA books in general is increasing. Few people of color attended this conference and indeed the number of POC authors was down as well. What is happening? How do we keep our voice in the mix?

I did have a great time at ALAN and my mind is exploding with ideas of what I want to do next. I went to Vegas alone and came back with so many new friends, new books and new ideas! It’s all about who did show up.

She Pauses for Causes

I’m not the only one giving away books. GuysLitWire recently shared the Make it Safe Project.

The Make It Safe Project donates books about sexual orientation and gender expression to schools and youth homeless shelters that lack the resources to keep their teens safe.

Giving: We donate books to K-12 schools, their Gay-Straight Alliances (a group that educates the school community about equality), and LGBT-inclusive youth homeless shelters nationwide. For information on how you can help give books or receive books for your school or shelter, please click here.

World Book Night is coming on 23 April. From their website:

World Book Night launched in the UK in 2011 and saw passionate readers across that beautiful country, give 1 million books to light or non readers to spread the joy and love of reading. Reading changes lives and at the heart of World Book Night lies the simplest of ideas and acts – that of putting a book into another person’s hand and saying ‘this one’s amazing, you have to read it’.

Now, it’s our time to join the cause.

World Book Night 2012 will be held on April 23 – in the US and the UK – and we’re looking for 50,000 volunteer book givers to hand out 20 copies each – for a total of 1 million free special World Book Night paperbacks!

Visit their website to find out how you can volunteer to donate 20 books throughout your community.

If you’re interested in presenting at ALAN, submissions are due THIS FRIDAY! This year, the conference will be in Las Vegas and as always, it’s at the end of NCTE on the Monday and Tuesday before Thanksgiving.

Thanks, ALAN11!!!

Between work and preparing for the ALAN conference, I’ve not been blogging much. I’ve been back  home for a couple of

Ari opening her wonderful box of books

days now and have processed much of my experience, so I think it’s time to try to write about it.

Simply put ALAN is incredibly awesome!!!!!

Rita Williams Garcia signs One Crazy Summer which will have a sequel "P.S. Be 11"

ALAN, the Assembly of Literature for Adolescents, meets annually as part of the National Council of Teachers of English conference. This was the first year I attended and between its proximity (Chicago) and an invitation from Lyn Miller Lachmann to be part of a panel, I couldn’t miss it this year. Through funding from my school and a generous Minde Browning Grant from the Central Indiana Community Foundation, I was able to attend.

Lyn moderated a panel entitled “ Teen book bloggers forge a new reviewing model” which also included teen bloggers Ari (Reading in Color) and Maggie (Maggie’s Bookshelf-Bibliophilia). If you don’t know these blogs, you really need to start visiting. These teens are doing amazing things on their blogs, not just as teen bloggers but as bloggers. I’m extremely grateful to Lyn, Ari and Maggie for asking me to present with them and am awed by the fantastic work they do.

I liked being made to feel a part of the young adult literary community, having in-depth conversations with professors, authors, teachers, bloggers (BrainLair!!), and literacy coaches about media literacy, schools reform aroudn the country, literacy trends and what our students read.

And then there was Laurie Halse Anderson. She says  ”Speak the truth, even if your voice shakes.”. And then, her voice, her body shakes and she lies on the floor before she falls. I don’t know that she ever put the microphone down. She delivered her entire speech, most of it while lying on the floor. Talk about walking the walk!

Authors spoke and of course some promoted their books, but many promoted causes like the rights of children whether they be gay or straight or Asian, smart or athletes; about protection from bullies and abusers; the requisite for fair and decent education and more. And they talked about equality, promoted diversity and championed literacy.

“We have to talk about things that make us uncomfortable.” Megan McCafferty

“There’s not a lot of curiosity in anything labeled standardized” Dom Testa

I got Paul Yee's autograph twice, on two different books!

Chris Crutcher “No act of heroism doesn’t include standing up for yourself”.

Sarah Dessen: “Stories are as vast and as diverse as teens themselves. There is no single teen story”.

“YA is not adult-lite. It’s teen extra-strength”. Kristen Chandler

M.T. Anderson spoke of a new, non-linear narrative, one in which place rather that character drives the story which has no beginning and no end. Check out inform7.com or the Fry Chronicles app.

Walter Dean Myers recalled how technology has changed research methods; how a simple email can be used to immediately gather information, online tools translate on demand, interactive components engage readers in new ways and book publishing is just becoming more and more exciting.

Did you know Dom Testa has a foundation called Big Brain Club where ‘smart is cool’? He begins working with middle schoolers to let them know how important it is to have a good attitude towards education.

I think if it were up to authors and readers, we’d have more books that truly reflect the world around us. Have you read the statistics on how few MG and YA books were published by Black authors this year, and the reaction that it has more to do with what’s submitted that racism in publishing?

And, there was the public librarian who chose me to give all of her books written by or featuring people of color because she

authors Medeia Sharif, J. L. Powers and Lyn Miller Lachmann

felt she couldn’t use them in her library. She should have waited until Coe Booth said “Suburban students need to read Tyrell to be prepared for the world”.

So gracious, Mr. Francisco Stork!

And I wondered about the panel of four authors (two White, one Black, one Asian) who said a character’s ethnicity didn’t matter, only the quality of the story. They all pretty much said if it’s a good, well written story then readers would enjoy the message of the story. Is this how we talk about race to White audiences? Do we simply share milquetoast with this audience?

Thanhha Lai said “Once you find your voice, the story is there” and as she was finding her voice Nikki Grimes told her “You own it, girl! You’re a poet!”

Matthew Quick was inspired by Sandra Cisneros.

Coe Booth wanted to be the white Judy Blume.

Matt de la Pena was influenced to read and keep reading after picking up The Color Purple. He hooked his dad with 100 Years of Solitude.

 Ari read so few Black characters that when she was younger she wanted to be White. In her book world, there were no Black

I finally met Coe Booth in person!

characters. And in our presentation she continued talking to tell about her blog and why it exists. Maggie, who was too ill to attend, wrote eloquent responses to questions from Lyn about what blogging and reading has meant to her. Lyn Miller Lachmann coordinated our presentation. She and I provided groundwork information while Ari and Maggie exemplified the power of teen bloggers. These are the readers Rita Williams Garcia referred to when she said that “too often we choose books for reluctant readers, ignoring what well read readers bring to the table”.

Cheryl Rainfield said “I lived too dark. There are teens today who live too dark… I write books I needed as a teen”.

“When you sit at the bottom of the barrel, it’s very quiet.” Francisco X. Stork

Katie Alender “I hope the future of YA is diversity”.

There was much that was said that I didn’t write here, some that may have I mis-heard and some that I wrote down but cannot read. What I know is authors show us our world, some more eloquently, some with greater vision and some with greater skill than even they themselves will ever know.

In between spaces

the cracks

the part we try not to step on,

A reader

is sitting there.

~Rita Williams Garcia