home again home again

I have spent the last few days sleeping off the jet lag from this past week's trip to Miami.

It was a terrific trip, but the napping was pretty nice too.

Here is what happened:

On my first day, post-flight across the country, I was picked up by Dr. Leslie Adams, an assistant superintendent for Miami-Dade schools. Dr. Adams was my escort for the day as we visited two high schools and got terribly lost when my iPhone's GPS attempted to make her drive me back to my house in California, which, it estimated, would take us 41 hours of driving time.

In the morning, I visited and spoke at Miami Senior High School, which is probably the most beautiful high school I have ever seen. And I've seen my share of them. It has the most amazing library, too -- and my books were the FIRST books in it, since it had just opened up after renovations.

The staff and kids there were incredible, too. I met entire English classes who were reading The Marbury Lens. So many of the kids there were familiar with my books. One of them, a kid named Mario, sat in the front row at my presentation and offered some of the most complex theories on quantum reality as it pertains to The Marbury Lens, King of Marbury, and Passenger -- all of which he had read.

At that school, I spoke about Young Adult Literature, and how I categorize it as a genre (as opposed to an age level) that touches on five themes -- essential adolescent concepts. One day I'll post about those themes here. I also read to the students from three of my books. It was really a great school visit, and I hope I get to go back to Miami Senior High again. They gave me a school T-shirt, too, which is just about the best kind of gift I could ever get.

I'd post a picture of it, but it's in the laundry because I was wearing it too much.

After that, like I said, Dr. Adams and I go lost trying to go across Miami to visit Miami Springs Senior High. It didn't really matter. We ended up getting there on time, and I had a remarkable conversation with her.

One of the things I really value in having the opportunity to visit so many different parts of the country is being able to see the differences in culture and attitude that exist in educational environments. The Miami schools were both so positive and uplifting. Kids at Miami Springs even decided to form a book club as a result of my visit, and their first book was The Marbury Lens.

Let me say something here, too: Boys in these schools are readers. There was no perceivable gender gap at all. I don't know where this ridiculous myth about boys not reading comes from, but this also became a topic of a difference of opinions about non-readers that came up on a panel discussion that I participated in on Saturday at the Miami Book Fair.

So I'll be Skyping in to Miami Springs High School to visit their book club when they discuss The Marbury Lens. I can't wait.

Tomorrow, I'll post about the Miami Book Fair (which is the best book festival in the country).

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yalsa symposium

So I wanted to say a few things about participating in the 2012 YALSA Literature Symposium last weekend in St. Louis.

It was a fantastic experience.

This was my first (but definitely not last) trip to St. Louis, and I was pretty much blown away by the city, its people (especially the kids I met), and the awesomeness of the YALSA event.

On Saturday, I participated in the YALSA Book Blitz, where I signed copies of my books for attending librarians. Two things struck me about the event: First, the line for my books was really long. In fact, the books went out so quickly that some librarians went away empty-handed. Second, just about every librarian who waited also had a personal story to tell about my books and readers they knew who'd found a connection to my books.

It was really cool.

But, seriously, all my books were gone in about 10 minutes.

Also, at the Book Blitz, I had a very interesting conversation with a woman. It went like this:

WOMAN: I need to tell you why I un-friended you on Facebook.

(To be quite honest here, I wasn't wondering. Besides, who would ever go up to someone and say something like that??? I didn't even know who she was or what she could possibly be talking about, but I decided to play along.)

ME: Because I'm an asshole?

WOMAN: (laughing) No. It's because my son-in-law is named Andrew Smith and any time I tagged him in photos, it would tag you.

ME: Oh. I suppose it's good to know it wasn't because I'm an asshole, then.

(curtain)

The next morning, I was stumbling around the hotel trying to find some coffee and I heard someone call out "Andrew Smith! Andrew Smith!"

It was not my not-friend from the evening before.

It was Ellen Hopkins.

Ellen rocks.

I was looking for coffee because I was about to participate in a panel discussion with authors Torrey Maldonado, Greg Neri, and Antony John (see photo at top) and four high school-age boys from St. Louis schools, where we spoke about boys and reading and the preposterous myth that boys are uninterested and incapable when it comes to reading.

Let there be no doubt about that. Listening to those kids talk about books was like a religious experience for me. And our room was packed--standing room only--with attentive and fascinated audience members.

The photo below was taken outside the room where my panel was held. We took it to send to our editor, Kelly Milner Halls, because the four of us--Greg Neri, A.S. King, Ellen Hopkins, and myself--are contributors to her forthcoming Ripperology, an anthology of short stories that twist the myth of Jack the Ripper.

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books that imitate lives that imitate books

So I'm spending a few days writing about my trip to St. Louis.

It has come to my attention after giving all the talks I've presented over the past few weeks that my books imitate my life, which, in turn, imitates my books.

While I was in St. Louis, I received messages from a librarian in Texas who was actually the first non-publishing-type person to read an advance copy of Winger. I'm pretty sure she liked it a lot.

In one part of the book, the narrator, a kid named Ryan Dean West, gets into a bit of a jam at an airport security screening area.

For some reason, this seems to happen to me consistently; whenever I fly.

When I left Los Angeles last week to fly to St. Louis, I did all the right things to pass through the security check: no belt, no shoes, absolutely nothing in my pockets--you know, stuff like that. They made me stand in one of those machines that looks at your body while you assume the hands-up! position, too.

When I walked out of the machine, the TSA officer said (and these are his exact words) this:

TSA OFFICER: I am alerting on your crotch and buttocks.

ME: (in hindsight, probably not a good idea) Um. Thanks. I get that a lot.

He even showed me his little screen that had a cartoon-image of a body with yellow highlighted areas over... um... my crotch and butt.

I honestly don't know why these things always happen to me, I said, while he ran his hands over the "alert" areas. I also had to have my hands swabbed and checked for whatever atomic particles might be capable of bringing down a jet airliner.

Anyway, such was the beginning of my trip to St. Louis--a scene that mimics one from my forthcoming Winger.

Tomorrow or so, depending on the extent of my jet lag, I'd like to write about the YALSA Symposium.

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reading it forward

I suppose I'd have enough to say about my trip to St. Louis that I could write a week of posts about it, and I may do that.

I had never been to St. Louis before, but I am definitely looking forward to coming back next October to participate in the <3 Less Than Three Anti-Bullying Conference.

And I didn't really know much at all about what brought me out here this time: the YALSA Symposium and the St. Louis Public Library's "Read it Forward" Program. I'll talk about the YALSA Symposium and my St. Louis experiences on another post, though, because I'd like to say a couple things about the St. Louis Public Library.

Over the past five days I've been here, somebody remarked that there are plenty of reasons why the St. Louis Public Library is rated number two in the nation, and I think I got to see some of those reasons during my visit.

It was quite an honor for me to be chosen the Read it Forward author by the library for 2012. The program is an amazing way the library connects kids to books, literacy, and reading, and it is entirely dependent on the tireless work of librarians like Carrie Dietz.

In the past few months, Carrie visited something like 4,000 kids in St. Louis schools, talking about books and getting students to connect to the public library. As part of the program, the St. Louis Public library purchased 500 copies of my books and gave them away to high school students who wanted them, so when the time came for my visit there was an almost limitless supply of kids who'd read my books and were well-armed with questions about my stories and how they related to me as a person.

I met kids in St. Louis who had read every single one of my books, including Passenger and King of Marbury, which only came out weeks earlier.

On Monday, I visited two High Schools--Cleveland Naval Junior ROTC High and Central High School for the Performing Arts--where I gave talks about literacy and words, and their inseparable connections to being human, and then again I spoke at the St. Louis Public Library in the evening, and even that event was packed with kids. In a library. On a cold, wet night.

Carrie also put on what was probably the best panel session at the YALSA Symposium over the weekend, and I'll talk about that event next time. I have to get ready to catch a plane home (I am so incredibly homesick), so I can be back in time to do my patriotic duty today, which is to sit down and have a drink. And vote. Or something like that.

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the planet of humans and dogs

I know.

I've been invisible.

In fact, the other day my editor Liz Szabla (chimes!) sent me an email asking if I'd gone completely off the grid. Well, the grid is an awfully sticky thing to get away from, so I am trying to be back.

In fact, I have made some appearances in other places.

A few days ago, Publishers Weekly ran a very nice story about me, which you can read here.

And just today, I am honored to be interviewed on the blog of author Nova Ren Suma. We talked about things that scare me. And I am giving away an autographed copy of The Marbury Lens to one of her readers. In fact, I will add that if whomever wins the drawing already owns a copy of The Marbury Lens, I will send them an autographed copy of Passenger instead.

That's how I roll.

You can read Nova Ren Suma's interview with me here.

Ah, the grid.

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revolution week

So, Passenger is one week old today.

I wonder if Meghan Cox Gurdon has read it yet, or maybe just scanned a few pages to find her favorite words.

Meghan, if you're reading this, I'll be happy to send you an autographed copy. I am not kidding.

Yesterday, I took part in a revolution at Foothill Technology High School in Ventura, California. It was an amazing day.

The kids there devoted an entire day to books and reading. It started off with a "Pep Rally" for books. I sat in the auditorium with, I think, about 350 kids as they celebrated books. I felt guilty because I "tweeted" to A.S. King during the rally.

Here is why I felt guilty: All those teenagers packed into that auditorium -- and not one of them had a cell phone out or earbuds inserted into their heads. Later I asked them if there was some schoolwide enforcement of a ban on these things that seem permanently grafted onto the bodies of most California teens.

They told me no.

I thought I must have gone to Marbury or something. This school is definitely not-California.

During the rally, the kids watched a video, much of which was filmed at ALA and featured some of the kids' favorite authors (who are all well-represented in their Underground Library). The video also showed older students talking to younger ones about why reading is important, and what kinds of books they liked from the Underground Library.

The kids were divided into groups and rotated through book-type activities for the entire day. One stop was the Aboveground Library, where A.S. King, who came in via Skype, and I, who came in via a four-wheel-drive Toyota, talked to kids about reading, writing, and whatever else they asked about. We also read from some of our books. It was a blast, and I really think Mrs. King and I should take that show on the road.

The school had a carnival outside (it is Ventura, after all, and was 72 degrees yesterday) for books, and one of the really cool things the kids got to do was "speed date" with books. They were given a sheet that listed books from the Underground Library (mine, A.S. King's, Libba Bray, Jay Asher, Daniel Kraus, Sara Zarr, James Dashner, and a whole lot more -- I should have swiped the list so I could remember better) and they spent a few minutes looking through them and scoring them so they could potentially "hook up" later on.

They rotated in to watch student-produced book trailers, too.

At the end of the day, the kids all lined up at the Underground Library and got to select a book of their choice to check out and read. Here is the sad part: there were not enough books for everyone. I've donated a few books to the Underground Library, and my editor (chimes!) at Feiwel and Friends has sent them quite a few, but they need more.

So I'm going to kick down a couple copies of Passenger, and I'll see if I can get them maybe an ARC of Winger, too.

And this is a call out to my author friends, editors, publicists, and anyone else. The Angel Potatoes need more books.

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macjack

You can read or download it here.

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