NYC Teen Author Festival 2013

The NYC Teen Author Festival is this week!!!  It includes 90+ YA authors, a variety of panels and readings, and a massive book signing at the end.  I'm very, very excited!

Here's where you'll find me during the festival:

Friday March 22: New York Public Library (the one with the lions)
NYC Teen Author Festival Symposium
42nd Street NYPL, Berger Forum, 2nd floor

4:10-4:40: That's So Nineteenth Century: A Conversation About Playing with 19th Century Archetypes in the 21st Century

Sharon Cameron
Leanna Renee Hieber
Stephanie Strohm
Suzanne Weyn
Moderator: Sarah Beth Durst

4:40-5:30: Alternate World vs. Imaginary World: Of these authors, some have written stories involving alternate or parallel versions of our world, some have made up imaginary worlds for their characters, and still others have written books that do each. We'll discuss the decision to either connect the world of a book to our world, or to take it out of the historical context of our world. How do each strategies help in telling story and developing character? Is one easier than the other? Is the stepping off point always reality, or can it sometimes be another fictional world?

Sarah Beth Durst
Jeff Hirsch
Emmy Laybourne
Lauren Miller
E. C. Myers
Diana Peterfreund
Mary Thompson
Moderator: Chris Shoemaker

Sunday March 24: Books of Wonder
Our No-Foolin' Mega-Signing
18 West 18th Street, New York

1-1:45:
Jessica Brody (Unremembered, Macmillan)
Marisa Calin (Between You and Me, Bloomsbury)
Jen Calonita (The Grass is Always Greener, LB)
Sharon Cameron (The Dark Unwinding, Scholastic)
Caela Carter (Me, Him, Them, and It, Bloomsbury)
Crissa Chappell (Narc, Flux)
Susane Colasanti (Keep Holding On, Penguin)
Zoraida Cordova (The Vicious Deep, Sourcebooks)
Gina Damico (Scorch, HMH)
Jocelyn Davies (A Fractured Light, HC)
Sarah Beth Durst (Vessel, S&S) ---------------- me!!!
Gayle Forman (Just One Day, Penguin)
Elizabeth Scott (Miracle, S&S)

1:45-2:30
T. M. Goeglein (Cold Fury, Penguin)
Hilary Weisman Graham (Reunited, S&S)
Alissa Grosso (Ferocity Summer, Flux)
Aaron Hartzler (Rapture Practice, LB)
Deborah Heiligman (Intentions, RH)
Leanna Renee Hieber (The Twisted Tragedy of Miss Natalie Stewart, Sourcebooks)
Jeff Hirsch (Magisterium, Scholastic)
J. J. Howard (That Time I Joined the Circus, Scholastic)
Alaya Johnson (The Summer Prince, Scholastic)
Beth Kephart (Small Damages, Penguin)
Kody Keplinger (A Midsummer's Nightmare, LB)

2:30-3:15
A.S. King (Ask the Passengers, LB)
Emmy Laybourne (Monument 14, Macmillan)
David Levithan (Every Day, RH)
Barry Lyga (Yesterday Again, Scholastic)
Brian Meehl (Suck it Up and Die, RH)
Alexandra Monir (Timekeeper, RH)
Michael Northrop (Rotten, Scholastic)
Diana Peterfreund (For Darkness Shows the Stars, HC)
Lindsay Ribar (The Art of Wishing, Penguin)
Rainbow Rowell (Eleanor & Park, St. Martin's)
Kimberly Sabatini (Touching the Surface, S&S)
Tiffany Schmidt (Send Me a Sign, Bloomsbury)

3:15-4:00
Victoria Schwab (The Archived, Hyperion)
Jeri Smith-Ready (Shine, S&S)
Amy Spalding (The Reece Malcolm List, Entangled)
Stephanie Strohm (Pilgrims Don't Wear Pink, HMH)
Nova Ren Suma (17 & Gone, Penguin)
Greg Takoudes (When We Wuz Famous, Macmillan)
Mary Thompson (Wuftoom, HMH)
Jess Verdi (My Life After Now, Sourcebooks)
K.M. Walton (Empty, S&S)
Suzanne Weyn (Dr. Frankenstein's Daughters, Scholastic)
Kathryn Williams (Pizza, Love, and Other Stuff That Made Me Famous, Macmillan)


For the full schedule of events, visit the NYC Teen Author Festival Facebook page.

Hope to see you there!

2012 NYC Teen Author Festival

If you're in or near NYC...

This week is the NYC Teen Author Festival!

It runs from March 26th to April 1st, includes tons of panels and readings, and culminates in a massive multi-author book signing at Books of Wonder. You can see the full schedule here.

I'll be participating in two of the events:

Wednesday, March 28th
42nd St NYPL*, Bergen Forum, 6-8pm
Things Fall Apart: World Building and World Destroying in YA

Chris Shoemaker (moderator)
Anna Carey
Sarah Beth Durst
Anne Heltzel
Jeff Hirsch
Andy Marino
Lauren McLaughlin
Lissa Price
Jon Skovron

* Yes, the one with the lions! I love those lions.

Sunday, April 1st
Books of Wonder, 18 West 18th Street, 1-4pm
Our No-Foolin' Mega-Signing at Books of Wonder

Sixty-five authors will be signing in shifts throughout the afternoon. My shift is from 1-1:45pm and includes the following fabulous authors:

Jennifer Lynn Barnes (Every Other Day, Egmont)
Matt Blackstone (A Scary Scene in a Scary Movie, FSG)
Caroline Bock (LIE, St. Martin’s)
Jen Calonita (Belles, Little Brown)
Anna Carey (Eve, Harper)
Susane Colasanti (So Much Closer, Penguin)
Andrea Cremer (Bloodrose, Penguin)
Gina Damico (Croak, HMH)
Emily Danforth (The Miseducation of Cameron Post, Harper)
Jocelyn Davies (A Beautiful Dark, Harper)
Sarah Beth Durst (Drink, Slay, Love, S&S)
Elizabeth Eulberg (Take a Bow, Scholastic)
Gayle Forman (Where She Went, Penguin)
Natasha Friend (For Keeps, Penguin)
Kim Harrington (Perception, Scholastic)
Barry Lyga (I Hunt Killers, Little Brown)
Daisy Whitney (The Rivals, Little Brown)

All of this is organized by the incredible David Levithan.

I'm really, really excited for these events. If you're in the area, I hope you'll come!

NYC Teen Author Festival Signing at Books of Wonder

If you're in New York City tomorrow afternoon (3/20/11), you might want to think about stopping by Books of Wonder. There is a MASSIVE book signing event at that lovely bookstore as part of the NYC Teen Author Festival. I'll be there from 3:15 to 4:00 pm. Below is the full list of authors with their latest books. We are appearing in reverse alphabetical order because we're just that cool.....

NYC Teen Author Festival Book Signing:

1:00 - 1:45pm

Lizabeth Zindel - A Girl, A Ghost, and the Hollywood Hills
Maryrose Wood - The Hidden Gallery
Suzanne Weyn - Empty
Danette Vigilante - The Trouble with Half a Moon
Maggie Stiefvater - Linger
Natalie Standiford - Confessions of the Sullivan Sisters
Mark Shulman - Scrawl
Alyssa Sheinmel - The Beautiful Between
Kieran Scott - She's So Dead to Us
Leila Sales - Mostly Good Girls
Patrick Ryan - Gemini Bites

1:45 - 2:30pm

Marie Rutkoski - The Celestial Globe
Lena Roy - Edges
Michael Northrop - Trapped
Sarah Mlynowski - Gimme a Call
Neesha Meminger - Jazz in Love
Terra Elan McVoy - After the Kiss
Lisa McMann - Cryer's Cross
Kimberly Marcus - Exposed
Melina Marchetta - The Piper’s Son
Torrey Maldonado - Secret Saturdays
Barry Lyga - Archvillain

2:30 - 3:15pm

E. Lockhart - Real Live Boyfriends
Sarah Darer Littman - Life After
David Levithan - Dash and Lily's Book of Dares
Melissa Kantor - The Darlings Are Forever
Carla Jablonski - Resistance
Gwendolyn Heasley - Where I Belong
Kim Harrington - Clarity
Christopher Grant - Teenie
Margie Gelbwasser - Inconvenient
Elizabeth Eulberg - Prom & Prejudice
Helen Ellis - The Turning

3:15 - 4:00pm

Daniel Ehrenhaft - Friend is Not a Verb
Sarah Beth Durst - Enchanted Ivy
Matt De La Pena - I Will Save You
Brent Crawford - Carter Finally Gets It
Eireann Corrigan - Accomplice
Susane Colasanti - Something Like Fate
Alexandra Bullen - Wishful Thinking
Marina Budhos - Tell Us We're Home
Kate Brian - Book of Spells
Philana Marie Boles - Glitz
Judy Blundell - Strings Attached
Cathleen Bell - Little Blog on the Prairie

Rocky Point, Teen Author Festival, and I-Con

Been a busy little Sarah here...

Rocky Point Middle School

I did a school visit on the 12th at Rocky Point Middle School (in Long Island), and here is the first sight that greeted me when I walked into the school:

Amazing Wall Mural of ICE Cover Art

Is there anything more awesome than that? And to those of you who reply that an actual polar bear waiting to greet me would be more awesome, I say, "You are incorrect, sir." An actual polar bear would have eaten me.

This mural was surrounded by the three winners of the poster contest:

Sooooo cool.

The rest of the day was similarly awesome. I spoke with the 8th grade first, then the 6th grade, then the 7th grade, and I had lunch in the library with the book club, the winners of the poster contest, and several faculty members.

Thank you to everyone at Rocky Point Middle School, especially their fantastic library media specialist Cathy O'Connell and wonderful principal Scott O'Brien!

NYC Teen Author Festival

The NYC Teen Author Festival rocked.

On Friday, I participated in the symposium at the New York Public Library. After saying hello to the lions...


... I was part of the panel on "Genre and Adolescence" with Judy Blundell, Lauren McLaughlin, Diana Peterfreund, Sara Shepard, Maggie Stiefvater, and Robin Wasserman. I had a tremendously fun time.

I also learned a valuable lesson: when participating in such events, choose socks with care. Sitting on stage, without a table to hide behind, my ankles were very visible to the audience. On Friday, I had managed to dress like a grown up in every respect except my socks. My socks had these ridiculous fat Garfield-esque cats on them.

I'm so not good at this looking-like-a-grown-up thing.

On Sunday (wearing polar bear socks), I signed books along with 60+ other authors at Books of Wonder for the final event of the NYC Teen Author Festival. It was like a whole afternoon-long cocktail party (minus the cocktails but plus a slice of Coe Booth's birthday cake) with tons of fantastic and fascinating people to talk to. Here's a photo from the event, courtesy of author Courtney Sheinmel:

Courtney Sheinmel, Natalie Standiford, Me, Elizabeth Scott

Huge thank you to Books of Wonder, NYPL, and David Levithan, who organized the entire festival!

Upcoming Event: I-Con

Next weekend I'll be a program participant at I-Con, a science fiction and fantasy convention at Stony Brook University in Stony Brook, NY. My schedule is:

Friday 3/26, 8pm - Reception - "Meet the Pros(e)"
Sunday 3/28, 12pm - Reading
Sunday 3/28, 2pm - Panel - "Varieties of Writing"

Hope to see you there!

2010 NYC Teen Author Festival

The 2010 NYC Teen Author Festival is this week!

Organized by the always-awesome David Levithan, the festival runs from March 15-21, features 70+ YA authors, and includes readings, panels, and signings all over New York City. You can see the full schedule here.

I'll be participating in two of the events:

FRIDAY, MARCH 19TH
NYC Teen Author Festival Symposium
New York Public Library (South Court, 42nd Street -- the one with the lions)
2:10 - 3:00 "Using Genre to Tell the True Story of Adolescence" with:
Judy Blundell
Sarah Beth Durst
Lauren McLaughlin
Diana Peterfreund
Sara Shepard
Maggie Stiefvater
Robin Wasserman

SUNDAY, MARCH 21ST
NYC Teen Author Festival Signing
Books of Wonder (18 West 18th Street)
2:00 - 5:45 Massive Book Signing
We will be signing in shifts. I'll be signing at 2:45 - 3:30 with:
Tom Dolby
Heather Duffy-Stone
Sarah Beth Durst
Elizabeth Eulberg
Gayle Forman
Aimee Friedman
Jenny Han
Alice Hoffman
Carla Jablonksi
Melissa Kantor
Kristen Kemp
Michelle Knudsen
Peter Lerangis
David Levithan

I'm very, very excited about this. The signing on Sunday is at one of my all-time favorite bookstores and will include more authors than you can shake a stick at. (Not that you should be shaking sticks at authors. That would be an odd thing to do.) And the panel discussion on Friday is at the main building of the New York Public Library.

When I found this out, I said to my husband, "It's at the one with the lions! Yay! I'm so excited! Lions!"

My husband said, "That's great!" He paused. "Wait. You're expecting the lions to talk, aren't you?"

"Of course not!" I said.

"Good," he said.

"I'm expecting them to sing."