#ALAAC15 – Day 2 – Woohoo

I was up early to see how my Dad was doing. He isn’t out of the woods yet, but his blood levels were good and he was awake while my twin sister was in for a visit. Knowing that the news was a bit better, I decided to take a morning stroll to the Embarcadero, after checking in at the conference registration area, to see if I could get some postcards to send to my students. It was a longish walk, but the day was beautiful. I wandered through the Ferry building and discovered a lovely little bookstore called Book Passage that had a n excellent supply of inexpensive postcards. So, I bought 23 and went outside to watch the ferries as I started to write to my students. It was a perfect day for some outdoors writing.

My first conference event came in the afternoon: a tea sponsored by Bloomsbury books. I was fortunate enough to be at the table with the featured author, Leah Thomas. We were greeted with a glass of champagne and, once inside the room, had a choice of teas, little sandwiches, scones and other treats appropriate for an afternoon tea. I also, finally, met some of my Morris committee colleagues. We’d only met online until today and there are still a few I have yet to meet. Each attendee was also given a bag of books containing 4 middle grade/YA novels.

From there, it took a little quiet time back in Yerba Buena Gardens (which, I discovered this morning, is on the other side of the Moscone Center!) before heading off to event number 2: the Simon & Schuster YA Debut Author Panel & Dinner. This was the most fun event of the day. First, they fed us. Then Jason Reynolds, author of The Boy in the Black Suit  and When I Was the Greatest, hosted a panel with 6 debut authors. And, you guessed it, we each got a bag with signed copies of each author’s book. Here is a haul I came away with today (and I haven’t even made it to the exhibition hall yet).

Then the real fun began. We “speed dated” each author. All the conference attendees sat at a table and each author came to talk to your table for about 10 minutes. When time was called they moved on to the next table and we got a new author.

That ended around 7:30, just in time for me to hop on over to the Printz Award Presentation & reception. It started off with the presentation of the awards to the 2015 Honor Books. Then, Jandy Nelson, author of the winner,  I’ll Give You the Sun, gave her speech, which was truly wonderful. She is a gifted writer and her speech was as beautiful as her book. This was followed by questions to the panel.

I skipped the reception part. I was pooped.

I did manage to meet up with two of the district librarians from Beaverton, and some old friends from OASL.

Tomorrow promises to be another faction packed day.

#ALAAC15 – Day 1

Yesterday was  a great but stressful day. I dropped off the dogs, got myself ready and to the airport in good time. Waiting for my flight I ran into Gregory, the librarian at Jesuit HS in Portland. It turns out he is chairing the YALSA Nonfiction Award this year. I’ve let my membership in OASL ( Oregon Association of School Libraries) lapse so he told me of the local librarians he knew of that would also be in SF this week. I will keep my eyes peeled for them.

I landed in SF and took BART to the Civic Center stop, then walked to the B&B  I’m staying at. It is the very cute building with the orange ground level.

I am up in the 3rd floor. I am staying in SOMA, which is a gritty urban area.After settling in, I checked my messages, and learned my Dad, who has been hospitalized for a broken hip, now has pneumonia and things are not looking good. I told my family to let me know if I need to radically alter these vacation plans. I Skyped with my twin sister who said Dad would hate to me to leave and she will let me know if I need to go.Please send any prayers or positive thoughts you can spare. My dad could sure use them.

So, I walked around a bit after settling in. I ventured down to the Yerba Buena Gardens .

They are right near the Moscone Center, which is festooned with manners announcing ALAAC15.

I have a quiet morning then things start picking up around 2:30, when I have my first publisher event. But more on that later.