We were excited to be in Boston for this year's ALAN Workshop. The workshop featured inspiring talks from such amazing young adult authors as Jack Gantos, Chris Crutcher, Laurie Halse Anderson, and Ellen Hopkins. The workshop also feature panels of today's most exciting young adult authors and inspiring breakout sessions.

For those who weren't with us this year, we sure hope you'll join us next year! The next workshop will be held in Washington, DC, in conjunction with the annual NCTE conference. You can find more information about the conference from NCTE's web site by following this link.

More information about next year's workshop is coming soon!

With acknowledgement and thanks to the teams who applied for the editorial position and to the committee appointed to name the new team, ALAN is excited to announce the names of the new team: 

Wendy Glenn
Ricki Ginsberg
Danielle King

We are excited to welcome this new team, who will take the helm starting next year. The first call for manuscripts from this team is available on the ALAN Review page.

Call for Manuscript Submissions: The ALAN Review 42:1 (Fall 2014)

Stand Your Ground: Fostering Independent Thought and Action

As we listened to conversations both formal and informal during the ALAN Workshop in Boston, it was clear that we, as educators from all regions and backgrounds, possess a passion for adolescents, the books intended for them, and the authors and publishers who make them possible. We recognize the power of story to change lives, grant hope, create resilience, and offer solace.  And yet, in the same conversations, too many of us expressed a sense of defeat and isolation, fear and despondence, as we imagined returning to our classrooms a few days following. 

We believe that, as educators, we sometimes need to be our own best allies as we fight to teach in ways we know to be good and right and true—and increasingly uncommon in an age of commonality.  We need to know how to defend our selection of materials and our practices as we stand our ground in the face of scripts and censors, standards and accompanying tests.  In this issue, we invite educators to band together and unite around our shared commitment to kids and YA literature, to offer our own evidence-based support for the innovative work we do in our classrooms and libraries, to celebrate the ways in which we encourage our own adolescent students to think independently and act in good conscience, even when the odds feel daunting.

We welcome your stories of battle, loudly fought or quietly conceived, victorious or otherwise.  We need to work to maintain that fire that connects us in our passion. We ask you to remember that “Stupid people are dangerous” (Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games), that “You have to know what you stand for, not just what you stand against” (Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak), and that “We believe in ordinary acts of bravery, in the courage that drives one person to stand up for another” (Veronica Roth, Divergent).

As always, we also welcome submissions focused on any aspect of young adult literature not directly connected to this theme.  All submissions may be sent to alan-review@uconn.edu prior to March 1, 2014.  Please see the ALAN website (http://www.alan-ya.org/page/alan-review-author-guidelines) for submission guidelines.