CLiCK Conference--University of South Florida

On March 6th, I met fellow Middle Grade authors, Kerry O'Malley Cerra, Augusta Scattergood, and Taryn Souders at the University Of South Florida. Our mission was to present to 600 students from Title I schools as part of the CLiCK Conference.

We had a HUGE crowd.

We ran concurrent sessions and each author presented twice to give students a chance to hear multiple presentations and keep the crowd size manageable.

We appreciated signing books for classroom libraries!

And here we are at the end of the day. Tired, but still standing! Thanks to everyone involved for a wonderful conference…

The Ted Hipple Young Adult Literature Collection

On Sunday, I went on a field trip, practically in my own backyard, to the University of South Florida. The fearless leader of our expedition was Dr. Joan Kaywell, founder of The Ted Hipple Young Adult Literature Collection.

Dr. Kaywell started the collection in memory of her mentor, Dr. Ted Hipple. The collection houses autographed first editions of YA literature in addition to manuscripts and ARCS. My favorite part of the tour was looking at the papers donated by YA author, Greg Neri. Greg is also a talented illustrator and his drawings are more interesting than a typed manuscript.

 I was like a kid in a candy store, surrounded by the works of S.E. Hinton, Richard Peck, Alex Flinn, Jacqueline Woodson, and many, many more. When my debut novel, THE BALLAD OF JESSIE PEARL, is published in the winter of 2013, I plan to donate my working papers, editor's notes, manuscript, and a signed copy to the library.

If more middle grade and YA novelists were aware of this collection, it would grow even faster. So spread the word, spread the love of YA literature! To find out more about the Ted Hipple Young Adult Literature Collection, watch this video on YouTube.