While we are both currently out of the library field, one way that we like to stay in contact with the field is to attend the annual convention for the American Library Association. This year’s convention was in Chicago, IL, so we were able to carpool our way down and spend a long weekend immersing ourselves in all things libraries and books! Here are a few highlights from our time!
Panels: We attended several panels over the course of the weekend. As both of us our very interested in readers advisory, many of these discussions featured authors discussing their books and the trends they are seeing in various genres. Serena attended a panel titled “Isn’t it Romantic?” that saw four romance authors discussing their upcoming titles and the continuing trend of the expanded horizons about just who romance titles can be written about and for! This included a romance about a environmental activist, as well as one that featured a chronically ill leading lady. As for Kate, she was able to go to a panel called “Boo!: Horror in Children’s and Young Adult Literature”, and got to hear some insights about why horror appeals to young people by people like Ryan La Sala, Daniel Kraus, Alex Brown, and and Kristen Simmons. It’s always really fun to see what authors have to say about the books they have written, and what they think about the process itself.
Authors: One of the highlights of ALA every year is the opportunity to meet some of our favorite authors! And this year was no exception! While Serena was very disappointed that T. Kingfisher had to cancel at the last minute, she was excited to meet Ehigbor Okosun whose upcoming fantasy title “Forged by Blood” is on her TBR pile for August. Another favorite was Beth Revis and Sara Raasch whose book, “Night of the Witch,” is slated for later this fall. She was also excited to meet Sherri Duskey Rinker and get copies of two of her “Construction Site” picture books for her boys! Kate’s highlights included getting to meet a couple of her favorite authors at the moment. The first was the always amazing and deeply insightful Stephen Graham Jones, who was promoting his new graphic novel “Earthdivers Vol. 1: Kill Columbus”, and the second was the horror queen Darcy Coates, who has jumped into the YA horror scene with “Where He Can’t Find You”.
Books: Sooooo many books! We both picked up a ton of upcoming and backlisted titles that we can’t wait to check out! Do we have an unreasonable number of tote bags and books to add to already-strained TBR lists? Yes, yes we do. Do we feel any shame about this? No, no we do not. Serena was incredibly excited to get copies of Pierce Brown’s upcoming “Red Rising” book, “Light Bringer,” as well as Mara Rutherford’s “A Multitude of Dreams” and Thea Guanzon’s “The Hurricane Wars.” And Kate’s haul was immense and mostly horror themed, with “Black River Orchard” by Chuck Wendig and “What Kind of Mother” by Clay McLeod Chapman being included in the bunch. But then there were the more surprising titles, like the upcoming romances “Check & Mate” by Ali Hazelwood and “Kiss the Girl” by Zoraida Córdova (and yes, that is a “Little Mermaid” reimagining if you were wondering.
And really, the setting of Chicago was a a lot of fun too! We live in Minnesota as you all know, so we were able to drive. Road trips are always super entertaining, after all. But Chicago as a city is always a joy, with deep dish pizza, a Great Lake, easy to walk attractions, and a certain vibe that just can’t be replicated by any other big city in the U.S.
Given that we are both happy and exhausted as ALAAC23 has come to an end, we want to thank everyone who made it so special, from the organizers to the authors to the publishers to the librarians. We will hopefully see you all next year in San Diego, California!
“Wishtree” by Katherine Applegate
a manner that couldn’t be poo-pooed away as just all that sci-fi nonsense. All of that said, once I knew she’d be at ALA, I gathered up my favorite Animrophs book and got in line. The book she was signing is her latest middle grade novel, “Wishtree,” a story told from the perspective of “Red” an ancient oak tree that has come to be known as the wishtree by those in its neighborhood. When a new family moves into the area, Red learns how important wishes are for those who aren’t always welcomed everywhere they go. Also…I got a picture with her and it was so exciting! I was at my all time most fangirling state ever.
“Thick as Thieves” by Megan Whalen Turner
“Jane, Unlimited” by Kristen Cashore
etiquette lesson!) whether the ARC version of “Jane, Unlimited” had the chapters in the right order (yes, ARCs are uncorrected but not THAT bad!), and Kristen said she wasn’t surprised to be asked. So, now I’m very curious about this book! From the description, it seems like a fairly straight forward story of a girl who is in mourning for the loss of her caretaker and Aunt who died several months ago, when she gets caught up in the glamours, and dangerous, lives of a wealthy family. Excited to read it and find out what’s what!
“Skythe” by Neal Shusterman
“Wonder Woman: Warbringer” by Leigh Bardugo
“There’s Someone Inside Your House” by Stephanie Perkins
“Dear Martin” by Nic Stone
“When I Am Through With You” by Stephanie Kuehn
“Ravenous” by Amy Lukavics
“Strange Weather” by Joe Hill
So, I’ll be honest, the main reason I slotted this panel into my schedule was because I discovered that this would be the one and only place where V.E. Schwab would be signing copies of her books. But, that less-library-oriented-than-it-should-be reason for attendance aside, I was pleasantly surprised by the content of the panel itself and the variety of topics related to technology, libraries, and publishing that were covered. Open access, gaming, and publishing challenges with DRM (digital rights management) were all topics that were brought up and discussed, both from the perspective of the authors on the panel, and through comments by the librarians in attendance. Many of these questions didn’t have clear answers, which was part of what made this panel stand out in my mind. The authors on the panel were:
On Friday, before the true madness began, there was a whole day of sessions targeted towards different subjects having to do with comics and graphic novels. While I went in mostly interested in a later panel that had to do with how graphic novels can be catalysts for change in society, looking back, this panel focusing on non-fiction graphic novels really stood out. I’m not a huge non-fiction reader myself, but coming from that perspective, I can see the huge potential for using graphic novels as a way to introduce non-fiction topics in a way that will appeal to readers who may feel intimidated by traditional non-fiction publishing. Specifically, it was noted how graphic novels allow authors to deep-dive into a very specific topic, but leave them free to not provide an entire history of other elements that may surround it, as many non-fiction biographies and histories are almost required to do. I unfortunately failed to take good notes this early in the conference, but 
Kate and I ended up at this one purely based on the unadulterated fun that we had at the Las Vegas conference when we got the sheer pleasure of hearing John Searles present (supposedly) about his book 
Gene Luen Yang is a pretty formidable guy. Not only does he write acclaimed comics such as 
The last time we went to ALAAC we participated in the YA Coffee Klatch, in which YA authors visit your table for five minutes and talk about their most recent book. I basically had a heart attach when Marcus Sedgwick sat at our table last time. This time, not only did I have one heart attack, I had multiple, because we got some SERIOUSLY AWESOME authors to sit with us. When the first one to sit down was Neal Shusterman to talk about his book 
Okay, so yeah, it’s all pretty YA oriented for me, but that is my passion as a librarian, and once again there was a great panel about the topic. Daniel José Older, Kristin Cashore, Brandy Colbert, Nicola Yoon, Neal Shusterman, Deborah Heiligman, and Megan Whalen Turner all gave their insights into the genre that they write, past, present, and future. Given that I LOVE Shusterman and Yoon, this was bound to be a winner from the get go. But everyone had some really good things to say about teens, the genre as a whole, and where it should go (as in to keep striving for diversity). It was a very good opportunity to see some of the best in the business.
th our dear friend Alicia, a fellow librarian and former classmate of ours. So I thought that I would write about this convention and what Alicia and I did while we were there.
There were also various opportunities to have social and networking moments. Alicia and I attended a library and librarian meet up group, where we ended up talking about different aspects of librarianship and what we do in our libraries. At the end of this group meet we were exchanging contact info with other librarians, connections that we may use in the future, or maybe not. But even if we don’t it was a rewarding little meet up group. Along with networking, we did have opportunities to meet different authors who attended the convention, and get them to sign their books. As an avid book lover and someone who has been collecting autographs since ALA 2014, this opportunity was an exciting one! I asked 
Not only did we get signed books, we randomly met up with audiobook narrator 
The Library Ladies 