Girls Write Now

On Saturday morning, Libba Bray and I were the guest speakers at Girls Write Now.

Girls Write Now is a nonprofit organization that provides a creative-writing-focused youth mentoring program for girls in New York City. High school students are paired with mentors who are writers, educators, publishing industry professionals, etc. They meet weekly on their own, and then all the mentors and mentees come together once a month for an intensive writing workshop. It's an awesome organization.

This month's workshop focused on fantasy (hence Libba and me). We were scheduled to speak in the middle of the workshop, in between writing exercises and discussions -- the ham and cheese in the workshop sandwich.

Not that either of us were hammy or cheesy. Okay, I was a little cheesy. It's my firm (and admittedly cheesy) belief that being a writer is the closest you can get in this world to being a wizard -- you're trying to cast a spell with your words. But maybe I should have picked another sandwich meat for that allegory... Turkey? No, that's not right either. Chicken? I am a bit of a chicken, but that's irrelevant... Ooh, tomato, mozzarella, and basil on a baguette with balsamic vinegar... *trots off to kitchen*

Seriously, I had a fantastic time! Our wonderful host Maria Romano asked us great questions for our interview/talk, and Libba was, of course, absolutely brilliant and hilarious. (Really, I think that should be added to her name: "Libba Bray the Brilliant and Hilarious.") I think I avoided saying anything too inane, though I did admit to the fact that when I was a kid, I used to memorize the location of my stuffed animals before I left the room so I'd notice if they moved in my absence. This can either be seen as a sign of my budding writerly imagination or, more likely, my first step on the road to insanity...

At any rate, it was a great day. I had a blast. And I think the students had fun too. If you're interested in learning more about this wonderful organization, click here to take a look at their website.

Newbery and Printz 2010

Snoopy dance of joy for Rebecca Stead and Libba Bray!!!

This morning, Rebecca Stead won the 2010 Newbery Award for her beautifully crafted novel WHEN YOU REACH ME, and Libba Bray won the 2010 Printz Award for her brilliantly hilarious novel GOING BOVINE.

I love it when nice things happen to nice people. Both Rebecca and Libba are awesome people in addition to being fantastic writers.

I first met Rebecca when we were both members of a debut-author group called the Class of 2k7. (Her excellent debut novel FIRST LIGHT came out the same year as my debut novel INTO THE WILD.) She's always been so friendly and sweet and gracious. I was so excited to hear she'd won the Newbery. Bet she was too!

Libba is simply hilarious, both on the page and in person. I've had the pleasure of hanging out with her at various teen author events in Manhattan, most recently at a Teen Author Reading Night where we both read from our books. While the rest of us read our scenes in the usual chronological order, Libba asked the audience to call out page numbers and read a selection of random pages from GOING BOVINE. It was the best reading I've ever heard. And of course, there's this.

So please join me in dancing for Rebecca and Libba, as well as all the other winners and honorees of today's American Library Association awards. See the full list here.

Sometimes the universe gets things right. Well done, ALA.