Young Adult Lit Fest in NYC

On Saturday Nov. 17, I'll be participating in a panel discussion about blogging at the National Teachers of English conference in NYC. I'll post more about that later today. Meanwhile, my friend Sarah Herz, who wrote the book From Hinton to Hamlet: Building Bridges Between Young Adult Literature and the Classics, tells me about the following ALAN event at the same convention. (ALAN stands for the Assembly on Literature for Adolescents, an independent division of NCTE.)

A couple of weeks ago I "announced" information on your blog about the ALAN workshop in New York on Nov. 19-20 at the Marriott Marquis.  [Ed.: See the comments part of this post.] Anyone interested in young adult literature should register for the workshop at NCTE.org. Registration is still open; each participant receives approximately 40 books free at the workshop.

Among the authors participating are Sherman Alexie, Chris Crutcher, Sandra Asher, Brian Selznick, Peter Sis, Jackie Woodson, Christopher Myers, Rich Wallace, Patty McCormick, Ben Mikaelsen, Gloria Whelan (I'm moderating a panel with Patty, Ben and Gloria), Cecil Castellucci, Sara Ryan, Garret Freymann-Weyr, Helen Frost, Allan Wolf, T. A. Barron, Adrian Fogelin, David Lubar, Pete Hautman, Deb Garfinkle, Enrique Flores-Galbis, Kathleen Jeffrie Johnson, Christopher Paul Curtis, Jaclyn Moriarty, and Laurie Halse Anderson. Go to alan-ya.org for the complete program and schedule.

This is a not-to-be-missed opportunity to hear and talk to a slew of YA authors.  All registrants are invited to a free cocktail party on Sunday, Nov. 18, at the Marriott Marquis, on 45th and Broadway. The ALAN Workshop is in the Westside Ballroom of the hotel from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Monday, and from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Tuesday.

On Monday at 7, there is a special presentation of Aaron Levy's play about teen suicide, "Pizza with Shrimp on Top," performed by New York actors. All are invited free.