Anticipating NCTE/ALAN 2011

Last year I attended the Assembly for Literature for Adolescents (ALAN) annual conference for the first time. It's a workshop after the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) annual convention. It was amazing. I met so many fabulous people... authors, bloggers, teachers, librarians. It was so much fun! I literally bumped in to Gary Paulsen. I got to have dinner with some people from Abrams books. During the dinner I sat next to Lauren Myracle. We all got ARCs of her book Shine. Maybe you've heard of it recently ;) I also met Holly Black (one of my all time favorite authors!) You can read about some of my fangirl moments here. Basically I was starstruck the entire time AND they gave me book! It was the best! 

This year I am attending both NCTE and ALAN since they are in Chicago! I've never been to NCTE before so I am super excited. Check out their conference pages! 

NCTE page 

ALAN page

It is going to be great! Just look at some of the authors who will be there:

M.T. Anderson

Jacqueline Woodson

Angela Johnson

Walter Dean Myers

Janet Tashijan

Sean Beaudoin

John Green (OHMYSTARSJOHNGREEN!!!!!!)

Matt de la Pena

Leslie Margolis

Andrew Peters

Sarah Weeks

Rita Williams-Garcia

Sarah Dessen

Lauren Myracle

Cheryl Rainfield

Andrew Smith

Paul Yee

Kazu Kibuishi

Elizabeth Scott

Abby McDonald

Laurie Halse Anderson

Chris Crutcher (!!!!!!!!!!!)

Cara Chow

Sharon Draper

J.L. Powers

Matthew Quick

Kenneth Oppel

Jennifer Donnelly

Neal Schusterman

Coe Booth

B.A.Binns

Simone Elkeles

Stephanie Perkins (My life is complete!)

Sara Zarr

Jay Asher

Carolyn Mackler

James Dashner

Megan McCafferty (!!!!!)

Veronica Roth

Dom Testa

Katie Alender

Beth Fantaskey

Michelle Hodkin

Thabhha Lai

David Leviathan

James Patterson

Anthony Horowitz

Gordon Korman

I cannot even express the awesome! There are also some really great workshops and events going on. It will be epic! Can I just say thanks ahead of time to all the organizers, publishers, presenters, and authors who make these conventions possible? You rock! If you're going to NCTE and/or ALAN let me know! I have no plans as of right now and would love to make some :)