ALAN Online

Beginning with only a few brief words of welcome from Dr. Sissi Carroll, the President of ALAN, the 2009 conference was immediately set into motion this morning with a keynote address by author Gregory Maguire.  Now, with arms full of new books and endless possibilities, the ALAN community has settled in for the first of two days of literature, laughter and light.

The ALAN Breakfast was attended by a record crowd in the Downtown Marriott Ballroom in Philadelphia, PA.  Attendees were served  breakfast by the Marriott banquet staff and enjoyed a keynote address by Laurie Halse Anderson.  Those in attendance also received an audiobook copy of Laurie Halse Anderson’s publication, Wintergirls.

The ALAN Breakfast featured an awards presentation in which Wendy Lamb, Editor for Wendy Lamb Books, was recognized as the ALAN Award Winner for her service to Young Adult Literature.

Also recognized at this year’s breakfast was the 2009 ALAN Award Winner Naomi Shihab Nye.

For those who are attending NCTE’s Annual Convention in Philadelphia, be sure to keep the ALAN sessions on your convention schedule.

The ALAN News of Note is a monthly email newsletter compiled by Joan Kaywell, Professor of English Education at the University of South Florida.  ALAN Online posts sections of the newsletter each month.  Would you like to receive the News of Note each month in your email inbox?  Consider joining ALAN.  For only $20.00 per year, you will also receive three issues of The ALAN Review, ALAN’s journal that features discussions on YA literature and its teaching, interviews with authors, reports on publishing trends, current research on YA literature, a section of reviews of new books, and ALAN membership news.

Read this month’s news after the break.

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Wendy Lamb, editor of Wendy Lamb Books, is the 2009 winner of the Ted Hipple Service Award, presented each year by the Assembly on Literature for Adolescents of the National Council of Teachers of English (ALAN).  Named for long-time executive secretary and founding member of ALAN, the Ted Hipple Award is given to an advocate of ALAN whose work embodies the spirit of Ted Hipple’s lifetime service to young people, teachers, librarians, authors, schools and institutions of higher learning.

Wendy, who has been at the helm of her own Random House imprint since 2002, began her career in publishing in 1974 with HarperCollins before moving on to Viking and eventually Delacorte, which would merge with Random House in 1999.  She is a regular fixture at ALAN events, consistently making top authors available for the ALAN Workshop, as well as introducing us to up and coming stars.  Along the way, Wendy has also written for musical theater, attended the famous University of Iowa’s Writers’ Workshop, discovered Christopher Paul Curtis, and provided a steady stream of books from Gary Paulsen, Walter Dean Myers, Graham Salisbury, and many others.  According to those who know her best (such as her husband, Paul), Wendy has had her nose in a book since she was a little girl and, even now, can often be found reading through a gigantic pile of book manuscripts, searching for the next, great author of YA literature. Congratulations, Wendy!

-James Blasingame